The Ocean Blue

by Su Chon and Jeff Jolley

In an act certain to bring nothing but happiness to lovers and fans of the Pennsylvania music scene, The Ocean Blue has found a new record label. After their parting from Warners, TOB has been picked up by Mercury records. Dave, Bobby, and newbie Ed spent a few moments with us recently to talk about the new line-up, the new album, and what they've been doing the during the last year or two.

Look for the new TOB CD around April '95. Also, look for one of TOB's last interviews on their last record label in RAD Archives. For this interview, Su and Jeff tag-team the TOB boys to the three-count.

RAD: I got the strong feeling that you weren't really happy with your previous record contract. Do you feel that being released from that really freed up the band to do a lot of things?
Dave: In some ways, yeah. We had three records with the same record company and sort of had the same commercial results. I think we would have stagnated had we stayed there--we would've just sort of done the same thing. The same people would be doing the same things for us. In changing labels, I think we'll have a whole new fresh set of people to work our records and there's a lot more excitement at our new label. Not that our old label was into things, we really do have some wonderful friends there. But the label sort of fell apart after we left anyway. The president left. There were a lot of troubles at Warner Bros. It was good that we left. We were quite fortunate in that. I think even more than that the fact that Steve left us and Eddie joined us has been a tremendous change for the band, a very good one. I think both of those things have been good for our new record.
RAD: And when is that due out?
Dave: That's due out early 1996 and it's basically up to the record label when that's released. The record will be done by the end of the year and it's up to them when they will do it.
RAD: What kinds of things have you done this past year or so?
Dave: Mostly we've been writing new songs for the record and recording them. Last year, we spent a lot of time shopping different labels, which we really didn't do so much. We just made demo tapes for different labels.
RAD: I have a question for you about a song on the last album if it's okay to ask. It's "Cathedral Bells." And you have [the lyrics] all in quotes, were you quoting something?
Dave: I have them in quotes because I didn't want to give the impression that I was saying these things. These are things that I would have overheard, or different ways of thinking that I encountered in college, some of which I vehemently disagree with. It's sort of about my college experience, running into things like people trashing western civilization, doing a lot of stupid anti-intellectual things. I hate to use the term political correctness.
RAD: About another song, your first hit "Between Something and Nothing:" who is that about?
Dave: It's not about a person, it's about encountering art. It's about death and life and all those things. It's not about a person. I really hate the video because it's very misleading. But the song was for a broader thing.
RAD: How many songs are about people or experiences or how many are about things and ideas? For "Vanity Fair," I was thinking of Thackery.
Dave: Yeah, yeah. Actually the book that it's more from is an allegory like Pilgrim's Progress. That's more what the song is about. That's an idea song. Now, a song that's about a person is "Myron" on the first record or "Crash" on the last record. There are a lot of songs that are about people on there. But we have a lot of idea songs, too.
RAD: Well, I heard you were an English major...
Dave: I was actually a Humanities major. I was an English major for a time but because of the band I couldn't attend regularly so the Dean and I sat down to figure out a better way to do it. So I ended up a Humanities major which was more broad.
RAD: What book was the most influential in the past year or two years to you?
Dave: I've read a lot of books, and a lot of books have been influential. In writing the songs for this record, the book that affected me the most was The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. There are a couple of songs that I have written about this. I have a love/hate relationship with her. I'm hard pressed to think of an author who has affected me more than her and has challenged my way of thinking because she's an atheist and I'm not. But she's very rational, and I'm very rational. There were these things that were antithetical in terms of what we believe and other things, especially in The Fountainhead. I also read Atlas Shrugged which I like a great deal, too. But The Fountainhead deals with an artist, and I look at myself as an artist. Atlas Shrugged is more political and economical. That didn't resonate for me; I have no problem calling myself a capitalist. It's no big deal for me as it is for a lot of people. But I think she's the first person that ever pointed out the morality of capitalism.
RAD: Why don't you tell us a little bit about Eddie?
Dave: Eddie.... We met Ed about four or five years ago. He was in a band with a very good friend of mine in Chicago. Just immediately, we hit it off. I thought, "I've got to get this guy to do some stuff with us." So just before the last record, we needed someone to do backup guitars, second guitar on some songs, so I asked him to tour with us and we hit it off splendidly. I kind of knew that Steve was probably going to leave the band in the near future, and I was thinking ahead. He joined up with us and he's a full-fledged member of the band. He brings a great deal to the band, more so than Steve. He's a good songwriter. He's the first person who's actually written songs other than me. In the past, that could never be. But I respect him enough that I just think he's great and that some of his songs deserve to be on the record. And I'm biased for a guitar man even though Steve was a keyboard player, I wanted more guitars. Of course, Eddie is a good guitar player. And he plays keyboards on the old tunes. That's exciting for me. He's younger than us and a little bit more hopeful. He has that excitement we had when we first started playing. For all those reasons, he's great.
RAD: I heard his song last night, and it's totally different from the others. But it's interesting.
