FISCHER-Z
2021 EPK
SHORT PRESS RELEASE
OUT NOW: SAME BOAT 2021(PIAS worldwide).
“We’re all in the same boat.” is a phrase we’ve heard a lot during the pandemic. The Same Boat Song tells the stories of 3 fictional cases : an old man, a Trinidadian nurse and a teenage girl. The refrain is “We’re in the same boat in a perfect storm.” Case figures have shown that wealth, ethnicity and class disprove this theory.
NEW ALBUM: Til The Oceans Overflow 2021 (PIAS Worldwide)
A new FISCHER-Z album Til The Oceans Overflow will be released by PIAS on 8th October. It is set in Berlin and contrasts the personal, political and social changes between 1980 and 2020. The songs were originally going to be made into a Fischer-Z Solo album for John. He had written two sets of songs, one for this project and one for a new Fischer-Z band album to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Red Skies Over Paradise album. Once the pandemic struck John amalgamated the two sets of songs into one project, which became ‘Til The Oceans Overflow! Due to the international composition of the band many musical contributions were created at home and then emailed to John in the UK.
We have black and white Berlin film including some footage from the famous Hansa studios which is edited into a short film to help introduce the connection between this new release and Fischer-Z’s iconic Red Skies Over Paradise album. The internet and social media has radically affected peoples’ freedoms and manipulability. Characters mentioned in the 1980s songs have been brought forward 40 years in their lives to illustrate some of these changes.
NEXT SINGLE: Waterside
The album will be preceded by a single Waterside. In these tumultuous times the pressures are immense, emotions are heightened and many things are thrown into a state of flux. People look for symbols of stability. The song is about two lovers who recover from a disagreement by sharing the enjoyment of the beauty of the moon and the flow of the river.
There will be 30 live dates planned in GSL, Austria, Benelux, Spain and UK to support these releases - September /October /November 2021 and beyond.
John Watts’ over 40 year career as Fischer-Z includes 22 albums and thousands of concerts worldwide with success spanning continental Europe and album sales in excess of two million. Peter Gabriel, Steve Cropper and Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ Brass Section have all contributed to recordings. Fischer-Z have performed to crowds of 167,000 alongside James Brown in East Berlin, toured with both The Police and Dire Straits, appeared with Bob Marley on his final European festival tour and have toured in both the USA and Canada. In recent years Watts has developed a reputation as a multimedia artist, poet and playwright, amassing an impressive and eclectic range of creative work characterised by verve, warmth and humanity.