Nancy Wilson

was a retired major from the Marine Corps. And we've traveled around really a lot as kids, all over the place, in Taiwan, different places in the States. Um, And so you know, I think that's it was earlier in my life. I was already on on a tour per se. Well, it's funny that so many rockers are like that. It's like, uh, you know, the guys from the police, their father was in the CIA, the people who traveled. So you were living in the State of Watching. Your father was still

in the military. They had been stationed there at one point. They went back to retire and live there afterwards. So when you were growing up, was he still working? He was? He was away a lot. Um in various actions that he fought in Korea, you know, Guam and a lot of the South Pacific stuff. So my mom was the father and the mother, you know for the three girls of us and um she she had a war face when she needed to have been quite a woman. So

you're the youngest of three. I am the youngest of three, and so how much older the other two? Um as the middle she's four years older and Lynn is eight years older. Now we don't get much focus on lynd where's Lynn today? She's still in Seattle area, UM where I used to live on a farm, a piece of a farm that I used to have there, and you know, gardening and and doing the actually archiving a lot of heart stuff that was in storage there when I left.

And so she's got a big job because it's archeological layers of decades of stuff. Well did you save stuff? I saved a lot of stuff. You know. It's very interesting because I'm a hoarder. You've always come and they say you want to pry. It's like, well, you know, i've ever become famous, this will be like, oh, I have I hoard weird stuff though, like little like little

scraps of things. Like little name tags, you know, from an event like at the Elton John oscar party or something like the name tag, or you know um or rose pedals from a wedding that was meaningful or things like that too. Well, if you're obviously a legendary star, do you still get a thrill when you meet your heroes? I do? So who have you met, Let's say recently we said you can't believe it. Well, being in the same room with Paul McCartney a few times was extremely

massively huge for me. You know, I just I just started gushing. YouTube. The guys in YouTube, there's such beasts. Okay, so you're there. Do they immediately know who you are? Yeah? Well usually we're in situations where they would know anyway, Okay, you know shows any insecurity, it's like, well I know who they are, they may not know who I am. Tom Petty was one of those for me. Yeah, so so sad to see that that. I still can't believe he's dead. I mean I always saw him a couple

of nights before at the Hollywood. So anyway, you're in Washington, are they playing music in the home? Oh? Yeah, we

um we always had music. There was always a good stereo system, you know, one of those big boxes that had we had the consoles and then we had the kind of wall mounted and we had real to reel, really real to real growing up, yeah, growing up a stereo, real to real two track, and we would make you know, calm any music and do like half speed and along with do you know what the inspiration for the purchase

of that was. My parents would buy record albums LPs, long playing record albums at the time, and they would tape them in their entirety to keep the quality, the cund quality of the records intact, so that when the record got scratched because there was dogs and kids, um, they'd still have a really fine quality system and you know, a way to listen to their favorite albums. So you have one album on one side, which almost usually would pan out time wise, in the right amount of time.

Sometimes not, it would just run off the reel um and then the other side was another album. You turn the tape over and do you remember what albums? So what were they playing? What kind of music? They had a lot of Broadway musicals, West Side stories, you know, did you have that? I remember one Sunday, you know,

you're in Seattle was raining. I remember one Sunday I made my mother play all of her Broadway records because it was a song of my And it wasn't until the very last record that we hit the song that I wanted to hear, which was with a little bit of Luck. Oh it was a little bit of luck with a little bit Yeah, I know that one too. And there was um, you know, really corny ones like Oklahoma and uh really even cornier ones like South Pacific when I went to all my iPod and that's really funny.

So they're playing those records, especially since you have older sisters. Are they buying any children's or pop records? No, but they bought Edgar versus Verres first electronique experimental music that Frank Zappa was really into Edgar. Oh yeah, what was the inspiration for that? They were just music students, you know. They had um anything that Leonard Bernstein touched, they had to have um we we watched the Leonard Bernstein's Music show on it was just brilliant. Yeah. And they also

had um Ray Charles. They had to read Franklin, Peggy Lee. So they were very well rounded musical influences on us, and we all sang and ore we had ukuleles, and my mom played piano. And so did you take piano lessons? Yeah, a few years of piano lessons, which was you know, like pulling teeth, never practice, but then you use it later, which is a good thing to know, you know, just to have the kind of the theory in your head,

um about intervals and harmonies and stuff. But so and she taught us a lot of stuff on piano, and our aunts and uncles would sing and harmonize play ukule at least together. Um, we sang you know, offcolor, old pub songs, old English and Irish puff songs like Lydia Pinkham, you know that one. I don't know. They had the Piper to the Sea and that kind of stuff. So, and when do you start playing the guitar? When I started playing guitar was when I saw the Beatles on

Ed Sullivan sixty three. Was it? Okay, that's right, of course, you know exactly. I just remember because my parents used to go out, you know at Friday night and Saturday night. And my mother said, she's a real culture vulture. Oh, you have to watch Jack Parr, who had hosted the tonight show had a Friday night one hour show. You have to watch this show, this new show. There's this band from England. My mother was telling. My mother was never a fan of My mother loved the Four Seasons.

She bought Big Girls, we had those, but she was not normally a fan. And I remember this was November sixty three. They had a video shot in the theater, like from behind the bottom row of seats is usually like a little wall, and it was the Beatles. We didn't know because everyone was screaming. We thought the name of the song was we Love Too Yeah, yeah, yeah, as opposed to she Loves You. And we laughed hysterically. Okay, and then you know, two months later it was the

biggest thing going. Well I know, but we also it was the folk boom before and we had those albums too, right. We had better Fallen Mary of course blowing in the wind, but Joan Bayazz a little bit of Joan Bayazz, but not as much because if the vibrato issue with her voice was a little you know, we were more into Peter Palm Mary. They were a huge but we got nylon string guitar which we started to play. But as

soon as the Beatles hit, we all went electric. So you were not playing you were not playing guitar at all until the Beatles run. Its all of them, right. I was playing a lot of ukulele and p know and you know. But then we had to have the guitars. We just had to be the Beatles. Instead of trying to marry them, we had to be them. And you have a band, you consciously that instead of bearing the Beatles,

you'll be a Beatle. I'll be a Beatle. Yeah, I'll develop a fake English accent in order to feel like I'm a Beatle. Like it was that intense. Yeah, And it was this a solo thing where you in on it. No, Um, she's, you know, my older sister. So we had to do it together, and we got guitars and we learned how to play Beatle songs, and we got the mail Bay Chord book of course, of course, and we learned all those cores and we got so you're totally self taught,

as um. I never took guitar lessons per se. I took a couple of classical guitar lessons once, but I didn't have time because I was already touring a point at that point. So, I mean it was nineteen really when I joined Hart basically, but let's go before that. It's you pick up the guitar. Yeah, and you start to play with your sisters, the whole history of singing in the house. Do you then say we're going to form a band and we're gonna play. That's exactly what

we we did. It was like we have to form a band. Um, it was kind of a folk It was a protest song kind of folk ed folk tinged protest band where we did like Gates of Eden, you know, Bob Dylan's stuff, um, you know, blowing in the wind, and but then we also did stuff like you know, uh, stuff like Cherish what was on the radio at the time, Association, and so we were kind of pop folk, you know, rock ish acoustics type, all girl foursome. Okay, who are

the other two girls? There were girls were sort of enlisted out of school that didn't really know how to play or sing, but we just forced them. But because they were our friends, so we just wanted to have a band with friends in it. And um, we learned how to play harmony, sing harmony, play pop music off the radio and beatles songs. Okay, so you're obviously literally famous now, but growing up in school at the public school, were you one of the leaders, were you in the background.

