March 26, 2024 • 27 mins
The sound of the band Heart is unmistakable: powerful guitar riffs, intricate melodies and soaring vocals. Since 1975, the group fused hard rock, pop and folk to produce 20 Top 40 hits, earn four Grammy nominations and sell over 35 million records. They also made rock history as the first female-fronted hard rock band – and one of the longest lasting and most commercially successful bands of all time. Now, they are heading out on a world tour. In this two-part episode, host Alec Baldwin speaks with the two women at the beating center of the band, sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. In this episode, Alec talks with lead vocalist Ann Wilson about how she discovered she had “the voice,” what it was like coming up as a young woman in the music industry in the 70s, and how Heart managed to produce a sound that was both hard and soft, being anything it wanted to be.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
thing from iHeart Radio. The signature howl, hard driving rock, licks,
intricate harmonies. That sound is, of course, the band Hearts,
(00:23):
fronted by sisters Anne and Nancy Wilson. Here they are
with straight On from their nineteen seventy eight album Dog
and Butterfly. The Ann's power and dynamism helped sell over
(01:03):
thirty five million records, produced seven top ten albums, and
earned four Grammy nominations. They were inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in twenty thirteen, and just
last year, the Wilson sisters received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award,
and now.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
They're headed out on a world tour.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Last week I spoke with guitarist and vocalist Nancy Wilson.
My guest today is Heart's lead singer Ann Wilson. Anne
Wilson's signature vocals have solidified her place in rock history.
She's a true pioneer, with her wide range, strength and control,
giving Robert Plant a run for his money at the
(01:45):
Kennedy Center Honors. I wanted to know when Anne discovered
that she had the.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Voice well It wasn't until much later, like when I
was about twenty two, I think, yeah, just like in
band practice. And I'd been in bands, but I was
always like the chick singer who just did the ballads,
you know. And then we got to this place in
the band where we wanted to do led Zeppelin stuff
(02:11):
and right, you're doing covers deep yeah and deep purple stuff,
and the guys, the guys in the band could not
master that. So I tried it, and it's up in
my range and it kind of cut me loose in
a way.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
It's amazing because I mean, obviously you've been redefined again
and again during your career. We were all talking about this,
my producers and huh, we were talking about what that
was like back then, seventies eighties. Roseanne Cash came on
the show and said her producer sat her down in
the early days and said, we got to sex this
up a bit. You got to pop another button, you
gotta do this, You got to do that. Is that
(02:48):
what they did to you?
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Of course. Yeah. It was always wet your lips and
you know, undo the top button and where a French
maid's outfit, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Right, you and Nancy. Yeah, they wanted this just everything
sexed up all the time. Oh yeah, yeah, how did
that make you feel back then?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Mad? Worthless? So yeah, A couple of good songs came
out of those emotions, like Barracuda and a few of
the other ones that are pretty angry stuff, you.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Know, But when you are there, does that eventually change?
Like I see some young actresses I've always said this,
where they want them to pop another button and do
this and do that, and once they make a couple
of hit movies, they're like, no, no, no, never again.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
They button that button all the way to the top
and like we're done with that. Now.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
That's like a phase, right, And that's very very smart
because if only we're brave enough at the very beginning
to know that, right and just like keep it buttoned up,
you know, and so and so it doesn't want to
cast us, then so be it.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Barry GiB came on the show and we had a
wonderful interview with Barry. But the Beg's and a solo
career and so forth.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I love oh And I.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Think even in the documentary that they had an HBO,
they talked about DNA harmony. Yes, they're your siblings. So
you sing, you can really sing together in a kind
of unique way. Did you and Nancy have that?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yes, we did, and we still do, and it's it's
just something that is unnameable. It's just I don't know.
Maybe it comes from the family, from riding in the
car as little kids and just harmonizing in the back
seat or whatever, but it's just this way of knowing
what to do when and the other person knows exactly
(04:42):
that too at the same moment.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
You know, your dad was in the military, Yes, and
you grew up for a lot of big chunk of
your childhood before you you headed to the Washington suburbs.
You went to Bellevue when you know.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
How old eleven. So before that, it was San Diego, It.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Was many places, but it was yeah, Camp Pendleton, Quantico, Kemp, Lajun, Panama, Taiwan.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
So your dad sounds like he was a pretty straight
guy and you know, no nonsense guy.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Or was he a little bit more of a free spirit?
What did he think of the music you eventually made
with Nancy?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
What was his attitude?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
He was a free spirit and he he wasn't really
cut out for the Marine Corps. In fact, he walked
away from the UH. He retired during the Vietnam War
because he did not believe in it, and he became
a teacher and loved to read poetry at parties and
sing and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so he
(05:42):
actually did. Really he loved the fact that Nancy and
I were doing it. Our mother wasn't so sure. She
was a little bit more ambivalent because it was two
of the three daughters, you know, going into showbiz.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Now, when did the two of you decide this is
something you wanted to do professional was the setting of that.
