CUTTING CREW

Their first album, Broadcast, released in 1986, provided the first U.S. hit for Richard Branson's Virgin Records. Virgin flew the band to New York for initial recordings of the album, then to Australia to shoot videos. The unknown band shot to #1 in the U.S., Canada and Norway with their debut single, "(I Just) Died in Your Arms". Their most popular single, it was a multiformat success in the U.S., where it also reached number four on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, #24 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and —in an extended remix version— #37 on the Hot Dance/Club Play chart. The song peaked at #4 in the UK Singles Chart, as well as in Switzerland and South Africa; it went to #2 in Sweden and Ireland, and #9 in Austria. The choice for follow-up single in the UK had been "I've Been In Love Before", but that song spent only three weeks in the UK Top 40, peaking at #31. Their choice for follow-up single in the U.S. was their third UK release, "One For The Mockingbird", but the song was a relative commercial disappointment on both sides of the Atlantic, just cracking the Top 40 of the Hot 100 at #38 and hitting #29 on the Mainstream Rock chart in the U.S., #47 in Canada and #52 in the UK Singles Chart. The band took a chance on "I've Been in Love Before" again, this time with greater success. The song became Cutting Crew's second U.S. Top 10 on the Hot 100, peaking at #9, and was their first major hit on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart, where it peaked at #4. This success prompted a UK re-release, and this time it spent five weeks in the UK Singles Chart Top 40, peaking at #24. The song failed to chart throughout most of Europe, but it peaked at #8 in Canada. Despite an unflattering review by Rolling Stone magazine, the band received a Grammy nomination as the Best New Artist of 1987. The Scattering was released in early 1989. Its lead single, "(Between a) Rock and a Hard Place," (CA 54, UK 66, U.S. 77) failed to reach the Top 40. Van Eede's vocal style, however, did score a sizable U.S. Adult Contemporary hit with "Everything But My Pride." That song peaked at #4 and stayed in the top 50 for 22 weeks. It climbed to #72 on the Canadian pop charts, though it failed to hit the U.S. Hot 100. The prophetically named "The Last Thing" scaled the AC charts as high as #17 in early 1990 and went to #90 on the Canadian chart, and has been their final chart hit to date. Although a video for the title track did air briefly in the UK and North America, "The Scattering" failed to chart. Cutting Crew's third album, Compus Mentus, released in 1992, failed to chart. After the band broke up in 1993, MacMichael joined forces with Robert Plant, and played on his Fate of Nations album. MacMichael died of lung cancer on New Year's Eve 2002, at his home in Nova Scotia, at the age of 51. Van Eede continued as a solo artist, producer, and songwriter. Colin Farley, the bass player in the 1980s line up, currently lives in Surrey and continues to work in the music industry, playing with his new band in pubs. Drummer Frosty Beedle has a successful career as a session musician and in the West End. In 2005, Van Eede reformed the group with a completely new line-up. They released an album, Grinning Souls, in February 2006 on the Hypertension record label. The new band toured Germany early the same year and played on tours in the UK and Denmark. In 2008, Cutting Crew signed a U.S. deal with label Spectra Records.