Did you have a lot of friends prior to the music thing. Um always was kind of the ugly, shy, sort of fat girl really with a secret sort of life, you know, at home with music, and uh yeah, it was never like a I always kind of wished i'd been like a cheerleader or could be like those people,

the popular people, right, that was the word. You want to be popular, praying that you would be popular, and hoping you could like have different body parts like the other people that you didn't have that they had, you know, just be somebody else, you know, besides me. Now you form the band, how long is it until you actually start to play outside the house? Um, we formed it

pretty quickly. We learned stuff fast. We developed a set, a set list, and then we got a gig um at a like folk festival someplace, and we actually we're granny dresses and stood on a stage. There was big microphones, like big microphones in front of our faces and an audience. Then we started playing wherever we could play. We played a lot of living rooms. Um. We even played at a drive in theater one time in between the movies

before the movie started, and we're getting paid for these jobs. No, yeah, so we were all It was ame as it was a mania. That's what people talk about music today. They have no idea what it was like. And the radio was the tribal drum. But did you see this as a career or a lark? I totally thought it was the rest of my life to do. This is my job, my vision, my quest, um, my purpose. And we just aimed ourselves like pistols at that thing and we managed

to somehow achieve it. So like this all starts you're like in fourth fifth grade, Okay, so and then your sister Anne is four years older. What plays out while you're in high school? Well she, um, she met guys with electrical guitars and amps and drums and equipment with a van. So so she was off, you know, on her own trajectory at that point. And I was still doing sort of acoustic performances on my own and little

coffee shops. And when I was under age with my boyfriend, my first sort of real boyfriend, who I had a duet acoustic duet with called Jeff and Nancy. We were we got a job in Um up in the mountains, in a real redneck town up there where they used to shoot twin peaks um and we were just saying a bunch of country music for the beer swilling guys up there. And you know, there we got a manager and he gave me an Ovation guitar and plugged it in, you know, so it was all that was the big thing.

With a round fiber glass back you could plug it in. That was a huge thing in like yeah, and you know, I was like a poster girl for Ovation there for a little while. So you were playing with Jeff and your sister's got her own bands, doing her own thing. She was, Yeah, she was kind of in a more psychedelic band at the time. Staying at my sister Lynd's commune a lot rehearsing that your sister lived at a commune. They had a commune, Yeah, like a hippie commune. What

did your parents Your father was in the military. What do you say about his daughter being in a commune. Well, they took a bit of a dim view of the commune.

They called themselves the Hoopers, look like a takeoff on the hippies, and there were some definitely of mind expansion type days going on over there, and we'd skip out school and we'd go play music over there and getting we've gotten some trouble because Lynn's husband was a photographer and there was some nude photography involved, so which was radical, so radical, you know at that point. Now it's like every every news stand cover, every the internet, it's everywhere.

So your sister is playing in bands, but also living in Seattle, you have your duo with Jeff. Is your sister having any success with her? It's like about work influence bands. They were um, they were playing um at some officers clubs, you know, so they were getting work, they were getting paid and uh, you know, I was getting paid a little up at in the North Bend at the KEG and Q tavern, but um. But yeah.

She was starting to make a kind of a name round town for herself because she was such a great singer, and she was just one of the singers in the band. There were guy singers in the band that would do all the rock songs that she would just do the ballads. When she started doing Zeppelin covers, it was a whole different bollo Ax and so she started to be known as a kind of a premier local singer and she's got that gift. Okay, were you both because you know

there's history with love Bongers, etcetera. Were you that big at Zeppelin fan? We were, Um, we saw st up And play at the Green Lake Aqua Theater in Seattle,

opening for the Fifth Dimensions. Yeah, they were just they were yeah right, they were just an opening act and we were so we were scandalized by their sexuality because we were pretty young and we just thought they were just they were like showing their bare chested and you know, really suggestive, and you know, Robert Plant was kind of like it looks sort of like a man man and a woman at the same time, and it was, you know, really like it seemed like black magic. You know. So

we were scandalized and then we were hooked. And then we had to learn their songs and we still have done a lot of their stuff. Right, favorite, if there's only one, I think the Rain Song because it incorporates all of the melodic almost classical structure um and then dissonance and the power and the delicacy that they very well articulate. Possess all of those things, and that one song has all of those elements. Okay, so now you're in high school, when do you start playing with the

bands with your sister? UM? I had been kind of a shadow and ants presence for being younger and stuff for so long in my life that I decided I would put off joining her band and go to college first. So I went to a year and a half of university in Oregon where UM Portland's state was the second

one and UM Pacific University was the first year. Really beautiful, old, out in nature kind of campuses, nothing much to do except study, and I studied, you know, creative writing and music theory and stuff I figured I could use to bring along to the table as a musician and a writer. And it was a really good idea. But like between the school years, I'd sit in with Ann's band that

was called Heart by then. UM and uh, you know do like really complicated acoustic introductions to things and yes, songs and and you learn all that stuff in college, and that helped. I knew all that stuff really early on. UM. I never really studied guitar, but I I worked at

it really hard, play well. I learned it like on a on an LP, you could you could switch the speed down to have you can get machines that help you do that now, but you can little vial, Yeah, just a little button you could fush over to the half speed and it's the same key because it's an octave lower and it's half as fast, and you could play everything at learning speed until you could do it again.

We're playing with Anne in between the two years of college, and then how did you ultimately decide to drop out and play with her? Well, um, well, my parents ran out of money for one thing. Literally, it's the opposite. Usually the parents are pissed at the kid drops out

of college. No, I think they were pretty strapped, and you know, they had indulged me in the kind of the educational thing that I wanted to get a taste of, and I felt like i'd kind of gotten enough of the of a something to take along from it with me that I would just be able to, you know, not finish that second year and go join the army and see the world and regrets whatsoever about dropping on a school m hm, No, we know you have to

twin boys. Are they planning to go to college. They are there, one of them is already accepted to l m U Animation and he's a really good animator already. And the other guy is probably cal Arts or maybe UM Concordia in Montreal. And how would you feel if

they dropped out? UM? I would give them the same advice that my mom and dad gave me joining the band, when they said, you know, follow your bliss, do what it is you know you're going to be passionate about, and but don't change who you are, Like if you go to Tinseltown, stay who you are. So of course we all went to Tinseltown and we've changed, okay, so you kind of had to figure out of and later who we were, you know, to start out with like

a Joe Wall song. So the so you drop out because your parents ran out of money, and you immediately join your sister's band. And to what degree is that the band that ultimately makes the first record? UM that is pretty much almost the same band minus a couple of players. We switched up with a rhythm section basically and made the first subum that way. Well, but before we get to the first album, you go to join your sister's band. She immediately opened. She there's no issue

if you joining. She wants you know, there was a standing open invitation forever to join that band, So I knew I would join it. And we had so much comfort zone with each other as musicians and singers and players and writers already at that point that it was just a natural, you know, evolution in Okay, So when you joined the band, what's the status of the band in terms of career arc But at that point they were the biggest cabaret band in Vancouver, b C. They were.

