Fischer-Z are a British rock group and main creative project of singer, guitarist and poet John Watts.

The band's name is pronounced /fɪʃə ˈzɛd/ ("fisher zed"), a pun on "fish's head" with the "h" dropped, as is usual in many British regional accents.

[2] The first performances took place in English punk clubs and the first Fischer-Z album, Word Salad, was released in 1979 on United Artists Records, in parallel with The Buzzcocks and The Stranglers.

[4] With his second album, Going Deaf for a Living, Watts cemented Fischer-Z's ability to capture global political themes against the backdrop of 'quirky' pop music.

1981 also brought the release of Fischer-Z's third and most commercially successful album Red Skies Over Paradise, which featured the singles, "Marliese" and "Berlin".

In this line up, the band celebrated further success, with hit singles "The Perfect Day" (1988) and "Say No" (1989) from the albums Reveal (1988) and Fish's Head (1989).

[8] The next two Fischer Z albums, Kamikaze Shirt (1993) and Stream (1995), continued to combine a political perspective with songs based on Watts' observations and experiences in real life.

There was a 2004 reunion of the original band for one short show which featured on the Garden Party DVD which was released along with the Fischer-Z Highlights 1979–2004 25th anniversary compilation album.

[12] After touring that album, Watts found strangers on his travels from 10 different European countries and wrote a song for each of them based on their life stories.

It contained the single "Head On", which was inspired by Watts' experience of watching a seven-year-old child streaming the live execution of Saddam Hussein on their phone.

On 24 April 2014 John Watts Fischer-Z started a four-day tour of the Netherlands in De Vorstin in Hilversum, which continued into Germany.