Magic men: The return of Heart’s original rhythm section

Together they comprised one of the most powerful rhythm sections in all of American rock ‘n’ roll. Bassist Steve Fossen and drummer Mike Derosier were charter members of Heart, the Seattle band that launched sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson into the upper reaches of rock stardom.

When Heart exploded onto the charts in 1976 with “Magic Man” and “Crazy on You,” the world was presented with a unique rock sextet – a lead singer with an intense, soaring voice (Ann Wilson), a fiery lead guitarist (Roger Fisher), a rhythm and second lead player (Nancy Wilson), a guitarist/keyboardist (Howard Lesse), along with Fossen and Derosier driving the train.

Although the Wilson sisters were the primary songwriters, everyone contributed to the songs and arrangements in the studio. And the hits kept coming: “Dreamboat Annie,” “Barracuda,” “Straight On,” “Little Queen,” “Even it Up,” “Kick it Out.” One platinum album after another.

Fossen and Derosier left Heart in the early 1980s – more on that in a moment – and started playing together a few years ago in a band called Heart By Heart. This group will appear Saturday (Oct. 7) at the Tarpon Springs Performing Arts Center.

Fossen finds it amusing that the “through line” – Heart was an actual band, not just the Wilson sisters and a bunch of hired guns – has gotten lost over the decades.

“It wasn’t lost,” the bassist corrects himself, “it was squashed by Ann and Nancy. But you can’t erase history; what we did is what we did, and people in the know, know that it was a band. Over the years, the focus went to Ann and Nancy.”

He insists it’s not sour grapes; Fossen understands that the sister/sister dynamic marketed well, and there’s never been any denying both women’s prodigious talents.

“But everything we did was like a band,” he says. “We rehearsed in a garage, then we played clubs. We played our dues in clubs a lot. We said, we’re not going to stop until we make it big.

“We made a demo, then we made a record, and by the time we got onstage backing up Dreamboat Annie, our first record, we were a seasoned, tight unit that could pump it out at a moment’s notice.”

He says that it wasn’t until he and the other boys in the band were shown the cover for that album – featuring just the two sisters – they saw where things were going.

“They never said ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ they just said ‘Here’s the album cover,’ and we had no say over it whatsoever. There’s nice pictures on the inside cover and everything, but at the same time this is not going to be Heart so much, it’s going to be Ann and Nancy calling themselves Heart.

“This was something that was shoved down our throats in a way. But you look back, and it worked. So what can you say?”

Things began going south, he explains, when Ann and band manager Mike Fisher (the subject of the song “Magic Man”) had an acrimonious breakup; soon after, Nancy and the band’s founding guitarist Roger Fisher (Mike’s younger brother) also split.

These cataclysmic events didn’t get Fleetwood Mac-level publicity, but it was the death knell for Heart, Version One. Roger Fisher was fired from the band during the recording of the album Private Audition. And Nancy took up with Mike Derosier for a time.

Fossen believes fame had gone to the Wilson sisters’ heads; for this album, they sequestered themselves and wrote and arranged all the songs, without any input from the other band members.

When Fossen and Derosier complained that they thought the new material was weak, they were pink-slipped. Private Audition was the first flop Heart album; the band came back strong in the mid 1980s, with new members and a couple of power ballad hits.

The original band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, and played “Crazy on You.” Fossen says it was the first time he had seen the sisters in over 20 years. “It was cordial,” he recalls. “Ann was nice and spoke to me; I don’t think Nancy said two words other than hello.”

As of this writing, both sisters are pursuing solo projects. It has been reported that they are not on speaking terms.

Steve Fossen today. Photo provided.

Heart By Heart began in 2008 as a bass-and-vocal duo, just Fossen and his then-girlfriend Somar Macek. Together they played music they liked – including a number of Heart songs.

Over time, it morphed into a full band, with Derosier coming aboard, along with a pair of dynamic guitarists.

Heart By Heart plays all the hits, and then some. With Fossen and Derosier front and center, it’s not exactly a tribute band (Derosier was a co-writer on “Barracuda,” for example, and both Derosier and Fossen are credited as writers on “Little Queen”).

In the beginning, Heart By Heart only gigged around the neighborhood. “We really enjoyed working up those songs,” Fossen says. “We agreed to play for a Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Awareness benefit – then a booking agent started booking us around Washington.

“We made a website that said what we were doing, and people in the east started saying ‘Hey, Mike and Steve are playing together again!’ All of a sudden we’re getting calls to play on the east coast, and here we are today.”

Tickets for the Oct. 7 Tarpon Springs performance are here.

Heart, 1978. Photo: Portrait Records.