“Like Chief Seattle said. ‘Everything is connected.’ If you think that you can just be a consumer inside your own little world and not affect the world outside you, you’re nuts. All the new people moving up who don’t have environmental consciousness are acting like flood waters eroding the area. I’m not trying to be anti-California or new people at all. What we are trying to do is just educate everybody that we have a great area. When you move into the area, slow down, take a look around, recycle and change your way of thinking.”
Many other Washingtonians share the sentiments of the Wilson sisters and are actively involved in this education process. Even if you fancy yourself to be more of the ‘inactive’ type, you’re helping out just by attending Heart’s benefit concert on the 8th. Since we all know who Heart are, I’ll keep the history to a minimum.
Way back in the late 60′ s. Ann Wilson was in love with a draft evader named Michael Fisher. His brother Roger and Steve Fossen had a band called The Army (somewhat ironic, eh?). Ann joined and they called it Hocus Pocus. When they ran to Canada they re-named it Heart. Nancy had been playing coffee houses in college and when she came in the line-up included Howard Leese and Michael DeRosier circa ’75. Around the turn of the decade Ann, Nancy and Howard enlisted the talents of Mark Andes on bass and Denny Carmassi on drums, and that’s been Heart ever since.
CH: “Let’s talk about the benefit. Who came up with the idea?
Ann: “Actually we’ve been trying to do this for a few years. We got to thinking what could we possibly do for our area. We have been all over the world and we always come back to Seattle. There is something about it that is so different and so sweet, fresh, and special to us that we wanted to make a gesture and so we thought what we can do is just not blow through town like usual and take the money and run. How about if we give our services. Do what we do best. Make the money and turn around and put it back into the hands of the city, but for a certain purpose which is cleaning the water, cleaning the air. the wetlands especially. Puget Sound is only the front yard. The mountains and the forests are the backyards so what we’re doing is trying to get the whole area, keeping it stable by putting all this money into various groups that know what to do with it. Nancy and 1 first came up with the idea about four years ago and tried to get it together in Seattle then and we couldn’t even make anyone bat an eyelash then because it wasn’t hip.”
CH: “And probably the need hadn’t been realized.”
Ann: “Right. It was before the big influx of people from California and all that kind of stuff. And so now we just kept on pushing and we finally were able to get some business people around town to put in some money and get the whole thing moving and also our other sister Lynn is married to Ted Pankosky, who is the president of the Washington Environmental Council and so all of a sudden it is like a family thrust, you know. So it’s also about now that it’s sold out in the round and it’s going to be quite an exciting night.”
CH: “So who will this benefit and in what ways?”
Ann: “It’s a push to make money for local environmental groups, especially the Washington Council and at the concert there is going to be literature galore specifying exactly where all the money is going. We plan to raise probably $50,000 that night, purely for the environment. If people are curious as to where it is going, they can read this from Nancy and I saying how people, what they do inside their own home. Not a big scary governmental finger shaking thing. Just like, tips that normal people can do in normal ways in their homes, to make a difference. It’s just like a very middle class kind of idea. It’s not aimed at anything except every man.”
CH: “Almost at the grass roots level. OK, how about the show itself?”
Ann: “what people can expect to see, really is Heart at its peak, at it’s stride in 1990. What began in the Moore Theatre way back in March is now like a big monster. We took the Moore for two weeks to get the show together and like rehearsed everything and get used to being on stage and stuff. So what you are going to see is the latest generation of lighting technology that is not technology any more. It’s more like art. It’s just like the* colors we are using in the air right now are rich, thick jewel colors and it’s -almost like the music is only half of the beauty. It’s something to see and it’s something to hear. Nancy is back playing acoustic guitars along with electric guitars. We are doing a couple of ‘ songs that aren’t even on a record.”
CH: “Cool Covers? Or are they unreleased originals?”
Ann: “One of them is called You’re the Voice, which we have released in Russia only so far. The rest I want to be a surprise. I don’t want to wreck the whole thing.”
CH: “After the benefit you only have a couple of stops left on the tour, right?”
Ann: “Then we are going to come home and be people and have Christmas with our families. After that, we’re going to just be people for a while and then start writing songs. Nancy and I are going to write, songs for the next Heart record. We’re also very excited about doing a dual solo album. Only Ann and Nancy. I mean not to the break up of the band or anything but just two of us doing what we like to do that’s not appropriate for Heart. Which is more acoustic stuff, more deeper lyrical content, bluesy stuff.”
CH: “As though there were room for anymore, what else ya got going?”
Ann: “When we get back to Seattle after Christmas, we’ll be way into that. We are going to build a world class studio in Seattle at last.”
CH: “Now, will that be something that’s in your homes or is it going to be available to local musicians that have money to rent it?”
Ann: It will be for everybody to use but it will be to our specifications. Seattle so far has been very backward when it comes to state of the art, up to the minute, recording studios. We are so sick of having to always go away to L.A. to record and living in that place down there. We feel like it actually infringes on our edges as musicians. So that’s why we are making the studio in Seattle finally.”
CH: “Best city ever.”
Ann: “”Capital Hill is really an amazing area. It’s full of artists and full of rock people. That’s where I live when I’m not on the road. Our drummer lives in San Francisco and our bass player lives in L.A. but the core of the band Howard, Nancy and I still live in Seattle. People in Seattle have always coexisted with us and let us just be ourselves and not made our lives miserable. Like, there is always a few kids hanging around my gate but they are loving people, they are not nutso or weirdos. necessarily. It’s where we were raised and where we intend to be with our families.”
Speaking of families, you may have heard something a while back about Ann pursuing an adoption. Seems the rumor’s true and she may be a mother as soon as February. Yet another good reason to make Seattle home. We’re glad that they’re proud of their home and we’d like to thank them for their efforts that will benefit everyone. We’d also like to wish Heart (and everyone else) a happy holiday season and a rippin’ nineteen ninety-one.
CH: “How long do you see Heart going on? You’ve just renewed your Capitol contract for five more albums.”
Ann: “That’s impossible to say. Heart will exist as long as it’s meaningful to do it. As long as it’s appropriate. If it turns into a nightmare, we’ll knock it on the head. But, if it keeps on being cool, then…”
CH: “Is that Nancy laughing in the background?”
Ann: “Yeah, Nancy’s laughing. She thought that was a funny way to put it. Like Nancy says, ‘we’ll knock it on the head, we’ll clean it, cook it and eat it.'”
CH: “Alright some fisher woman.”
Ann: “Yeah, fisher woman, fisher folk. Fish wives. But anyway, so I think we’ve got a few more years left in us, you know?”
CH: “We agree.”
