Big Blue Hearts

The road ahead is looking better than ever for David Fisher. The lead vocalist and songwriter of the romantic retro-billy quartet Big Blue Hearts has created a vintage rock sound with dreamy double-beat love songs and a voice that brings to mind Elvis, Roy Orbison, the ballads of Dwight Yoakum and the throat clutch of Buddy Holly. Its latest album, "Here Come Those Dreams Again" (Eagle Eye Records, August 2005), is getting rave reviews. And its first single, “Lovin’ You (Is the Right Thing to Do),” is riding The Texas Music Chart; the video continues to be featured on Great American Country Television and Country Music Television.com.

The road that Fisher has traveled hasn't always been rosy, although he is grateful to his mother for playing Marvin Gaye and Motown around the house as well as singer-songwriters like Carole King, James Taylor and Carly Simon. When he was 7, he says he knew he’d be a singer. In fourth grade he got his first acoustic guitar. He credits a friend’s mom, who was a DJ at Baltimore’s indie-rock radio station WHFS, with broadening his musical horizons: “She turned us on to all this cool music, like Gary Neuman, The Tubes, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols. Of the kids we knew, no one had heard that stuff.” He got into English bands like The Exploited and seminal punk bands on the Washington, D.C.-based Dischord label.

Fisher found acceptance in the punk-rock subculture. At 16, he auditioned for a band, making up lyrics onstage as he went along. The band was blown away by his spontaneity and they started playing gigs two weeks later. When Fisher finally began writing his own songs, he was surprised to find a new voice — “music I never really listened to” that was like “channeling something from the past.” With a vision that included retro black suits for members, Big Blue Hearts was born. The band soon inked a major record deal with Geffen and released a self-titled album that earned a devoted fan following and impressed critics. But while being mentioned in the same breath as Chris Isaak and The Mavericks’ Raul Malo, Fisher watched as a corporate merger pushed the band from the reconfigured label. “I was devastated,” Fisher says.

After a hiatus, he assembled a new Big Blue Hearts. Fisher's road has become easier, and it’s reflected in lyrics that give Big Blue Hearts the singular spirit and unique edge it enjoys. “In my case, the stuff that didn't kill me also made me a stronger songwriter,” he says. “If I had to go through those hard times for that, so be it.”