Heart beating for Wilson sisters
New album revisits their musical roots while new book tells an honest tale of rock and roll
There is little doubt that Heart, the sister duo of Ann and Nancy Wilson, has been getting back in touch with its roots lately.
Their most recent albums, Red Velvet Car and Fanatic (released Tuesday), have a distinct crunch, a sound harkening back to the band’s early days.
The Wilson sisters are certainly espousing their former “Little Led Zeppelin” nickname in full force on Fanatic, the title track hinting at the riff from Misty Mountain Hop, while the massive Mashallah takes its cue from the string-laden stomp of Kashmir, Ann Wilson’s vocals soaring on what could easily have been a Soundgarden track.
Their return to a decidedly “Pacific Northwest sound” is no fluke.
Heart has been revisiting its entire career, and recently released a three-disc compilation entitled Strange Euphoria and a biography written with Charles R. Cross, Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul and Rock & Roll.
“There’s a certain amount of retrospection going through our minds right now because of the book,” Ann Wilson says over the phone from her home in Seattle. “I think unconsciously we became the garage band lurking inside.”
Revisiting the band’s history, including some of the more tumultuous moments between her and Nancy, past relationships, sex and the drugs mixed in the band’s career path, wasn’t easy.
“Some of the more painful parts of life — you’re just so glad they’re over and that you’ve moved on,” she says. “The first time I read the first draft, it took me a couple of days to recover — ‘Oh boy. Are we really gonna do this?’ — But I’m glad we did.”
Cross’s pedigree includes Heavier Than Heaven, the bestselling biography of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.
“It was kind of like therapy in a way, especially working with Charles: He’s a good friend and a trustworthy person. We didn’t want to be 100 per cent salacious with it, but we wanted to tell a true rock story.”
Fanatic contains more than a few nods to Vancouver, where the band temporarily relocated in the mid-’70s. The most obvious is the autobiographical Rock Deep, with its lyrics mentioning multiple Vancouver landmarks and documenting Ann’s journey from Seattle to Vancouver in 1971 to live with boyfriend Michael Fisher, who ended up wearing multiple hats for Heart, including that of manager, after he dodged the Vietnam War draft.
Rock Deep somehow acts as a complement to Magic Man, the song inspired by Fisher that Ann wrote in answer to her mother asking her to come home.
Then there is acoustic number Walkin’ Good, a lovely duet between Nancy Wilson and Vancouver songstress Sarah McLachlan.
“When you live in the Pacific Northwest, (the border) tends to become more of a dotted line. You roam around. That’s your homeland. It was really amazing to work with Sarah. I think she and Nancy sound amazing together. She’s so talented, so sweet. And of course (Grammy-winning producer) Ben Mink was the catalyst — another Vancouverite.” Heart tours Canada in March. Canadian winters have long become a familiar sight for the Wilson sisters, and Ann knows what it means to make the trek from one icy Canadian city to another.
Even in recent years the band experienced winter mishaps, their tour bus breaking down on the side of the road. If anything, Ann says, the weather and the vastness of the space separating those small populated pockets taught Heart about resiliency in its early days.
“It took a long time for us to get from Vancouver to Calgary or out to Saskatchewan to do a gig,” Ann recalls. “I don’t think we drove all the way out to Winnipeg. By that time we were on buses and stuff. It’s a huge expanse and it’s not that many people, so you go and go to get to them.”
The conversation inevitably turns to the impending sale of the former home of Mushroom Studios (currently occupied by Hipposonic Studios) on West 6th Avenue in Vancouver, where Heart recorded its breakout landmark Dreamboat Annie in 1975, an album that contains some of the band’s best material, including Magic Man and Crazy On You.
“They’ve preserved it impeccably, almost like a museum. It’s sad they can’t make a go of it. As a former studio owner myself in Seattle (Wilson and her sister ran Bad Animals Studio, once home to Neil Young, Nirvana, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam), I know that it’s very rough. I can’t imagine what it would be like in this economy.”
Wilson says changes in technology are one of many factors involved in the demise of recording studios, and that there isn’t as much of a draw to go pay “by the hour” to work in a big studio.
Case in point, Fanatic was recorded in multiple locations, including hotel rooms and on the band’s tour bus, thanks to mobile recording technology and iPhones.
Most of the mixing, Ann says, was done at Seattle’s Studio X, former home of Bad Animals Studio.
“That’s why sonically (Fanatic) came out like it did. It’s definitely what you call the ‘Northwest sound.’ I think we just stepped back and relaxed into it.”
As far as the band’s longawaited entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (the band was nominated last year, and Heart was included on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last week), Wilson says those kinds of honours don’t define the band.
“Rock is a force. It’s a greedy, rebellious force that self-perpetuates without acknowledgment. That’s really how we feel about our band and our music.”