By Scott Cronick
Siblings in the rock world have had their share of issues. From Oasis to the Black Crowes, the world loves a good sibling rivalry.
But, when it comes to Heart, the Wilson sisters — lead singer Ann and her guitar-slinging sis Nancy — are the anomaly.
Celebrating 50 years since Heart released their world-shattering debut “Dreamboat Annie,” the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers are back on the road for a summer tour that lands at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City 8 p.m. Saturday, May 31.
With more than 35 million albums sold worldwide thanks to 20 Top 40 singles, Heart will bring their chart-dominating anthems like “Magic Man,” “Barracuda,” “Crazy on You,” “These Dreams” and other timeless fan favorites to Atlantic City.
Nancy Wilson took the time to talk about Heart’s five decades and what you can expect on Saturday at Hard Rock.
SCOTT CRONICK: More than five decades later, Nancy Wilson and the gang are back on the road for the summer traveling all over. Do you ever think of what it would be like if you didn’t do this rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle and how long you could sit still?
NANCY WILSON: Yeah, 50 years since the first album (“Dreamboat Annie”) and the gypsy life … you’re on a tour bus. I don’t know. I mean, being home is nice and you can do your laundry and look at your mail, but not for very long. You really want to get on those stages and rock and exchange that electric energy and the spark that flies between you and the songs and the people that come to see you.
SC: Sounds like a great job?
NW: It’s just like the best job, the only job, it’s my only skill … so, it’s the best job I could possibly have. And I know how to do it.
SC: Yeah, Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows told Howard Stern he didn’t know what he would do because he doesn’t really have any other employable skills.
NW: Yeah, that’s what I feel like, too. I mean, Paul McCartney would tell you the same thing.
SC: What’s it like on the road now as opposed 50 years ago?
NW: You have to kind of create the space for yourself to be warmed up and to be really capable of getting out there and moving well and dancing and doing the vocal exercises in advance of getting up on the stage and singing along … doing the yoga stretches and the breathing and the squats and all of that.
It doesn’t get easier. When you’re in your 20s and 30s and 40s, you’re made out of (more) rubber than you are at our level of experience and age and all that. It’s really a great challenge, but it’s also the most rewarding thing to get right and to go out and be able to have fun and do that. There’s a lot of young people coming out to our shows now. It’s really cool. The word of mouth has been strong. Our show is really a good family show because there’s really young kids, college-age kids and a lot of our older folks that are original Heart fans that are closer to our age. It’s kind of a really cool. It’s like a prayer meeting for rock ’n’ roll … great songs and people singing along. It’s really a fun rock show that goes from “Barracuda” to “Alone.”
SC: Atlantic City always seems to be part of your regimen. Any thoughts about Atlantic City?
NW: Well, it’s kind of an interesting city because it’s kind of the other Sin City. It’s kind of the East Coast gambling kind of town. So, there’s a lot of craziness that comes with it and it’s very much a rock town because there’s an edge going on because of the gambling and the casino world of it all. So, it’s one of a kind in its characters. The whole Atlantic City seaboard is really one of a kind. And I always think of Bruce Springsteen when I’m there. I always think of Springsteen and his songs and the style of the East Coast.
SC: So you’re kind of on a break right now and then restarting the tour here at Hard Rock?
NW: Well, we were out a couple of times before this year, last year as well, and we had kind of an intermission when Ann had to go and kick the ass of cancer, which she did. And now we’re going back out. This is our second leg of this run in June. And then we’re going out in August, and we’re probably going out in October. So, we’re finishing up the year with about 60 shows this year. We know how to do it. So, we go out and do it, and we’re good at it.
SC: Anything on this tour that might differ from the last time you were in Atlantic City?
NW: Right now we’re kind of brainstorming. We’ve got a think tank with the band, and we’re talking about something interesting and cool like pulling out some really cool older songs we haven’t done for a while.
Like one of them is called “Down On Me” that we’re going to try to do. It’s like a blues number. And there’s one called “You’re The Boys” that we haven’t done. But you can always rely on the standards that you want to hear when you come see Heart because we can’t not do that.
SC: Like you said, it’s hard to believe it’s 50 years since “Dreamboat Annie” hit those record store shelves with “Magic Man,,” the title track, “Crazy On You” … did you ever expect in the studio when you started this thing that this rock album was going to be what it’s ends up being?
NW: It was interesting because we were Beatles fans from the very beginning and music fans from a musical family and military family, too. So, we had the dogged determination of certainty that we were going to be proficient and good enough at doing it, that it was going to work. We had all this confidence and somehow it actually did work. So, we were really lucky that way, but we had hubris around it … military brats, it’s like nothing will stop us from having big success with our music.
