Heart's Nancy Wilson Release First Ever Solo Album

for us. Joining us is singer songwriter Nancy Wilson, also author of Heart memoir Kicking and Dreaming, and she joins us on Zoom in Los Angeles. Nancy, it's so nice to have you here with us. How are you. I'm good. How are you doing over there? We're doing okay. You know, we're feeling like things are starting to re open a little bit. How does l A feel. Yeah, yeah, Well

I'm in northern California now. We moved here right in time for the shutdown actually, which was a very very lucky thing for us because we got to kind of get out of this the big city, which was maybe a little more scary to be there then, but uh, now it's you know, it's been going well that there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. Um because of the vaccines obviously, and the and following

all the rules and the protocol is working. So it's really a beautiful, um thing to be able to say, you know, go into inside in a restaurant and you know, with a mask of course. But and then you know, we dined for for our anniversary and the other night we went and had dinner at our favorite restaurant and that was like really like oh my god, really exciting

right right, like getting back to quote unquote normal. Um, it's interesting over the past year, a lot of musicians and it sounds like yourself, you know, once you found your footing, have been very creative and productive over the past year. Tell us about this new album that you

are putting out. Well, I I started realizing, you know, after we moved in and and and we realized we might be here for a while, shut that shut into our home and not daring to go out and you know even touch anything or just all of the sphere at the beginning of this thing. Um, but I did have a new space to do music in. So I got my stuff, you know, out of storage. I pulled it into my space. I got my best guitars out. I got my amps out, and my pedals and my

microphones and my new interface. A friend of mine knows how to run for me, and uh, just a real simple gere and just the simplest but you know, the old guitars that have the good sounding dirt in them, the old amplifiers that have the good sounding dirt in them. And decided to start writing again since a lot of people have said, why aren't you going to do it's all album? Ever, You've never done it yet, so only a live thing once, but that wasn't a studio album,

and and so I started to write. And the first thing I wrote was called UM, we Meet Again, which I thought was a kind of a long view at the horizon of your life a little bit, and feeling like when you have somebody that you love that you're you're gonna be there with, You're gonna be there for them, and they're gonna be there for you for the for

the entire ride. So UM. I thought it turned out nice, and so I kept writing, and I kept writing, UM and and then I decided to do the Rising of Bruce of Bruce Springsteen cover uh pretty early on because I saw how the world was suffering and how that song had been written for nine eleven originally, which I thought was really appropriate for the times, and it might be something maybe a little aspirational for people trying to get through all of this loss and all of the

fear and all of the suffering involved in this whole this whole whip lash of experience we had to be tossed into, you know. So I think, um, it's sort of a woman's voice singing a song like that was even more kind of mothering and nurturing and and aspirational. So that's kind of where it started out, and I kept I just kept on building songs. Well, tell tell me that because it really does feel like a very thoughtful and very deep and very reflective of what you

were going through. And I think it will I think for people who listen to it will feel um some connection easily with things that they were going through. And one of the things I think about the past year, we lost some really incredible people in the music industry, and you have a tribute to Eddie Van Hale and

let's talk about that. Yeah. Well, somebody said You've got to do an instrumental song on your album, which I said, okay, you can twist my arm, you know, because I love just playing instrumental stuff because I did a lot of score scoring of movies before in the past, and it's it's a great thing to be able to transition between songwriting and just instrumental writing. Um so I somebody said, okay, I'll do I agreed to do it. And then I said, and not only that, I'm going to dedicate it to

Eddie van Halen. And then and then I was like why did I say that? Like I was like, oh no, now I've really painted myself into ak Arner, you know, because I have to not have to actually come up with it and figure out how to do it, and and you did. So I really avoided it. I avoided it.

I've procrastinated as long as possible. I finally got my head around it when I thought about, you know, Eddie's I listened to Eddie that even I listened to Van Halen songs and I watched a bunch of his footage and I've thought, well, here's something I know that I could try to do, is it's something in a very happy key. Like his music was all very major key stuff. Um, you don't hear a lot of blues slicks, you know. In Van Halen songs, you're you're positive, forth right, jubilant stuff.

So that helped me figure out, like how to find the right key, the right tuning, the right um structure where you've a little bit of a classical, a little bit of rock in the middle, and then a little classical at the end and not too long like in score scoring for film with anything without lyrics in it, you know, might tax the listener a little bit, right. I kept it short and sweet, you know, just for Edward. Yeah, I love the title for Edward. And I mean you

guys toured together with Eddie van Halen. I mean, do you have a story of memory, you know, remember the first time you met him. Well, we did tour a bunch of different places and times together, um, and we always found each other hitting it off, you know, like backstage or you know at the hotel, passing in the hallway, you know, and they were like, Hey, come down and have a drink with us in the hotel bar. And so it's like okay, great, we'll get to know you.

And so they were drinking kama kazis and like, whoa, what is that? Here? Try one? You know, so're like, WHOA, how do you drink more than one of those? I'll never know. And those guys were pretty, you know, pretty heavy duty party ers, and they were pretty primal with it. They would get all tangled in some kind of an argument, meant, and then they they started hugging and going, I love you man, and they were just really primal with their party.

And but they were really sweet guys. And Eddie is a sweet person who was very We were just we were kind of fond of each other because he's told me he liked my guitar, my acoustic playing, and I couldn't believe he even said it, you know. And and then he's I said, what about you, Why don't you play more acoustic? And he said, well, I don't have

an acoustic. I made a little video story storyteller video about it with the song but um, and I said, well, you're gonna have this guitar right now because you need an acoustic. So early the next morning, when it's just getting light, he calls my hotel room and plays me this gorgeous piece of instrumental acoustic music, which I when I was trying to recall that as much as I possibly could do for the for Edward tribute song. So I don't know if I get close, but it's got something.

It's really got it done. It's a it's a really lovely tribute. I have to say, Um, we only have about a minute or so or a minute and a half left here. Uh, you're incredible. I grew up with a lot of music, from Sinatra and Polkas to the Beatles, the Dead Heart, you name name it. So um, you know, music really shaped me and my family, and I can kind of feel it. I feel like when you talk about it and how it influences you and the people

you met. I have to say one of my favorite things that you and your sister did was the Kennedy Center Honors when you guys covered the leaded Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven. Uh. That must have been incredible to do

with led Zeppelin looking on. Yeah, well we couldn't. Luckily we could not see them in the balcony from the stage because of the light they were tearing out that you know, But I mean it was like that was a tough room, you know that that's all these dignitaries and really fame as people, and the President and the First Lady were there too, and and le Zeppelin no less, so you know, we were, um, we were very methodical in our approach to uh focusing in on starting the song.

We had to take a really really deep breath and you know, like a yoga kind of a breath. And yeah, I started all by myself on one guitar, and I remember it was very it was a bit of a challenge, and but I knew that I knew the song. I played the song most of my life one way or another, including in Heart along the Way well, and it was just don't don't be in a hurry, got it? Hold Nancy Hans, we gotta rhyn and everybody should check out your album. Thank you so much, really appreciate