Band of the Week: Big Blue Hearts

Hometown: Los Angeles

Members: Pictured above [L-R] David Fisher (vocals/guitar); J.B. Burton (bass); Greg Sobol (drums); Scott Minchk (guitar)

Fun Fact: Frontman David Fisher has a day job writing pop-rock songs for film and television shows. His songs have appeared on programs like The OC, One Tree Hill and The Real World.

Why you should check them out: Big Blue Hearts are hard to pigeonhole, surprising audiences with equal parts pop, rock, country and Americana.

For fans of: The Mavericks, Roy Orbison, Chris Isaak

Their lyrics are almost awkwardly clichéd. Their melodies are subtle. They give their songs titles like “Dreamin’ Of A Woman” and “Feels So Right.” They wear suits and ties on stage. There’s nothing punk rock about Big Blue Hearts... except its frontman.

Lead singer David Fisher was quite the Ramones fanatic in his early years. “I basically was a punk rocker for like seven years of my life,” he says. After a friend’s mother—who was a DJ in Baltimore—exposed him to artists like Gary Numan, The Tubes and The Sex Pistols, he became interested in underground music. With a hand-me-down acoustic guitar, a mohawked Fisher learned how to play Minor Threat songs.

At 16 years old, he placed an ad in D.C.'s Washington City Paper that read, “I’m a singer, and I want to sing.” A band from The University of Maryland responded, and Fisher surprised them with improv lyrics that fit the music. “It was my thing,” he says. “It was very natural for me to kind of roll with it.”

It wasn’t until he started writing his own songs that Fisher realized he’d been experimenting with the wrong genre. “I started writing these Big Blue Hearts-style songs, which was really weird because I was not into that kind of music,” he says. “It was kind of like a spiritual awakening when it happened, and I just went with it.”

Having moved to San Francisco, Fisher founded Big Blue Hearts. Their twangy, Everly Brothers-influenced pop rock was well received by the music industry, and a record deal came quickly. In 1997, the band released a self-titled album on Geffen Records. “It all happened way too fast,” Fisher reflects. “The vision I had for the record was never achieved.” He suffered from serious depression after being cut from the label’s roster, and Big Blue Hearts became latent for a while.

A few years ago, Fisher started working on new songs with co-writer Douglas Soref, bassist J.B. Burton and drummer Greg Sobol. They placed an ad to find lead guitarist Scott Minchk, and Big Blue Hearts, now in Los Angeles, went to work on another album. “I really look at this new record as the first Big Blue Hearts record,” says Fisher, who produced it himself. “This is a much better record. I made sure it told the truth.” Here Come Those Dreams Again is an upbeat album full of sappy, country-tinged love songs.

And as for the suits and ties, they serve as proof that Fisher’s rebellious days are long since over. “We’re on the stage, we respect the stage,” he says. “My grandfather always said, ‘Dress well, my friend. Wherever you are, dress well.’”