by Ann Wilson
We had begun 1980 still in relationships with the Fisher brothers, with a unified Heart, and awaiting John Lennon’s great new solo album. We ended the year with grief on all fronts.
ANN
We spent most of the next year on tour, but eventually I put thought to buying a new house. Both Nancy and I had purchased cabins on the Oregon Coast as getaway retreats—across the street from each other—but I needed a more permanent home base. While I was on tour I asked Kathy Cox, a real estate agent and the wife of our good friend Frank Cox, to look for places for me. She called a few weeks later to say she’d located the perfect spot: A hundred-year-old former hotel and speakeasy that had been renovated into a three-bedroom house. It had a ballroom that was perfect for parties, and the house was very private, tucked into a hillside in a leafy Seattle neighborhood. Kathy said it would sell quickly, and that I needed to buy it immediately if I wanted it, but I still had weeks to go on the tour. The solution was that she videotaped the home and sent me the tape. I bought the house based on a video without ever seeing it in person.
When I first drove up and saw my new house, I knew it was home. It felt like me—roomy, beautiful, complicated, full of soul, always needing attention and love, but giving it back when you lit a fire or lit a candle. Some of the neighbors thought it was haunted because of its former history as a speakeasy and brothel, but it felt like a family house to me.
A few years after I bought my home, Nancy bought a new house herself in the Seattle area, but she opted for a farm instead. It had stables, horses, and a long gravel road. Eventually, she’d buy up the houses around her farm, and our parents and Lynn would live next door. Nancy had always wanted to be like Neil Young and live on a big farm, and her dream had come true. She wanted a family compound, with all of us near. Living on a farm never appealed to me—one of the many differences between us.
Neither of us had much time to enjoy our homes, though, because the demands of touring were ever present. That year we played on three continents and did almost two hundred shows. Our manager then decided we would barnstorm Canada in a salute to where our careers began. Only this time, he rented a C-130 transport plane plus a 737 jet to carry the band, seventy-five thousand pounds of equipment, and all the crew for three dates in three days. It was almost as crazy as us driving on snowy back roads in a van trying to avoid moose, but it was also a remarkable contrast to how we used to tour.
In October, we took a brief break from that madness to play the “Bread and Roses” Benefit in Berkeley. When Mimi Farina, one of the organizers had approached us, we immediately said yes, both because it was a good cause, and because Paul Simon was on the bill. The night before the show, there was a dinner at the Claremont Hotel for the performers. We were looking everywhere for Paul Simon, when Mimi Farina came up to us and said, “Joni wants to know if she can come over and say hi.” The look on Nancy’s face was priceless: Finally, she thought, she was going to meet Joni Mitchell. Mimi goes away and comes back with Joan Baez, her sister, and “Joanie” to her friends. Joan Baez was another idol, and she sang with us at the concert the next day, but Nancy couldn’t hide her disappointment.
The day after the Bread and Roses show, Heart opened up for two dates with the Rolling Stones in Boulder, Colorado. It was one of the biggest stages we had ever played, and even the backstage was a maze of sorts. Even as the opening act, there were places we weren’t allowed to go, but you could see these rooms filled with hundreds of bottles of every kind of liquor imaginable. When we performed, we played on the giant tongue. At one point during the show, Nancy came and whispered to me, “I can’t believe I belong here!”
Just a few minutes after we came off stage, all full of adrenaline and covered in sweat someone came and said that Mick Jagger wanted to meet us. We had no time to look great for Mick. He came in, sat down, and said, “You guys were really great.” And we were like, “No, you are.” It was so strange listening to Mick Jagger talk about me. I could barely understand what he was saying since all I could think the whole time was, “Mick Jagger’s lips are moving.” We told him how much the Stones meant to us, and he said, “Wow, God, thanks,” and it sounded like it really mattered to him.
