Roger Fisher, the co-founder and original lead guitarist for the rock band Heart, played a pivotal role in the band’s early success, contributing to albums like Dreamboat Annie, co-writing hits, and famously creating Barracuda. MetalTalk’s Sunil Singh spoke to Roger at length about his career, and we will soon discover more about his SoulGarden Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to providing mentorship, studio access, and opportunities to emerging musicians.
This is my second interview for MetalTalk. My first one was with the Dutch band The Gathering, one of my favourite bands of all time. And now, once again, I was interviewing a personal favourite, both band and guitarist.
On March 27, 2024, Roger Fisher joined my Sonic Seducers group on Facebook. But, before that, I messaged him earlier in the year, hoping he might want to contribute something to the Love Alive chapter of Sonic Seducer. He responded almost immediately with an enthusiastic yes. Below is an excerpt of what he shared.
The romantic story that gave birth to that song is filled with details that intersect his love affair with Nancy Wilson and the height of the band’s collective songwriting.
“In the early 1970s, I was living with a luthier, Ed Myronyck, in Vancouver, BC. The idea of living with a guitar builder and learning the craft was to me like a bee discovering a fresh flower. It seemed like my raison d’être.
“It was while transforming my Gibson SG into a double-neck guitar that Nancy Wilson stopped in to see what I was doing. She was visiting her sister Ann, considering joining our group, Heart.
“Evidently, she was impressed. That night, seeing her off in her old Datsun, she kissed me. I don’t know what it’s like for other people, but for me, the universe stopped for a moment right then.
“The world was a new, vibrant place crackling with life. We began seeing each other regularly, thriving in the passion we both felt for climbing the staircase to becoming good musicians. I took Nance to see guitar seminars – Barney Kessel; Joe Pass; Johnny Smith. Those meanderings were enhanced by our elevated state.
“Ed had gifted me with a jar of psilocybin mushrooms suspended in honey, adding a dimension to our otherwise enthusiastic explorations. It was tripping in this alternate world that we wrote the main riff of Love Alive. I had asked everyone I knew if it sounded familiar to them, as it seemed to me it was something I’d heard Jimmy Page play. Nope, no one had heard it before.
“Nance made up one of her always-perfect, complimenting guitar parts, and we had the foundation for a cool song. Working on it with Ann, a version emerged that we called Incognito In Sausalito. One of the joys of being a composer and poet is that an epiphany can suddenly change everything, and it did when Ann bore the inspired body of the lyrics to Love Alive.
“The song was now a living, breathing entity that longed for attention… global attention. It was just before sunset on a warm summer day. I was on Ed’s roof, sitting on moss, playing an acoustic guitar he had built.
“Out of nowhere, a simple chord progression appeared like a sunbeam arch from heaven. When I played it – by accident – my hair stood on end. I was goosebumps head to toe. This was Gold! The bridge to Love Alive was born.”
Two years to the day after he joined the book’s Facebook group, I got to sit down with him, myself in Toronto and he in a little town called Goldbar, which is about 30 minutes outside Seattle, and spend one magical hour musing and reflecting on the intricacies of life, relationships, music, and creativity.