"PEOPLE SAID, "WOMEN AREN'T REALLY SUPPOSED TO DO THAT.SO WE WERE VERY LOUD!"

Flying in the face of sexism in the '70s, Heart made it big with some of the most powerful and beautiful rock songs of that era. In turn, Nancy Wilson became one of the most inspirational female guitarists of all time. Now, on the eve of a UK tour, she tells TG: “You have to feel proud of your gnarly hands!"

- Jenna Scaramanga

When Heart kick off their 2024 UK tour at London’s O2 Arena on July 1, it will be not only their first UK appearance in nearly a decade, but their largest ever headline show on these shores. It’s a sign the band’s stock is as high again as it was in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Heart, led as always by sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson, will play a career-spanning setlist from what is now rightly recognised as a catalogue of rock classics. And, as Nancy Wilson tells TG, they have fought for that recognition from the beginning.

“We were military brats who figured we wouldn’t take any prisoners. We would just go out and prove it,” Nancy recalls of the band’s formative years in the mid-’70s. “We travelled all our lives in the military. So to go on a rock tour, what’s the big difference?” At that time, there were few visible women in rock, but the Wilsons were unconcerned by that. “There were no female influences really. When we first saw The Beatles, we wanted to be in the band. Then when we saw Zeppelin, we wanted to be Zeppelin. I was channelling Jimmy Page, and Elton’s piano playing on acoustic guitar. Ann was channelling Robert Plant and Paul Rodgers.”