A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock &Roll
By Ann &Nancy Wilson
The mystery of “Magic Man.” Thewicked riff of “Barracuda.” The sadness and beauty of “Alone.” The raw energyof “Crazy On You.” These songs, and so many more, are part of the fabric ofAmerican music. Heart, fronted by Ann and Nancy Wilson, has given fanseverywhere classic, raw, and pure badass rock and roll for more than threedecades. As the only sisters in rock who write their own music and play theirown instruments, Ann and Nancy have always stood apart—certainly from theirmale counterparts but also from their female peers. By refusing to letthemselves and their music be defined by their gender, and by never allowingtheir sexuality to overshadow their talent, the Wilson sisters have made theirmark, and in the process paved the way for many of today’s female artists.
In Kickingand Dreaming (It Books; On Sale:September 18, 2012; $27.99; ISBN: 9780062101679), Ann and Nancy, with the help of critically acclaimedand bestselling music biographer Charles R. Cross, recount a journey that hastaken them from a gypsy-like life as the children of a globe-trotting Marine tothe frozen back roads of Vancouver, where they got their start as a band, tothe pinnacle of success—and sometimes excess. In these pages, readers willlearn the truth about the relationship that inspired “Magic Man” and “Crazy OnYou,” the turmoil of interband romances gone awry, the reality of life on theroad as single women and then as mothers of small children, and the thrill ofperforming and in some cases partying with the likes of the Rolling Stones,Stevie Nicks, Van Halen, Def Leppard, and other rock legends. It has not alwaysbeen an easy path. Ann struggled with and triumphed over a childhood stutter,body image, and alcoholism; Nancy suffered the pain and disappointment offertility issues and a failed marriage but ultimately found love again andhappiness as a mom. Through it all, the sisters drew from the strength of afamily bond that trumps everything else, as told in this intimate, honest, anduniquely female take on the rock and roll life.
ANN& NANCY WILSON arethe leaders of the rock band Heart, whose albums have sold thirty-five millionrecords worldwide. They continue to tour all over the world and will releasetheir latest studio album, Fanatic, in 2012. Visit:http://www.heart-music.com/
CHARLESR. CROSS isthe author of seven books, including HeavierThan Heaven, a New York Timesbestselling biography of Kurt Cobain; RoomFull of Mirrors, a bestselling biography of Jimi Hendrix; and two books onLed Zeppelin. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
BOOK TOUR DATES
Monday,September 17, 2012 – 7:00 PM
33 E 17 ST New York, NY 10017
Tuesday,September 18, 2012 – 7:00 PM
BOOK REVUE
313 New York Ave Huntington, NY 11743
Thursday, September 27, 2012 – 7:00PM
BARNES AND NOBLE/TheGrove
189 The Grove Dr Los Angeles, CA 90036
About the new album:
Anyone who has turned on the radio in the last several decades knowsHeart intimately. California born Seattle bred sisters Nancy and Ann Wilson arebehind some of rock’s most iconic hits from the wild call of “Barracuda” to theepic lilt of “Magic Man” to the deranged shriek of “Crazy On You.” Nancy’s guitarand Ann’s wail are practically part of the national archive, indelible elementsof American pop culture. In their nearly forty years as a band the Wilsonsisters have been lauded as sex symbols, idealized as feminist icons, andworshiped by critics and fans alike, selling over 35 million albums worldwideand thrilling audiences with their raucous live show. But as the band gear upfor the October 2nd release of a brand new studio album, Fanatic, as wellas their first ever biography, Kicking and Dreaming: A Story of Heart,Soul and Rock and Roll the question isn’t where has Heart been but whereare they going next?
“When you’re pushing sixty you know what you want and you go for it,”Nancy says. “You’re not going to test it out for five or ten years, you’regoing to get in the car and drive.”
After rising to rock power in the 70s Heart racked up massive hits fromtheir debut (in 1976) all the way through the 90s including songs like “TheseDreams,” and “Alone.” Then, in the 2000s the Wilson sisters focused on otherpriorities. Nancy composed and performed award winning film scoresto Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. Ann developed her career asa solo artist. But you can’t keep Heart quiet for too long. In 2010 the bandreturned to the Billboard Top 10 with the release of Red VelvetCar and a Top 5 DVD Night at Sky Church. The subsequent tourreinvigorated the sister’s taste for live performance and life on the road butas they looked forward to recording another record, something seemed to be inthe way: their past.