They were a house band at the Zodiac Room at this hotel in town, and they were touring around in Canada in in one van in winter and when you know, two lane highways. So I joined the band at that point and started playing clubs cabarets immediately with them, and you know, learning how to play pool and you know, how to have cocktails and stuff like. You grew up very quickly. I was pretty young for well, the drinking

age was younger in Vancouver. It's nineteen instead, so I was of age at that point and the band was making enough money to support you. Well, I was living on a on a water bed bag without a frame in a basement on a car very cold floor, was a bag of water in a basement. So I was in the spare kind of basement room down there, freezing my ass. Huh. But um there was there was money enough for the band house to buy like a fifty pound sack of brown rice and vegetables, you know, so

we all were on a really healthy diet. Now I was involved in a relationship with the guy who ended up being the manager of the band, Yeah, the Swengali, the magic Man, the magic Man, and his name was Michael Fisher, and he was the brother of the guitar player who kind of I kind of ended up with Roger Fish. I was going to get get there you when I had when you moved to Canada. Was Michael

Fisher already involved? Yes, he he was. Well. He had come down illegally across the border to visit Roger and his family, who Ants had in her band already, So Roger was in um Ant's band. Michael came to visit

his family. He was a draft evader, so he had to come illegally across the border, and she met Mike and fell in love with Mike, like hugely in love with Mike and followed him back across the border, walking hitchhiking with a backpack and a guitar, and the rest of the band moved to Vancouver to make the band happen there so that Ann and Mike would be together.

And was Mike immediately the manager? Yeah, he he had that kind of um organized energy and he was getting the gigs and he was um organizing the household and keeping the books and you know, so how do you get involved with Roger Um? I kind of had to

be persuaded into that situation. It was. It was it was very convenient because we were traveling and an extra hotel room was not well, I didn't realize, you know, what I was doing at that age either, So it was it was a convenient relationship to have for the purposes of UM getting the band further along, But personally it just wasn't going to work for me. And in

his case it was the opposite. He was he really you had a thing for me, and I was just kind of going along with something just to try to get ahead. So I was in that way, I was being like the dude in relationship. And how long did that go on? A couple of years Okay, So how do you end up getting the deal Mushroom Records? Well, we were first turned down by every major label who

was pitching. Yeah. We we got our tapes together. We've taped live performances real to real, and we made demos and we wrote songs and mailed them to record companies in the mail and got turned down about four times each. And then there was a local, small um record company called Mushroom Records, owned by a paint mogul guy in Vancouver who they had a little studio and they wanted to try to develop us, and they got their local um Mike Flicker, the local sort of producer eye there,

and we got it together and we made the album. Okay, but you were a student of the game and at that time really was just majors. There weren't independence of that level. How did you feel about making a deal with Mushroom Records? It felt lucky, like somebody's gonna want

something from us, you know. Um, it felt like it could there could be a chance a snowball dancing hell because it was a smaller town, a smaller group of cool, passionate people that we could put a face too instead of just a big corporate brick wall, you know, and it felt more personal and it was a better deal for us, even though you know, at first they only wanted to sign Anne only, and I got it. I don't know how to quite how to responds. It was

a little bit. Yeah, that was a little hard, you know, because she and she was cool enough to say, no, I'm I won't do this without these key people and me being one of them, and a couple of the other players. So you have to sign all of these people or I don't sign anything, which was to her credit and she never regretted that ever. But the interesting thing is, Mike Flicker made that record that is one of the best sounding records of all time. People may

or may not remember. God thirty five years the big thing was half Speed Mastered records, and there was a half Speed rest Dreamboat. Any you can put that on, It would just wake up the whole room. They couldn't believe the sound of the record cut by this nobody

nowhere right. Well, they had one of those incredibly beautiful um rooms that you like a muscle shoals kind of a room with that type of a board and all the tube gear and all the beautiful analog outboard gear and um, it was just and he just had a really good way of recording things, um up close, so you hear the wood in the guitar, and you hear the wood in the room, and just really had you know, actually ends making an album right now with Mike Flicker

on her own. Yeah, which is very cool. Right, So you're making that record, you're wet behind the years. To what degree is that a forgetting the album that resulted? To what degree was at a rewarding or frustrating experience because usually people always say, oh, my first record, they told me what to do, it was what I wanted to do, etcetera. Yeah, Well, we were just hell bent, you know. We were just um dogged about what we what we were going to get out of making this record.

We worked really hard. We were we were recording and then doing shows at night, recording by day doing. Yeah, we were just putting every single stitch of us into it. And um, and it was a big learning curve because playing in a band, I had hardly played in that band for very long yet I was a sort of more of a solo player and singer, and so getting the groove right with a band of players is a really big lesson. It's a big learning curve to not be ahead of that pushing ahead, you know, or two

lagging too far behind. And the take that has the magic in it. You know, you do full takes every time of the song, all the way through time and time and time and time and time again, until one of them felt like there was the magic, or like the first half of this one and the second half of that one where they take the actual physical tape out, cut it with a razor blade and you know, splice it together and then see if it worked with no safety so it's like whoa. Those were very you know,

brave times in the recording studio, great times. Very How long did it take you to make the first record? Um, we didn't have a long time to do it. I think it was maybe a couple of months. So the record is now done. Are you happy with the record? Very? Happy with the record? Okay, happy with the package, happy

with everything. I hated the package. The picture, you know, it was like one of the first times I really were makeup and a photo shoot and I thought it looked like I had dirt on my face or something. So I rubbed it all off, you know, before the photographer came in and I don't know, you could just see all the pimples everything. You know, it's never liked it,

but everybody liked it. And it was controversial cover because we had bare shoulders that were touching, and so, you know, I always heard, you know, there was the classic thing, well are they sisters? Said the lovers? I never thought that like it? What's you know why I go there just to make it a little more scimilating or whatever. But that's what it was about. The record is done. At that time, I was living in Utah living. I remember hearing the songs on the radio, but being in

the band. What was the first step in the road to success of that record, Well, in the book it's pretty well described the book Kicking and Dreaming. We were still in a club phase when the album started to gain momentum, and suddenly we were playing this really god awful dinner club, you know, in White Rock or someplace, and we got fired for for criticizing the food at the place on stage. And then the same night we got a call from Rod Stewart's people said come open

for Rod Stewart in Montreal. So we got on a train, went across Canada and opened for Rod Stewart. But a little before that had the label gotten songs on the radio.