When that becomes other people beckoned you, other people summoned
you and said you got to do this legit, or
you both pursued it.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Mostly it was me pursuing it. I had this thing
inside my chest that was just like this burning coal,
and I was kind of driven. I just wanted to
be in bands from the time I was fourteen, and
folk groups, any cocktail party, any church service, anywhere I
could get up in front of people, you know, And
(06:30):
one thing led to another, and pretty soon it was
real bands, and then it was more professional sounding bands,
and then it was bands.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And it was you alone and Nancy came along later,
or both of you together. From the start, I dragged her.
You didn't know. Why did you have to drag? Or
is she shy?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
She's shy and she's more college material. She was in
university and she wanted to study, and I was like, no, no, no, no,
come on, I need you to harmonize it.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, you're not doing that, you're not going to college.
What was your first band?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
The very first one she and I had was called
The Viewpoints in Bellevue, when we were living just this
comfortable life at our parents' house, but yet writing all
these protest songs against culture and mister Jones, you know,
and the man the Man, Yeah, the man reeling against
(07:32):
the man.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And then when do you start to get closer to
what you're most known for. She's playing guitar, she's harmonizing,
and you're just ripping these rock songs. When does that start?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
She went to college and I went off and got
into a rock band. I ripped her out of college,
said get up here. That was maybe four years later.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
When she came and joined you. Did she just fold
right in? Did she even realize herself it was meant
to be this way?
Speaker 3 (08:05):
She did, you know, in spite of herself, she was torn.
I think she has a dichotomous nature where she wants
to study and read Gerta and all this kind of stuff,
but she also wants to play acoustic guitar and sing
folk songs. And so we took that and we folded
(08:25):
it and made it into the songs that we first
wrote for Heart.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Musician Ann Wilson. If you enjoyed conversations with some of
rock and roll's greatest lead vocalists, be sure to catch
my episode with Roger Daltrey of The Who.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Can you imagine what it felt like to be presented
with those songs for the first time, to see what
you can do with this? We just slammed away. We
used to go into the studio and we used to
have to mate those records in probably two hours.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Max.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
Yeah, you know, you made the whole album in four hours,
But that's how it well. And then it was only
once I got presented with Happy Jack I had to
think totally different about how I, as a singer, was
going to sing Townsend songs and present them in any
kind of way that I could hold my head up
in the streets.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Hear more of my conversation with Roger Daltrey that hears
Thething dot Org. After the Break. Anne Wilson shares how
finding love changed everything for her, including her approach to music.
(09:45):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
Thing Inside a Hurricane.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Win and.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Live Good Child.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
No.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Other Way Tass to.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
High Can.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
This is Ann Wilson and the band Trip Sitter, with
the song Trip Sitter from the twenty twenty three album
Another Door. Wilson is a performing and recording veteran, having
showcased her powerhouse voice since Heart's debut in nineteen seventy five.
I wondered what was the very first song she recorded
(10:47):
with the band?
Speaker 3 (10:49):
That was probably crazy on you?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right? That was your first song recorded.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Professionally, Yes, up in Vancouver.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So when you recorded that, how did you feel you?
Did it feel right?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
It was really exciting and I knew nothing. I knew
absolutely nothing. I'd never been in front of a mic
in a studio before, and I didn't know anything about
it or how to confront the mic or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Did somebody teach you?
Speaker 6 (11:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Our first producer, Mike Flicker was really patient.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
He was helpful.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Oh yeah, he gave me confidence, and he just said, yeah,
do more like that? You know.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And when you did more like that, did you start
to access parts of yourself that you didn't even know
you had.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Did you just start becoming somebody else?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
No? I think I didn't become somebody else. I think
I just kind of shed one skin and stood there
in another. It was let's shed the folk music skin
and sort of stand there in a rock skin.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
You know. Did you like one? Did you like them both?
Did you like one one more than the other?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I liked them both, you And in fact, I think
that's what was always different about Heart and cool about
Heart is that it had both. It had softness and
it had this acoustic center, but yet it could go
just as hard as you please, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And what about I mean, I'm assuming that all the
songs that I would know of the most famous of
your recordings, you guys wrote them, or you wrote them
with other people, Like who wrote Dog and Butterfly?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Oh, Nancy and I wrote that, You wrote that?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Uh huh?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
And then Nancy and I and Roger Fisher wrote Barkuda.
