Heart

You’re on tour right now?

We’re on tour right now in between recording sessions. So we’ve been really busy putting together the songs for the new album.

A new Heart album?

We’re making a new album and we’re working with producer Ben Mink.

It seems like nowadays I hear your music more than ever before.

We’ve seen so many young, young kids the last few years now, showing up at the Heart shows, in the front row, yelling, “BARRACUDA!” Which is really cool because it means that our songs are standing the test of time kind of beautifully and the generational dots are connecting. We couldn’t be more excited about that.

It seemed as if Heart had two distinct careers: the classic rock Portrait Records incarnation of the ’70s, and the run you had after signing with Capitol, with the smoke machines and big hair videos on MTV.

Well, at first it was kind of exciting because we had a new record label and new management and a new opportunity to survive. The way the culture was changing because of MTV turned quickly into something else—it was so bombastic, over the top, and [cost] so much money. It was really hard to live up to the standard of the imaging that was starting to support that ’80s fashion; it got to be more trouble than it was worth. All that hairspray. Oh my god.

You can read more of this recent interview over @ the Portland Mercury web site.