“The high road and positivity is never the easy way but always the best way.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I feel like I’ve had a lot of painful situations that I intentionally delete from my memory.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I think if there’s a support system in place, and you’re acting adult-to-adult with a sense of unconditional love and forgiveness, only good things will come from any relationship between men and women.”
― Nancy Wilson
“There was a lot of procrastination on Cameron’s part because of the personal nature of ‘Almost Famous.’ There was a lot of deep, dark doubt about even doing it. I don’t mind being a cheerleader, but I did reach my limit quite a few times. I do my own writing, so I understand, but I was pushed to the point of anger with the insecurity of it.”
― Nancy Wilson
“One of the signature things about Heart was the acoustic guitar in a rock format, which you didn’t hear that often.”
― Nancy Wilson
“When you’re in your twenties, your brain hasn’t even finished baking, and your hormones are giving you all kinds of direction of which ways to go.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Music changes kids, and kids change the world.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We see what music can do for people. Hell, we see what music does for us! When you see thousands of people out in front of you, it’s fixing their lives. It’s helping. It’s healing. It’s bigger than the inconvenience of jealousy or emotional storm clouds.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I’ll work my butt off to do something well.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I’m a Katy Perry fan, and I took my kids to go see her, and it was a great show, and she really can sing, and she really can play.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We’ve come through on a very strange path, and it’s all somehow worked out.”
― Nancy Wilson
“’Heartless’ is something Ann and I wrote together.”
― Nancy Wilson
“My highest score karaoke song is ‘Ben,’ by Michael Jackson.”
― Nancy Wilson
“My favorite acoustic is the Nancy Wilson Signature Martin.”
― Nancy Wilson
“As a songwriter, simplicity – what not to do, what not to play – can be the hardest thing to achieve.”
― Nancy Wilson
“There have never been a lot of female guitarists out there, so most of my influences were male. Acoustically, I followed Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon. Also, John Lennon and Paul McCartney – both incredible acoustic guitar players.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We came from an era when women normally did not rock.”
― Nancy Wilson
“What Jimmy Page did was pretty inspiring for guitar players. He married a lot of acoustic elements into hard rock. The kind of chords he used were very left of center, with a lot of dissonance – I absorbed that like a sponge. It’s all over the music I write, always.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I saw Led Zeppelin live for the first time when I was thirteen.”
― Nancy Wilson
“The electric guitar was a big step for me, but I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to adjust. It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, little lady, come strap on this here big guitar.’ We took it in steps as much as possible.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We’re not just ‘ladies in rock.’ We’re weird people!”
― Nancy Wilson
“I don’t think anyone does Rush songs except for Rush.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We’re notorious for living up to our namesake. We’re all about love. That’s how we roll, even when it’s to a fault.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I like playing. Guitar… on a loud rock stage… with colored lights. Everything sounds better with colored lights!”
― Nancy Wilson
“I think there were a couple really good songs on ‘Whirlygig.’”
― Nancy Wilson
“The Lovemongers came together because we felt kind of overinflated by the end of the Eighties.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I was always so jealous of a band like Fleetwood Mac, for instance, where Christine McVie would sing a whole bunch of songs even though Stevie was the obvious lead singer. It added variety to their shows.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Our mom was a super strident, capable, and strong individual. I think because she was a military wife in the Marine Corps, she had to push back the things that she believed, and she had to really scrape and fight to have her space.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Everyone makes mistakes.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Heart weren’t part of a movement like grunge; we were our own kind of movement.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I really love singing. I love singing harmony, mostly.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Generally, I think of myself as a guitar player, but when I do find the right song to sing lead on, I try to do my best.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We get notes sent to us backstage from college students that say, ‘My parents used to play your albums all the time! I grew up with you, and I love the new stuff.’”
― Nancy Wilson
“We see people from 6 to 60 years old at the shows.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Heart had originally relocated to Vancouver because Mike evaded the draft to protest the Vietnam war. We had to deal with a lot at that time – it was a tough period for the band.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I really like the Budda head with a big Orange cabinet with Celestion 30 speakers and my ’63 Fender Telecaster.”
― Nancy Wilson
“One night, I remember being really sick in bed with chills and a fever when Ann came in all excited and said, ‘I have these lyrics! Let me read them to you!’ They were the lyrics to ‘Crazy on You,’ and in my fever haze I said, ‘Yeah! Those are really good!’”
― Nancy Wilson
“Unfortunately, the music programs are being stripped out of the schools these days. We have to change that.”
― Nancy Wilson
“In the case of Roadcase Royale, everyone in the band has a lot to offer as a writer and producer.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I’m a chameleon when it comes to guitar playing and like to stretch out into different territories.”
― Nancy Wilson
“If you’re in a rock band, you’re never too tame.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I have a favorite blue Telecaster. It’s an old ’60-something, which I play at every show. That’s probably my favorite all-around stage guitar.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I have a Gibson Thinline that I designed the body shape of, which I used a lot on the ‘Fanatic’ album that I’m going to shake out.”
― Nancy Wilson
“One of the things I’ve heard musicians say that’s true is, ‘I would play for free. I would play music forever, but you have to pay me to travel.’ I know we’re always going to make music. The traveling part – that is the most wear and tear on any human.”
― Nancy Wilson
“’Barracuda’ is very fun to play because it’s like a galloping steed of a rock song.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Prince, I think, trained amazing musicians to bring more to any musical table they come to.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I think what constitutes rock nowadays is people that actually play and sing. They can do the job live with no ProTools or embellishments or other recorded material.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I just think it’s good to have a big, living, breathing piece of music that’s not just songs.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We always wanted to do a children’s book of some form or another.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I know, in so many cases, a lot of the women who came up through the singer-songwriter, Lilith Fair era, the earlier Lilith Fair era, did say that we were influences on them.”
