Pop duo consisting of vocalist/lyricist
Kathy Fisher and her husband, composer
Ron Wasserman. Wasserman and Fisher met through a mutual friend (Kathy's then love interest) and discovered that they shared a
mutual interest in complex
pop music with introspective lyrics.
The duo began to collaborate on projects (Ron was the composer of the theme of The Mighty Morphin' Powers Rangers and Kathy's vocalizations appear on the movie soundtrack). Wasserman preferred to stay in the background and the duo went under Kathy's name. A succesful audition with Atlantic Records executives landed Fisher a track (Breakable) on the Great Expectations soundtrack, and after a suggestion that Kathy Fisher was too unweildy a name, the song was recorded under the name Fisher.
Atlantic Records optioned Fisher for a year, but ultimately decided not to produce an album.
After the initial frustration of playing small Los Angeles venues (most notably Luna Park) and being in recording company limbo; Ron and Kathy decided to take their music to the Internet where they already had a large following (especially among fans of Tori Amos who had bought the Great Expectations soundtrack for an Amos track, Siren). The duo's distribution of their music on Mp3.com proved to be a bigger success than either Ron or Kathy had initially figured, there were over 2 million downloads of Fisher songs in the span of a year.
The duo decided that the next step was to produce their own music, and they self-published and distributed an 8 song Ep in 1999. The sales of Fisher's first independantly-produced album One and their fiercely devoted group of internet fans attracted industry attention and the duo were signed to Jimmy and Doug's Farmclub.
After a surprisingly successful test-run of the song I will love you, (the song was the most-requested song on one of its test stations in San Diego), the band's label decided to release their first major album, True North in November, 2000.
Sources: The Band's sites at http://www.fishertheband.com, http://digitalsound.net and conversations with Kathy Fisher.