The Cruel Sea
After toying with different band members, The Cruel Sea came into fruition in 1988 with the union of Ken Gormley on bass, Jim Elliot on drums, Danny Rumour on guitars and James Cruikshank on keyboards and guitars, taking their name from the 1960s surf instrumental group, The Ventures. In 1989 Perkins (their then-lighting technician) started joining them onstage. This sparked an interest from Red Eye Records, and the band was signed and released a 1989 album Down Below featuring Perkins on vocals. They received an ARIA award nomination in 1993 following the release of their second album, This Is Not the Way Home. The instrumental single "4" and the title track received high rotation play on independent and commercial radio.
The group's third album, The Honeymoon Is Over (1993), and its title song, won five ARIA Music Awards of 1994. They followed with a high-profile world tour. 1995 saw the release of the hugely successful Three Legged Dog album, which spawned the hits "Better Get a Lawyer" "Just a Man" "Anybody but You" and "Too Fast for Me". They claimed another ARIA award in 1995 for 'Best Group' with their work on Three Legged Dog. The band then took a three-year break during which time Perkins released his first solo album, Far Be it From Me. The Cruel Sea returned to their instrumental roots and embarked on a series of gigs without Perkins.
In 1998, The Cruel Sea released Over Easy and again a rigorous touring schedule supporting their Takin all day national tour. After the success of his first album, Perkins released his second solo album Dark Horses.
Read more about this topic: Tex Perkins
Famous quotes containing the words cruel and/or sea:
“Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. Once and again one of those great influences which we call a Cause arises in the midst of a nation. Men of strenuous minds and high ideals come forward.... The attacks they sustain are more cruel than the collision of arms.... Friends desert and despise them.... They stand alone and oftentimes are made bitter by their isolation.... They are doing nothing less than defy public opinion, and shall they convert it by blows. Yes.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“As the shade went up
And the ambulance came crashing through the dust
Of the new day, the moon and the sun and the stars,
And the iceberg slowly sank
In the volcano and the sea ran far away
Yellow over the hot sand, green as the green trees.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)