Echo and The Bunnymen biography
Following a PR campaign which proclaimed it "the greatest album ever made", 1984's Ocean Rain reached #4, and today is widely regarded as the band's masterpiece. Single extracts "Silver" (UK #30) and "Seven Seas" (UK #16) consolidated the album's continued commercial success. In the same year, McCulloch had a minor solo hit with his cover version of "September Song".
Echo & the Bunnymen toured Scandinavia in April 1985, performing cover versions of songs from Television, the Rolling Stones, Talking Heads and The Doors. Recordings from the tour emerged as the semi-bootleg On Strike.
Unfortunately for the band, Ocean Rain proved to be a difficult album to follow up, and they could only re-emerge in 1985 with a single, "Bring On the Dancing Horses" (UK #21), and a compilation album, Songs to Learn & Sing, which made #6 in the UK album chart. However, all was not well in the Bunnymen camp, and Pete de Freitas left the band. The next (self-titled) studio album was recorded with ex-ABC drummer David Palmer, but when de Freitas returned in 1986, it was largely re-recorded. Eventually released in mid-1987, the record sold well (UK #4), and was a small American hit, their only LP to have significant sales there.
In the United States, the band's best-known songs were "The Killing Moon" (from Ocean Rain) and "Lips Like Sugar" (from Echo & the Bunnymen), although "Bring On the Dancing Horses" is well-known as one of the songs on the soundtrack to the John Hughes film Pretty in Pink. They also contributed a cover version of The Doors song "People Are Strange" to The Lost Boys soundtrack.
1988 split
McCulloch quit the band in 1988 and de Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident in mid-1989. After former Colenso Parade singer Oscar turned down an offer to take over from McCulloch, Pattinson and Sergeant recruited ex-St. Vitus Dance vocalist Noel Burke and drummer Damon Reece. Keyboardist Jake Brockman (a touring member of the band for several years previously, and a contributor to the 1987 album) was promoted to full member, and the five-piece recorded
Reverberation in 1990. This did not generate much excitement among fans or critics, and the group was abandoned in 1992. McCulloch, meanwhile, had continued his solo career, with the albums
Candleland in 1989 and
Mysterio in 1992.
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