Dave: There's something about it that's different, but to me it's like he's very Ocean Blue. His songs fit in to us. They're not too esoteric or stylistically way off that we can't use them.
RAD: Some of your newer stuff is harder. Is it because Eddie is bringing in more guitars?
Dave: It is. I think that's part of it. I think we always been more edgy live than our records. There's part of us that fell by the wayside when we actually made our records. We kind of glossed over the rough edges. I think we made more of a conscious decision to be more of a guitar band and then by default you're going to be a little more edgier. I wouldn't say we've turned into a grunge band by any means. But I think we're more guitar oriented in the tradition of my favorite guitar bands growing up.
RAD: Is Rob going to be doing anymore production work on this one?
Dave: We're probably going to work with a producer this time. I really hope we do. We're talking to a few fellows. I hope one of them works out. If not, we'll be doing it ourselves again.
RAD: You mentioned some things about music videos. Another Warners band felt that sometimes the video-making process was just these video directors jamming these ideas down your throat. The same video could be anyone from Cocteau Twins to Pantera.
Dave: To some degree, that's true. You really give up a lot of input, a lot of creative control rather than when you make a video. You have to just trust your judgment. On the last record, they called some higher-ups in and put their two cents in on everything we did. We did a great video on "Sublime" and they made an A+ video into a B- video. Although I still like the video, it's really terrible what they did to it. It's so much better when I had the director's cut. It's not always the director; in our case it was the label. But prior to that it was the directors who didn't quite get what we wanted.
RAD: Are you going to stay based in Hershey or do you think you might move to, say, LA or New York? There are quite a few bands who think that that's where it's at.
Dave: That's where it's not at. So many people make music and they make it in different ways. The kind of person that would move to LA when they first got their record deal - it's ridiculous to me. I don't think Hershey, Pennsylvania is the greatest place in the world. There's a lot of other places that I like a lot better. The only reason I stay there is that I've got a lot of friends and family that I love there. It's not a bad place.
RAD: Bob, The last time we talked you mentioned that you did a lot of Big Brother stuff.
Bobby: Not Big Brother. I work with junior high kids and that's going really well. Some of the staff has changed, but it's been fun.
RAD: Are you still in the landscaping business?
Bobby: I am. I've actually worked a lot this year because the contract stuff being held up and I had a lot of free time. I helped out my old boss from high school. It's been pretty busy.
RAD: How have you liked your year off?
Bobby: It's been great. It's been nice for the band with all the changes: the record company, Steve leaving, Ed coming. With all the changes and stuff, it was great to have time with Ed to work on the newer stuff. The old stuff that he hadn't been a part of, and the newer stuff.
RAD: So he's really brought in a lot?
Bobby: He has been a huge contributor to all our artistic stuff.
RAD: [to Ed] How do you like being in the band?
Ed: Ooooh, it beats pumping gas.
RAD: What do you planned after your new album is done?
Bobby: We're going into the studio, a couple of months for that, a couple of months for it to get circulated and released, and then we'll probably tour shortly after that.
RAD: [to Ed] Do you feel artistically in the band, that it's been a satisfactory step for you?
Ed: Yeah, I've been in bands before but I like this a lot.
RAD: [and back to Dave...] Would you rather work with "corporate giant" rather than an indie label?
Dave: We had to think a lot about that because we could've signed with a couple of indie labels when we left Sire. But when it came down to it, we still decided to go with a major. Mostly because of money: more money for us, more money to promote our record. Independent labels are great in certain regards and it's very tempting to me. We wouldn't have had a lot of money to just survive, and we wouldn't have had power of getting a lot of radio airplay and video airplay which is how a lot of people hear about you. They're commercial in financial considerations but there are also considerations of reaching a lot of people. You can reach a lot more people with your music on a major label, especially for a band like us who already had a major label behind them. It would have been a digression had we signed with an independent label. It was a tough decision.
RAD: How do you feel politics fits into music?
Dave: It's just a bad mix unless it really comes from the heart. I think a lot of singers sort of use that just to be popular, and they don't really know what they're saying or thinking. If you want to talk politics, talk politics and talk it intelligently. The context of a pop song is not really the context of dealing with big issues. Talking about politics in a pop song, you're losing something. That's a lesson I had to learn because I like to think of myself as a thinker. I have had to be careful with how much weightiness I inject into a pop song and we make pop music. Let's face it. These groups that sort of have this plastic political awareness, very trendy and very correct, like environmental, animal rights, gay rights, feminist rights. I just find it all a little distracting. I listen to music for the artistic value of it, the musical value. I don't want to be known as a political band. I don't want to be known as a preaching band - I want people to like us for our music, not for our political views. Now, if I happen to read something like Ayn Rand and I'm moved to think in a political way and it finds its way into our song, that's genuine and it's not typical. I'm not saying, "Save the Whales" or some other environmental, political cliche. From my experience and my observation, most of the political statements that have come out of popular bands are pretty trite and pretty cliche and pretty insincere. When you meet a singer who screams animal rights and he's wearing leather shoes and eating a hamburger, you know, something's wrong with this picture. I've seen plenty of hypocrisy and I prefer not to.