But the two songs oddly fit together, the Dog and
the Butterfly, you know, right.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
The dog, the butterfly and the barracuda, right, yeah, yeah,
right now? Who wrote Dreamboat?
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Annie?
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I did.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
God, that's a beautiful song.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
You play that song and you're like, wow, man, that's
so pretty. And then this is this range thing of yours.
My producers and I were reading about your if you
want to call it homage to Robert Plant and you
trying to kind of take on and learn some of
his vocal approaches, you know what I mean. And then
here you are, years later, this is where I last
(13:08):
saw you at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Oh yes, yes, And isn't it magical?
Speaker 1 (13:14):
That is whatever you felt about Plants and wanted to
emulate about Plant.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Here you go on.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Stage and sing a Stairway to Heaven and I think
I've seen one other person in my life try to
sing that music the way you did, and you blew
the roof off the building, you know I mean. And
even those guys are sitting up there in the box
with the President, I think even they were like, holy shit,
you know, this is the person that could sing this
(13:40):
song in the world.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
How did you feel going out.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
There to do that song that experience had the potential
of being extremely nervous, and it would have been easy
to take my eye off the wall and just get
all nervous and lose it, you know. So I made
up my mind just to only be in the song.
Just be in the song. That's it, and no other
(14:06):
world existed in that seven minutes.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Is that what it takes? Is that what it takes?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah? It does for me.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Do you sometimes go do a show. I'll never forget
when I would perform live and do Broadway. Not a lot,
but there was sometimes I'd sit there and go, oh God,
please don't make me go do this.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Show right now?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, yeah, I want to lay down and take a nap,
you know. But you got to find a way to
get your seat draggers. You got to become the guy
that drags yourself out there, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
That's right. Yeah, and just you've got to show up
and actually be there.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, put it out there.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Otherwise it's not fair to the people that are sitting
there watching you. I mean, you ask them to come
and sit and watch you, and then you phone it in.
I mean that's really lame. O. You know, don't do that.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
You're a mother. You adopt the two kids, but you're
nonetheless on the road. And I always feel like, whether
you have the kid yourself or they're surrogate so they're adopted,
you're still a mother. What did you have to do
to kind of protect all that when you.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Were working and you're on the road? Old? I mean,
your kids are how old now?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Twenty five and thirty three, so.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
They're still young, but there were they But when they've
been around you and in the business, what did you
try to protect them from or teach them about who
you are and what you do.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I shielded them from public view. I didn't want pictures
of them going up on the internet or anything like that,
and I'm glad I did because they have a chance
of being normal people. Now my son is a corrections
officer and my daughter is a mother of six.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
No, she has six kids.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
She just kept on going, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, I got seven kids. Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Did you find that in your life that songwriting was
something you enjoyed or was it?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Was it an effort?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
For me? It was always an effort. It was until recently,
and I think it was because in the past I
always wrote with other people, and so I was always
secretly trying.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
To please them, you know, and did and did right.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
But now I write by myself, and like the last
bunch of songs I wrote for Another Door, it's just
a joy. It's so fun. Just write everything down that
you're feeling, and then go back and tweak it and
lift out the good stuff and get rid of the
bad stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You know, you're married now, when you're married before, this
is your one marriage. This is my one marriage. So
all those years, I mean, I'm gonna put the cards
on the table. You're one of the most smoking hot
women in all of rock and roll who's also talented.
Ps is also mega talented. How did you resist all
the men just ladling jewelry at your feet and begging
(17:05):
you to marry them?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
God, if that had been the case, I don't know
whether you mean it wasn't like that ladling jewelry. Wow,
you know I had my fair share of flings, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah, but you didn't. But that didn't fit into your plan, No,
it didn't.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I was always more mission oriented about the band and
about music and everything until this one guy came along
and just suddenly that was irrelevant. Really, it's just like
everything just changed, you know, I'm sure you know what
I mean. It's it's it's just like the thing that
happens when the person comes along. When do we ever
(17:44):
think smart when we're in love? I mean, does that exist?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Hearts Ann Wilson.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be
sure to follow Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app,
Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. After the Break,
Anne Wilson shares what it was like to be estranged
from her sister for a time and how they were
able to come back together. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
(18:27):
listening to Here's the.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Thing bar and wait.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
Started pleaseing my song always Top.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
This is Ann Wilson with Miss One and Only, from
her twenty twenty three album Another Door with her band Tripsetter.
Anne Wilson has been praised as one of the greatest
singers in the history of rock, and thanks to her
legendary voice, found decades of success with her band Hearts. However,
(19:18):
Wilson revealed in the autobiography Kicking and Screaming a story
of heart, soul and rock and roll, but she has
been sober since two thousand and nine. I was curious
if there was something about the rock and roll lifestyle
that was connected to her addictions.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
A feeling of alienation. The drug itself has magnetic properties, yeah,
but above and beyond that, it was the thing to do.