On the radio. We we got in a rent a car with this guy named Shelley's Eagle and went to every is no longer with us, right, No, he's he didn't last very long after that, but um, he but he was, you know, a little wiry rat of a dude, and took us to each and every radio station in America basically, Um and I met met the DJs programmers, and so go away in the car, you know, did the payola thing, gave him whatever kind of drugs or whatever else he was doing, and we were just innocent

enough to not really get it, you know. But we broke pretty well region by region according to the regions we had actually physically gone and worked station. It seemed from the outside it was very quick, it did seem from the outside, but it was a long Um. It was a region by regions, sort of a growth. We just kind of spread out like like a bad growth. No,

we just uh, we kind of started. It was in the Midwest where they liked us first, and we kind of spread west after that and Finally, last but not least, the East Coast came on board. Okay, were there any moments of doubt or once you started making the record everything you just up, up, up. It was going fast and it was. It was really exciting and like opening for Rod Stewart at this big arena where people had

heard our music and liked it already. We didn't know they'd already knew our music and we started playing probably magic Man, and they all lit there. Um. Then it was it was before matches. That's really dating myself, but I don't think the latters were a thing yet. They had zippos probably, and it looked like a sea of stars. It was just like magical. It was like unforgettably amazing and cool and big and um unfathomed, and the rock

of it was like, this is rock. This is what I want rock and roll to be right here, right now. Let's see of stars. You know, God, you know it makes me takenal just hear about it all these years later.

So then that's a one off with Rod Stewart. Um. We opened for Rod Um a few shows, I believe, and then we got more offers from like zz top z Z top we opened for ZZ and we opened for April Wine, big Canadian vans, so we did a lot of Canadian shows and bigger places, and um, you know, Billy Gibbons said, Hey, you're pretty good for a girl. Hold that thought. We'll take a quick break and get right back to this conversation with Nancy Wilson at the

band part. Thanks for listening to this week's edition of the Bob Left Sets podcast. If you want to see photos and videos of my guests and the tune in studios here in Venice, California, check out at tune In on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And now more with Nancy Wilson. Now you're on the road. We're in the height of the me too movement and you're one of the few people, one of the few women playing music is famous. But if you start narrowing it down to being a guitarist

and playing rock, there aren't that many people. Yeah, it's a small group of us. So what was it like being a woman in that world? Well, it was interesting. I'll go back to the fact that we were military rats, um, having that dogged sort of ideology just to get it, get there and do what it is. That was our bliss to get our bliss, you know, to wrangle the

bliss our bliss to the ground. And um that because our mom was so strong I guess too, and had been the father and a mother mainly for us, that we saw the strength and we took her strength with us and we just didn't really take no. I mean when somebody tried to insinuate that we were sister lovers, you know, that's why we wrote Barracuda. Um, we just weren't going to have it that way. And we knew we were strong enough to especially with each other there

to lean on as women. We weren't kind of singled out, you know, we had our own wagons in a circle. So um. And you know, when you play guitar and it's you can turn it up to ten or eleven. Um, it's a lethal weapon. I mean, it's it's a it's a force, and it's it's a weapon too. It's a weapon for good, which music is, you know, which is what you want to protect, is the you know, the beautiful um kernel of what makes music so great and

what inspires people and heals people about music. But if anybody comes up with pin wheels for eyes running at you on a rock stage, you have a weapon in your hand, you know. I once went the first Elvis Costello tour, played the whiskey and some guy uh started acting out on stage and he literally put his strato caster uh. When the strato caster was a well, it's the other one with only two uh um, two big broad uh, the one that was most expensive, and it

was also played by the by the Beach Boys. Suddenly I forget, but I used to know. All these guitar things was fascinating. But he put it over his folder and the other guys that are being broke glasses and they were right there to fight the guy. And I remember being there. Even made Time magazine. But the perception on the outside would be that being a woman, when you weren't on stage, you had to fend off men

to a certain degree. Was that true? Yes? I mean in a band, you've got your camaraderie and your circle of dudes that you kind of travel as pack, so you already kind of normally have that bit of a buffer zone just naturally with you. But I had a lot of run ins with just guys that are trying to come on to me, and I developed a system I guess of of just like if you're walking, you have to walk with purpose, you know, you have to

um speak with purpose. You can't be wishy washy, and you have to really know how to insinuate your power on someone else with words or with with even just body language. So it's funny you mentioned that because I was married to someone who didn't understand all that it would end up in bad situations. You have to send a signal, right, It's it can be very um invisible,

you know, to the but you're sending the singles. Yeah, it's like when you're walking down the hall and you're gonna go this way and somebody else is going to go that way. The body language is what you read off the other person. Now, just you know this is all this is dangerous territory. But if you talk to male musicians to a great degree, they all say, I really couldn't talk anybody. I spoke through my music. And I wanted to be famous for the sexual opportunities, for

the guy, for the girls. That ever cost the mind of a woman. I'm on the road, there are all these men who are fixated on me. I think, yeah, I think a lot of women have have wanted to use men the way they've probably felt used by men with that kind of power that rock rock stage gives you or music music will give you. UM. Performance can give you that. UM. But I guess I never felt that way. I never felt like objectifying men as sexualizing

men from that standpoint. Was always really sexual person and very interested in the sexuality of the music, what the music brings across, and how romantic it can also be, which is more sexy to me than just sexy just staying there the way you describe that. You know what people people at this era where stardom is so anointed and prevalent, people forget that underneath it, people are actually musicians. So I have to trust you. Since you've met, you've used a lot of terms and a lot of insight

as being a musician. Do you find that you like that cocoon and it is somewhat difficult interacting with non musician people or that's really really interesting question. Um. There is a total language with musicians. If you're in different recording studios for different purposes and different projects with almost

any other musicians, you already have the language. Everyone has the same jokes, the same There's just a total musician style, um, a lifestyle, and a lot of it comes from all the hours of trying and failing and trying and failing and learning your craft and being getting good at it and knowing when to shut up and when to give you know, over too not to cover up too much space, but when to when to shine, you know, all those various lessons that musicians have take with them, and that

makes a personality type. Um. So I've never felt as at home with a lot of regular folks in life, you know, Like, I mean, I like people, and I'm good with people, and I believe people are good, you know, despite a lot of the evidence. But um yeah, I'm just kind of a I'm kind of clumsy in social settings where it's like what will I say? Now? You know, how am I supposed to act? Right? Yeah, I certainly

understand that. But let's go back to the band. So the Dreamboat any blows up, okay, and then the whole thing blows up. So you ultimately get in a war with a label. You switched to Epic. What's going on at that time? There was trouble with the second album. That's really kind of boring, you know, it's not interesting

at all. But but you was you could have technically have been stopped from making it the rest of the album, recording the album, Okay, but just so I know, because you know, there's been a lot of stories whatever the second album you intended to make for Mushroom, Yeah, and

then they found out you were negotiating with Epic. How that ultimately something in there got real fishy with between Mushroom and Epic and we needed to we had a key man clause to get us out of being forced to release a mush another Mushroom or Epic um released that they wanted to finish without our actual without our actual input. So there was it was a it was a litigious time, Bob. Their number of bands been through this and it almost you know, destroyed Springstein and Petty.

So being in the middle of that, Maelstrom, what was your perspective, um, we were just really p oed. We were pissed, and we were on, you know, on a a tirade to get the album finished, um in in a ten day period so that we'd have our own input on the album. And the other one was released anyway that didn't have our approval and was taken and then was taken off the shelves after that, so it's a rarity, but you know, it was just all this stuff.

