Heart – Nancy Wilson

Heart - Nancy Wilson

By: Lori Smerilson Carson

When you come from a musical family and music has always been your life, it’s natural that you would end up leading a world-renowned rock band which is what Guitarist/Singer/Songwriter Nancy Wilson has done and is still going strong. Starting her career that has spanned more than five decades now, she along with her sister, frontwoman Ann Wilson, has sold over thirty-five million records worldwide spawning twenty top 40 hit singles, earned a Lifetime Achievement Grammy award, and have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Presently, these extraordinary musicians are on tour, and Florida Fans can catch The Royal Flush Tour 2025 June 24^th in Jacksonville at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, June 25^th in Estero at the Hertz Arena, June 27^th in Orlando at the Kia Center and on June 28^th in Hollywood at Hard Rock Live.

Catching up with Wilson while on tour with bandmates Lead Vocalist Ann Wilson, Guitarists Ryan Wariner and Ryan Waters, Guitarist, Keyboardist, Mandolin player Paul Moak, Bassist Tony Lucido and drummer Sean Lane, she revealed some details about the show, her music, her family influence, and what fans can look forward to.

SFL Music Magazine: What can fans look forward to with the show, the Royal Flush Tour?

Nancy Wilson: This tour has been really great! First of all, we feel really kind of victorious and righteous to be able to be out here at all after Ann kicked the ass of cancer.

SFL Music Magazine: Yes, thankfully!

Wilson: We weren’t even sure we were going to be able to go out again. So, this is really sweeter than before, and the shows have been really energized. We’ve got one hundred percent live performance with our show. So, it’s a real rock band with no pre-records. I mean, anything can sort of happen at these shows (she laughed) and sometimes it does. Sometimes it’s like oops, you know. It’s weird because if we make one mistake or start over a song or something like that, people are so impressed that it’s actually really happening. It’s real live singing and playing. It’s kind of funny in a certain way. We have a very wide range; it’s a big spectrum of styles we have in our show. It ranges between real personal, romantic kind of spiritual acoustic love songs and music, and it goes all the way through funky stuff and stuff we like to dance around to, and then heavy ass rock ‘n roll like “Barracuda”. We do some (Led) Zeppelin and stuff too, and we switch it up. It’s not the same every night. We had a couple of instruments stolen at the first show in Atlantic City which we just got the second one back from the New Jersey police force that were really on it for us. We made friends with those guys (she laughed). They made sure that we got that mandolin back yesterday, and my custom-made purple sparkle Telecaster last week. So, we’re going to send them a big thank you, but tonight we might have to pull that mandolin out and do “Going to California” maybe because that’s the mandolin that was stolen and now it’s returned to its rightful home! I’m going to try to push for doing “Going to California” tonight so we can use the mandolin.

SFL Music Magazine: That’s terrible! When I heard about that I thought, who would do that? But I’m glad you got it back.

Wilson: We did get it back. It’s such a nice feeling when things go right. Like good karma kind of comes back to you because there is so much divisive, terrible, like there’s too many out there in the world that we’re just, oh my God! Something good happens, you want to make the most of it. Like, tell that story! Bring the smiles out.

SFL Music Magazine: What would you say inspires you when you write your music?

Wilson: It’s really an interesting thing. I think because we grew up with music all around us, it’s already in the DNA having a family that always had music playing. We had everything from, we went to see opera, and we loved blues, and we loved folk, and we loved classical and rock and roll, obviously. Everything from Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, to Peter, Paul and Mary. Then The Beatles came and then Led Zeppelin came along. Just all these great musical influences to be just saturated with all of our lives. So, it’s sort of an interesting thing when you also create music yourself. There’re so many things that come to you like even in a dream. A couple things have come to me. I wake up and I go, I better record this into my phone right away before it disappears. A couple of little melodies that go flying through your head. It’s not real obvious where it comes from, but I think with music in general, it’s something that’s in your cells. It’s not just a physical thing that you touch or it kind of floats around in the air because you could hear it from there. The vibrations come through the air, but it also lives in your cells. So, your body responds to it, cellular level reaction to it, and I think even in your brain cells it’s a part of your body. So, it’s sort of mysterious to me where it actually comes from. When I start writing something, I’m not even sure where it comes from. I guess it’s kind of magical is the answer.

SFL Music Magazine: When I interviewed Ann a few years ago, she talked about like you previously said, that you both came from a musical family.

Wilson: Right.

SFL Music Magazine: How do you think that may have contributed to the success that you both have had? Just having that encouragement?

Wilson: Oh totally. Our mom and dad were both singers in a choir. We all played ukulele’s, aunts and uncles, Grandparents too. We had old English pub songs we would sing together. We’d tell ghost stories by the fireplace with our grandparents. Sing songs and tell stories. Very family ethical humor and music that we were lucky enough to be born into, and our third sister, we have three sisters. Lynn is the oldest of us three, and we had like a little small ensemble harmony band for a minute when I was ten. Then me and Ann started making bands together when Lynn went to college when I was twelve. It was just always about music, and really lucky to be in that definite direction. It was like destiny pointed me to my career from such an early age and I feel completely lucky about that today. My two twin boys are twenty-five now and they’re finding their way. Finding what their calling is supposed to be, but I knew at such a young age. I feel completely blessed by that.

SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything else new that you want people to know about? Anything new coming out for Heart?

Wilson: One detail is, I have a new bonus track at the merch booth at the show with my solo album I put out a couple years ago, but there’s a bonus track on there now available on the CD. It’s a duet that I did with Ben Gibbard, Death Cab for Cutie singer. It’s a song I worked on with our Heart’s collaborator Sue Ennis, and Ben Gibbard and me sing it together. It’s just a cool new song that’s out there if anybody is interested. It’s right now only available at the Heart show, but we’re getting it ready for Spotify and we’re going to do a vinyl and all that stuff too.

SFL Music Magazine: Is Heart going to be making any new music?

Wilson: Well for now we’re a touring company and that’s going to be until Christmas. So, next year we’re probably going to talk about some new material, but Ann’s got some new stuff with her side project Tripsitter which they’re going to do some new music that they’ve been working on. I’ve got other new songs for my solo stuff coming out after this tour. So, we’re just staying creative, but an actual Heart thing, not sure yet until we get off the road. It’s likely (she laughed).

SFL Music Magazine: Everyone can look forward to that! Was there anything you wanted to add?

Wilson: Just the thing that we do with our show is one hundred percent live. So, there’s no pre-records and it’s a real rock band, so we feel kind of like we’re among the last of the real rock bands roaming the earth these days (she laughed). It’s a good show! Anybody, come on out! See us!

SFL Music Magazine readers – please look for the entire interview in our July issue!