NEW YORK (AP) â Heart â the pioneering band that melds Nancy Wilsonâs shredding guitar with her sister Annâs powerhouse vocals â is hitting the road this spring and fall for a world tour that Nancy Wilson describes as âthe full-on rocker size.â
âIâve been strengthening. Iâve got my trainer,â she says. âYou go one day at a time and you strengthen one workout session at a time. Itâs a lot of work, but itâs the only job I know how to do.â
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers who gave us classic tracks like âMagic Man,â âCrazy on Youâ and âAloneâ will be playing all the hits, some tracks from of their solo albums â like Ann Wilson's âMiss One and Onlyâ and Nancy Wilson's âLove Mistakeâ â and a new song called âRoll the Dice.â
âI like to say we have really good problems because the problem we have is to choose between a bunch of different, really cool songs that people love already,â says Nancy Wilson.
Like âBarracuda,â a sonic burst which first appeared on the bandâs second album, âLittle Queenâ and is one of the bandâs most memorable songs.
âYou canât mess with âBarracuda.â Itâs just the way it is. It is great. You get on the horse and you ride. Itâs a galloping steed of a ride to go on. And for everybody, including the band."
The tour kicks off Saturday at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina, and will hit cities including Atlanta, Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit, as well as the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado. International dates include stops in London, Oslo, Berlin, Stockholm, Montreal and Glasgow.
The band's Royal Flush Tour will have Cheap Trick as the opening act for many stops, but Def Leppard and Journey will join for three stadium dates in Cleveland, Toronto and Boston this summer.
Ann and Nancy Wilson will be filled out by Ryan Wariner (lead and rhythm guitar), Ryan Waters (guitars), Paul Moak (guitars, keyboards and backing vocals), Tony Lucido (bass and backing vocals) and Sean T. Lane (drums).
The tour is the first in several years for Heart, which was rocked by a body blow in 2016 when Ann Wilsonâs husband was Nancy Wilson says that's all in the past.
âWe can take any kind of turbulence, me and Ann, and weâve always been OK together,â she says. âWeâre still steering the ship and happy to do it together. So weâre tight.â
The new tour will take them to Canada, which was warm to the band when they were starting out as what Nancy Wilson calls âa couple of chicks from Seattle.â She recalls Vancouver embracing Heart, and touring in one van across Canada in the dead of winter on two lane highways.
The Wilson sisters broke rock's glass ceiling in the '70s and Nancy Wilson says they only had male influences to look to, like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Moody Blues.
Now she says she looks out and loves seeing generations of female rockers. âYou have and you have Billie Eilish and you have and so many amazing women â Maggie Rogers and Sheryl Crow, who calls us her big influence. And then might have Sheryl Crow as her influence. So itâs a really nice legacy to pass along. I like to say weâre the OG â the original gangsters â of women and rock.â
Heart has made it into the Rock Hall, won Grammys, sold millions of albums and rocked hundreds of thousands of fans but Nancy Wilson has one place she'd still like to shine.
Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of their debut album, âDreamboat Annie,â which was the same year that âSaturday Night Liveâ started. âSo weâre actually kind of putting it out there â Heart never played on âSaturday Night Live.â But what about the 50th birthday party with Heart?â
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Mark Kennedy is at
Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press
