Quotes from Nancy Wilson

When you're 12, you have no gauge for what's hip or not hip - or even who you are.

One of the signature things about Heart was the acoustic guitar in a rock format, which you didn't hear that often.

There have never been a lot of female guitarists out there, so most of my influences were male. Acoustically, I followed Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon. Also, John Lennon and Paul McCartney - both incredible acoustic guitar players.

As far as havin' someone to talk to on the road, for instance, who's not a guy - it's saved my life many times to have Ann in the same group.

We don't really intentionally try to sound like ourselves. I think that would be overthinking.

Prince, I think, trained amazing musicians to bring more to any musical table they come to.

I know, in so many cases, a lot of the women who came up through the singer-songwriter, Lilith Fair era, the earlier Lilith Fair era, did say that we were influences on them.

I feel like I've had a lot of painful situations that I intentionally delete from my memory.

One of the things I've heard musicians say that's true is, 'I would play for free. I would play music forever, but you have to pay me to travel.' I know we're always going to make music. The traveling part - that is the most wear and tear on any human.

Sleazy people are always in this business. They run the business, pretty much. There are a lot of barracudas.

My highest score karaoke song is 'Ben,' by Michael Jackson.

Grace Slick was a total trip to work with. Lots of jokes and opinions. A strident individual and super talented!

We're not just 'ladies in rock.' We're weird people!

Most of our great influences were male rockers, like Led Zeppelin.

We were wild-eyed hippies from the late '60s. We still had the exuberance of the mind-expanding '60s - that Tolkienesque, Zeppelin, androgynous, wood nymph, forest fairy kind of innocence. It sounds stupid now, but we felt we were changing the world with music.

I saw Led Zeppelin live for the first time when I was thirteen.

I've been through a lot of heartache in my day, and you turn to music to prop yourself up. It's a healing thing, and it's a powerful, powerful, beautiful thing.

The '80s was an interesting, confining time for songwriters, so we were just sort of riffing in our own language, off to the side.

Being mothers, we try to stay home as much as possible and attend to the children.

I really like the Budda head with a big Orange cabinet with Celestion 30 speakers and my '63 Fender Telecaster.

Heart weren't part of a movement like grunge; we were our own kind of movement.

I think if there's a support system in place, and you're acting adult-to-adult with a sense of unconditional love and forgiveness, only good things will come from any relationship between men and women.

What Jimmy Page did was pretty inspiring for guitar players. He married a lot of acoustic elements into hard rock. The kind of chords he used were very left of center, with a lot of dissonance - I absorbed that like a sponge. It's all over the music I write, always.

With 'Brigade,' we sort of decided to kind of revamp ourselves and put on the military garb and become more of a fighting unit, you know, like the title of the album, and sort of fight for it.