We were sleeping under the console and taking turns, finishing overdubs and before the deadline, you know, to try to get our own artistic content on this album. So then you switched to Epeck. Though legal wars are behind you and you continue to have success. Yes, what was that

like to be one that success after another? Well, it was it was It was fraught with you know, the things that naturally come after you've started, and then you're trying to sustain you're a career with something that's meaningfully creative in your life, and so we were touring more. I mean, this is the age old story. You know,

all the story in the world. You have your lifetime to make your first of them and then you know, everyone says it, but it's true, and then you're kind of forced to hurry up and create and you have X amount of time. Rest of it, you're making money on the road, and then that's a big that's a siren song in itself because you're now you're big and popular and you're on the road and there's all this other world of of distractions and potential you know, um

accidents that you're gonna and the potential accidents or what. Well, there's there's like the world becomes your oyster, and there's there's lavish restaurants, and there's lavish wines and everyone is stroking your ego and all those typical things that my mom and dad warned us about, the tinsel town of

it all. You know, we're just like, Oh, I think I buy a farm on you know, the Oregon coast, a hundred and sixty acre farm, and you know, get dune buggies and have horses, and I think I'm like gonna be like Neil Young and you know, and go there and ride. It's like, only trouble is is fourteen hours to get there, you know. So you never get there, and then you have to sell the farm, and you had another house and you can't afford both of them

and they won't sell it. Just all of the financial hoi filoy and who haa that you have to learn the hard way to get through. Okay. So Rock and rolls rife with stories of people who earned money they didn't get to them. You're working hard, you feel successful. Was money trickling down into your account. Well, I was spending it pretty fast, but no, I was just to be honest, I was, um like, more than a millionaire by twenty one, and then really broke by thirty five,

and then a millionaire again. And in the eighties, you know, double millionaire over here and then really hard luck over there. It was just a real estate disorder, I think. So at this point in time, with all these ups and downs, do you think you're really good with money now or you're still bad. I don't know one thing about money anymore. Ever, I never have. Um, it's been you know, my Achilles heel um. But I'm married to somebody that does so yeah, yeah,

so he's a good yeah watch dog. So okay, you're making these records for Epic. Are you happy with those records? They were? They were less and less for me, less and less um solid artistically that we got a little more big for our bridges and hubrists kind of kicked in and we were gonna be there. We're gonna fire some guys in the band, and then we're going to record it the way we want to record it. We're gonna you know, be the producers and play more of

the parts ourselves and um, he got uneven. Those albums got pretty uneven, there were They all had really nice I think gems in there, but as peace as a whole, those albums were kind of you know, scattered and how did it end with epic and you end up in Capital. We'd sort of had a downturn for a while there

for all the obvious reasons. And when we decided we wanted to try to give it one more college try, we hired a manager, we hired we wanted to get a new record company and management, and wanted to retool our entire image. And so we we got out the glam and you know, I got the big hair and the fashionistas of rock, you know, and we we went very um prince in the revolution with it, and MTV started to happen, so then it was all about visuals and so you know, we had some of that to

give over. Um that became obnoxious after Whilbough too, because it became overblown about bastic as you well remember, by the end of the eighties, the bombast had grown to such an extent that when the Seattle explosion came along, it was just like what the doctor ordered after MTV. You know, let's go back to where we were talking about the money. If you never played another note on stage, do you have enough money to get to the end.

I have some savings, now, that's what I mean. I mean, you have enough saved and there's enough income from maybe songs or whatever such that if you stopped playing today, you could retire on that money. No, I don't think so. Okay, Honestly, um, the touring life is was the actual real money and not so much the songwriting anymore or the licensing that's really really dwindled who next to nothing? So it used

to be very different. You know. Songwriting used to be really lucrative, and I'm sure it is for a lot of these guys now, but um, you have to have big hits, you know too. And and now it's like teams of production and writer teams and it's art by committee, you know. But but I used to make really good money at songwriting and touring. Um used to loan your songs. Yeah, okay, So let's go back and go to the Capital era. Is it your decision to clamb it up or is

it their decision to clamb it up? The league? It was sort of a mutually agreed upon thrust, you know, like, Okay, we're gonna do it this way. We're gonna go on, We're gonna get big makeup, big hair design. You know, wardrobe and makeup and hair and um, you know, camera allights, action and you know, okay, now simper and pout and you know a lot of stuff we would just naturally

do on a buck stage. But when there's cameras, now there's there's you know, lots of teams have been you know, cast have been her extras going on, you know, doing there. I mean some of those videos sets were just outlandishly ridiculous. I mean just ridiculous. And you see that stuff now and it's very entertaining because it was so but it's so dated, you know, it's so of its time. What

do your kids say about those videos? They get a really good laugh out belly laugh when they see that stuff, and so do I. Okay, but now we all remember the power of MTV as big as you were, and you've been around for years at that point. Once you're on MTV, everybody knows who you are. The American living room says, hello, Yeah, it was weird because it was

such a new feature in our story as musicians. And at one point somebody said, um, well, oh you must have had your boobs done, and I was like, what, you know, just because it was accented and um, and

do you really play the guitar? Yes, it's not a prop, you know, And it was just kind of like that's where it sort of went over the line in a way for the just being having being taken seriously as a musician, when it's more like you're now you're a sex kitten, and what about the musician part, you know. And then in the height of MTV, can you go

to the grocery store? Not as much? No, I mean, especially if Ann and I were together going anywhere, because it's like the two of them together is the aspect of them together. Um, I could get away with more you know, anonymity on my own. And I always like to try to go to the store, you know, um, to live a normal life. But whether audience that's right, Well, you know, I go to the store a lot now,

and it's great. I like being normal. I like having a kitchen in a you know, washerton dryer for Christ's sake. But okay, going back to the empty VI era, all of a sudden, from the outside looks like the focused changes from your sister to you. Well, there was that too that was going on with her weight at the time was um less than what was supposedly acceptable, So she wasn't you know. They they there were some mean

spirited things going on in the press about it. When we were playing shows, they would comment more about that than the show about her, you know, her her weight and that. Then they would contrast me to her and say, you know the demure um, you know, the blonde, sexy demure sister and then the the sort of overweight Catterwallen sister, and it was just really mean. A lot of that stuff was really mean. So we started to say, don't show us any reviews unless they're good, and then we

didn't really see any reviews. But it was just a weird time um that was so focused on image and less on music that it I think that was part of 's issue. It's like she felt so much pressure. How did the two of you get along during that era.

We had a harder time just as people getting through that era because of the pressure on me too before in front and when she had started the band, you know, and uh, and she was going through her own sort of personal stuff issues and I'm fighting with her own demons, and so it was right. I mean, we had the most money and but the least the least amount of

joy from that whole era. And you know, there was just one day where they offered us like one million dollars to play a show at a festival somewhere, But it just happened to be the day that I had planned on getting married, you know, and I said, no, I mean, not one million dollars is going to change my mind. So you know, there's there's always ethical issues going on in that era, and a lot of it

was artistically ethical issues. Okay, but at that point, once you're a capital, you're now using co writers, other people involved. We were, um, we were sort of encouraged by way of um, sort of how do you say, we won't back you, we won't back your album threatened, that's the word. Um. If we didn't use outside writers, the stable of l A hit makers typewriters, we could have a few of

our own songs on the albums too. If we went with the hits that they chose from other writers, which that had written other writers have written, so you know, that was happening everywhere. It was Aerosmith, it was all the rock bands were doing it, all the big power ballads. You know. But even what was it like, because you have bona fides as a musician, so what was it like being thrust in that situation? It was? It was weird.

