Nancy and Ann Wilson are very familiar with the drama that accompanies being in a band with one’s sibling.
Over the years, the Heart sisters have dealt with plenty of familial strife – some of it serious, some of it exaggerated.
“The first question a lot of people have always asked either of us, me or Ann, has been ‘Do you guys fight?’” Nancy explained during a recent conversation with the Seattle Times. “Like sibling rivalry. They’re hoping that we say yes.”
The guitarist went on to reveal that the sisters once considered faking a dispute to satiate the obsession of onlookers.
“At one point, we even thought about staging a fight just to satisfy the… haters on social media,” Nancy confessed. “Like everybody has to take sides all the time. Everybody has to be in opposite camps, which is such [expletive] to begin with.”
Heart’s Family Drama
There have been real moments of discourse between the Wilson sisters. Most recently, Ann’s husband was arrested for allegedly hitting one of Nancy’s children in 2016, leading to a Heart hiatus. Even after the band returned in 2019 – and both sisters insisted things were good – observers suggested the Wilsons were feuding.
READ MORE: How Heart Finally Made a Hit Out of ‘Alone’
“There’s been a lot of emotionally challenging aspects to having a family that’s in a band together,” Nancy admitted. “It’s really hard to compartmentalize some of those things and not to be defensive or to be disruptive inside the family aspect of things when you’re trying to do business in a career setting. So, the family part and the career part can oftentimes derail pretty easily.”
Though she didn’t address the 2016 incident directly, Nancy noted she “had to take the high road a lot in the last decade or so.”
“But all of the emotional struggle that it takes to compartmentalize between the family and the business is worth it,” she continued. “Because then you get to go out and be larger than life on a big rock stage and make music that makes people happy. It makes you happy.”
Heart is scheduled to perform their first show together since 2019 on Wednesday night in Southern California.
Heart Albums Ranked
This list of Heart Albums, Ranked Worst To Best, wasn’t an easy one to compile, because unlike many long-running groups, the band has never made a bad record.
Gallery Credit: Annie Zaleski