And if you're a cool person, you did it. It
gave you this feeling of super confidence, blows up your
(19:58):
ego to this huge.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Did you energy?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
And then when when it came time to stop, was
it enormously difficult or did you stop? And because it
all kind of came together and you knew that was
right as well.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Well, I'll tell you it's kind of funny now. At
the time, it was probably scary to other people. But
Nancy and I decided to stop doing cocaine, and so
we stepped down onto ecstasy and we did that for
a little bit, down shifted, yeah, yeah, right, and then
(20:34):
after a while that wore within and so then it
was just no more.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Many of the biggest bands in the world, I mean,
obviously the Beatles and things like that, they go for
whatever period of time.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
In the Beatles case, you know, not that long, you know,
eight years.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, they crank out all that unique music in eight years.
But for you, your sister is your partner and then
for a while your sister is not partner.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Was that difficults It was difficult because we've always been tight.
We never allowed other people to come into our relationship
until then, and then we had we had other people saying, well,
she says this, and she says that, You know, so
it got to be a little bit of a drama.
Things have really straightened themselves out now.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Right when you got back together with her, did it
seemed like it was? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, it's feeling more and more righteous all the time
because she's been places too, so she has to soften
up too. It's not just me, right, of course, we
both have to soften back into our relationship together.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Talk about your solo work. When you started doing solo work,
was that all you did?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
You say?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Did you want to stop for a while and take
a breath, or and did other people say to you, no, man,
you got to get back out there and keep doing this,
or did you know you had to go out there
and keep doing it?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Well? You know hard it come to a natural stopping point,
not a breakup point, but just like a point where
it was out of gas right right, and I wasn't
gonna let it just become a jukebox. So that was
my cue to go out there and do something on
my own and get some new chops, you know, and
(22:21):
sing some news songs and figure some new stuff out.
You got to do that, I'm sure you know that.
As an actor, I mean, you can't just rehash the
same old ideas again and again and again.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well also can as an actor. The condition is about
the quality of the material. Where you might go do
a revival of a famous play and put your touches
on that of that role.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
And the interesting thing is, you know the material works
like this is classic literature.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Williams shaw Miller, and you want to get out there
and have a whack at that material because in the movies,
you know, they're in the potato chip business man. There
are not that many serious roles and there aren't that
many serious projects. Did you ever contemplate doing something for
a living ever in your entire life since you became
a musician, a professional musician.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
That's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, there was a time when I considered trying to
act a little bit. But I don't have that. I
don't have that in me. For me, music is the thing,
because that's the that's my literature.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
You know.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
I look at videos of you when you're younger and
you're singing crazy on you and you're singing Barracuda and
you're flicking that hair, you're tossing that hair and like
a little banshee. It'she You're this gorgeous little banshee. And
what would Anne Wilson now tell that girl back then?
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I would say do what you're doing, I mean your gut.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I may have seemed one way, but I felt ways
that were really strong back then, right, such as, you
don't treat us this way, right because we're girls. You
don't just you know, drop us by the door.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
No, you had to fight.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
You had to fight, Yeah, you had to fight the
way you were treated by a male centric business.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yes, but the type of fighting was very careful, because
you don't just want to alienate people and have them
just hate you.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
When you talk about putting into your music some of
these feelings you had. Do you think your audience got that?
I think they picked up or you didn't really care?
You got it and that's all that mattered. Did the
audience pick up on it?
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Well?
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I always really hoped that the audience got it, and
I think they did from things people have said to
me in later years, you know, like men and women alike.
I think that when they look back on some of
the songs, you know, and some of the stuff we did.
There were no other women out there except Suzi Quattro
when we started. She was the only one and she
(25:11):
was awesome. But that's one, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
My last question for you is you write songs about
what you wrote about back then? What songs do you
want to write about now when you sit down, whether
you succeed at it yet or not, or these songs
are yet to come during your solo years, what do
you want to write about now?
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Well? I wrote one called This is Now. I wrote
one called Reign of Hell, which is an anti Wars creed.
Just all different kinds of subjects, like I wrote one
about a botched back alley abortion. Wow, it's kind of
(25:53):
gently it is poetic, but that's what it's about, you know.
It's called the Little Things. When are you going down
on tour in April?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Where are you going?
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Everywhere?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Man?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Everywhere?
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Everywhere?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Man, I gotta tell you something. You're so great, Thank you,
thank you. You're such a great singer. You blow my
mind when I watch you, I listen to you, I
mean you blow. You can do everything, you can do
everything my best you and thanks for doing this with me.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Oh well, thanks for having me. I really really had.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Fun my thanks to Ann Wilson. You can find more
information about Heart's world tour at heartdash music dot com.