― Nancy Wilson
“It’s the ultimate compliment to be imitated or at least be somebody’s influence, for sure.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I think it’s important to be kind of brutally honest without making anyone else feel bad in any way, if possible.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We’ve been around for awhile, had a lot of success. Got a chance to sit around and go, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re pretty good.’”
― Nancy Wilson
“They’re hard to come by, good producers.”
― Nancy Wilson
“As far as havin’ someone to talk to on the road, for instance, who’s not a guy – it’s saved my life many times to have Ann in the same group.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We didn’t want to be the girlfriends of the Beatles. We wanted to be the Beatles.”
― Nancy Wilson
“There are some beautiful things about people like Katy Perry, who are bold enough to go up on a pink cotton-candy cloud, with a guitar, in a tutu, and sing all by herself.”
― Nancy Wilson
“You need to know how to play live. The ones who can do that are the ones you’ll see around for a long time.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I always have dogs with me, even on the road. We call them port-o-pups.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We don’t really intentionally try to sound like ourselves. I think that would be overthinking.”
― Nancy Wilson
“There were not very many girls in rock n’ roll together with men that had a heavy rock sound as well as a more acoustic sound like Heart.”
― Nancy Wilson
“In many ways, we might compare to The Pretenders more than others, but still, we created our own category.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We struck out on our own in suburbia with parents who actually helped us get where we needed to go.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Being taken seriously was always the biggest challenge.”
― Nancy Wilson
“When we’re home, we like to cook and be together and do mom things when we can.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I have endless admiration for people like Chrissie Hynde who’ve been out as the only girl in a band. I’m not sure that, even as a little Marine Corps brat, I would’ve been able to deal with that.”
― Nancy Wilson
“People started to ask me, ‘Do you really play guitar?’ They thought it was a prop. It was just interesting, because of all the imaging stuff.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Sleazy people are always in this business. They run the business, pretty much. There are a lot of barracudas.”
― Nancy Wilson
“There is a definite sound with all-girl bands, a good rudimentary sound, and that’s what’s cool and punk about all-girl bands that you still find, largely – it’s really kind of primal.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We’ve always been more… weird compared to most bands, girls or no.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We had the idea as women that we could walk into music and be good at it and be as good as any man and have a career in it without being taken advantage of. So basically, those things came true. The obstacle course was just more difficult than we ever anticipated. We were optimistic and very naive.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Heart is fun for the whole family!”
― Nancy Wilson
“I have done a few solo projects that I really enjoyed and would love to have time to do more. Key word here is time!”
― Nancy Wilson
“Grace Slick was a total trip to work with. Lots of jokes and opinions. A strident individual and super talented!”
― Nancy Wilson
“A dream set would include songs by other artists like Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and other favorites. More obscure Heart songs like ‘Wait For an Answer’ and ‘Nada One’ would be fun, plus fan favorites like ‘Love Mistake’ and ‘Language of Love.’ Endless possibilities.”
― Nancy Wilson
“The Seattle explosion was what saved rock from becoming too pompous! A great moment in music!”
― Nancy Wilson
“’Say Hello’ was inspired by optimism.”
― Nancy Wilson
“There’s nothing quite as raw and honest as one person and one instrument.”
― Nancy Wilson
“When you’re 12, you have no gauge for what’s hip or not hip – or even who you are.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I’ve always been a little bit in the background as a singer and even as an acoustic-guitar player, although I crank it up and rock with my Marshall stacks, too.”
― Nancy Wilson
“It is nice to be an American and to be able to have an opinion.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We’ve never been as active politically as we have been as artists. But politics always brush up against the arts, oh, about every four years in this country.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We’re trying to elevate humanity and not preach to humanity in the way we approach our art. We’re always just trying to get a good party going.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Being mothers, we try to stay home as much as possible and attend to the children.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We always had a lot of admiration for feminists who were out there trying to change things for the better for women, who were trying to find equality in the workplace and at home.”
― Nancy Wilson
“In our band, we had such an interesting democracy, and it worked really well.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Ann and I were the main writers in Heart. We had the leadership role, and the guys in the band sometimes had a hard time with that.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I play a lot of classical music around the house.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Our very first group was called The Prunes.’ We did a lot of campgrounds, living rooms, and backyards.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Most of our great influences were male rockers, like Led Zeppelin.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Harmony singing is my favorite thing to do in music!”
― Nancy Wilson
“I love singing, and whenever I can sing some more vocal leads, I always covet the chance.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I’ve been through a lot of heartache in my day, and you turn to music to prop yourself up. It’s a healing thing, and it’s a powerful, powerful, beautiful thing.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We were wild-eyed hippies from the late ’60s. We still had the exuberance of the mind-expanding ’60s – that Tolkienesque, Zeppelin, androgynous, wood nymph, forest fairy kind of innocence. It sounds stupid now, but we felt we were changing the world with music.”
― Nancy Wilson
“We really had boundless optimism about the place of music in the culture – and in the world.”
― Nancy Wilson
“I tried to play ‘Barracuda’ on ‘Guitar Hero,’ and because you have to anticipate and push buttons, it’s really counterintuitive.”
― Nancy Wilson
“The ’80s was an interesting, confining time for songwriters, so we were just sort of riffing in our own language, off to the side.”
― Nancy Wilson
“A lot of times, women are pigeonholed.”
― Nancy Wilson
“With ‘Brigade,’ we sort of decided to kind of revamp ourselves and put on the military garb and become more of a fighting unit, you know, like the title of the album, and sort of fight for it.”
― Nancy Wilson
“Ever since I could remember, women’s issues have been pretty urgent.”
― Nancy Wilson
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