As Ann Wilson reflects on Heart’s immense legacy, her story unavoidably includes a fair few notable music peers that Wilson and co hung out with during the heady days of the ’80s and ’90s.
“I still remember meeting Jerry in the early-’90s,” Wilson tells Guitar World of her first encounter with Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell.
“There’d been a concert with a bunch of northwest bands playing, and we all ended up out at Nancy’s farm out in Woodinville [Washington]. We were laughing and jamming, and it went on ‘til everybody had drank too much to drive – so everyone just slept there.”
Wilson recalls how she and Jerry were the last ones awake and thought it would be a good idea to clean the house, aided by a bottle of leftover champagne.
“We went down to the stables and fed the horses a bunch of apples – and gave them some champagne. By the time the sun came up, we were friends. There was no weirdness at all. There wasn’t even an age differential that anyone cared about. It was just two musicians together.”
The Heart vocalist goes on to recall a piece of advice that Cantrell imparted back then that she can still remember to this day.
“Jerry’s guitar style is truly original. He once told me, ‘All the bands that are really huge, they figure out what their thing is, then they lean into it hard until people want to puke.’”
She continues, “It was rough language, but I knew what he meant. You just figure out what you’re saying, and you don’t do anything else. That’s what Jerry does. He doesn’t care about notes lined up like a scale. He loves the songs to move around, y’know, kinda fluid. I think he hears way more than seven tones.”
Her bond with Cantrell extended well beyond those encounters. She lent her vocals to the Alice in Chains tracks Brother and Am I Inside from their 1992 Sap EP. Later, she recorded a cover of Rooster, honoring her Seattle roots and the enduring legacy of Alice in Chains.
Wilson’s authorized 2026 documentary film, In My Voice, premiered earlier this year, alongside a North American special screening, and is set for wider release in November.
Guitar World’s upcoming interview with Ann Wilson will be published in the coming weeks.