I mean, we'd always prided ourselves on being originally active you know writers and um, even though we sort of lost some of our thread, you know, as talented hit songwriter, UM, being kind of forced having these other priders forced down our throats in a way was really upsetting and kind of um. It was you know, it was it was upsetting.

And a lot of the songs we would audition, song after song after song after song with the then producer just cossette tape cassette tape cassette tape, song after song after song, and there were so many that were so formulaic and so much the same, and so many that were demo singers, um singing about some guy broke my heart, just like the Victim of the Victim and the Victim and more Victims and um or like the Sexy Chick songs. And it was just like really disappointing, and it was

it was very narrow. It was a very narrow um line to walk. So we did find beautiful songs. We found these Dreams, which um, they didn't even want us to actually do, but I said, I have to do this song. This one's for me, and um and Bernie Topen's lyrics are always amazing. Um and Alone, great song, and a few others. But um, it was just really strange. Put your feature to the fire, and you know, in order to save a couple of your own originals, you have to do these other, big, bombastic ones. And so

what was it like? Was it as satisfying having kids with somebody else's songs as it was having kids with your own? Um? No, Actually it was just a pride issue, like artistic you know control. I mean I loved I've grown to love songs like Alone and songs like these Dreams a lot because I think they hold integrity and they're kind of aimeless and and there there it's about more than just wimpy girls, you know, acting whimpy um,

whining whining whimpy girls. But um, but yeah, I think it was it's it's a hollow victory when you have Huger success with less of your own footprint to you know, to show for it. And so how does it end in the capitol years? Is it you know, all of

a sudden records aren't successful or what happens? Um? I think we had the deal that was for a couple of albums, I think, and we've fulfilled our agreement and we've done our deed and we'd um sort of reached a we've kind of reached our um critical mass as a band with the issues with Waite and the imaging and the end of the eighties and how music was about to explode into something completely different. So we kind

of decided to let it lay at that. Let us just let us sit and take a sabbatical and go home and you know, get some time at home and see our family and do some laundry, have a kitchen and washer and dryer, and um drive a car, oh my god. And uh so we we kind of made the Lovemongers. Then well, we sort of had it with the big sporting event type you know, rock shows, where it was it was just too big, too much, and the pressure was to to be like like an MTV

video all the time. So we decided we put on our combat boots and go to Seattle and kick around in some some clubs again and where you could just see the whites of their eyes and connect and just do whatever the heck we wanted to do song wise, Like we covered Moody Blues, and we covered stones, and we did our own stuff too, and some new stuff, and we made a couple albums. We made a good uh Christmas album, and we made a album called Whirlygig.

We just had a blast. It was just it was like everything was lifted off of us and it was back to you know, making no money, actually paying to play basically. But it was really fulfilling. So ultimately good experience, very good experience, and that brings us with yeah, I guess so. And then what was the thinking then? Well, I was decided to start a family, and so I couldn't be kind of on tour with heart, you know,

we kind of had put it on hold. And then um, instead of going back out with heart, UM, I stayed at home for a few years just trying to to you know, do fertility stuff and start my family, which

took longer than I ever expected it would take. Starting at an older age at that time, and then um so Anne went out on her own and did like a bunch of like Marine Corps bases, and I guess there was like a Marlborough sponsorship or something like that, and she, you know, she kept on going, and I, you know, it took me quite a while to get back to doing Heart after I had my kids and they were two years old and we went back out and oh two the summer of love to her, Now

that you have kids and you've done everything, is it possible to do everything? Is it possible to be a world famous rock star and I have a thing or well, I think it's next to impossible. I'm not sure how I've managed to do it. I mean, it's the biggest um stress that I've ever felt, was to try to balance how much to tour and how much to be home and in order to get enough to survive and afford everything at the same time. So it's something that I think a lot of career women, not just in music,

but a lot of women have to deal with. And if if they're highly paid career women, then you've got you've got a team of experts to help with your kids. But a lot of people don't so you know, and I wanted to be on the ground. I wanted to be I didn't want to miss it either. So we were doing a lot of tours where they would come out. We'd have the diaper pail on the tour of us and we you don't have the babies, the football sized

kids out with us. And then we'd have when they got bigger and they had to start school, then we'd have them come out for breaks and UM, have a nanny come with them and somebody to watch them when we were on the stage, feed him, get him to bed when we were before the show is over. So we've worked on it from every angle as much as we could work on it that way, and being able to see your kids and have your job at the same time, but it's hard when your job is traveling.

You know, your kids are not you know, they're not vag born vagabonds like like me. You know, the military to our life. That's how we started. So it's interesting. So do you have any regrets that you didn't spend enough time with your kids or we didn't give them enough. I've I've pulled, I've been pulled apart a lot about it. UM feeling like I was going to miss a lot, and I missed some of it. And but you know, I do music, so that's my job. So that's I

think that's the that's the sacrifice. Um. The most important part of the time together, though, is the quality of the time together. Sounds very you know, died in the world tried and true, but it is true that if you're present and you're really there, you're not just oh, I've just gotta you know, sort of be the token

parent in the house. You know, it's like, no, you're gonna get You're gonna climb into the cardboard box with them, and you're gonna show them how to cook, and you're gonna watch the movies and read the books out loud at night, help them fall asleep and all of it. And if this point in time, it's kind of a difficult question in terms of to put yourself in these shoes. Do you feel that if you hadn't had children you would be is fulfilled? I always really wanted to have children, Um,

and I'm a natural nurturing type person. So you know, I've always had dogs and I've just always been that person. Our mom was like that ends much more like our dad you know, so she's more kind of the aloof one. I'm more the hands on mommy type person. Okay, but you didn't have your kids until relatively late, so it was in the back of your mind all these years on the road. Wow, while my kids, am I going

to have them? Not have them? Yeah? I always planned on having them, and I figured, you know, well, when the time is right, and then the next big wave would happen, you know, like you fight for the wave to happen, and then the wave comes and then you have to, you know, work for the wave and the wave carries you. So um, the timing was difficult, and I never felt that it would ever be if I don't make it happen and stop myself from continuing on the never ending cycle, that it would ever happen. So

I stopped on purpose and just for that thing. And so people I don't have children, but people say, you know, once the kids are born, you know, it changes your life and it's the most important thing. Most people don't have the level of success in their career as you've had. Now. I don't want to do a direct comparison between career success and children, but what's it like from your perspective, Well, I think career success. We've lived our lifetime at least

three or four times as as careerists. You know. Um, we're lucky if we we can still get arrested. I'm sure if heart goes out again, um, which remains to be seen. But uh, I think having the kids, the fulfillment of being a parent, and just the raw and insane pain of being a parent, and the responsibility and fear of being a parent, and fearing for the life of your child and the safety and all of the you know, all of the exasperating elements of parenting it.

