BILLY OCEAN’S ANCHOR IN A STARRY SEA

During an interview two years ago, with stardom lurking just ahead, pop singer Billy Ocean was musing about its effects. He was obviously intrigued by the thought of being a star. But there was apprehension too.

“It’s like a bomb,” he explained then, a touch of awe in his tone. “It explodes and the explosion doesn’t end. When you’re successful, you’re in the middle of one long explosion. You’re in another world. It’s not like what happens to average people. I can imagine it could be devastating. I’m guessing about this now. But I’d like to find out for myself.”

He has. His “Caribbean Queen”--the best single of 1984--was the first hit off his ‘Suddenly” album. All of a sudden, this Trinidad native was a hit machine. The romantic title song and rocking “Loverboy” also became hits from that album, which has sold more than 2 million.

Some called him a flash-in-the-pan. He countered with another album, “Love Zone,” which is currently in the Billboard magazine Top 10. One of its singles, “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going” (the theme from the movie “The Jewel of the Nile”), climbed to No. 2. The other, “There’ll Be Sad Songs,” went to No. 1.

Ocean, who’s appearing at the Universal Amphitheatre Aug. 16 and 17 and the Pacific Amphitheatre Aug. 18, was again musing about stardom the other day. This time from a different perspective. He’s been in the middle of that “explosion” for the last two years.

“Trying to stay sane in the middle of all this is one of the hardest things in the world to do, as hard as I thought it would be,” said Ocean, 36. “Things are really different. There are all these forces at work--strong forces. It’s like nothing average people usually deal with. It’s strange to be in the middle of it. You can get caught up in it very easily and be swept away.”

Despite all those powerful, disruptive forces and the assorted temptations, Ocean claims he’s managed to stay anchored in sensibility and sanity. An unshakable sense of values, will power and religion have been his weapons.

“I’m not trying to set myself up as a saint,” he observed. “I’m no saint. I’m just a person trying to survive in a situation that has two sides. It’s pleasant and desirable on one hand, but it can also destroy you if you let it.”

Tuning out the outside world to some degree is necessary, he said, to keep the ravages of stardom at bay: “It can’t matter what’s around you. You can’t get too serious and concerned about how other people see you. You can’t really ignore it. You wouldn’t be human if you did. But you just can’t fall into these traps. You have to hang on to what you are while all these things around you are trying to strip that self away and change you into something else. You deal with it every day. It’s an ongoing struggle.”

Ocean contended that, so far, he’s eluded the biggest trap--the material trap. In London, where he’s spent most of his life, he’s lived in the same house for the last seven years.

“If it was good enough for me before all the success, then it’s good enough for me now,” he insisted. “I don’t measure success by the amount of material things somebody has. That’s not all that important. Values are important. How you approach your life is important.

“I buy what I need. Just because you have money you don’t have to become a crazy spender. I don’t spend money to impress anybody. That’s a trap you never escape.”

Ocean is an unlikely star. He’s a gentle, thoughtful man who largely steers clear of the fast lane. He likes to read and spend time with his wife and two children. That staple of the stars--the voracious ego--must be festering somewhere in Ocean too. But he keeps it under wraps.

There’s nothing dazzling about Ocean on stage. He’s not one of those knock-your-socks-off performers. He’s the amiable, enthusiastic type. His ace-in-the-hole is his soothing, sensuous, somewhat rough-textured voice. Though it’s a terrific ballad voice, on up-tempo material he can infuse it with plenty of cheeriness and bounce.

If you detect touches of Otis Redding and Sam Cooke in his style, it’s no accident: “They were my teachers. Their styles had an effect on what I do. They really touched people, very deeply. That’s what I always wanted to do.”

Probably the most distinctive quality in his voice is that laid-back sensuousness, that subtle sexuality. That was Cooke’s strongest quality too.

Before experiencing the “explosion” of stardom, Ocean was an embittered veteran. He’d been singing since the mid ‘70s, but without great success. Prior to making his breakthrough album, “Suddenly,” on Arista Records, he recorded four others. His songs weren’t bad, they just weren’t commercial. They lacked the polish or catchy hooks to work on radio.

Still, Ocean was very promising. But something happened that sent him careening into the darkest period of his career. He was dropped by CBS Records.

“There were some strange politics going on,” he recalled. “I got caught in the middle. I was disillusioned and disappointed. For a long time I wasn’t writing. I wasn’t doing much of anything. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. The confidence wasn’t there.”

Eventually, his manager, Laurie Jay, helped him spiral out of that creative abyss. Ocean hooked up with producer Keith Diamond and later with Arista Records. They collaborated on the music for the “Suddenly” album, which Diamond produced.

Surprisingly, Ocean’s current album, “Love Zone,” isn’t a Diamond production. On “Suddenly,” one of the finest albums of 1984, Diamond certainly proved his value as a producer. Why was he scrapped?

“I had nothing to do with it,” Ocean insisted. “It was the record company’s choice to change producers. It was politics. I don’t get involved in politics any more. I learned my lesson at CBS. I was paranoid after that experience. I wasn’t going to fall into that political trap again.”

The company wanted him to work with two youngsters, Wayne Brathwaite, 22, and Barry Eastmond, 24. With them, Ocean wrote most of the “Love Zone” album, which the pair produced. Though not quite as good as Diamond’s album, it’s a superior showcase for Ocean’s pop ballad skills.

Meanwhile, Ocean is up in the air about Diamond. “I haven’t talked to him. I feel strange about not working with him. There was nothing personal in what happened. It was just business. It wasn’t my decision. I might work with him again. Who knows?”

Considering the quality of their “Suddenly” collaboration, it would be a shame if Ocean and Diamond didn’t work together again. But for that to happen, Ocean may have to break his own rule and plunge into the jungle of record company politics again. That doesn’t seem very likely.