I'll leave you with a little more of straight on
from their nineteen seventy eight album Dog and Butterfly.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Man, Stay down, stand up for use me, stay.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Say up, Stay up.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
You need
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Stay up.
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
thing from iHeart Radio. The signature howl, hard driving rock, licks,
intricate harmonies. That sound is, of course, the band Hearts,
(00:23):
fronted by sisters Anne and Nancy Wilson. Here they are
with straight On from their nineteen seventy eight album Dog
and Butterfly. The Ann's power and dynamism helped sell over
(01:03):
thirty five million records, produced seven top ten albums, and
earned four Grammy nominations. They were inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in twenty thirteen, and just
last year, the Wilson sisters received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award,
and now.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
They're headed out on a world tour.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Last week I spoke with guitarist and vocalist Nancy Wilson.
My guest today is Heart's lead singer Ann Wilson. Anne
Wilson's signature vocals have solidified her place in rock history.
She's a true pioneer, with her wide range, strength and control,
giving Robert Plant a run for his money at the
(01:45):
Kennedy Center Honors. I wanted to know when Anne discovered
that she had the.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Voice well It wasn't until much later, like when I
was about twenty two, I think, yeah, just like in
band practice. And I'd been in bands, but I was
always like the chick singer who just did the ballads,
you know. And then we got to this place in
the band where we wanted to do led Zeppelin stuff
(02:11):
and right, you're doing covers deep yeah and deep purple stuff,
and the guys, the guys in the band could not
master that. So I tried it, and it's up in
my range and it kind of cut me loose in
a way.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
It's amazing because I mean, obviously you've been redefined again
and again during your career. We were all talking about this,
my producers and huh, we were talking about what that
was like back then, seventies eighties. Roseanne Cash came on
the show and said her producer sat her down in
the early days and said, we got to sex this
up a bit. You got to pop another button, you
gotta do this, You got to do that. Is that
(02:48):
what they did to you?
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Of course. Yeah. It was always wet your lips and
you know, undo the top button and where a French
maid's outfit, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Right, you and Nancy. Yeah, they wanted this just everything
sexed up all the time. Oh yeah, yeah, how did
that make you feel back then?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Mad? Worthless? So yeah, A couple of good songs came
out of those emotions, like Barracuda and a few of
the other ones that are pretty angry stuff, you.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Know, But when you are there, does that eventually change?
Like I see some young actresses I've always said this,
where they want them to pop another button and do
this and do that, and once they make a couple
of hit movies, they're like, no, no, no, never again.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
They button that button all the way to the top
and like we're done with that. Now.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
That's like a phase, right, And that's very very smart
because if only we're brave enough at the very beginning
to know that, right and just like keep it buttoned up,
you know, and so and so it doesn't want to
cast us, then so be it.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Barry GiB came on the show and we had a
wonderful interview with Barry. But the Beg's and a solo
career and so forth.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I love oh And I.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Think even in the documentary that they had an HBO,
they talked about DNA harmony. Yes, they're your siblings. So
you sing, you can really sing together in a kind
of unique way. Did you and Nancy have that?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yes, we did, and we still do, and it's it's
just something that is unnameable. It's just I don't know.
Maybe it comes from the family, from riding in the
car as little kids and just harmonizing in the back
seat or whatever, but it's just this way of knowing
what to do when and the other person knows exactly
(04:42):
that too at the same moment.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
You know, your dad was in the military, Yes, and
you grew up for a lot of big chunk of
your childhood before you you headed to the Washington suburbs.
You went to Bellevue when you know.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
How old eleven. So before that, it was San Diego, It.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Was many places, but it was yeah, Camp Pendleton, Quantico, Kemp, Lajun, Panama, Taiwan.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
So your dad sounds like he was a pretty straight
guy and you know, no nonsense guy.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Or was he a little bit more of a free spirit?
What did he think of the music you eventually made
with Nancy?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
What was his attitude?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
He was a free spirit and he he wasn't really
cut out for the Marine Corps. In fact, he walked
away from the UH. He retired during the Vietnam War
because he did not believe in it, and he became
a teacher and loved to read poetry at parties and
sing and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so he
(05:42):
actually did. Really he loved the fact that Nancy and
I were doing it. Our mother wasn't so sure. She
was a little bit more ambivalent because it was two
of the three daughters, you know, going into showbiz.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Now, when did the two of you decide this is
something you wanted to do professional was the setting of that.
