Empire of the Sun star Luke Steele paddled out into the middle of an ocean in the dead of night hoping he would be eaten by sharks after a furious bust-up with bandmate Nick Littlemore.

The notoriously volatile pair was recording tracks for new album Ice on the Dune when Steele caught his collaborator bad-mouthing him to their manager in an online phone call.

The singer flipped, had a brawl with his pal, and drunkenly smashed up the studio before storming out and launching a bizarre 'suicide by shark attack' plan.

He tells Q magazine, "It p**sed me off so bad. We all have the same heart towards the project, but you don't realise it's so broken. (We had a) rugby tackle punch-up... It was so intense (when I paddled out to sea). I wanted to get eaten by a shark. That's the time when I thought, 'I can't live with this danger. I've got a child and a wife and a family.'"

The pair made up later that night in a tearful phone call, and Littlemore adds, "It was a very intense evening."