Arizona Daily Star, January 28th 2010
Nancy Wilson is understandably excited these days.
She and big sister Ann Wilson are catching a gusty second wind with their band, Heart. They are finishing a new album – their first studio effort in six years – and their fan base is getting larger and younger.
“There’s so much excitement right now,” Nancy, 55, said during a phone call from home in Los Angeles last week. “We’re about to do a cover shoot for the new album. The new album is getting really close. . . . It’s appearing in front of our eyes.”
Set to be released in July, the album follows 2004’s “Jupiter’s Darling.” It’s the fruit of years of touring with this lineup of musicians, which Nancy Wilson calls strong and exciting.
Wilson won’t disclose the album’s name – there’s a fan club contest centered on it – and she can’t really define it beyond saying it’s not a rehash of their signature 1970s and ’80s driving rock and monster ballads.
“It’s not just big rock, big metal or electronic sound. It’s really human,” she says. “But it also rocks harder because of that, because it’s more personal. There’s a lot of electric and a lot of acoustic and big drums and small moments. We’re kind of a variety show in that way. But it’s real cohesive.
“So see it’s hard to describe: ‘It’s really cohesive, but it’s really dynamic, but it’s really hard, but it’s really soft.’ I guess you have to hear it.”
Unfortunately, the band isn’t ready to play the new material live, so Tucson won’t hear any of it on Sunday, when Heart will play at the Desert Diamond Casino to make up for a canceled October date. The band had to bail out when most of its members came down with the flu.
“That was the H1N1 – the biggie,” she says. “We’ve played a lot of times when we were really sick, but that was a little bigger than we could handle.”
The new album is the latest chapter in the four-decade story of the trailblazing rockers. The sisters helped pave the way for other female rockers with a string of hits such as “Magic Man,” “What About Love,” “These Dreams,” “Straight On,” “Barracuda” and “The Woman in Me.”
In their 1970s and ’80s heyday, they sold out arenas worldwide on the strength of critically acclaimed albums, starting with their 1976 debut, “Dreamboat Annie.”
In the mid-1990s, the sisters took a break to raise families – both have two children – and to pursue other projects.
Ann, 59, released a solo album, “Hope & Glory,” in 2007.
Nancy worked on the soundtracks for several movies of her husband, Cameron Crowe, including “Almost Famous,” “Jerry Maguire” and “Vanilla Sky.”
The two returned to touring in 2002, reuniting with longtime fans and introducing themselves to new audiences.
“In the last three or four years, more and more very young kids are showing up, and they are just muscling their way to the front row. It’s been fantastic,” Nancy Wilson says, adding that the band’s resurgence is courtesy of the video game “Guitar Hero,” TV’s “American Idol” and the country’s fascination with the 1980s. “The kids know the music. They know our songs.”
Even Wilson’s twin sons, who turned 10 last Saturday, are fans. On the road with mom, “they just get their feathers fluffed up. ‘Oh, mom. You rock, mom!’
“It’s just so great to be ‘cool,’ at least for a while – until the morning of their 13th birthday,” she jokes.
Ask her what is left to do in a career studded with so many milestones and merit, and Wilson becomes even more philosophical.
“Everything’s left to do,” she says, sounding every bit a rocker on the rise.