The Ocean Blue


The Ocean Blue is an American indie pop band formed in Hershey, Pennsylvania in 1986. Its original members included David Schelzel on lead vocals/guitar, Steve Lau on keyboards/saxophone, Bobby Mittan on bass guitar and Rob Minnig on drums and vocals.

Early career

The members of The Ocean Blue first met in junior high school. They cut a series of demos while in high school, with Scott Stouffer sitting in on drums. They managed to get two of these earliest recordings, "On Growing Up" and "Wounds of a Friend", included on a local radio station compilation in late 1986. The compilation also included very early work from friends and mentors of The Ocean Blue, noted local artists, The Innocence Mission. Rob Minnig would join as permanent drummer in 1987, and the classic line-up of Schelzel/Lau/Minnig/Mittan would continue through 1994.

Sire Records years

The Ocean Blue's members were still in high school when they signed a three-album deal in 1988 with Sire Records, at the behest of Sire founder Seymour Stein. The Ocean Blue's self-titled album was recorded in London with producers John Porter and Mark Opitz.
The band's busy calendar included U.S. touring and an appearance on one of the first episodes of Club MTV, with Downtown Julie Brown. The first single, "Between Something and Nothing," peaked at #2 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, while its follow-up, "Drifting, Falling" peaked at #10. Two videos were made for the songs and both received rotation on PostModern MTV. The band joined The Mighty Lemon Drops and John Wesley Harding on an extensive U.S./Canadian tour. All of this promotion helped the band sell well over 150,000 units of the first record.
After recording in several New England studios, the band released their second album, Cerulean, in 1991. The singles "Ballerina Out of Control" and "Mercury" both charted on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, at #3 and #27, respectively. Drummer Rob Minnig began to hone his song production and mixing abilities; these would be reflected on the next album and its single B-sides, which the band chose to produce themselves.
The final Sire Records release came in 1993 with Beneath the Rhythm and Sound, which sold over 100,000 copies. The single "Sublime" peaked at #3 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart.
The band contributed songs to the 1994 Martin Scorsese film Naked in New York. For the duration of their 1993-1994 tour in support of Beneath the Rhythm and Sound, the band toured as a five-piece group, with newly-added second guitarist Oed Ronne. Westwood One Radio Networks recorded the group's June 20, 1994 concert in Ventura, California and released it as a promotional-only CD, the band's only official live album.
In 1994, keyboardist/sax player and original member Steve Lau was becoming more interested in the music business and moved to New York City, where he founded Kinetic Records. His final appearance on a commercial release by the band came with the Peace and Light EP, featuring the album track "Peace of Mind" as well as two live performances and a previously unreleased track.

Mercury Records and indie releases

In 1996, Mercury Records signed the band and released their fourth album, See the Ocean Blue, that fall, which saw the arrival new guitarist Oed Ronne and the band's renewed interest in the music of the 1960s and 1970s. While Schelzel remained the predominant songwriter of the band, Ronne composed two tracks and sang lead on his song "Behind."
See was released to lukewarm results, with the record company cancelling plans to film a video for the second single, "Slide." The band conducted a US tour then, in 1999, recorded and self-released their fifth album, Davy Jones Locker. Two years later, the album was re-sequenced, re-mastered and re-released on March Records, with March releasing both "Denmark" and "Ayn" as EPs, each featuring three new B-sides. Shortly thereafter, Rob Minnig decided to leave the group after fourteen years, and Peter Anderson, a friend of the band from Minneapolis, was brought in for live shows and, eventually, permanent recording work.
In 2004, the band released the diverse six-song EP Waterworks on What Are Records?. That year, the group performed select dates around the U.S., recruiting The Owls' saxophonist Brian Tighes. The Orange Peels' Allen Clapp contributed music and production duties to the EP and, to reciprocate, Oed Ronne and Peter Anderson contributed to Allen Clapp and The Orange Peels' 2005 album Circling the Sun. In October of that same year, David Schelzel recorded a solo version of Adolphe Adam's 1847 Christmas classic "O Holy Night". This song was available only as a digital download via the band's website for the 2005 holiday season.
In late 2005, the Ocean Blue's entire five studio album catalogue, as well as the Waterworks EP and the band's first four videos, became available for purchase on iTunes.
On June 1, 2006, the Ocean Blue's Schelzel/Mittan/Ronne/Anderson line-up played its first ever South American concert, with a show at Teatro Rajatabla El Llonja, Barranco-Lima, Peru.
In July 2010, the Ocean Blue's long-unreleased studio track "City Traffic" was uploaded to Dailymotion and YouTube with an accompanying homemade video.

Comeback

In December 2010, the band's website announced that a new record was in the works. The website also offered a free Christmas download of a newly recorded cover version of the ancient Basque carol "The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came", done by David Schelzel and Don Peris.
In December 2011, the band's website announced that another free Christmas download was available via the band's Facebook page. The release was a cover version of "Walking in the Air", a song written by Howard Blake and first showcased in the 1982 animated film The Snowman, adapted from Raymond Briggs' noted 1978 children's novel of the same name. Similar to the previous year's holiday download, the recording was performed by David Schelzel and Don Peris.
On January 12, 2013, the band performed their first gig since 2006, at the Korda Records Showcase in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
On March 6, 2013, the band released "Sad Night, Where is the Morning?", the first single from their forthcoming album, to radio and in digital and physical formats. On March 19, The Ocean Blue's sixth album, Ultramarine, was released on Korda Records. The band embarked upon a tour of key markets in the United States that concluded with dates in Paraguay and Peru.
On September 9, 2014, the band reissued their 2004 Waterworks EP as a full-length album, expanded with the addition of three extra tracks. The band supported the release with a six-date US tour.
In 2015, the band worked with Sire and Rhino Records to reissue their first three Sire albums on vinyl. The band marked the occasion by performing the first two albums in their entirety at limited concerts throughout the U.S. In 2016, the band did a full South American tour.
In June 2019, the band released their eighth full-length album, Kings and Queens / Knaves and Thieves, on Korda Records. They also released a video for the song "Therein Lies the Problem with My Life".

Personnel

David Schelzel – lead vocals, guitar
Bobby Mittan – bass guitar
Oed Ronne – guitar, keyboards, vocals
Peter Anderson – drums
Rob Minnig – drums, keyboards, vocals
Steve Lau – keyboards, saxophone, vocals
Scott Stouffer – drums

Discography

Studio albums

Singles

EPs

  1. Peace & Light
  2. Denmark
  3. Ayn
  4. Waterworks

    Side projects, promo CDs and compilations

  5. WJTL Radio Lancaster Preliminary Hearing compilation
  6. The Laugh Tour EP
  7. The Ocean Blue Westwood One Radio Networks-Live in Concert
  8. The Orange Peels Circling the Sun

    Demos, B-sides, rarities and unreleased tracks

  9. "On Growing Up"
  10. "Wounds of a Friend"
  11. "Between Something & Nothing"
  12. "Vanity Fair"
  13. "Drifting, Falling"
  14. "Ask Me John"
  15. "The Office of a Busy Man"
  16. "The Circus Animals"
  17. "Renaissance Man"
  18. "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"
  19. "Don't Believe Everything You Hear"
  20. "Sea of Green"
  21. "City Traffic"
  22. "Whenever You're Around"
  23. "Walk Away"
  24. "Sweetheart, You're Surrounded"
  25. "Mood Swing"
  26. "Garden Song "
  27. "Harlequin"
  28. "New Man from Chicago"
  29. "O Holy Night"
  30. "The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came"
  31. "Walking in the Air"
  32. "Bleary Eyed"
  33. "No Money in That"