For the first time in a decade, Australian rock legends The Cruel Sea are back together.
"We weren't really sure it would ever happen," frontman Tex Perkins tells Double J's Karen Leng.
If there were ever a time for it to happen, 2023 seems appropriate as the band celebrate 30 years since the release of their enormously successful third studio album The Honeymoon Is Over.
"We were pushed along by a promoter, Duane McDonald, who said to me a couple of years ago, 'You know, you should get The Cruel Sea [back together for] the 30th anniversary of The Honeymoon Is Over'.
"I said it was not as simple as that. James Cruickshank has died [he died of bowel cancer in 2015]. Danny [Rumour, guitarist] lives off the grid, nobody knows where he is, and we don't know whether he's played music in years.
"It wasn't just like, 'Oh yeah, just chuck the band back together', there were a few things to get over. I eventually called Dan and he was just like, 'Yeah, let's do it'."
There's something to be said for an extended hiatus. Pursuing a creative practice can be more of a grind than many suspect, and even in a band of as supreme quality as The Cruel Sea, things get tired.
With the benefit of a decade's distance, Tex Perkins is feel very excited about reacquainting himself with both the art and those who make it.
"I've gained a new appreciation for not only the music itself, but all the individual players as musicians," he says. "You do 1,000 gigs with people and you sort of get used to it, you lose the wonder of it. I'm back just going, 'Wow'.
"They're such individual players, Jim [Elliott] the drummer, nobody plays like that. Kenny [Gormly], the bass player, nobody plays like Kenny. But especially Danny Rumour, who was the core sound of The Cruel Sea.
"It's just been so beautiful for me. Not only are they amazing individually but, when it comes together and how it fits together… I'm freshly fascinated by it."
There are plenty of upsides to having a hit record. One of the few downsides is the omnipresence of that work, and the never-ending demands to play it at every opportunity.
For The Cruel Sea, it didn't take them long to tire of their enduring, ARIA winning (we'll get to that) single 'The Honeymoon Is Over'.
"Once you create something, you're sick to death of it really," Perkins says. "Especially that song, at one stage we were like, 'Actually, we're not going to play this' and would outrage people.
"But lately I listened to that album and a few other things with The Cruel Sea and, with so much distance, I could listen to it quite objectively and I can see why it worked."
Joining The Cruel Sea: 'I resisted for a long time'
Tex Perkins was not a founding member of The Cruel Sea. He was a fan of the then-instrumental group before becoming their frontman.
"The Cruel Sea started in '87, I think that's when I first saw them," he says. "My friend Peter Read was their mixer, and I went around to his place one afternoon, and he said, 'I've got to go mix a band at the Harold Park Hotel'.
"I said, 'I'll come with you' and he said, 'Nah, you wouldn't like them'. For some reason, I insisted and turned up the Harold Park and this instrumental band played.
"Peter was mixing and there happened to be a very simple lighting console next to it, and nobody operating it, so I just started doing their lights."
"It was a residency at the Harold Park and I just came back each week. I instantly loved them and became friends with them."
Perkins had already made a couple of albums with the Beasts of Bourbon and terrorised audiences as part of Tex Deadly & the Dum-Dums, Salamander Jim, and Thug, a kind of gnarled industrial duo he formed with Read.
His love of the band and experience as a frontman made him a reasonable choice to join as the band's vocalist, but his musical pedigree made it a less convincing proposition for some.
"I guess it was inevitable that we would do something," he considers. "I wasn't welcomed straight away, because at the time I was in bands like Thug, which was just complete chaos and noise and stupidity. That's what I was known for. 'What do we need that guy for?'
"Eventually the idea of me getting up and singing a song with them was presented to me, but I resisted for a long time. Because I loved them so much the way they were. I knew, once you put any singer in the mix, that period would end."
A year and a half after that first night at the Harold Park Hotel, Tex Perkins was singing lyrics he'd concocted to go with the band's song 'King Tide' at a party in Sydney.
"I wanted to be another instrument," Perkins says of his approach to the band at first. "I just wanted to add to it, because the atmosphere was already there. I wanted to join it, rather than come in on top of it and take it somewhere else and tell a different story or make it about me."
A missing ARIA and a pound of pot
The Cruel Sea will play The Honeymoon Is Over in its entirety at their upcoming shows, a record that netted them five ARIAs. Not that they managed to keep hold of them all.
"I'll try and present the whole picture," Perkins laughs. "An ARIA award was left at an after party. We had five and I was carrying two around. They're very heavy and pointy and should not be in the hands of drunk people."
Despite the fact this story has been told many times over in the past couple of years, Perkins still regales it with gleeful incredulity.
"A few days later, triple j announced that there was a ransom demand, that somebody had the ARIA and would give it back if their ransom demands were met," he continues.
"One of them was Michael Bolton's work permit must be revoked – not something we had control over – and that James Cruickshank had to be reinstated into the band.
"Weirdly enough, we just forgot about it. We didn't follow it up."
Until 27 years later, when Perkins started receiving some curious messages.
"Two Decembers ago, people started contacting me saying, 'Hey, there's an ARIA award on Facebook Marketplace. I think it might be yours. It's for Song Of The Year, 'The Honeymoon Is Over'. They've got a starting price at $1. It was found in a bin'.
"The bin was behind Sony Records. We were on Polydor.
"But the plot thickens even further. [ex-triple j announcer] Angela Catterns, told me that somebody from triple j had the ARIA and sold it to somebody else. She says – this sounds unlikely – for a pound of marijuana. That's a lot of marijuana. It's like a pillowcase."
The band negotiated to get the award back from Ernie, the man who found it in the bin behind Sony. There were no hard feelings at this point. If anything, Perkins remains eager to know what happened to that statue in the 27 years it was missing.
"I'm just fascinated with its journey," he says. "Maybe it went around the world?
A race with Mick Jagger
Tex Perkins has a million great stories from over 40 years in rock'n'roll. His book Tex is one hell of a read for anyone who wants to hear them.
We couldn't let him go without one story from The Cruel Sea's time supporting rock royalty The Rolling Stones back in 1995.
"It was the Voodoo Lounge tour, and the green room was called the Voodoo Lounge," he recalls. It entailed vast bain maries with food and couches and televisions and pot plants and video games: particularly one called Daytona, which I was quite adept at."
His skill at Daytona was clearly not common knowledge, because some bloke walked right into that green room and laid down a challenge.
"I happened to be standing talking to Jim, our drummer, and in comes Mick Jagger: 'How you doin' fellas. Fancy a game?' And I said, 'Shit yeah!'.
"In I hopped, and it was so embarrassing. He drove like a blind grandmother. I lapped him, and I had to slow down, so I wouldn't lap him twice. Jim lent down and said [to Mick], 'He spent a lot of money getting that good, you know?'."
The Cruel Sea play the following shows:
Thursday 30 November – Fortitude Music Hall: Turrbal Jagera Land, Brisbane
Saturday 2 December – Palais Theatre: Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, Melbourne
Thursday 7 December – Hindley Street Music Hall: Kaurna Land, Adelaide
Saturday 9 December – Fremantle Prison: Whadjuk Noongar Land, Fremantle
Saturday 16 December – Enmore Theatre: Gadigal Land, Sydney