(audience cheering)
- I know I'm supposed to be like,
I'm supposed to be like a talk show host right now,
but like I'm also a singer and like,
(Kelly laughs)
like you're incredible,
- Thank you
- Like you literally are.
So thank you for letting me sing with you earlier.
- Oh yeah
- It's literally a dream come true.
Like no lie.
I love you so much, but I have to ask
I'm just curious with a voice like yours,
like were people just like, oh my God.
Like from like childhood with you,
like do you remember the first time you sang?
And like. - Well.
- People were floored?
- My family was super musical.
- [Kelly] Oh - We had all these aunts
- and uncles and everything who always loved to play,
like get together and play the ukuleles
and sing the old songs and stuff.
And so it was pretty easy just to go from that to
to being asked to sing at one of
my parents' cocktail parties.
- It was like fluid. Yeah. Yeah.
You're really used to it. Yeah
- It wasn't much of a stretch really.
- Yeah.
- And as a little kid, you know,
little kids love to show off in front of
- [Kelly] Yeah. - The grown ups, you know.
- [Kelly] Yeah. Look at me.
- Yeah. Well, yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I'm funny right.
- Yeah (Kelly laughs)
- And so I used to do this,
I think from early age like six to eight,
I was doing this rendition
of the Hawaiian Wedding Song as Ethel Merman.
(Kelly laughs)
So it was like a child, you know?
So I think that's, that's where I got the sort of
feeling that singing and acting go together.
- Yeah, oh, I do agree with that.
Like while I'm singing, are you like this?
Because I hate acting, but I love,
I feel like I do it on stage
cause you jump into character of wherever
you were when you wrote the song.
- Right, yeah, yeah.
Is that ever hard for you,
depending upon the song?
Like, you know, like.
- For me, it's not the songs that are too intense.
It's the ones that I've grown out of.
- [Kelly] Ah
- Like, you know I don't wanna say anything
about too specific songs but
- You don't like poo poo on the songs but yeah
- But a song like Magic Man, you know
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- Was written way back when I was
in my super early twenties and with my first love and.
- Don't you bash Magic Man right now Ma'am,
(audience laughs)
- That's what I meant.
- I will actually tackle you.
- That's what I meant.
I don't wanna bash any songs but...
- You know why?
I think it was actually the first hard song
I ever heard as a child,
and I was like, and honestly it was because
it was women and usually you always
heard men doing the rock stuff.
And so I remember,
cause my brother's like a decade older,
and anything they were listening to
was always like men and I was like, wait, what?
I can do this?
And it was like representation at its finest point.
I was like, wait, women are able to do this too.
And it was really cool cause
I feel like y'all opened the door
for all the, for the Alanis Morrisettes
for all these women in music later on.
(Audience claps)
And, and I, I mean, I often do wonder
like back in the day, was that really hard?
Like being the only
- [Ann] Yeah
was there just so much,
was it just just oozing in misogyny?
Like was it just?
(Ann laughs)
- I like that oozing in misogyny.
Yes. It was.
- It happens, We've all been in that room.
- It was total immersion.
- Immersion.
- Yeah. But, yeah, back when I started out it was,
it was all radio right?
- Yeah.
- Like there was no Spotify or anything like that
- No streaming services
- It was just all radio.
- Yeah.
- And so radio had this kind of unspoken rule
that they could only play one female artist per hour.
So if you weren't like Joan Baez, a folk singer
or if you weren't a disco diva,
you were just outta luck.
- There was no room.
- Right.
- At the table. Oh.
- So when we did manage to get a
Heart song or two played on the radio,
it was kind of a revelation.
- [Kelly] Yeah. I mean what a perfect one.
So is it true, I didn't actually know this,
like growing up, singing Barracuda.
I didn't know it was about sexism,
but that's true right?
- Yeah. Yep. Yep.
- [Kelly] I love it.
- Yeah
- I love when people write songs though.
and like when you're young,
you don't know like whatever
and you have this whole other idea
and then you're like, oh, it's way off.
- [Ann] So that's how it is, yeah.
- Yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
- I was really, I was really surprised.
Like I was so naive and I just thought,
well we're bringing our word to the people.
You know, it was almost like spiritual.
- Yeah.
- And then I get into this room
with these really sleazy, you know, industry guys,
- [Kelly] Yeah.
who are saying all kinds of
really disrespectful stuff, you know?
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And it made me mad and I went back
to the hotel and wrote the words to Barracuda.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And it made me feel better, you know?
- Do you feel like it has changed though,
like dramatically since the, you know,
when Heart first broke?
- Yes, I do.
I think it's changed in a lot of ways.
You don't have to dress up in a
French maid outfit and be the centerfold now.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- When you're really a musician, you know?
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- But some of the old stuff is still in place.
It's just gone underground.
It's just. - [Kelly] Sneaky
- Deep and systemic, you know?
- Yeah.
- And that's, lots of progress has been made
in terms of women having their respect
and being real and everything.
- And like more than one played an hour.
(Kelly laughs)
- Right? - Yeah
But, but there still is
a lot more room for improvement.
- Yeah. Agreed. Agree, in all aspects of life.
So your new album,
- it's called Fierce Bliss. - [Ann] Yes.
Which is a rad title. - [Ann] Thank you.
So it was inspired by a road trip?
(Audience claps)
- [Ann] Yeah, thank you.
- I love a road trip.
- Woo.
Yes. My husband and I love to take road trips.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And it was 2020, it was in the midst
of the height of the pandemic, right.
- Yeah
And we'd already been in the house
for six or eight months and we just went
can no do, can no do this no more.
- [Kelly] We have to move, yeah.
- And so we, we leased a tour bus
and we live in Florida now.
- Yeah.
- But we drove out to the west coast.
Then we went up to Seattle.
Then we went to San Francisco
and then we went to LA - [Kelly] Yeah.
- And all the national parks in between.
- Beautiful.
So did being on that road trip, is that kind of,
what I guess, led you to do Fierce Bliss?
Like inspired you?
- Yeah. It gave me a lot of fresh,
you know, input oF the beauty
and just, it energized me and it was peaceful.
So that's what it takes for me to write is I need peace
and I need room to daydream and quiet, you know?
- [Kelly] Oh I know.
- and the tour life is not that
- Yeah.
- the tour life, as you know, is
- It's chaotic
- It's like a crossroads of just all these different
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- People's energies and everything.
You have to be just focused on that one
two hours you're gonna do on stage.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- Yeah. So the road trip really helped me write.
- I love that.
So next year is the 50th anniversary of Heart.
- Yeah.
(Audience claps)
- So that's amazing.
So do you have to any plans to celebrate?
I mean that's awesome. 50 years.
- We do.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- But I gotta say it's too early days
for me to talk about it now.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- I'm not at liberty to discuss it.
- Ooh I like it.
- But
(Ann laughs)
- Yeah, that makes it tease
- But yeah. - [Kelly] Okay.
- Yeah. We are gonna do a thing.
- Okay. Just asking for a friend.
(Both laugh)
Ann's new album is called Fierce Bliss.
It's out now and Ann is performing
for us later in the show.
You will definitely wanna stick around for that.