Exclusive: Watch Heart’s Raw Cover of Foo Fighters’ ‘No Way Back’
Earlier this month, Heart joined Foo Fighters to perform the Wilson sisters‘ 1977 track “Kick It Out” as part of the latter’s weeklong residency on The Late Show With David Letterman.
Now, in an exclusive video for Rolling Stone, Heart has returned the favor with a raw, spirited version of Foos’ 2005 track “No Way Back,” recorded backstage in their dressing room on tour in Texas last weekend.
“We wanted to give something back to them,” Ann Wilson tells Rolling Stone of the In Your Honor track. “Just to say thank you. It’s the perfect HOOT song and worked well with the esoteric instruments we had around. It’s a classic ripper with good melodies, great lyrics and perfect for hair-flipping.”
Added Nancy: “I chose ‘No Way Back’ because it’s one of the Foos’ most kick-ass songs!”
Ann was still buzzing over the Letterman gig, which she said came together quickly. “They were like, ‘Hey, can you come over and do this thing’?” Wilson recalls. “We said, ‘Of course,’ because they’re our buds. It was a really fun experience. The Foo Fighters are hilarious guys. The way ‘Kick It Out’ sounded that night was the difference between two guitars and four guitars on stage. It [had] a very kinetic, powerful kick to it and I liked it.”
Foo frontman Dave Grohl’s relationship with Ann and Nancy Wilson goes back more than two decades when Grohl was still the drummer for Nirvana. “We met years ago; it was in the Nineties,” Ann tells Rolling Stone. “It was in Seattle: ‘Hey, hey. We’re Nirvana.’ ‘Hi, how you doing?’ In that town in those years, it was hard not to meet each other in clubs. Everybody was usually up on everybody else’s stage.”
If the sisters have their way, Letterman won’t be Heart’s last collaboration with Foo Fighters. “I personally would love to do something with them again,” Ann says. “But it has to be the perfect thing.”