Fischer-Z were more popular in mainland Europe than their native UK, especially in Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Portugal (two top 10 hits and a #3 album). Fischer-Z were also very successful in Australia, where they achieved two Top 20 hits with "So Long" from the album Going Deaf for a Living and "The Perfect Day" from the album Reveal.
John Watts is a self-confessed "follower of the troubadour tradition" and his lyrics draw heavily on his experiences of studying clinical psychology and as a mental health care worker.
Several songs on the album Red Skies Over Paradise in 1981, such as Berlin and Red Skies Over Paradise are about the Cold War and the song Cruise Missiles which is about the nuclear arms race and the mutual threat of the superpowers with nuclear war.
Fischer-Z's first hit was The Worker from the album Word Salad which firmly established Watts' ability to convey worldly political issues in narrative songs against a background of quirky pop and reggae-influenced music.
Skolnik departed after their second album Going Deaf for a Living and after the following album Red Skies over Paradise John Watts decided to break the band up in the summer of 1981 as he felt his art could not evolve within the context of the band.
John Watts released his first solo album One More Twist in 1982 followed by The Iceberg Model in 1983. In 1984 he formed the band The Cry with Mike Been, David Graham and Theo Thunder, this album placed an emphasis on crucial groove elements combined with his strong song writing and was produced by Jimmy Douglass. In 1988 John Watts released the Reveal album under the name Fischer-Z, a new band with the same name in which he was the only original member, although Skolnik made a minor contribution to one track.
The second album in this Fischer-Z period, Fish's Head, 1989 included the Say No single with a politically charged black & white Nick Brandt music video which was banned by their record label on the grounds of it potentially "endangering the lives of their employees worldwide".
In this period Watts performed to 167,000 people at a Peace Festival in East Berlin along with James Brown and he was interviewed about Thatcherism on German national news.
Going Deaf for a Living is a 1980 album by Fischer-Z. This was the second album by Fischer-Z featuring the "classic line-up". The guitar on this album was made more prominent, after their rather keyboard prominent debut. This album, as well the following Red Skies Over Paradise, are considered by fans as the best work to be produced by Fischer-Z.
The album featured the singles "Room Service", "Crazy Girl", "Limbo" and the most popular "So Long", which hit #72 in the UK singles chart, #15 in Australia and #26 in the Netherlands.
"So Long" was the first single by Fischer-Z to have a video made for it, and still garners regular airplay on radio stations in Europe.
" The above text is a mashup from Wikipedia."
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