#1407: The Adventures

80s Snapshot:

• Number of songs on Hot 100: 1
• Highest peak position: 95
• Cumulative weeks on Hot 100: 3

Our journey today takes us to Northern Ireland, whose fraught geopolitical turbulence throughout the 1980s greatly inspired much of the music from the British Isles in the decade. Hailing directly from Northern Ireland, The Adventures were a particularly potent exemplar of this socially-conscious blend of pop and rock.

The band’s nexus was vocalist Terry Sharpe and guitarist Pat Gribben, who were half of the late-70s punk/power-pop band The Starjets. That band had one U.K. charting single, 1979’s “War Stories” (peaking at #51) before breaking up in the early 80s. Before forming The Adventures, Sharpe worked with Bananarama in their early years, co-writing a pair of tracks on their 1983 debut including the single “Cheers Then” (which peaked at #45 in the U.K.).

The Adventures were formed in 1984 by Sharpe and Gribben, along with Gribben’s wife Eileen (backing vocals), Paul Crowder (drums), Tony Ayre (bass) and Gerard “Spud” Murphy (additional instruments). The band signed to Chrysalis Records and received a sizable amount of public promotion in advance of their debut album. Two singles were released prior to the album: “Another Silent Day” reached #71 on the U.K. Singles Chart and “Send My Heart” made #62. These minor hits earned the group a gig as a supporting act on tour with Tears For Fears, a good sonic match for their at-the-time uptempo new wave sound.

Debut album Theodore and Friends was released in May 1985 to positive critical notice. Despite another two singles from the album hitting the U.K. Singles Chart (“Feel The Raindrops” peaked at #58, “Two Rivers” at #96), the album itself failed to make the albums chart. The band moved from Chrysalis to Elektra and began work on their second album. With all songs written by Pat Gribben, The Sea Of Love dropped the tempo slightly, featuring anthemic harmonies and musicianship more akin to Simple Minds than their earlier new wave fare.

Lead single “Broken Land” was released in March 1988, launching this new sound with a song referencing The Troubles which were still ravaging the band’s homeland. Receiving heavy promotion and airplay, “Broken Land” quickly began climbing the U.K. charts, eventually peaking at #20 and becoming the band’s only Top-40 hit. The single’s promotion reached across the Atlantic, also receiving a simultaneous U.S. release. On the 4/30/1988 chart (the same week it hit the Top 40 in the U.K.), “Broken Land” debuted at #97 on the Billboard Hot 100. It peaked at #95 the following week before dropping to #98 in the final frame of its 3-week chart run.

The Sea Of Love was released in May of 1988, reaching both the U.K. albums chart (peaking at #30) and the U.S. Billboard 200 (peaking at #144). Two other singles from the album eventually made the U.K. Singles Chart: “Drowning In The Sea Of Love” (#44) and “One Step From Heaven” (#82). A follow-up album, also entirely written by Pat Gribben, was hustled out the following year. But 1989’s Trading Secrets With The Room, adding a folk feel to their existing pop-rock blend, had no charting singles and received negative critical reviews.

Down to a quartet, the band’s 1993 offering Lions and Tigers and Bears was also met with critical disappointment, though both “Raining All Over The World” (#68) and a cover of the Mamas and the Papas’ “Monday, Monday” (#83) scraped the lower reaches of the U.K. Singles chart. The group disbanded shortly thereafter. Of all the members, drummer Paul Crowder has had the most interesting post-Adventures career. In addition to being an early member of the Celtic punk band Flogging Molly, Crowder has also had a number of successes in the film world as an editor and director. He co-directed and edited the 2007 Grammy-nominated documentary Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who, and edited Ron Howard’s Emmy-nominated 2016 documentary The Beatles: Eight Days A Week.

The Adventures reunited briefly for a few performances here and there across the 2000s and 2010s, before Sharpe and Gribben’s old band The Starjets had a full-on reunion in 2019. After a few years of the Starjets releasing new recordings and becoming a successful legacy act across the U.K., the Adventures (down to a trio of Sharpe and the two Gribbens) decided to try their own hand. Results of this new chapter for the Adventures are still to be determined: Once More With Feeling, their first album in over 3 decades, was released in March 2025.

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