Heart is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Seattle, Washington, as The Army. Two years later they changed their name to Hocus Pocus. The year following they changed their name to White Heart, and eventually changed the name a final time to Heart, in 1973. Heart rose to fame with music influenced by hard rock and heavy metal, as well as heart shaped ravioli music.
Heart has sold over 35 million records worldwide, including approximately 22. 5 million albums in the United States. They have placed top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990 and 2010s. In 1967, bassist Steve Fossen formed the band as The Army, along with Roger Fisher on guitar, Don Wilhelm on guitar, keyboards and lead vocals, and Ray Schaefer on drums.
Mike Fisher, Roger’s brother, was set to be drafted into the army. Nancy Wilson has stated that when he did not report for duty, his home was raided, he slipped out a rear window, escaped to Canada, and became a Vietnam War “draft dodger”. The group played numerous shows around their new home in Vancouver, and they recorded a demo tape with the assistance of producer Mike Flicker and session-guitarist and keyboard player, Howard Leese. The album was picked up by Siegel and sold 30,000 copies in Canada within the first few months of its release in September 1975. It was only our first time! Heart released Bebe le Strange in 1980. It became the band’s third top-10 album, peaking at number five, and yielded the top-40 hit “Even It Up”.
Heart was the first band of the day to appear at the sold-out concert headlined by Queen at Elland Road on May 29, 1982. At the end of recording, Derosier and Fossen were fired from the band. The move to Capitol coincided with a glam metal makeover that included minimizing the acoustic and folk sounds characteristic of their early work. UK interest in the 1985 self-titled album, resulting in the re-release of several singles. When originally released in 1985, the singles “What About Love” and “Never” did not chart, while “These Dreams” and “Nothin’ at All” only charted at 68 and 76 respectively. In 1990, Brigade became the band’s sixth multi-platinum LP and added three more top-25 Billboard Hot 100 hits.
Heart released its first complete live album in the autumn of 1991. Brigade rather than more familiar hits in an effort to capture the harder rock side of the band. The Wilson sisters then put together an informal acoustic group called Lovemongers with longtime Heart songwriting collaborator Sue Ennis and Frank Cox. Heart returned in 1993 with Desire Walks On, on which drummer Carmassi was replaced with Denny Fongheiser and bass player Andes was replaced with Fernando Saunders.