It also injects you with a a deeper sense of humanity, which then translates into the work. So I feel like the songs I've been writing now are way more kind of generated from a deeper place, not just a place I'm gonna get some dudes you know, or you know, but or just be you know, on a rock stage where people dig me. But it's a human thing. This is Bob left Step. So I'm a writer and you could read my stuff at left steps dot com. I'd like to invite you to attend my mu Sick Media Summit.

Santa Barbara the last weekend enabled I'd love for you to come and learn from the best in the business, like Troy Carter of Spotify. If you're interested, go to Music Media Summit dot com to sign up. And now let's dive right back in with my guest Nancy Wilson. You reform the band in two thousand two, you go on the Summer of Love tour. Is there any idea of where you are in the marketplace? Do you think you can have hits again? Do you don't think you're

gonna have hits again? What's the mind thought through there? Well, Um, we were out working the We were just ready to get out and work the real estate again and still tickets play heart songs that people know. Um, you know, we weren't really trying to write new stuff. We were just trying to get back on some kind of a track with me back in the band. And um, we

played every single place with Electricity. You know, we went for the next like however many years till the last couple of years ago, we've been out playing every place with Electricity. You play essentially every summer, every summer mainly and the ship times, in the in the falls, and sometimes in the winter. How many A couple of hundred times. That's a lot of work. There's no there's nary a comfort zone to be had, like eighty two hundred sometimes two? Okay,

who's the manager now? Um? Right now we're between Okay, who was the manager before? Carol Peters? Okay, so you're out. How do you feel playing the same I'm a writer. One of the bad things I have is I'll write something great, so that's it. I can't write it again, you know whatever. Whereas a musician can play the same song to eternity. But what's up like being on stage playing Crazy on You? You know, forty years later? Well, it's a it's really a testament to songs like Crazy

on You and Barracuda that they're still fun to play. Um, and you see people react to it. Um, you know, I don't think Anne feels the same way. How do you think she feels? I think she feels more like, um, you know, I've done this enough and I want to do something really different and fun and for herself. But I still get a big drill out of like doing the kick when Crazy on You start and seeing people go nuts, and it's just like it's a high and songs like Barracuda and I have new band, now to

a new band. Um, we're gonna get to that. But let's say, okay, so you do this. You go out every summer. Let's say you play and you're off stage eleven pm. Okay, when do you fall asleep? But too probably around two. And this is in a bus. In a bus to wind down, it takes a while to wind down, and you normally you want to have like something to eat, you know, because you couldn't eat before the show. You were nervous, So you have to have

something sensible to eat that's not pizza. So you have to try to make something on the bus before the bus pulls away, so you're not jostling around trying to cook anything. So I got pretty good at cooking in the kitchenette on the bus the galley. Um. And then you kind of want to recap the night with the band members um or or try to watch a movie

and just kind of, you know, unspool the energy. And because you know, once you go back into your bunk, it's just like you're in a little you're you're kind

of stuck by yourself. Yeah right, I mean, some you can watch stuff in there too on your on your laptop, but it's jostling around and you can't really sleep very well anyway, so you know, and then you if if you're lucky, you can sleep, you can wake up at the gig the next gig and sleep in until sound check starts, and then you get up and do your sound check and do your hair and makeup and go play.

But it's um, it's you know, and the hotels are not so much to brag about usually because you're trying to save money and so it's it's really kind of the best part of any rock and roll tour day is the two hours on stage. It's just that, you know, transcendent thing, and it's the thrill of people coming and shin sharing with you, you know, and the songs themselves are the the honey that draws draws the b and So let's assume you went on the road for three

months and you come home. How long does it take to recover from that, um, well, it takes about it takes about three or four days or a week. Um too. Kind of the momentum that you're so used to, the momentum of always going and going and going and getting there doing that and going some more and never really stopping. Um, you're kind of like, wait a minute, I'm sitting here, you know, I'm looking at a piece of dust in

the in the air. You know. It's sort of like that moment where you're like, Wow, should I meditate or something? You know, it's it's a real it's a it's really jarring when you stop. Yeah. So I mean this is public information. But on the last part tour, the public story was there was an altercation between Hand's husband and your children. Where does that leave the relationships now? Well, you know, right now, sadly, it's hasn't left it in

a good place at all. Um. You know, I know Anna and I will always adore each other, and UM, I Wanna, you know, always attested loving each other. But that was just kind of a weird UM. I think it was kind of a power move, um and a control thing. In addition to the rub be bad behavior, there was that subtext Yeah that's what I believe and um,

and it's been sort of that way ever since. And I understand her desire to get out there and not do the same thing, you know, and not be holed into the the heart machine, you know, Um, But I think the sad part. I mean, I respect her wishes to go out and try new stuff, which I think is great for her and healthy for her, um, But for me, for the fans, I think it's a sad thing because we still have it in us too to take it around. You know. So are you again in

communication with Ann? Not really. I kind of put it out there but a few times and it's just not coming back. You know. From an outside observer, it would seem that it was her husband who was accused of bad behavior, so we think that she would be the one who wanted to be apologetic. Well, I think she's, Um, she wants to apologize for him right and protect him.

It's her first real relationship since the very beginning, so you know, she's I think she's protecting her new found relationship and that's more important to her right now than any event. You're a menable to getting the sinews, you know, building again the first on a personal level, So it's more on her end that she's rel I think she's reluctant and she's going to have to figure it out for a while and maybe be ready maybe not. Well eventually, you know, I hate to be so you know, bottom

line about this. Eventually, the money makes everybody ready, even the Eagles, you know, the Eagle said they were going to reform. Glynn Fry died and they're out on the road right now. And that was even after the hell froze over one exactly is better than ever. You would like to tell you everybody. Everybody's farewell thing now it's it's so great, like Elton John's very well Yellow Brick

Road tour. It's like three shows love last three years or something that's like, you know, George Straight retired from touring, well, I retired from touring, not live performing. Saw play in Vegas, So I'll set up a yeah, Vegas residency or something. My favorite I'm talking a little lot of school. As a friend of mine's the agent for the Scorpions. He said, you want to go to the Forum tonight if I know those guys a little bit whatever anyway, and he says,

you know, it's a farewell. Says yeah, the new album's coming in October. It's like, wait a minute, I thought it was a farewell until the new album comes out. So but in any of them, how many times did the Stones do that right, although at this point in time, I think people are literally going to the Stones because they think it may be the last time. The irony being I've seen the Stones a zillion times, and they were kind of like the Grateful Dead. They played for

an hour and a half. Half hour be terrible, half hour would be mediocre, and an half hour be locked right on. But I saw them. You know, your Mick was the only week link was Keith ironically occasionally hit a bad note. Mick was as good as ever. It was kind of a stone. He's yeah, he's in. He's the energizer. Bunny father was a gym teacher. He's taking off on that. So in any event, you have a new band. Was that something you always wanted to do? Or is that as a result of the discord in

the camp? Well, it was something that that sort of fell together for both of those things, for the reason of the discord in the camp, but also for the reason of having run into and um met up with Liz live Warfield, who from Prince's New Power Generation, who opened for us at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of nights, and you maintained a relationship with her. Yeah, we we hit it off. Her guitar player Ryan waters Um was with her and we all started talking about we should

just do something. She goes, I wanted rod want to be relegated in the soul categories quite as much, and you know the funk sohul thing. I want to rock. You guys rock like we. I should send you some of my ideas. And it's like, said, m let's do it. Let's be people that that actually do it, not just

talk about doing it. And we started doing it. And then after the heart thing went went sideways, UM started before Yeah, we started talking about just something fun to do UM And you know, my husband Jeff said, after the heart thing kind of went sideways, he said, we should do this now right away. Let's get a rehearsal place.

