HEART‘s Ann Wilson talked to Dave Lawrence of Hawaii Public Radio about her decision to move to northern Florida a couple of years after spending most of her life living in Seattle.
“There’s a feeling of regionalism that’s really unrealistic,” she said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “I know, because I spent most of my life living in Seattle, the ultimate ‘blue’ place, and then moved down here to Florida, which is maybe the ultimate ‘red’ place, through this region anyway. And there are good people here — really good people. Maybe they even voted for [Donald] Trump in the [last presidential] election, but that doesn’t make them bad people. I think when we talk about dangerous folks, we’re talking about fringe elements that would actually rise up and not know what else to do except bash and shoot. And the same in Seattle — we saw a whole lot of trouble happen up there too.
“Coming from Seattle, I know that Seattle is in love with itself, and it exists in a bubble of ‘blueness,'” she continued. “None of my friends can believe that I moved down here [to Florida]. I told them that we were moving here, and they just said to me, ‘You’re kidding, right? How long are you gonna stay?’ ‘I don’t know. We’re just moving.’ This is a good place. We’ve got a beautiful spot here on the river, and we love each other and we like the weather. We don’t move here for political reasons.”
Ann previously discussed her relocation to Florida in a December 2020 interview with The Seattle Times. Speaking about what it has been like moving to the opposite corner of the country, she said: “It’s been a huge adjustment, to be honest. I love the weather down here. I miss the turning of the seasons, but I really don’t miss the nine months of constant drizzle and dreariness that is Seattle weather. I’m really glad to wake up every day and be able to see the sky. I’m still adjusting to living in a town that isn’t a progressive bubble like Seattle is.”
According to Ann, the sociopolitical climate near her new home in Florida is very different to what she had experienced back in Seattle. “Yeah, I think most of the country’s really that way,” she said. “I think when you get away from the certain coastal urban areas, that’s pretty much the way it is. You’ve got people with all kinds of ideas living together. So, that’s been the biggest adjustment, because in Seattle, if someone dared to put a Trump sign on their lawn, you would go, ‘Oh my God!’ But here, it’s all kinds of different ideas, so you have to put your money where your mouth is when it turns to accepting diversity.”
Asked if there have been any difficult moments in that transition, Ann said: “I’ve been surprised a few times in spite of myself, because I’ll be talking with someone who I really like — they’re smart, they’re warm and they’re a good person — and if the subject turns to politics, suddenly it gets very weird. They’ll go, ‘Oh, don’t worry. Mr. Trump‘s gonna fix everything.’ And you kinda go, ‘Whaaaaaaaat?!’ You learn to not judge people. You don’t judge the human by their political beliefs. You have to look past that.
“I think that so-called progressive people are just as guilty as conservative people are, as being sort of isolated and not giving the other side a chance. That’s what I really wanna call for, especially with the song ‘The Revolution Starts Now’. You don’t have to marry the person, but you can live next door to them and you can share a cup of sugar.”
Last month, Ann said in an interview that there are no plans for HEART to work on new music in the immediate future.
HEART toured North America in the summer of 2019 after a nasty split that kept the Wilson sisters estranged for three years.
Ann and Nancy had a falling out during HEART‘s 2016 tour, when Ann‘s husband Dean Welter was arrested for assaulting Nancy‘s then-16-year-old twin sons in a backstage altercation at a gig near their hometown of Seattle. He pleaded guilty to two lesser assault charges to avoid jail time.
Ann‘s 2018 solo album, “Immortal”, contained cover versions of classic songs by artists who have passed away.
