THE CRUEL SEA
As any surfer can tell you, there is a mountain of unseen energy behind the face of a wave.
You hear that in the music of The Cruel Sea too, the beauty and the danger, the sparkle on the surface and the rip lurking beneath. It’s all there on the band’s first album of new original material in 23 years, Straight Into The Sun, set for release on March 7, 2025.
Everything that people always loved about The Cruel Sea is there, the wide-open spaces, the easy-rolling rhythms, the vivid lyrics and assured vocals, and two instrumentals that create a surf movie in the mind.
Their music already stood out from the pack when they started playing around Sydney in the late ’80s, taking inspiration from ’60s surf instrumental combos like The Ventures, whose song gave The Cruel Sea their name. In 2025, their music still feels as distinctive and timeless as ever.
Founder members, guitarist Dan Rumour and drummer Jim Elliott, previously played in the Sydney band Sekret Sekret. As did bassist Ken Gormly, who soon joined them in the line-up, along with guitarist/keyboardist James Cruickshank, formerly of Widdershins. Perkins, then best known as the singer of Beasts of Bourbon, was also diving into the experimental and defiantly non-commercial Sydney underground in bands like Thug. His bandmate Peter Read also mixed front-of-house live sound for bands.
Perkins recalls: “I dropped into his place and he said he was going to the Harold Park Hotel to mix a band. I said, ‘I’ll go with you’ and he said ‘You wouldn’t like them’.” It was The Cruel Sea, and Perkins liked them so much he didn’t want to mess with their instrumental magic by offering his services as a singer. He caught the band as often as he could, sometimes working the lights for them in exchange for a beer.
Eventually Perkins contributed a lyric and vocal to a song that was originally a surf instrumental. Down Below appeared on the band’s 1989 EP, and then as the title tune of their debut album the next year. Another album track, Reckless Eyeballin’, became the TV theme tune for Blue Heelers in 1994. With Perkins on board as a full-time member the album spread the word about the band beyond the inner-city and the soulful grooves of 1991 album This Is Not The Way Home, recorded with producer Tony Cohen, achieved platinum sales and an ARIA nomination for best group.
The band supported Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in Europe, and recorded their third album,The Honeymoon Is Over, with Cohen and Bad Seed Mick Harvey as co-producers. The album peaked at No 4 on the ARIA chart in 1993, charted for 75 weeks and achieved triple-platinum sales. The title tune won an ARIA for song of the year, and the album won ARIAs for album of the year, producer of the year and best group.
In 1995 the band supported The Rolling Stones on the Australian leg of their Voodoo Lounge tour. That was followed by the release of Three Legged Dog, which debuted at No 1 on the Australian album chart. It featured the funk-fired singles Just a Man and Better Get a Lawyer, while Too Fast For Me recalled the backwoods growl of Louisiana songwriter Tony Joe White. The album achieved platinum sales and won ARIA awards for best group, producer of the year for Cohen and engineer of the year for Cohen and Paul McKercher. The band capped a massive year with tours in Canada, the United States and Europe.
Perkins took a break to release his first solo album and a Beasts of Bourbon album, while The Cruel Sea played in instrumental mode at the Big Day Out. He returned to the fold for Over Easy (1998) and Where There’s Smoke (2001), recorded in the Byron Bay hills with producer Magoo.
They toured occasionally but the death of Cruickshank from cancer in 2015 was a heavy blow. The band was gutted by the loss of such a good friend and brilliant musician. Perkins says: “Everyone thought it was appropriate to walk away out of respect for James, there was no thought of doing anything more.”
But with the first-ever vinyl release of The Honeymoon Is Over on its 30th anniversary in 2023, the band was encouraged to return to touring. Guitarist Matt Walker, a friend of Cruickshank’s who had known the band since the early years, was the perfect fit to join them.
Perkins says: “I had worked with all these different people and in interviews I would be asked who I would like to play with. I thought, I would love to work with Danny again, and that didn’t even necessarily mean in The Cruel Sea. He is so unique as a player and a writer. There is no one like him.”
The band gathered for a rehearsal to test the waters. Perkins thought if they could get through five songs it would be a good sign: “After a dozen, everyone went
‘woo hoo’! It was on.”
Before they stepped into the rehearsal room that day, Rumour gave Perkins a CD of new songideas. After the 2023 tour ended Perkins started working on songs the way he did when he first joined the band, when the powerful melodies on Rumour’s demo cassettes inspired him to write lyrics to match. Perkins also collaborated with Walker on two songs, and the result is an album that explores new territory while retaining the elements that made the band great in the first place.
Preparing the ground for the release, The Cruel Sea toured nationally as support for Cold Chisel’s Big 5-0 tour from October to December.
Perkins says: “Taking the stage again doesn’t feel like picking up where we left off, it feelsrefreshed. When you are in it, creating it, you don’t have that objectivity. Because we hadn’t played the songs for 10 years, I could see it, ‘Oh, these songs are good.’ With that distance, I have a really fresh love of it, a new appreciation of the players themselves and all that The Cruel Sea means.”