Nancy Wilson wanted to be attractive in rock, like Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant.
In a new interview with Guitar World, the Heart singer said they wanted to pursue music because they admired powerful women in music like Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, and Judy Garland. People doubted them, saying women shouldn’t play rock, but the Wilsons disagreed:
“So we were very loud. I guess we just didn’t care. We wanted to channel the androgyny of rock ‘n’ roll. Guys like Robert Plant looked like really hot chicks, and we felt like we could be hot chicks or hot dudes on a big rock stage like that. Androgyny and a sense of humor were our basic survival tools, because there was no place for us at the time.”
Wilson’s Words On Fleetwood Mac
When they started out in music, Heart saw Fleetwood Mac as one of their rivals. Last month, Nancy appeared on the Broken Record Podcast and admitted that she and her sister, Ann, worried that Fleetwood Mac’s fame could make it tougher for Heart to succeed:
“I felt so jealous of that band because there was two women in it that sounded so good together, and they had the acoustic guitar kind of thing that I felt like I was bringing a lot of into our band. They kind of had it already, you know, like something we were trying to capture. They had already captured it. So I was really like, ‘Damn it! What makes us so different now?’”
Nancy also said that her sister Ann is what set them apart from Fleetwood Mac:
“We did sound very different. A lot of it’s Ann’s voice, you know, very signature. The muscle and the power that she possesses and the way she sings is completely its own thing. So lucky for us, we had Ann.”
In her Guitar World interview, Nancy also said they faced sexism in the music industry, with people saying she should be more ladylike and worry about her appearance. Despite this, they didn’t let it stop her from being themselves.
