The Ocean Blue - Sire Records Years

Sire Records Years

The Ocean Blue's members were just teenagers and still in high school when they signed a three-album deal in 1988 with Sire Records, at the behest of Sire founder Seymour Stein. The Ocean Blue's self-titled album was recorded in London with producers John Porter and Mark Optiz, and many listeners were surprised to learn that the band wasn't British. The first single, the song "Between Something and Nothing", an Echo & the Bunnymen-sounding rocker, hit the top of the college and Modern Rock radio charts in the fall of 1989. The band's busy calendar included U.S. touring and an appearance on one of the first episodes of "Club MTV with Downtown Julie Brown". The follow-up single "Drifting, Falling" was also a top 10 Modern Rock radio hit, and featured a video of the band in various locations in and around their hometown of Hershey, Pennsylvania. The band's first two videos received massive rotation on the fledgling MTV show "Post-Modern MTV". The band later joined labelmates The Mighty Lemon Drops and John Wesley Harding on an extensive U.S/ Canadian tour. All of this promotion helped the band sell well over 150,000 units of the record.

After time in several New England studios, in 1991 the band released the lush and dreamy sounding Cerulean. It had several Modern Rock radio hits, including "Ballerina Out of Control" (#3 hit on the Modern Rock chart), and "Mercury". Both tracks featured videos that fully displayed the band's deepening atmospherics. Cerulean managed to sell 175,000 copies just as the grunge explosion of late 1991 hit and changed the music business. During this time, drummer Rob Minnig and his brother Pat Minnig began to hone their song production and mixing abilities, which would later be reflected on the next album and its b-sides, which the band chose to produce themselves.

The final Sire Records release came in 1993 with Beneath the Rhythm and Sound. This album saw the band adding more lavish sounds but still riding on the same formula that had gained it such a following. "Sublime" received top 40 airplay, with a beautiful video filmed amongst the steaming, geothermal geysers of Iceland. The album sold over 100,000 copies. There was no second single that had the charting stature of "Sublime", but the Peace and Light EP released in 1994 helped wrap up the Sire contract for the group.

Before the close of 1993, the band contributed songs to the Eric Stoltz film Naked in New York. Originally, the group was asked to cut a new song, and the band wrote and recorded "City Traffic". For reasons unknown, the song was scrapped and two other tracks from their third album were included instead. The song still remains in the band's vaults.

For the duration of their 1993/1994 tour in support of Beneath the Rhythm And Sound, the band toured as a five-piece with newly added second guitarist Oed Ronne. Westwood One Radio Networks also recorded the group's June 20, 1994 concert in Ventura, California for a promotional CD. To this day, it is the band's only official live album. After getting a spot on ABC for new bands and playing the usual late night shows such as Conan O'Brien, it seemed as if the band had made it.

During this time, keyboardist/sax player and original member Steve Lau was becoming more interested in the music business and moved to New York City. Despite the departure of Lau, the band ended his era on a high note, with a live cover-version of The Smiths' classic "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" on the Peace & Light EP. This EP would feature the only recordings of the five-piece Ocean Blue ever released to the public. Steve Lau exited the band in late 1994, and Oed Ronne was brought in full time. Lau later became a record executive with a Sire Records subsidiary known as Kinetic, a label specializing in indie dance music. (In the latter years, these childhood friends had buried any ill-will. Lau was spotted by many fans at the groups' October 2000 New York City Mercury Lounge concert, and in the spirit of good cheer, David Schelzel and The Ocean Blue directed accolades to Steve from the stage.)