A language of love: Heart gets ready for RR show

RIO RANCHO — It pumps blood. It gets broken. It drives passion. It connects people to one another. And it's a big part of love.

But right now, "Heart" means one of the most trail-blazing rock bands out of the 1970s is coming to Rio Rancho for the last time March 7 as part of the Royal Flush Tour. Nancy Wilson, lead guitarist and sister to lead singer Ann Wilson, reminisced about the past 50 years of Heart in a phone interview Jan. 29 ahead of the band's last tours.

"We've been at Rio Rancho before, and it's a good room, and it's kind of the right size for us winding up this long tour," she said.

She added that the events center is more intimate and has a great vibe.

So far, Heart has performed 72 times for the tour. Rio Rancho is the fourth-to-last stop in the United States, then the band takes the tour global. Wilson looks forward to coming back to New Mexico to "spread the love."

"New Mexico is really a beautiful place. There's just a spiritual vibe there that's kind of like nowhere else, exactly," she said.

As a resident of the Northwest, she said, desert-like places seem like another planet.

"The beauty of the desert kind of speaks to you when you're out there being from the Northwest," she said.

More importantly, Wilson appreciates the "warm" people that live here.

"The shows we've been doing, people are bringing their families. It's more of a family affair. And little kids are going to do their air guitars when we do 'Barracuda,' you know. And Grandma and Grandpa come out because they knew us from the beginning. And the college people are coming out nowadays, too. So it's just an interesting ... demographic with these Heart shows, and it's starting to connect the generations a little more, which I love to see," she said.

This last tour is feeling melancholic, according to Wilson.

"...because this particular lineup, the guys we're playing with right now, we're really excited to play with them, and we'd hate to see the tour part of it stopped, so we're actually talking about putting our heads together and doing a Heart album together with these players and writers," she said.

She added that this particular lineup has inspired her in a way that she hasn't felt in a long time, calling them "pros."

"You can feel that they're not these jaded players that are just out with whatever band, you know, trying to make a buck," she said.

The tour is kind of a package deal with an upcoming documentary, a film and more to close out the year, according to Wilson. 

"It's just a real special feeling because we weren't sure because Ann had to kick the ass of cancer before we came back out to tour last year, but she did and now we're able to get back out and have all these kind of inspiring rock shows out there," she said.

But Wilson said having too much to do has been a good problem to have.

"You know, by the time you want to take a retrospective of 50 years, which is how long we've been doing this, it's kind of like, 'Wow, let's wind this thing up in a really nice package,'" she said.

The show is also a victory lap for her and her sister.

"I think the whole show kind of shows us together. I mean the unity that we have on a rock stage is really a like a beautiful magic bubble that we exist inside of together that's always been there for both of us," she said. "When we do songs like 'Dog and Butterfly,' that's a real, very close moment because it shows the duality of what we both bring to the band."

She recognized the duality of Heart's music as well, noting that they have slow acoustic and hard rock in all that they do. 

Though the Wilsons have driven the band toward success as women from a time when it was more of "a man's world," Wilson said they entered the scene as equals and continue to perform as equals.

"It was kind of a surprise to learn later as we kind of went through it that it was kind of mind-boggling for people to accept that we were acting like equals on this big rock stage, and Ann would just sing her ass off like she can and just wheel the big loud, turn the amps up loud and be big strident, bargy women, leading a big rock band like that. And people were just like, 'What? That's not supposed to be there.' People were just kind of shocked about it for a while. We just kept on going," she said.

That doesn't stop Wilson from supporting women-driven causes, though.

"A couple nights ago, I was in L.A. and I got to give Chapel Roan, who's now a dear friend, like a little sister, a buddy of mine, I gave her an award at the Move the Needle event for the Harmonizer Award for all of her amazing work, humanitarian work that she does for women's issues, trans, LGBTQ+ issues and all of those issues, that she's a real champion for people that feel vulnerable in our culture and just women in general, too," she said.

She added it was cool to be along side people like Joni Mitchell and Chaka Khan for the event and inspiring to be able to give Roan the award.

Wilson has always considered herself to be trouble maker. One way she shows this is her signature "kick" while rocking out on stage. She said she continues to do that partly because fans expect it but it's also just a "fun thing to do." 

As a message to fans, Wilson encouraged people to bring the whole family to the show in March.

"Come out and have a family night at the rock show with Heart because we've got all age groups showing up and it's, if you want to, one of the last real rock bands existing anymore," she said. "There's no pre-record going on with our show, so it's all complete reality. It's 100% what we're doing is what you hear."

According to Wilson, a lot of younger people are realizing how real Heart actually is. "They kind of cheer for that because they're so used to things being presented so over-the-top perfect all the time, the way a lot of music sounds these days, kind of mechanical versus human-sounding."

"After 50 years, I'd just say, music is a healing force that is larger than we all are together. It kind of lives in your cells, in your skin, more than in your brain," she said. "And good music is a healing thing. We try to live, as a band called Heart, we try to live up to our name with what we do and everything this year coming up is all about that."

Tickets for the Rio Rancho show are on sale now at rioranchoeventscenter.com.