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BIG BLUE HEARTS

Singer David Fisher didn’t set out to make Big Blue Hearts a conceptual band. But when his songwriting took a turn toward emphasizing melody and mood, he liked how it felt. He’d always loved the romantic innocence of Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers and Elvis Presley; he liked their tunes about love and heartbreak and the dramatically atmosphereric tone of the arrangements. “All of a sudden I started writing these songs that were completely different than what I had been doing,” he says. “It felt like I was channeling something being sent to me. It felt natural, and it felt real—like coming home. I remember thinking, ‘Man, you’ve got to keep doing this.’” Indeed, Big Blue Hearts reverberate to a cool beat all their own. They draw on some of the most archetypal of American sounds, yet they stand apart from the past and illustrate how certain classic sounds remain relevant. Like a crisply tailored suit or a well-cut cocktail dress, what they do will always be in style. Still, the trick is to put a personal imprint on this classic style, to make an honest commitment to writing and arranging songs that echo the past while bringing the sound into the present. Like Dwight Yoakam and Chris Isaak in the ‘80s and the Mavericks in the ‘90s, Big Blue Hearts take quintessential elements of American music and inject their own point of view and their own artistic signature. “I’ve never doubted that this was my music and my style,” says Fisher. “I feel like Big Blue Hearts create a world of their own. We don’t try to sound like anyone else, and we don’t try to fit into a genre. We just do what we do.” When the band performed its initial concerts in San Francisco, they created an immediate buzz. Within four months, Geffen Records offered the band a record deal. But the label and the music industry was in transition, and the band’s 1997 debut was released with little support in a an era obsessed with grunge and hip hop. “There wasn’t anyone around who sounded like us, and there certainly wasn’t anyone on the label who sounded like us,” says a bemused Fisher. “That’s OK, because I learned a lot. Frankly, at the time I hadn’t had much experience working in the studio. I was so green that I let others direct me. What we did got a lot of great press, but I knew we could make a better record.” The band spent several years on Geffen Records but didn’t release another album. Frustrated, Fisher moved to Los Angeles, built his own home studio and worked on music for film and television, where his lush, moody songs were embraced. Stylish TV shows like Las Vegas, Six Feet Under, The O.C., One Tree Hill. Ally McBeal, Everwood and other shows featured his work. Fisher contemplated focusing on soundtrack work until a music industry insider urged him to make another Big Blue Hearts album. “I got this letter from a guy who had worked for Geffen,” says Fisher. “He said he’d been listening to my original demos and he’d had such an emotional reaction to the music that it was like a spiritual reawakening. He made me reconsider what I was doing, and I realized I missed being in a band and missed writing for the Big Blue Hearts.” But this time he went about business differently. He formed a label with friend and co-writer Douglas Soref, who co-produced the band’s second album, “Here Come Those Dreams Again,” with Fisher. The album was recorded in Fisher’s home studio with new bandmates Scott Minchk, Greg Sobol and Luke Easterling. “Everything really gelled this time,” says Fisher. “I made the record we should have made in the first place. Everything I’d done in the past few years came into play. I knew how to get the sound I wanted in a studio this time.” Released on Eagle Eye Records, a label formed by Fisher and Soref, “Here Come Those Dreams Again” received a groundswell of support. The live show and the CD have drawn an enthusiastic response from fans, press and video stations like CMT. “I feel completely free and liberated now,” says Fisher. “I feel like I’m finally making the music I want to make and getting a lot of good reactions to it. I feel like things have been growing steadily and we’re constantly moving to the next step. I feel really excited about the future of this band. We’re finally where we need to be.”