Let's bring those guys in, fly them in from Seattle and in Chicago and have a band meeting and figure out what we're doing and do it recorded and we did, and we made an album and it's it's a really good one. Now you're going out on tour opening for see Yeah. We started the tour with opening for Seegar Well a few months ago and we uh, we had to postpone it. Well, it was offered to heartidentally and um and just said no, I don't want to do

the same thing in anymore. And I said, well, so we talked abo above Seeger's people and said, what about my new band road Case Royal, and uh, it's actually called Nancy Wilson of Heart with roatcase roil has to be Yeah, but um, that's cool though, and they said no, we just really need to sell tickets, but send us your stuff anyway. They when they checked out our our

album and our videos, they said, wait a sec. We wanted we want you to come and do this, you know, for next to nothing, which Heart was going to get a lot to do, but but for next to nothing. It was our our chance to get big exposure and start with that. So we did about seven shows with Seeger, but then he got his injury into one of his neck vertebrae and I had to postpone everything. So it's not canceled. We're going back out like in the fall after Labor Day. How many probably at least eight and

it's all like the tour before was going to be sixty. Um, is your book for all of those Well, we don't have the dates yet, but I mean but the committee is the commitment is for everything that they can get us, and it's all Arenas. The last leg we were going to do was completely sold out Arenas. I'm sure it's set will sell out Arenas. He's so good, right, So when you go out with your new band, to what

degree do you play heart songs? We play um like, we play crazy on you to finish up the set, and I seeing even it up to start the set, and then we do these dreams, a new version of these dreams um and straight on that other than crazy an magic man. Straight on is my favorite Heart that's a good one, and we do a cool version. It's a little bit, you know, we switched it up. Yeah,

And so what's reception like? It's been amazing, I think because of the stricter security rules nowadays for for you know, people coming into the shows, they opened the doors earlier, and so by the time we started the show, our forty five minutes set, everybody was mostly in the building. They were getting their beers and their shirts or whatever, and they started hearing a Heart song and they all came down. So by the end of our forty five minutes set, the whole place was full and they were

standing up for crazy on you. So it was like, Wow, that was good. I can't wait to get back out there. Okay, So we live in a world where all the money is on the road and it's a road driven business. But with your new act, are you doing any of

the traditional things I e. Radio, etcetera. Yeah, we went to a record store and we played an acoustic set and went to some radio stations and UM interviewed and did some acoustic stuff and you know, we just we try to um you know, plant the seas wherever we are in the towns, just to get our word out there. It's just like starting over. Is that depressing or exciting? It's very exciting. Um. These these people in my band are just I love them, and we have a thing

that's just so tied and everybody's experienced. Everybody knows, like I said earlier about the language of musicians. You know, every we all have the same not only the language, but the dialect and the accent everything. And we were already you know, each other's besties. And it's so fun to play with those guys. Talking about new music, I mean just music in general, not your new music. I'll

leave this person. I'm a very famous guitarist. I was talking to him, legendary person, and I asked him about new music, and he said, how would I know? I'm sixty two. So the question, although you have relatively young children, do you keep up with new music? Yeah, I to listen to St. Vincent and kind of college station stuff, you know, the good song writers that are coming out now. But you have younger children, what are they listening to.

They're listening to classic rock real interestingly. No hip hop, No, they don't. They don't go for that. Um. They're eighteen two twin boys and one of them just took up on his own without by prompting him, took up guitar recently, and he's getting good. He's taking some lessons. He's listening to Credence, He's listening to you know Zeppelin. Um, oh, it's the band that sounds like Zeppelin. Now, great band.

And you know just all that stuff. I mean, uh zz Top and Pig Floyd and just you know everything that we would find yummy. And if we're in your houses, there music playing in your house. Yeah, I usually have a like a Pandora thing going on. Um. I try to mix it up. But I do um like the Jim James kind of station, and you know, my Morning Jackets type station. And then I do actually a classical

station for Sunday afternoons, Sunday brunch. I mean, our family we used to listen to opera on Sundays with pancakes and bacon and all that stuff. Could you talk or did you have to listen? No? We we talked to me, sang along. We learned an really know all the opera. We do some of it. Yeah, we used this listen to the Makado and some of the same ones. You know, that's a big thing for my mother because you know, they broadcast the Metropolitan Opera in the theaters. She'll go,

you know, on Saturdays. But growing up close to New York in school, we would go to the opera, which was always a cool experience. It was cool even if even if it was really boring, right, yeah, exactly what was really what? It was cool? Exactly? It was still cool. Said, having been a woman who's been very success one in the music business, what advice would you give to women starting out today? Well, here's my stock answer. I'd turned

back if I were you. The music. The first thing get out, get out of there quick, run like hell in the opposite direction. Now, I'd say, um, get proficient, be good. If you really want to do it, be ready to suffer for it. You know. Fail sound like you had a lot of failure. Well, there's been a lot of hits and mrs. But when you think of the arc of the entire career since seventy six, basically, you know that's a long career. But your first album

was very successful. In an addition, something you could be proud of. You put out and you go, oh, man, yeah I was a hip but I didn't really want so proud of that one. Yeah, I mean, but the fact it was hit almost immediately came out of nowhere. I know. It was really like a fu in a certain way because it was like an indie thing exactly. People people are too young now, they said an indie record in the seventies just didn't happen, and every major was like just a big no way, no way, Jose,

But they don't really know. I mean John Cougar, Mellencamp or whatever he's calling himself this week. You know, he had with his breakthrough album they didn't want to put out, which was American fool. Right right right, he said, no, you gotta put it on. I don't care. The label really doesn't know. Having said that, I've dealt with a lot of musicians who don't know what a hit single is either. But right right. But the woman, well, the en in suits, you know, the joke was always that

they just got their ears painted on. You know, the men in the suits in those office it had their ears. They just have their ears painted on. They don't have ears, right, I think you know, it's always funny to learn something. Listen, this has been wonderful. Thanks so much for coming giving us perspective. So glad you had me here. Thank you.

It was great. That's Nancy Wilson of Heart and her new band Build with her name and also with The road Case, and that's all available on Spotify now right, yeah, exactly, sure is the road Case right now? Until next time, Thank you so much. That wraps up another episode of the Bob Left Sets podcast. I know there are a ton of podcasts out there, so thank you so much for joining me for this conversation with the great Nancy Wilson. Until next time, It's Bob Left Sets