When that becomes other people beckoned you, other people summoned
you and said you got to do this legit, or
you both pursued it.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Mostly it was me pursuing it. I had this thing
inside my chest that was just like this burning coal,
and I was kind of driven. I just wanted to
be in bands from the time I was fourteen, and
folk groups, any cocktail party, any church service, anywhere I
could get up in front of people, you know, And
(06:30):
one thing led to another, and pretty soon it was
real bands, and then it was more professional sounding bands,
and then it was bands.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And it was you alone and Nancy came along later,
or both of you together. From the start, I dragged her.
You didn't know. Why did you have to drag? Or
is she shy?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
She's shy and she's more college material. She was in
university and she wanted to study, and I was like, no, no, no, no,
come on, I need you to harmonize it.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, you're not doing that, you're not going to college.
What was your first band?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
The very first one she and I had was called
The Viewpoints in Bellevue, when we were living just this
comfortable life at our parents' house, but yet writing all
these protest songs against culture and mister Jones, you know,
and the man the Man, Yeah, the man reeling against
(07:32):
the man.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And then when do you start to get closer to
what you're most known for. She's playing guitar, she's harmonizing,
and you're just ripping these rock songs. When does that start?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
She went to college and I went off and got
into a rock band. I ripped her out of college,
said get up here. That was maybe four years later.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
When she came and joined you. Did she just fold
right in? Did she even realize herself it was meant
to be this way?
Speaker 3 (08:05):
She did, you know, in spite of herself, she was torn.
I think she has a dichotomous nature where she wants
to study and read Gerta and all this kind of stuff,
but she also wants to play acoustic guitar and sing
folk songs. And so we took that and we folded
(08:25):
it and made it into the songs that we first
wrote for Heart.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Musician Ann Wilson. If you enjoyed conversations with some of
rock and roll's greatest lead vocalists, be sure to catch
my episode with Roger Daltrey of The Who.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Can you imagine what it felt like to be presented
with those songs for the first time, to see what
you can do with this? We just slammed away. We
used to go into the studio and we used to
have to mate those records in probably two hours.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Max.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
Yeah, you know, you made the whole album in four hours,
But that's how it well. And then it was only
once I got presented with Happy Jack I had to
think totally different about how I, as a singer, was
going to sing Townsend songs and present them in any
kind of way that I could hold my head up
in the streets.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Hear more of my conversation with Roger Daltrey that hears
Thething dot Org. After the Break. Anne Wilson shares how
finding love changed everything for her, including her approach to music.
(09:45):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
Thing Inside a Hurricane.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Win and.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Live Good Child.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
No.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Other Way Tass to.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
High Can.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
This is Ann Wilson and the band Trip Sitter, with
the song Trip Sitter from the twenty twenty three album
Another Door. Wilson is a performing and recording veteran, having
showcased her powerhouse voice since Heart's debut in nineteen seventy five.
I wondered what was the very first song she recorded
(10:47):
with the band?
Speaker 3 (10:49):
That was probably crazy on you?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right? That was your first song recorded.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Professionally, Yes, up in Vancouver.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So when you recorded that, how did you feel you?
Did it feel right?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
It was really exciting and I knew nothing. I knew
absolutely nothing. I'd never been in front of a mic
in a studio before, and I didn't know anything about
it or how to confront the mic or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Did somebody teach you?
Speaker 6 (11:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Our first producer, Mike Flicker was really patient.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
He was helpful.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Oh yeah, he gave me confidence, and he just said, yeah,
do more like that? You know.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And when you did more like that, did you start
to access parts of yourself that you didn't even know
you had.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Did you just start becoming somebody else?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
No? I think I didn't become somebody else. I think
I just kind of shed one skin and stood there
in another. It was let's shed the folk music skin
and sort of stand there in a rock skin.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
You know. Did you like one? Did you like them both?
Did you like one one more than the other?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I liked them both, you And in fact, I think
that's what was always different about Heart and cool about
Heart is that it had both. It had softness and
it had this acoustic center, but yet it could go
just as hard as you please, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And what about I mean, I'm assuming that all the
songs that I would know of the most famous of
your recordings, you guys wrote them, or you wrote them
with other people, Like who wrote Dog and Butterfly?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Oh, Nancy and I wrote that, You wrote that?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Uh huh?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
And then Nancy and I and Roger Fisher wrote Barkuda.
But the two songs oddly fit together, the Dog and
the Butterfly, you know, right.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
The dog, the butterfly and the barracuda, right, yeah, yeah,
right now? Who wrote Dreamboat?
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Annie?
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I did.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
God, that's a beautiful song.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
You play that song and you're like, wow, man, that's
so pretty. And then this is this range thing of yours.
