The Cowboys' singer had spirit of rock 'n' roll

On some nights in the early 1980s, jumping and gyrating on stage at yet another Seattle rock club, putting every bit of energy into belting each song, Ian Fisher would sweat through three or four sets of clothes.

Sometimes, when he peeled off drenched, tight leather pants, the black dye covered every bit of the lower half of his body.

During the half-dozen years ending in 1986, when his band, The Cowboys, disbanded, few individuals represented the spirit of rock 'n' roll here as well as Mr. Fisher.

"I'm a rock and roll cowboy!" Mr. Fisher would scream out in one of the signature songs of his band, a group that played British-inspired power pop. Young women — and young men — filled the dance floor and shouted back the lyrics to original tunes that fused New Wave, reggae and roots rock 'n' roll.

Mr. Fisher died of a heart attack early on the morning of Oct. 23 on Samui Island in Thailand. He was 51.

Mr. Fisher was staying at the Ubon Villa, a low-budget collection of bungalows on Maenam Beach, which for about 20 years he visited annually during the Seattle fall and winter.

After The Cowboys called it quits, Mr. Fisher took up house painting, earning enough money working for a half-year in Seattle to spend the rest of the year trekking through Tibet, Cambodia and Laos and then ending up at Ubon Villa.

Eventually, the rock 'n' roll life got to Mr. Fisher — the endless club gigs and earning maybe $100 or $150 a week after expenses for the four-man band.

He said in a Seattle Times interview in 1998, "I gave it everything. Then I got tired. If you're looking for a tag story, it's about having that fire in your belly. I couldn't care about it anymore."

But while it lasted, it was magic.

His legacies

He was credited by younger musicians as their inspiration for taking up rock 'n' roll.

Another of his legacies is that because of The Cowboys' success and that of another local band, the Heats, in playing their original songs, Seattle club owners in the 1980s could no longer insist that bands play covers of groups such as Led Zeppelin.

Among Mr. Fisher's many fans was Charles R. Cross, author of biographies of musicians Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix, and editor in the 1980s of The Rocket, a now-defunct Seattle music magazine.

Cross remembered hosting a 15th-anniversary party in 1994 for the music magazine, inviting numerous music celebrities who live in the area.

"The irony was that a lot of those guys were extremely impressed to meet Ian Fisher, the person there who had the least amount of commercial and financial success. He was the one who acted most like a rock star," Cross said.

"At a different time and a different place, he'd have been in the Billboard charts. But the difference between talent and stardom is luck. The Cowboys had talent and they lacked luck."

By the time The Cowboys dissolved, a new rock genre was taking over — grunge.

Both Mr. Fisher and Kurt Cobain, lead singer for Nirvana, which led the Seattle grunge scene, were born in the blue-collar city of Aberdeen.

Mr. Fisher was born on Sept. 26, 1956, the third of five children. His first job after high school was in Kent, making ladders for $600 a month.

He lived in a studio apartment, and in his spare time, wrote about 120 songs.

In early 1979, Mr. Fisher had met three other rock musicians who wanted to start a band.

By then, Mr. Fisher had changed his first name from "Scott" to "Ian," believing a British-sounding name would make him more noticeable.

And, for a time, said his brother Pepper Fisher, of Port Angeles, Mr. Fisher also took "to faking an English accent to get attention. ... He wanted to get in a band."

Besides his brother Pepper, Mr. Fisher is survived by his father, Robert Fisher, of Hoquiam; his mother, Shirley Evans, of Olympia; two sisters, Susan Fisher, of Seattle, and Bobbi Douglas, of Olympia; and brother, Ernie Fisher, of Seattle.

Remembrances

A memorial for Mr. Fisher, with members of The Cowboys, as well as band members of other rock bands from that era, will be held at the Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave, N.W., beginning at 7 p.m. on Dec. 2.

Mr. Fisher was cremated at Samui Island, and a Buddhist ceremony was held at a local temple.

Some of the ashes "will be scattered at the sea and some will be sent to his brother in Seattle," Kwanjai Jitmung said in an e-mail. Her family owns the Ubon Villa.

And, she said, according to Buddhist tradition, some of Mr. Fisher's ashes "will be put in a bowl and put inside a small house at the temple. ... We love him like our family, and we will keep him in our heart forever."

In 1998, Mr. Fisher wrote for The Times a stream-of-consciousness remembrance of how it was for him in the 1980s.

He said:

"Young people came out in droves, wearing New Wave gear from head to toe, shoes man, the chicks wore the sexiest shoes back then, the hair, the asymmetric cuts, big hair, colored hair, bleached, waxed, sprayed, buttons and belts and zippers, a lot of zipper clothes, black checked shirts, thin lapelled jackets, skin tight skirts, pants you had to paint on to wear them, yuppies, dudes, punkers, wannabes, divorcees, coke dealers everywhere, man it was insane, and the whole thing rolled and rolled 'til finally the wheels fell off and a lot of the bands and fans crawled back home exhausted, some of them realized they had husbands and wives and kids and jobs. ... "

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com