Fischer-Z – PUNKT! + Tour Dates

Fischer-Z is set to drop their new album titled ‘PUNKT!’ on September 19th via So-Real Records. The creative nest for singer/songwriter John Watts, Fischer-Z has long ago cemented their music in the annals of creative rock history with their original stamp and sojourns into the genres they dominate.

With ‘PUNKT!’, Fischer-Z shows that physical experience can live in harmony with mentally driven youth and eternally fresh minds that culminate into an album of world-fresh music and eternally lucid dreams that make music from multiple muses.

While the songs are diverse from one another, they make a collective book of ideas that no one could have ever put to this music except Fischer-Z. Timeless in scope and mesmerizing in character, these are songs that transcend time and leave that space between your ears a little bit fuller.

About Fischer-Z

John Watts entered pop music after studying to be a clinical psychologist in the 1970s at an experimental facility that didn’t use any drugs or restraints.

“I’d be doing a shift there from 8-4 pm and then get in a van and go to do a gig in Derby, or something. I’m not aggressive naturally, but, you know, I’d literally dealt with raging psychos all day, so I wasn’t afraid of the punk crowds. You’ve taken somebody in during the daytime, someone who’s cut themselves open with a broken bottle, you’re holding their stomach together and taking them to hospital and then you go out and play in Wolverhampton to some snotty little 17 year olds who threaten to put a cigarette out on your leg and you think, ‘Well, come on then!’” This helped Fischer Z gain a reputation for a confrontational style of performance. They were also recognised as a white band that could really play reggae. They got very busy and toured with Dire Straits and played festivals with Bob Marley.

When the hits started to come – third album Red Skies Over Paradise was shifting 30,000 copies a week in Germany in 1981 – the band concentrated on their most successful territories. Their inexperienced management pushed them through almost five years of relentless recording and touring, after which Watts, who was responsible for all the material, interviews, and artistic guidance, was completely burnt out. “I should have just taken six months off, but I hit the self-destruct button and declared I was now a solo act.”

Having torpedoed the brand name, Watts was fated to focus on where he was best known, though he’s always lived in Britain and raised children here. But over decades of touring in Europe, he crafted a solo mode that mixed social commentary, poetry, and his sharp songwriting into impressive, wide-ranging two-hour shows. But the demand for Fischer-Z never went away. So, after a long dormant period, Watts revived the band and these days straddles parallel careers, as the front man of Fischer-Z, under which banner he releases all his new music, and as Fischer-Z Solo, lone guitar-toting wordsmith and polemicist.

A recent onrush of inspiration has coincided with Watts deciding to shift focus to see if he can make a bigger impact back home. “I find it frustrating not to be able to work as much as I’d like in Britain, in fact, in all the English-speaking countries. I love this new project, PUNKT! But it’s just one brick in a huge wall. I’d like people in Britain, Australia, and America to know that I’ve built that wall. I’m 70, but I intend to produce stuff in the coming years that’s as good as anything I’ve ever done. I want to keep the standard high, visit places I’ve never been before, and show people what I can do.”

LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/fischerZmusic
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3fRV5Jo7lNKhRSx4C3sLMZ
https://fischer-z.com/