Heart vocalist Ann Wilson recently spoke with Matt Wake of AL.com about her new solo album, Fierce Bliss, which will be released on April 29th via Silver Lining Music.
Of course, Ann's incredible musical career, which began with the release of Dreamboat Annie in 1975, is impossible to ignore. An excerpt from that interview, going back to the grunge years, reads as follows:
Something a little different from your career, you sang backing vocals on the 1992 Alice In Chains songs “Brother” and “Am I Inside”. You’d had experience doing harmonies with Heart on stage and in studio. But what was different, cool and unique about intertwining vocals with the Alice In Chains guys?
Ann Wilson: "Yeah, they had great harmony ideas going. Never sweet harmonies, always wide intervals that were sort of haunting and dangerous sounding. And so when they asked me to come, I was thrilled because I’ve always loved to sing harmonies, and just sitting down and singing with Layne (Staley) and Jerry (Cantrell), it was totally cool."
"I just thought, this is great, you know, and one of the greatest parts is that they thought to ask me because it’s a big deal to bring a woman’s voice into their sound. So I thought that that was really, really great on their part to think that way. That’s great imagination."
"Brother":
"Am I Inside":
One of the premier hard rock vocalists of all-time, Ann Wilson smashed boundaries with her band Heart, the 8-times Platinum, 35 million-plus selling Rock and Roll Hall of Fame trailblazers who formed in 1973. During a decades-long career, Wilson rode the roller coaster of fame, fortune and madness, learning both joyous and hard, hard lessons along the way. Fast forward to Summer 2020, and a meeting with legendary veteran ‘artist’s lawyer’ Brian Rohan provided the catalyst for Fierce Bliss’s creation.
“Getting to know him, talking to him and his belief in me made me go: ‘the hell with this sitting around the house, I’ve always wanted to record at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, I’m just going to go do it, I have some songs!” Wilson states firmly. “Brian recommended people to me that knew people in Nashville, so I met [famed Nashville session guitarist] Tom Bukovac and Tony Lucido at those Muscle Shoals sessions. I’d never met them before, and they really inspired me. It was like a big door opening. Put it this way, we’re now a band.”
With the musical chemistry organically established, Fierce Bliss came together quickly. “It grew from that first session at Muscle Shoals,” furthers Wilson, “I had originally intended to go in, record a few songs and see what I had, but it just took on this life. Jim Zumwalt, the attorney, got a hold of it and said I should look at a few other people. We went into Sound Stage in Nashville, where Kenny Wayne Shepherd came in and played on a couple songs. He was a whole other influence coming in, he just played his butt off, and with the gospel singers and everything else coming together, the whole project just started to grow. I’d known Warren Haynes from Government Mule for a while, we’d written a couple songs together with Government Mule playing, and those rounded out the record. So all of a sudden, where there was no record before, suddenly I had eleven cool songs that I really liked.”
Fierce Bliss is not just an album for fans of Ann Wilson and Heart, it is an album for everyone seeking a lavish ticket out of the sharp edges of an increasingly fraught society. Fierce Bliss also marks perhaps the first time in her illustrious career that Ann Wilson has truly felt the wind in her wings, something which might seem a strange statement given her pioneering history.
Fierce Bliss is available to pre-order here on CD Casebound Book (deluxe package), Vinyl and Digital formats.
Fierce Bliss tracklisting:
"Greed"
"Black Wing"
"Bridge Of Sighs"
"Fighten for Life"
"Love Of My Life" (feat. Vince Gill)
"Missionary Man"
"Gladiator"
"Forget Her"
"A Moment In Heaven"
"Angel’s Blues" *
"As The World Turns"
* Available on CD and digital formats only
"Missionary Man":
"Greed":
"A Moment In Heaven":