And when Ann has a voice like she has, and I’m consumed by knowing how to do the guitar pretty well … then there was no reason why it shouldn’t work out for us, and I guess it actually did.
SC: Mike Flicker produced that debut album, and I guess the word they always use when it comes to producer was “polish” or “finesse.” What did he do to help you in your first time in the studio?
NW: A lot of people in the music industry, we like to say, have their ears painted on. You know, his ears were not painted on — he had really, really good ears. And with the sensibility to bring that analog kind of sound to tube compression, not to get too technical, but the real physical tape that we had and the soundboard that was in the room at Vancouver, where we recorded that album, had been at Muscle Shoals. It was a hit-making sounding electronics inside the actual guts of the board itself … really kind of special. So, between all of that and Mike Flicker’s wonderful ears that were not painted on, we had a really good chance to make it a great-sounding album, and it became one of the albums that was like an audiophile’s (dream) … It was categorized in the audiophile category for a really good-sounding record of the day of its time. So yeah, we really got lucky.
SC: Was there a producer along the way that really stands out?
NW: We’ve worked with a few great producers, one of them named Ron Nevison, who we did the self-titled “Heart” album in the ’80s with “These Dreams,” which was our first No. 1, and “Alone” and “What About Love” and some other really, really landmark ’80s kind of ballad songs and big rockers. He really had a knack for a hit song and we were at that point looking at outside material from some of the L.A. stable songwriters that were having hits at the time with bands like Aerosmith and Whitesnake and Bon Jovi and all of that era. All those bands were doing the same thing with producers like Ron Nevison and a lot of the digital technology was brand new at the time, so there were all these new sounds that we were getting with digital, with all these synthesized keyboards and layers of keyboards and things that sometimes still sound good today like a song like “Alone,” which I still say could be any era. It could have been World War I or World War II, romantic ballad … it’s always really the song itself more than the production that sticks to your ribs.
SC: What did the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame mean to you?
NW: You know, it really did (mean a lot). I mean, me and Ann have been the constant inside the Heart band, the perception of what Heart is. We’ve had lots of different players in the band, but the original lineup we had, they were proud of us and proud of themselves for having pulled it off to begin with. And there was no extra drama really around it … unlike most of the other times when bands have to go and play with their first original lineup. There’s usually way more drama.
But in our case, we were kinda flower children when we all started out. We were kind of hippies. And so we had a sense of community that I think carried through even when we were much older later. And it still does. We’re still friends.
SC: So (Soundgarden’s and fellow Seattle musician) Chris Cornell inducts you and, with his passing, it must really make that so special?
NW: He was so fantastic of a rock singer, a lot like the male version of an Ann Wilson. They’re just born to sing … those kinds of singers. And he was such a sensitive soul and he had so many issues just trying to make it in his own right, trying to be famous in the Seattle scene at the time. He really looked up to me and I didn’t realize that he had so much admiration for us until we heard him induct us in the beautiful speech that he wrote. And it was really touching. It was really emotional, actually.
I thought he was just so good-looking and kind of stuck-up because he was really quiet around us, but I guess it turned out he was really nervous to even talk to us because he had this admiration. He was kind of a fanboy, and the induction was the first time I really realized how much he admired us. Before there was grunge, there was Heart, right? I mean, everyone knows Seattle for grunge, but Heart … is that band. And Ray Charles came out of Seattle and The Wailers and The Sonics and a lot of really cool bands.
SC: You have written some of the most memorable guitar riffs. Whose riffs always inspired you?
NW: Jimmy Page’s riffs … he was a riffer. I just watched “Becoming Led Zeppelin,” and that documentary is so inspiring. It kind of dawned on me that his guitar riffs are part of the songwriting process. Like, his riffs are the song. The riffs themselves are almost like lyrics to the song. It’s such an integral part of what the song gives you. And I think riffs like “Barracuda” and “Crazy on You” are the same kind of deal.
SC: It’s been almost 10 years since there has been a Heart album. Do you think that there will be new Heart music?
NW: We’re always doing new music, always staying warmed up as a songwriter is really important. And I’ve been doing some new stuff and actually doing other new songwriting with her other players who also play in Heart at this time. But a proper Heart album right now has … we’ve got to just get the tour done.
Heart performs 8 p.m. Saturday, May 31, at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino’s Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena. Tickets, starting at $97, are available at Ticketmaster or HardRockHotelAtlanticCity.com)
Scott Cronick is an award-winning journalist who has written about entertainment, food, news and more in South Jersey for nearly three decades. He hosts a daily radio show – “Off The Press with Scott Cronick” – 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays on Newstalk WOND 1400-AM, 92.3-FM, and WONDRadio.com, and he also co-owns Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in Atlantic City, while working on various projects, including charitable efforts, throughout the area. He can be reached at scronick@comcast.net.
