"These aren't my all-time favourite songs," Tex Perkins told triple j's Richard Kingsmill in February of 1993.
"These songs I've chosen because they kind of point towards the sort of the direction The Cruel Sea album is sort of taking. This will help understand what we're up to."
That album was The Honeymoon Is Over, the third album by the Sydney-born band who fused soul, funk, dub, and indie rock in a way far less terrible than it appears on paper.
The album was a seriously big deal. It made the top five on the ARIA charts and went platinum three times over. Later in 1993, the band would be nominated for ten ARIA awards and win five of them, including Best Album, Single Of The Year, and Song Of The Year.
It shot The Cruel Sea to a level of fame none of them had anticipated. Perkins was already a revered frontman from his days with Beasts Of Bourbon and, to those in the know, the wonderfully wild Thug, Salamander Jim, and Tex Deadly and the Dum Dums. But this was next level.
"I'd been in music for almost 10 years by then and hadn't really bothered to sort of attempt to have a have any sort of true sort of success," Perkins would later tell ABC Radio's Richard Fidler of this time in 2006.
"With The Cruel Sea, I actually thought, 'We could write some really good songs'. I could actually visualise the band doing well. So, we sort of knuckled down a bit and, as soon as we started thinking in that direction, everything just sort of unfolded in front of us.
"To tell you the truth, it all happened a bit too easy. It was like, 'Oh, this all you have to do?' It all happened very quickly, so I didn't respect it. It wasn't like I really put a lot of effort into it.
"It was just the first time we actually sort of bothered to try and present ourselves in a commercial sense, and it all happened. Pretty soon after that we tried to dismantle the whole thing."
The rationale was simple. In his eyes, The Cruel Sea's success was proof that Tex Perkins had sold out.
In hindsight, the idea of Tex Perkins kowtowing to the whims of the pop culture machine is laughable. But Tex was determined to not fall for the trappings of mainstream success, nor the inevitable backlash that was sure to ricochet from those plaudits.
"I'm an old punk rocker and I come from a school of thought where any mainstream success is a sell out and a bit embarrassing," he told Fidler.
"When you find yourself being courted by Daryl Somers and that straight, family entertainment kind of world, you sort of start to go, 'Oh, God, this isn't really where I wanted to be'.
"Personally, I don't like this type of success where you find yourself in the back pages of New Idea. That sort of success where Mr. And Mrs. Everyday are interested in your every movement.
"I like sort of working success, where you can actually just make a career out of it without causing too much fuss and bother and you can actually get things done. You can pay your bloody rent and feed your family and just get on with it."
In February of 1993, selling out wasn't on the cards. Mainstream success was far from assured. All The Cruel Sea had to worry about was music, and living up to the colossal influences that informed their sound.
Here are five songs the band were inspired by at the time, as described by Tex Perkins in 1993.
The Meters – 'Look-Ka Py Py'
I think things like The Meters and Booker T and the MGs are major influences on The Cruel Sea, the band.
The Meters are instrumental and The Cruel Sea have a history of being an instrumental group and they do a couple of meters songs.
They do sort of an amalgamation or a medley of a few Meters songs and the riff in this I think appears in in one that The Cruel Sea do.
The Neville Brothers – 'Yellow Moon'
It's just a really great song and it's got a really wild clarinet solo, wailing, giving it an Eastern sort of feel with a sort of African rhythm.
Tom Waits – 'Clap Hands'
I think, along with a lot of people, I sort of started paying attention at [1983 album] Swordfishtrombones.
That general vocal style, Tom Waits is not the originator. You've got people like Louis Armstrong, Howlin Wolf, Captain Beefheart, Dr. John, they've all got that low register, growl sort of thing.
I think it's basically known as a sort of Howlin Wolf thing. I think Howlin Wolf sort of came up with it. Tom is like a cross between Howlin Wolf and Louis Armstrong, the way he does it.
I've done that sort of blues growl on a lot of the Beasts of Bourbon stuff. It's just a matter of whether the music needs it or not.
Koko Taylor – 'Up In Flames'
I don't know a lot about Koko Taylor. The only thing I've ever heard her do, apart from this, was a duet with Willie Dixon called 'Insane Asylum'.
This song is really out there as far as the music goes. It's completely minimal. I think it sounds like it's produced by David Lynch and the other guy.
Tex picks up the CD case…
It is indeed produced by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti.
Funkadelic – 'Music for My Mother'
This actual record is the only [Funkadelic] one that I think is almost flawless. I've liked bits of George Clinton from there on, but this is a lot like bluesier. It's like blues funk.
I really love this record. The whole thing. I mean, I was very I couldn't choose which one to pick. I went 'eeny meeny miny moe'.
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