Mick looked perfectly relaxed, until he brought up the topic of Keith Richards. “We’re supposed to go on in thirty minutes,” Mick said, “and I have no idea where Keith is. He hasn’t shown up. No one has seen him all day.” Every so often a roadie would come in the room, whisper something in his ear, and Mick would repeat, “They still haven’t found Keith yet.” Eventually Keith was located, and Mick left us for the stage. The first time either we, or Mick Jagger, saw Keith Richards that day was when Keith walked onstage.
In late 1981, we began to work on our next album, which we planned to call Private Audition. We’d parted ways with producer Mike Flicker and had hired Bob Ezrin, who had done wonders with Pink Floyd. But Ezrin pulled out, so we brought in Jimmy Iovine, and did a few sessions with him, before that fell apart, as well. We finally finished the record with the band listed as producer, but the resulting album suffered as a result.
When it came out in June 1982, Private Audition sold only 400,000 copies, far fewer than our previous albums. And while our concert tickets were still selling well, even in a recession (we had the eighth highest grossing tour of the year), our singles hadn’t performed. “This Man Is Mine” only hit number thirty-three in Billboard. In show business, if you are not gaining ground, your critics quickly sharpen the knives.
On our fall tour, one of our biggest problems was our opening act John Cougar (this was before he went by Mellencamp). While we were on the tour, his single, “Jack and Diane,” hit number one. He was still a newcomer, and we had almost ten years of hits under our belts, but a few weeks into the tour he showed us how he earned the nickname “the little bastard.”
He told a journalist one day he “felt sorry” for us. He said he planned to “be extremely nice to [the Wilsons], and not in any way, shape or form throw it up in their face. You know, ‘my record’s doing better than yours,’ that sort of thing. . . . I’m going to downplay my success around them. Who knows? Maybe next year they’ll have a number one record and mine won’t even go top ten.”
The next day, he came to us backstage and did the opposite. “Seeing as how your album is a turkey, and mine is a hit, care to swap places on the tour?” he asked. We told him no, and reminded him that some shows had sold out before he’d been announced as an opening act.
But ultimately, John Cougar was the least of our worries that year. We had other problems brewing, as tension within the band had reached the boiling point. Heart was fracturing, and where we once had been a unified family, everyone now had a contrasting opinion on every decision. The internal differences had been easier to overlook when we were a multi-platinum band, and piles of cash made everything easier, but as album sales stalled, debates erupted about who contributed to songwriting, to the live show, and who didn’t. There had been more cohesion when Roger was still in the group because his behavior was always such that most eyes were on him. Our partnership model was no longer working when it came to band decisions, as Private Audition proved.
It wasn’t an easy choice, but we decided it was time for Michael Derosier and Steve Fossen to leave. Derosier wasn’t an original member of Heart, but he’d been with us since our Dreamboat Annie tour and was a cornerstone of our sound. But ever since Derosier and Nancy had broken up, his presence in the band was uncomfortable for everyone, and the tension between him and Nancy was obvious. Fossen had been in Heart longer than anyone, dating back to the earlier incarnations as the Army and White Heart. Steve was also the only bass player I had played with for over ten years, but he was dissatisfied with many things by then. Howard Leese would stay, and he immediately began to help us audition new players.
That next year we would add Mark Andes, formerly of Spirit, on bass; and Denny Carmassi on drums, who had played in Montrose. There was even a new look onstage for Heart: W
ith the additional of Mark Andes, we now had more blondes than brunettes for the first time. We hoped it would prove fortuitous.
16
Heartless
A Wimbledon winner chases Nancy. A Van Halen gets his
first guitar. Ann finds romance with the original young
dude. And both women become “Coffee Achievers” for
a huge payday. . . .
NANCY WILSON
After Derosier and I broke up, I found myself single and adrift. I’d gone out with two members of our band, but dating within our cocoon had proven to be a terrible idea, and I swore it off. Still, we lived in such a bubble that meeting someone on the outside also seemed impossible.