My producers and I were reading about your if you
want to call it homage to Robert Plant and you
trying to kind of take on and learn some of
his vocal approaches, you know what I mean. And then
here you are, years later, this is where I last
(13:08):
saw you at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Oh yes, yes, And isn't it magical?
Speaker 1 (13:14):
That is whatever you felt about Plants and wanted to
emulate about Plant.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Here you go on.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Stage and sing a Stairway to Heaven and I think
I've seen one other person in my life try to
sing that music the way you did, and you blew
the roof off the building, you know I mean. And
even those guys are sitting up there in the box
with the President, I think even they were like, holy shit,
you know, this is the person that could sing this
(13:40):
song in the world.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
How did you feel going out.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
There to do that song that experience had the potential
of being extremely nervous, and it would have been easy
to take my eye off the wall and just get
all nervous and lose it, you know. So I made
up my mind just to only be in the song.
Just be in the song. That's it, and no other
(14:06):
world existed in that seven minutes.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Is that what it takes? Is that what it takes?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah? It does for me.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Do you sometimes go do a show. I'll never forget
when I would perform live and do Broadway. Not a lot,
but there was sometimes I'd sit there and go, oh God,
please don't make me go do this.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Show right now?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, yeah, I want to lay down and take a nap,
you know. But you got to find a way to
get your seat draggers. You got to become the guy
that drags yourself out there, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
That's right. Yeah, and just you've got to show up
and actually be there.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, put it out there.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Otherwise it's not fair to the people that are sitting
there watching you. I mean, you ask them to come
and sit and watch you, and then you phone it in.
I mean that's really lame. O. You know, don't do that.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
You're a mother. You adopt the two kids, but you're
nonetheless on the road. And I always feel like, whether
you have the kid yourself or they're surrogate so they're adopted,
you're still a mother. What did you have to do
to kind of protect all that when you.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Were working and you're on the road? Old? I mean,
your kids are how old now?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Twenty five and thirty three, so.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
They're still young, but there were they But when they've
been around you and in the business, what did you
try to protect them from or teach them about who
you are and what you do.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I shielded them from public view. I didn't want pictures
of them going up on the internet or anything like that,
and I'm glad I did because they have a chance
of being normal people. Now my son is a corrections
officer and my daughter is a mother of six.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
No, she has six kids.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
She just kept on going, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, I got seven kids. Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Did you find that in your life that songwriting was
something you enjoyed or was it?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Was it an effort?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
For me? It was always an effort. It was until recently,
and I think it was because in the past I
always wrote with other people, and so I was always
secretly trying.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
To please them, you know, and did and did right.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
But now I write by myself, and like the last
bunch of songs I wrote for Another Door, it's just
a joy. It's so fun. Just write everything down that
you're feeling, and then go back and tweak it and
lift out the good stuff and get rid of the
bad stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You know, you're married now, when you're married before, this
is your one marriage. This is my one marriage. So
all those years, I mean, I'm gonna put the cards
on the table. You're one of the most smoking hot
women in all of rock and roll who's also talented.
Ps is also mega talented. How did you resist all
the men just ladling jewelry at your feet and begging
(17:05):
you to marry them?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
God, if that had been the case, I don't know
whether you mean it wasn't like that ladling jewelry. Wow,
you know I had my fair share of flings, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah, but you didn't. But that didn't fit into your plan, No,
it didn't.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I was always more mission oriented about the band and
about music and everything until this one guy came along
and just suddenly that was irrelevant. Really, it's just like
everything just changed, you know, I'm sure you know what
I mean. It's it's it's just like the thing that
happens when the person comes along. When do we ever
(17:44):
think smart when we're in love? I mean, does that exist?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Hearts Ann Wilson.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be
sure to follow Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app,
Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. After the Break,
Anne Wilson shares what it was like to be estranged
from her sister for a time and how they were
able to come back together. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
(18:27):
listening to Here's the.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Thing bar and wait.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
Started pleaseing my song always Top.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
This is Ann Wilson with Miss One and Only, from
her twenty twenty three album Another Door with her band Tripsetter.
Anne Wilson has been praised as one of the greatest
singers in the history of rock, and thanks to her
legendary voice, found decades of success with her band Hearts. However,
(19:18):
Wilson revealed in the autobiography Kicking and Screaming a story
of heart, soul and rock and roll, but she has
been sober since two thousand and nine. I was curious
if there was something about the rock and roll lifestyle
that was connected to her addictions.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
A feeling of alienation. The drug itself has magnetic properties, yeah,
but above and beyond that, it was the thing to do.
