By Brent Thompson

For the past 50 years, the music of Heart has been integral to the fabric of American music. The group’s hit catalog, which includes “Crazy On You,” “Barracuda,” “These Dreams,” “What About Love,” and “Alone,” is a mainstay on rock and pop radio stations. in 2013, the band – fronted by sisters Nancy and Ann Wilson – was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On Friday, June 20, Heart will return to Birmingham to perform at Legacy Arena at The BJCC. Recently, guitarist/vocalist Nancy Wilson spoke with us by phone during a tour break.

Southern Stages: Nancy, thanks for your time. Where are you right now?

Nancy Wilson: We’re at home at home and about to go on the road again for the second leg of our tour this year. I’ve been home a few weeks and I’m ready to get out there again and do another month on the road.

Southern Stages: Where are you based these days?

Wilson: I live in Santa Rosa [California] now – I used to live in L.A. Ann lives in Nashville and a lot of the band guys live in Nashville. I used to live in Seattle – me and Ann used to be from Seattle and a couple of the guys that we play with are from Seattle, so we are kind of a West Coast contingent. We rehearse in Nashville.

Southern Stages: With such a large catalog of songs at the band’s disposal, how are tour setlists comprised these days?

Wilson: It’s not very easy. One thing we always try to do is reduce the number of Led Zeppelin songs we all want to play [laughs] because it’s really fun to play them and we’re pretty good at playing them. We try not to play too many Zeppelin songs and we try to switch up some of the Heart stuff that people haven’t heard for a little while, although of course we keep the expected songs that are really cool songs and that’s why people love them. We keep the obvious big hits in there. This time, we’ve learned a song I used to sing called “Love Mistake” – we’ll see if that one flies and another one called “Down On Me” and we’ll see if that flies live. We’ll get together in Atlantic City in a couple of days and figure that out.

Southern Stages: Of course, your hit songs have stood the test of time. But, with that said, how do those songs stay fresh to you after you’ve performed them literally thousands of times?

Wilson: Something like “These Dreams” has gone through a lot of different mutations where I play mandolin or no guitar whatsoever and we’ve used percussion loops, but everything we do is 100% live now. I’m playing acoustic guitar on “These Dreams” nowadays. It’s just one of those things where you have a really capable band who are multi-instrumental and can sing harmonies. You’ve the capability to pull off all of the songs without any prerecording whatsoever – it’s all human. Sometimes it’s interesting the way people respond to that because if I make a mistake or we have to have to start a song over, people go, “Wow that’s so cool!” [laughs] because it’s real and it’s actually happening with skin in the game, 100% live and it’s super human that way. There aren’t a lot of rock bands left in the world – if you want to see a real one, come see us.

Southern Stages: I would assume that you are seeing several generations of fans at your shows these days. Is that a fair statement?

Wilson: Yeah, it’s really true. On the last tour, we did a bunch of arenas and after a couple of weeks out we started seeing more college kids coming out and people bringing their own small kids out and it was great. It was a lot of full houses with multi-generations and you’ve got to love that because it speaks so well for the songs. There was a Hollywood actor that came to the New York Radio City show and she brought her two little kids  – a six and twelve year-old – because her husband is such a fan and he wanted to expose a rock show to his little kids before you can’t see it anymore and while rock bands still roam the earth.

Southern Stages: Are you at liberty to say the actor’s name?

Wilson: It’s a friend now – Anne Hathaway. I Just didn’t want to be a name-dropper. We’ve stayed in touch and it’s really cool.

Southern Stages: Are you still writing and laying down ideas?

Wilson: I always to continue to craft lyrics and guitar ideas in my notes on my phone. You wake up sometimes and you have this melody and you try to catch it before it drifts away. I have a new song which is a duet with Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie which is on a re-release of my solo album You and Me. It’s going to be at the Heart merch booth on the next tour this year. We are going to put it on a label and get it released, but right now it’s a rarity on my solo album called “A Million Goodbyes.” I worked on it with Sue Ennis, who’s a longtime collaborator.

Southern Stages: As a guitarist, are you a gear head? Do you spend time combing music stores looking for guitars, amps and effects?

Wilson: I’m not a gear head at all. I have a couple of pedals and I lean on my guitar tech. I don’t like to think about the gear and I don’t like to have a big pedal board in front of me. I more of a songwriter in the way I approach playing, so it’s really the delivery of the body of the song and the expression of the performance of it that’s more important to me than any sound. I appreciate the gear heads and I wish I could know more about the gear – I just kind of glaze over on the gear thing. People ask me, “What kind of strings do you use?” and I say, “The silver kind” [laughs].

Southern Stages: You have been in a unique position of having your sister by your side throughout your career.

Wilson: It’s really a wonderful thing to have your sister out – it’s a family business and it’s been that way since we started. Even before we were Heart, we were doing little bands and getting people together to play. We have a third sister who’s older and she had kids really young. She might have been in the band too because we were always a musical family. There’s a lot of dramatic bullshit that swirls around us, but when we’re onstage it’s a safe place to have the magical spell – the beautiful gravity that happens with just the two of us relating musically. That’s pretty timeless and that’s what it’s all about for me. I don’t really buy into the business drama that swirls around. Once a decade there’s an issue like that, but we get past it and we get our music done and that’s what we’re doing now.

On Friday, June 20, Heart will perform at Legacy Arena at The BJCC. Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. show can be purchased through Ticketmaster.