There was plenty of male interest toward both Ann and me, but most of it was from inappropriate fans or pushy celebrities who thought seducing us would be a notch on their bedpost. Our road crew insulated us from many of these suitors, but not all of them. There would be so many gifts and flowers left for us that one of our crew drew a sarcastic cartoon about them. In the first panel, a starry-eyed fan says, “I’m in love with Nancy Wilson. Those eyes, those lips, those golden-blonde tresses. Maybe she’ll marry me.” In the next panel, a delivery guy asks where to put the diamonds. A roadie responds, “Just throw them near the Porsche, or the Rolls, or the furs that someone else sent.” It was an exaggeration, but only slightly.
Though we loved that our fans felt a connection, many notes we received were too personal, and, at times, disturbingly sexual. Ann’s were usually fans who felt some intimate soul connection with our lyrics, whereas mine saw me as a pure sexual conquest.
One of the most aggressive men who chased me was the professional tennis player Vitas Gerulaitis. He had won a double’s trophy at Wimbledon and didn’t like to lose. He came to a few of our shows and tried to talk his way backstage, but the crew kept him out. But at one show he got through, and as he approached my dressing room, a roadie told him not to go in because I was getting dressed. That didn’t stop Vitas, who tried to open the door. Our road manager Dick Adams tackled him. It took Dick and another roadie to throw out this “all muscle” tennis pro. They told him he’d be arrested if he came back again.
There were many celebrities whom I enjoyed meeting, including Larry David, who later created Seinfeld, and Michael Richards (Kramer!). Both were in the cast of Fridays, a late night ABC comedy show that for a time got higher ratings than Saturday Night Live.
We played on Fridays a few times. A cast member named Bruce Mahler made a major play for me. Mahler is best known for his role as Elaine’s over-sharing Rabbi Kirschbaum on “Seinfeld.” He kissed me one night after we had all gone to dinner. It was not what I wanted, although years later it would be an interesting story to say I had been kissed by the rabbi from Seinfeld.
One night when we were in Los Angeles at a Fridays taping, Kelly Curtis said he had someone to introduce to me. “Nancy, meet Cameron Crowe. He’s a writer.” Cameron and I spoke only a few words to each other, and I didn’t get much of an impression because he was so shy. He seemed a little pale and pasty, as if he had been indoors writing for months.
Kelly and the photographer Neal Preston, Cameron’s roommate, kept asking me if I wanted to meet Cameron again. Kelly set up a dinner with Cameron and a few other friends and asked if I would go. I agreed.
The dinner was at the West Hollywood restaurant Le Dome, where we’d gone to Elton John’s birthday party. Kelly saved the seat next to me for Cameron. Cameron never came. I ate my dinner next to an empty chair.
That was my first date with the man I would eventually marry and have children with.
Kelly and Neal kept on me about Cameron. They explained that he was shy like me. A few weeks later we were on Fridays again, and Cameron came. He was charming, and cordial, but also hysterically funny. He made me laugh the way no other man had. And at that moment, I decided I wanted this man in my life.
After the taping, we went our separate ways, but a few days later a letter arrived from Cameron. He said he might like to see me again. He mentioned a magazine piece he was working on about Joni Mitchell. He later told me that when he put that letter in the mailbox, he knew it was a commitment. My parents had instilled in us that the pursuit of excellence in any artistic form was something to be cherished; Cameron had that. A fantasy developed in my mind about what a relationship with Cameron might be like. I imagined sweet letters like this would come almost every day.
We started hanging out. He’d gotten some sun playing softball since the first time we’d met, and he looked good. We didn’t go on any traditional dates. We just hung out and traded mix tapes. Cameron was living from project to project and was barely able to pay his rent, though he was working on a movie script. I was a rich rock star, and he was a starving artist.