And if you're a cool person, you did it. It
gave you this feeling of super confidence, blows up your
(19:58):
ego to this huge.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Did you energy?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
And then when when it came time to stop, was
it enormously difficult or did you stop? And because it
all kind of came together and you knew that was
right as well.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Well, I'll tell you it's kind of funny now. At
the time, it was probably scary to other people. But
Nancy and I decided to stop doing cocaine, and so
we stepped down onto ecstasy and we did that for
a little bit, down shifted, yeah, yeah, right, and then
(20:34):
after a while that wore within and so then it
was just no more.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Many of the biggest bands in the world, I mean,
obviously the Beatles and things like that, they go for
whatever period of time.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
In the Beatles case, you know, not that long, you know,
eight years.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, they crank out all that unique music in eight years.
But for you, your sister is your partner and then
for a while your sister is not partner.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Was that difficults It was difficult because we've always been tight.
We never allowed other people to come into our relationship
until then, and then we had we had other people saying, well,
she says this, and she says that, You know, so
it got to be a little bit of a drama.
Things have really straightened themselves out now.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Right when you got back together with her, did it
seemed like it was? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, it's feeling more and more righteous all the time
because she's been places too, so she has to soften
up too. It's not just me, right, of course, we
both have to soften back into our relationship together.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Talk about your solo work. When you started doing solo work,
was that all you did?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
You say?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Did you want to stop for a while and take
a breath, or and did other people say to you, no, man,
you got to get back out there and keep doing this,
or did you know you had to go out there
and keep doing it?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Well? You know hard it come to a natural stopping point,
not a breakup point, but just like a point where
it was out of gas right right, and I wasn't
gonna let it just become a jukebox. So that was
my cue to go out there and do something on
my own and get some new chops, you know, and
(22:21):
sing some news songs and figure some new stuff out.
You got to do that, I'm sure you know that.
As an actor, I mean, you can't just rehash the
same old ideas again and again and again.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well also can as an actor. The condition is about
the quality of the material. Where you might go do
a revival of a famous play and put your touches
on that of that role.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
And the interesting thing is, you know the material works
like this is classic literature.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Williams shaw Miller, and you want to get out there
and have a whack at that material because in the movies,
you know, they're in the potato chip business man. There
are not that many serious roles and there aren't that
many serious projects. Did you ever contemplate doing something for
a living ever in your entire life since you became
a musician, a professional musician.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
That's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, there was a time when I considered trying to
act a little bit. But I don't have that. I
don't have that in me. For me, music is the thing,
because that's the that's my literature.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
You know.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
I look at videos of you when you're younger and
you're singing crazy on you and you're singing Barracuda and
you're flicking that hair, you're tossing that hair and like
a little banshee. It'she You're this gorgeous little banshee. And
what would Anne Wilson now tell that girl back then?
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I would say do what you're doing, I mean your gut.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I may have seemed one way, but I felt ways
that were really strong back then, right, such as, you
don't treat us this way, right because we're girls. You
don't just you know, drop us by the door.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
No, you had to fight.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
You had to fight, Yeah, you had to fight the
way you were treated by a male centric business.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yes, but the type of fighting was very careful, because
you don't just want to alienate people and have them
just hate you.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
When you talk about putting into your music some of
these feelings you had. Do you think your audience got that?
I think they picked up or you didn't really care?
You got it and that's all that mattered. Did the
audience pick up on it?
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Well?
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I always really hoped that the audience got it, and
I think they did from things people have said to
me in later years, you know, like men and women alike.
I think that when they look back on some of
the songs, you know, and some of the stuff we did.
There were no other women out there except Suzi Quattro
when we started. She was the only one and she
(25:11):
was awesome. But that's one, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
My last question for you is you write songs about
what you wrote about back then? What songs do you
want to write about now when you sit down, whether
you succeed at it yet or not, or these songs
are yet to come during your solo years, what do
you want to write about now?
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Well? I wrote one called This is Now. I wrote
one called Reign of Hell, which is an anti Wars creed.
Just all different kinds of subjects, like I wrote one
about a botched back alley abortion. Wow, it's kind of
(25:53):
gently it is poetic, but that's what it's about, you know.
It's called the Little Things. When are you going down
on tour in April?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Where are you going?
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Everywhere?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Man?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Everywhere?
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Everywhere?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Man, I gotta tell you something. You're so great, Thank you,
thank you. You're such a great singer. You blow my
mind when I watch you, I listen to you, I
mean you blow. You can do everything, you can do
everything my best you and thanks for doing this with me.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Oh well, thanks for having me. I really really had.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Fun my thanks to Ann Wilson. You can find more
information about Heart's world tour at heartdash music dot com.
I'll leave you with a little more of straight on
from their nineteen seventy eight album Dog and Butterfly.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Man, Stay down, stand up for use me, stay.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Say up, Stay up.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
You need
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Stay up.
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