Steve Fossen was born on November 15, 1949. A founding member and original bassist of Heart, he played on “Magic Man” and “Barracuda,” with a history in the band that reached back well before its first album.
Fossen had explored trumpet and guitar before his father offered to rent him a bass and amplifier. In a 2015 interview with For Bass Players Only, he remembered how quickly it took hold: “No one could pry it out of my hands.” He began playing in local groups, learning songs by established bands and getting experience before the partnership that would define his early career.
In 1967, while still in high school, Fossen and guitarist Roger Fisher started the Army. Recalling that beginning to Glide in 2023, Fossen said they shared an ambition to build a band with an international audience. The group passed through the name Whiteheart before becoming Heart in 1969. By 1972, Fossen, Fisher and singer Ann Wilson had relocated to Vancouver, British Columbia, where club work brought the band to the attention of Mushroom Records.
Making a debut album didn’t immediately replace that working routine. Fossen told Glide that Heart were playing clubs four to six nights a week while recording Dreamboat Annie, fitting sessions around their bookings. The album arrived in Canada in 1975 and in the United States in 1976. Even as Heart began touring behind it, breaks became opportunities to return to the studio. The experience Fossen valued most about the debut was how much the musicians had contributed together.
“Magic Man” gives a specific example of what he brought to that collaboration. Speaking to For Bass Players Only, Fossen described devising the song’s chugging rhythmic feel and the backing passage beneath its guitar and Moog solos. Those were contributions to the arrangement, distinct from the song’s credited writing by Ann and Nancy Wilson. In an April 2020 interview with North Coast Music Beat, he recalled that “Magic Man” was the first song he recorded for Dreamboat Annie and the first recording of himself he heard on the radio. That personal connection helped explain why he continued to enjoy playing it.
Fossen’s work with Heart extended through Little Queen and into the early 1980s. He and drummer Michael Derosier left after recording Private Audition, released in 1982. Their later collaboration grew from a much smaller setting than the stages they had shared with Heart.
After meeting singer Somar Macek in 2008, Fossen began performing with her as a bass-and-vocal duo. Their appearances at small gatherings, bistros and jam nights developed into Heart By Heart. Requests for a full band brought Derosier back into the picture, giving Fossen another setting in which to play the music they had recorded together. The project connected those familiar bass and drum parts with Macek’s lead vocals.
In 2013, Fossen and Derosier were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as members of Heart. For Fossen, the recognition also addressed something that had bothered him: hearing the band’s recordings discussed as though the instrumentalists had disappeared from the story. He told North Coast Music Beat in 2020 that the induction had renewed attention to their contributions and given Heart By Heart a boost. At the ceremony, the six inducted musicians reunited for “Crazy on You,” returning Fossen to a bass part he had recorded on Dreamboat Annie.