After I’d been seeing Cameron for a couple of months, I wrote a letter to a friend about him. It showed that my break-up with Derosier was fresh enough I still referenced that as well. It gives an insight into how ready I was to fall in love. Part of it read:
I’m on a night flight heading into L.A. on my way to visit Cameron Crowe. Some love is seemingly just not put together in the stars, but I believe rare moments do occur where stars align just so, and two magnetisms combine into one conscious and unconscious force. But that’s also my damned outdated idealism again for you. I can’t help it. It’s my lot in life to believe love can really exist and even last—survive our wonderful world of today. It’s in the stars for some, but not for many. I’ve been disenchanted for a long time, way too long, and finally had the courage to call it off. So now I’ve been lately visiting this guy Cameron, who’s the ex–Rolling Stone journalist who also did the Joni interview, and a few other heavies. He says Joni is brilliant, and extremely wary of “the press,” like any smart person learns to be eventually. He’s just finished a book about the high school experience, which was supposed to be called Stairway to Heaven, but it had to be changed since some new book about pyramids was just released by that title. Now it’s called Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which he hates, but the company chose (he has only partial artistic control). It should be released as a movie by next summer with some new Heart material for part of the soundtrack. I’m also looking forward to the possibility of meeting Joni on one of my visits, but it could be a totally intimidating experience. I, for now, will survive off many amazing firsthand stories from Cameron (who’s just twenty-four, and a “whiz kid,” who’s more sensitive than many women I’ve known). We’ve become addicted to each other’s conversations, and we have big fun. It’s such a new thing for me to know a guy who is actually this great.
I was ready to fall in love. And I did. Totally. It completely took me away.
Sue Ennis once observed that my romance gene was “deadly.” If so, I got the gene from my mother, and so did Lynn and Ann. But everyone in my family would agree that I got it the worst. And when it came to Cameron, I got it bad.
Cameron asked if I wanted to do a walk-on in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I had no lines for my “Beautiful-Girl-in-a-Car” role. I wore a pink sweater, drove up in a convertible next to Judge Reinhold, and gave a flirtatious smile.
My relationship with Cameron didn’t stop male attention from other celebrities, though. That same year Ted Nugent tried to woo me. He came to our dressing room wearing a vest made of the hides of animals he’d killed and skinned. He picked up my dog Wombie, thinking he could win his way to my heart by impressing my dog. But Wombie didn’t like the smell of the hides, or of Ted, and started growling and barking. Ted Nugent, the big-game hunter, retreated from a little dog.
At one hotel, we met Eddie and Alex Van Halen. Over the course of a few hours, they had a Kamikaze-drinking contest, followed by a cocaine-snorting fest. Once they were good and loose, they got into a fistfight. Moments later, they were hugging each other and falling down, saying, “I love you so much, man.” They would cycle through this pattern every hour.
Eddie and Alex let it be known that
if Ann and I wanted to sleep with them, they would be amenable to that. Their concept was two brothers with two sisters: Instead of the Wil-Shers, we could now be the Wil-Halens, except they wanted us in one bed. It wasn’t the only time we had that offer, and as with every other request, we turned it down.
Talking with Eddie that night, he said he really admired my acoustic playing.
“You should play your acoustic guitar onstage,” I said.
“I don’t own an acoustic guitar,” Eddie said.
Eddie Van Halen—at that point one of the greatest living guitar players, when he wasn’t punching his brother in the face—didn’t own a single acoustic guitar. I couldn’t believe it. But he swore it was true.
“I’m going to buy you an acoustic guitar right now,” I announced.
I went and woke up our road manager. He told me that at midnight instrument stores were closed. “Then let’s give him one of mine,” I declared. We went to our gear truck, and I took my favorite Ovation. I walked up to Eddie’s room and handed it to him.
He started crying. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Eddie said.
I went to my room to sleep. But at seven in the morning, my phone rang. It was Eddie.
“Nancy, Nance, sweet Nancy, sweetest Nancy,” he said. He was obviously still high and had been up all night. “I wrote a song for you on my Nancy-Nancy acoustic guitar.” He put the phone down and started to play. He was only a few rooms down the hall, so I could also hear him through the walls.
The song went on for many minutes and was truly amazing. It was more of a suite than a song, but it was beautiful. Eventually, the line went dead—I think Eddie had passed out. I don’t know if he ever played the song again, or even if, when he sobered up, he remembered anything about the night, except that he and Alex didn’t manage to take the Wilsons to bed. But it was the best thing I ever heard Eddie Van Halen play. I only wish I could hear it again.
