After more than five decades in the industry, Heart’s dedication to keeping rock music alive is stronger than ever before.
One of the many ways in which the Grammy Award-nominated band preserves the genre is by performing with all live instruments and no pre-recorded tracks while on tour.
“We’re totally a skin-in-the-game rock band,” guitarist and founding member Nancy Wilson told MassLive in an interview. “It’s human up there and there’s a certain kind of edginess because it’s happening one time only that particular way.”
Heart resumed the band’s “Royal Flush Tour” in February after postponing it last year as Nancy’s sister, lead singer Ann Wilson, had to be treated for cancer.
The band will be at the Agganis Arena in Boston on Sunday, April 11 as part of the tour, which is Heart’s first after a five-year hiatus.
Ann, 74, was advised to “undergo a course of preventive chemotherapy” after doctors discovered a cancerous lump on her body during an operation, MassLive previously reported.
Wilson stepped away from the stage for the rest of 2024 to fully recover. Fast forward to today and Ann “is doing really great,” according to her sister.
“The cancer’s gone,” Nancy Wilson said. “She definitely kicked cancer’s ass.”
Anne has also been performing on stage in a chair after the singer broke her elbow from slipping on an icy porch while the band was leaving a rehearsal in Nashville. However, that hasn’t stopped the powerhouse vocalist from singing.
“The rock show doesn’t suffer somehow,” Nancy Wilson said, adding that her sister won’t be forced to sit down during shows for much longer.
“Even when she’s sitting in a chair, she still belts out,” Wilson said. “It’s just really been fun and even sweeter because we got to resume where we weren’t sure we were going to be able to ever come back.”
Wilson said Heart’s shows on the arena tour have felt “like a big rock room,” adding that they sound “like rock and roll in the seventies.”
This was actually the same decade in which Heart was first introduced to the world.
Heart was officially formed in 1973 with the band’s debut album “Dreamboat Annie” coming in 1975. Therefore, 2025 marks the 50th anniversary the album that contained two of Heart’s signature hits: “Crazy on You” and “Magic Man.”
“Magic Man” was the first of Heart’s nine singles to reach the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart over the band’s decades-long career.
Heart would go on to release more than a dozen more albums and rule rock radio with hits such as “Barracuda,” “What About Love?,” and “Alone,” among many others. The band has sold more than 35 million records worldwide and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.
“We feel gratitude to be able to continue and have this power and the strength,” Wilson said. “I just feel real lucky, I guess, and victorious to be able to still do this and pull it off in a good way.”
The guitarist feels that rock music “needs to be more alive today than it has needed to for a while.”
“The really oppressive cultural, political atmosphere these days is a good setup for a new artistic renaissance and an open-mindedness in the arts to come back and show its face again,” Wilson said.
The musician tipped her hat to several current and up-and-coming bands that she feels embody this rock rebirth. These acts include the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Muna and boygenius, who Wilson said ”can rock as well as do really tender, beautiful acoustic music.”
Wilson is also helping to nurture the next generation of artists through her production company called Roadcase Management.
She specifically mentioned country artist Deloyed Elze, who just got a recording contract, and Madisenxoxo who is working on new music.
“It’s really refreshing to see these people that are great songwriters and performers and singers doing their homework and really getting good at it, being proficient with it and going out and playing live,” Wilson said. “It’s just really cool to see the full circle coming back around for young, talented people like that.”
But perhaps Wilson’s proudest mentoring moment came when her 2-year-old granddaughter showed interest in playing the ukulele and singing.
The moment was captured in an adorable Instagram video from March 2 that was captioned, “When grandma shows baby girl around the guitar.”
“I had to post it because I was so proud of my little prodigy that I’m creating,” Wilson said.
“She can’t say a lot of words yet, but she really had attention for music,” Wilson added. “I get to be a very proud grandma and she’ll be a total rockstar before she’s five.”
Wilson says sharing music with her family “means the world to me.”
Her eclectic music taste is a result of her upbringing and her 25-year-old twin sons introducing Wilson to new artists.
“We grew up with everything from opera to Judy Garland to The Beatles,” said Wilson, who believes the first album she ever bought was “Innervisions” by Stevie Wonder. “I really mix it up.”
Wilson prefers to listen to soft electronic music while working out or weight training, so she’ll often put on Air, Daft Punk, or Kasey Musgraves’ “Deeper Well,” an album that Wilson said is “as good as the ‘Golden Hour’ album.”
Wilson also frequently listens to the “Déjà Vu” album by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to help warm up before shows, Neil Young’s “Barn” album and anything by Radiohead.
When it comes to being outspoken on political issues, Wilson does not feel the need for Heart to be as vocal as some other bands including Dropkick Murphys and Green Day. Heart’s legacy as a female-fronted group that inherently stands for women’s freedom and rights says enough.
“All those things are embodied in the art itself that we project,” the guitarist said.
However, Wilson does feel that it is important for others to filter through the noise and understand the true arguments that are being presented in today’s political climate.
“It’s just a lot of noise and static of people taking sides and pointing fingers that just goes nowhere. It’s like spinning wheels all over the place,” Wilson said. “You just have to tune it out and just pay attention to what’s real and what feels human and the message that comes from an actual person.”
Wilson believes this is best felt in a live setting where “there’s nothing false going on. There’s nothing fake. It’s real news. It’s not fake. It is rock news.”
“It’s in the moment and it’s a big powerful electric jolt that feels really good to be part of,” she said. “That’s one thing music does for everyone.”
One Heart performance that embodied that feel was at the Kennedy Center Honors for Led Zeppelin in 2012, which Wilson considers to be one of the most viral things Heart has done.
The Wilson sisters covered “Stairway to Heaven” with Jason Bonham, the son of Led Zeppelin’s late drummer John Bonham, along with a choir, strings and horns.
“It was just such an iconic experience to be able to do that,” Wilson said, calling the ceremony a “life-altering day.”
Heart had dealt with several obstacles leading up to the show with the biggest being little rehearsal time because the band was on tour.
To make the experience even more nerve-wracking, Heart was performing in front of Led Zeppelin’s three surviving members: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones. President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and many other dignitaries were in attendance as well.
“Thank God we could not see them from where we performed because I would’ve screwed it up for sure,” Wilson said. “The moment we walked out, me and Anne had to just stop and look straight into each other’s faces and take this long, deep cleansing breath.”
Heart delivered a show-stopping rendition of “Stairway to Heaven,” which Plant later called “a spectacular performance,” Rayo reported at the time.
“We just kind of accomplished it and it wasn’t too nervous or too fast,” Wilson said. “It was restrained and it was correct and it was one chance only and it worked.”
An agent at the time told Heart that the band’s performance warranted them an opening spot for The Rolling Stones, which is something Wilson would love to cross off her bucket list.
“I’ll take an offer from the Stones,” she said with a chuckle.
