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.
Notice that the word “music” was organically folded into a sentence that incorporates the aspiration of intersecting realms. This should alert everyone that this interview was special.
This was not an interview that revolved around unearthing the greatest hits of answers to already asked questions over the last 50 years. That would have been a waste of time for Roger Fisher, me, and you, the readers.
I think I watched a dozen interviews with Roger Fisher. What he demonstrated consistently and constantly was an unbridled glow about the classic lineup of Heart.
That youthful vigour, happiness, and kindness that has pierced Fisher’s soul is something I wanted to tap into more deeply. And, with this candour swimming effortlessly throughout the interview, he made it so easy for this to happen. There’s a special spirit of living and loving that he is not shy about sharing.
However, the interview could have only been special if I started with a banger of a question.
It had to be a question that was never posed to him before. And, he could only answer it one way, or the whole interview was going to fall apart.
I was not disappointed by this answer. It was emphatic, as though both the question and answer had remained unnecessarily dormant since Heart roamed the ’70s with unique brilliance.
One of the first things Roger Fisher discussed in passionate detail was the chemistry and democracy of the band of six, how each member–himself, Ann and Nancy Wilson, Michael Derosier, Howard Leese, and Steve Fossen–fostered collaborative joy and openness to ideas.
The proof is the bandwidth of musical exploration the band committed to all their albums in the ’70s. They swung wildly from soft acoustic to hard rock, inspired by and emulating the freedom of songwriting from their heroes, Led Zeppelin.
Have you ever heard their live cover of The Rover? It’s from a 1976 show. I spent over $30 in the early ’80s to obtain that bootleg. It’s the best one out there, and yes, that includes the mighty Zep themselves. Fisher just hits that needed extra dirtiness with the guitar that’s absent in other renditions. You be the judge.
But let’s go to Heart’s own discography to illustrate the guitar wizardry of Fisher. Let’s go right back to the first song on the first side of their first album, Magic Man.
Can you think of another debut song from the ’70s that is a band’s kind of “hello” to the world that is rooted solely in a hypnotic, slightly psychedelic guitar, becoming iconic almost instantly?
I cannot. In about 10 seconds, Fisher quickly defines the tone and mood of this song of young lust.
Most of us know that Michael Fisher, Roger’s brother (Michael passed away last August), was the inspiration for Magic Man. He and Ann Wilson were in love at the time. But that song, and the band in general, needs more credit to swing the way of both brothers. Michael, as a brilliant manager, fully understood the unique talents of each member of Heart. And of course, Roger, never fully getting his dues as not only a gifted guitarist/musician/songwriter, but also a gifted storyteller.
The heart of the interview was the deep connection that he and Nancy Wilson had in songwriting and playing live. As Roger Fisher commented, “it was romantic and telepathic.” It was not just love for each other, it was a love for music, and the intertwining of those heated passions resulted in a deep spiritual connection and some of the best songs ever crafted in rock ‘n’ roll
You can feel all of that in just the acoustic opening of the song that defines the philosophical nectar of Heart. It, the bridge that Roger wrote about, and the rest of the song remain timeless and magical.
The legacy of Heart needed a deeper audit. Thank you, Roger Fisher, for sharing with us that in our interview, and for keeping the love alive for your band and music in general.