For years friends and colleagues had been asking the sisters to do abook about Heart and it just didn’t feel right. “They always came to us with areal lascivious tabloid-y type idea,” Ann says. “You know - think of theugliness and the dirtiness – but that’s so one dimensional. We’ve had momentsof failure and vulnerability and humiliation, sure, but ours is also the storyof women who are being told there are rules to follow and just won’t do it.” Inthe wake of the success of Red Velvet Car it felt like it was finallytime to tell the true story of Heart’s past as a means of embracing Heart’sfuture. So the sisters decided to collaborate with veteran music journalist andSeattle rock scene expert Charles R. Cross, who also wrote the definitiveNirvana biography, Heavier Than Heaven as well as Roomful of Mirrors, abiography of Jimi Hendrix. “We figured if anyone can get the true rock and rollstory of it all it’s going to be him,” Ann says.
Once they knew the book was happening, in typical Wilson sister fashionthey didn’t hold back. “There’s really no point in going through all of this ifyou’re going to write a white wash – we really hung ourselves out there,” Annsays. Nancy agrees “I started talking about the book with Charley while I wasgoing through a divorce, which was really hard, but later I was able to havethe objectivity to come at the entire book from a healed sort of place. Wedon’t leave much unsaid.” While they were mining the deep past with Cross, theWilson sisters were also pulling shoeboxes out from under their beds, so tospeak, in search of special rarities to include on the first ever Heart boxset, Strange Euphoria, which came out in June. “Part of the Devil’sbargain we’ve made with the industry is that there’s a very tight idea of whatthe outside world perceives Heart to be and a lot of the time the songs we’vecome up with don't fit that,” Ann explains. “We really do have multiple facesand this box set shows that.”
Between the book and the box set, the Wilson sisters had fullyexorcized the past and now it was time to think about the future; they startedwriting songs that would become Fanatic. “We did it every possible way,”Nancy remembers. “We had many nights together on the tour bus. Then, when I wasin LA and Ann was in Seattle we were each emailing each other lyrics ideas and[producer] Ben Mink groove ideas.” The threesome eventually congregated in thesister’s hometown outside of Seattle and had a series of what Nancy callssongwriting “pow wows.” When it came time to record, the band’s approach wasorganic, very much in keeping with their roots as true performance orientedrock band. “These days things are formulated digitally or layered or looped andassembled but this is live groove,” Nancy explains. “It was our mission to goin there and capture the energy as it magically happens without too muchover-thinking or repetition, just letting it escape.” When you put the Wilsonsisters plus some trusted musicians in a room with instructions to feel their wayaround, great things happen. “You do a take and you listen and you go that’s sogreat, but that’s not the one, and then you go and have a snack and keep goingand suddenly it’s like everybody’s hair goes up and it’s like: that’s the one!”Nancy says with glee.
From the crackling guitar noise and vicious drumbeat that drives albumopener and title track “Fanatic” through the scorched-earth power of trackslike the “Mashallah” Fanatic is definitely a full-bodied Americanrock and roll record. “I place it really highly among the albums we’ve made,right along side Little Queen or Dog & Butterfly,”Nancy says. “Those are two really heavy hitting albums and this one hasthat same spark.” But the record's power is nuanced. “Million Miles,” hasdelectably ominous prog rock undertones, the collaboration with SarahMcLachlan, “Walkin’ Good,” has a sweet folky delicacy, and “Pennsylvania”is a poetic painting of a ballad. Among the album’s stand outs is also “DearOld America,” which blends Heart’s signature rollicking rock and roll guitarswith poignant lyrics about soldiers coming home from war, a topic close to bothsisters’ hearts since they were born and raised as Marine corps brats. As itshould, the title track most succinctly encapsulates the spirit of Fanatic.“I thought of Nancy who is so devoted to the idea of love and especially to theidea of romantic love,” Ann recalls. “She will not take no for an answer. Thereis no way you could ever convince her that it’s not real. She will not hear it.She’s a true fanatic about love, and I thought how cool and inspiring isthat? The meaning then grows to become aworldview.”
Honoring your past while believing in the beauty and power of what’s tocome has always been central to Heart’s ethos - it’s reflected in the brashnessand defiant emotion of their signature sound. No one should besurprised that at this point in their career the desire to make emotional,rebellious music has only intensified. “We always joke around thatwe are warriors for love,” Nancy says. “We are the peace core and guitars anddreams are our lethal weapons. We say yes to inspiration. Say yes to theimpossible impractical thing. We say yes to love. We go out in the trenches andfields with our weapons and shoot.”
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