Euchrid's Cave of Nick






Robert Brokenmouth Interview
Interview Roughs
with Robert Brokenmouth.
Author of Nick Cave, The Birthday Party & Other Epic
Adventures
By Darren Langlands.
Hows it going?
A little bit out of breath. Today seems to be hotting up as a fast
day, a lot of things to do. Interviews and such, so I dont know
how its going to go. It should be fun anyway.
Why a book about the Birthday Party and why now?
Well look, There are a whole bunch of reasons... The reason why
everybody should buy it is basically because the Birthday Party is
the most important band that Australia has ever produced and I mean
that in a world-wide sense. The Birthday Party still remain
unacknowledged by the media overseas but a lot of bands overseas
acknowledge them as a fairly significant influence. I was actually
vindicated quite neatly on Triple J when I mentioned
Amphetamine Reptile and the Seattle Sound and all the
rest of that stuff... Kingsmill said that hed spoke to Mark
from Mudhoney and he said that, yes, the Birthday Party
were a big influence. And I thought, yep, vindicated, of course.
Im not saying that these guys wouldnt be around but it
would be incredibly different and they would not have felt the
ability to go overboard in quite the same way that they do now. The
whole idea of RocknRoll has altered dramatically over the
last ten years, and I think people dont really seem to
recognise that, no, actually, change that to twelve or thirteen
years. And its largely due to this band. For Australia
theyre important because Australian music is now regarded with
respect in Europe and England. You cant just show up and be
scared that theyll give you a backhander and send you spinning
back to us or spinning into breakup like Birdman and the Saints had
happen to them. Split Enz went to England as well in late 78
and I remember reading a review of them doing a gig and I thought,
thats a bit bloody harsh, they may not be brilliant but they
dont deserve something as scathing as that. And people seem to
be going back to them (BP) more and more and more. The impact of the
band live was very immediate, very personal and very, very intimate.
It also unsettled people in a way that I cant think of any
bands that do this any more.
Did you actually see them yourself Darren?
A bit before my time Im afraid...
Can I ask how old you are?
Im 24...
How do you see all this yourself then? If you havent seen them
then hearing me going on about how fabulous they are must sound like
a crock!?
No, not necessarily. Ive seen the Deep in the
Woods clip enough times to still be scared when I see it...
That was filmed in Sydney...
...on the last tour...
In may 1983.
Ive got most of their stuff... and Im certainly into
them and the Bad Seeds. Certainly, I havent been able to
categorise them...
Theres that. They remind me a lot of the Velvets in the sense
of what their appeal is and what direction they took...
I dont know that they were quite as pretentious as the
Velvet Underground...
Wanna bet! You go reread the lyrics on Prayers on Fire.
Read the lyrics to Happy Birthday. Cmon. Would you name one of your
songs after a short story by Gogual? Thats what they did.
Thats what Faint Heart is. Its a very unusual
title. A faint heart is obviously a weak heart but whod call it
a faint heart? Only Gogual. I dont know for sure because I
never actually asked the question but Ive never encountered the
phrase before... Pretentious as all hell. The point is, is that they
managed to get away with it. After seeing them perform, not just with
such veracity but, with such charisma and power and such chemistry...
I mean after you see good bands and pretty good bands, its
like, its pretty good, its really good and I can
understand why people jump up and down about bands like the Jesus
Lizard or Ministry or something but its like theyre
pretty good I reckon.
You saw them a few times then?
I saw them enough times on the really good nights to know what they
were capable of, and I saw them once on a duff night to know that
people that saw them on duff nights, and Ive encountered a
number, who still rave on about them as though they were the best
thing since than sliced bread, have missed the point and were just
going along with it, or were so thrilled with that, that they would
have been just blown into the wall by their really good performances,
thats all I can say. Ive actually met people that ran
away from their gigs, actually left. I met someone very recently, in
February this year, who actually said to me that she fled after the
first song, they were just too much; too sexual and too violent. She
just left and I thought, fuck!
Who were their audiences. Weve heard a bit about their
performances but who were the people that lined up for it?
The audience changed. Lets look at Australia first. The
audience for the Boys Next Door were basically a lot of young people
around about the same age group, a lot of students, intellectuals, a
lot of people from middle class backgrounds; a lot of people from
working class backgrounds who were intelligent enough to realise
their own potential within a possibly upwardly mobile situation. This
sort of stayed static for a while. The Melbourne scene stayed around
two, three hundred, the same with the Sydney scene, and with the
alternative scene. In 1980, Australia, all of a sudden, got really
proud of itself...
For what reason?
Well a whole bunch of bands which were coming out were getting on our
charts. It coincided with a whole lot of Mushroom stuff that was
going on, like Split Enz and the Sports. It coincided with Midnight
Oil. It coincided with getting really popular, breaking through from
really disgusting pub gigs to actually quite big bloody gigs. It
coincided with... I think Back in Black (ACDC) came out... All of a
sudden, the suburbs seemed to open up to more modern music. The
Models became popular for example. The scene just basically opened up
with all these people who were pretty much fringes anyway but they
sort of became more a part of the scene. All of a sudden, instead of
hundreds of people, you had thousands, potentially, going out to
these gigs. So you had a real mix of people... you had the
alternative types who were really into the music and loved the music,
and then the people who were into the posing, and the dress sense and
they really didnt like the band as a general rule. There were
the political types... who really hated the band too, because they
didnt understand it basically, it was rockist and sexist and
all the rest of that stuff... which some of it kind of was but you
cant really imagine someone emulating the song Deep in
the Woods. You cannot imagine it, it is just so unrealistic.
Honestly...
So the audience fluctuated, similarly in England. Especially in
London, tribes are the go at the time. They had like, pop people, and
rockers, and mods and punkers. Of course the Birthday Party just
didnt fit into it and people would come up to them and ask them
what they were and they be, what the fuck are you talking
about? They just did their thing and confused the press long
enough for people, a lot of people, to come along and see. Ive
always thought that the Birthday Party were a very refreshing blast
of fresh air after the woes and misery of bloody Joy Division, who I
actually quite like, the way in which they were treated and the way
in which people responded to them I thought was just awful. And there
was that dreadful scene of disco music, and pop, pop, pop! Pops
fine but you dont want to do it all the time. It doesnt
advance anything, its not important really, its
forgettable, its the stuff you put on while youre doing
the washing up and sing along. This was a band that if you stuck this
on the record player, you had to listen to it, you had to pay
attention, you were forced to, very disruptive music.
The Birthday Party confounded people, because they didnt just
do like a violent imitation of the Cramps or something, they actually
showed a vast amount of texture and complexity in their lyrics. Quite
often Id be willing to bet that Nick hadnt thought
through all of his lyrics. I reckon that thats probably a good
thing for him to do, otherwise hed be there forever, he just
tried to get them how he felt them to be right, then hed start
singing them and theyd become an entity unto their own.
Did you find that a lot of his stuff was done on mic, at the
moment?
On the spur of the moment and very fast... spontaneously... I
havent actually had the opportunity to ask Nick this
personally. There are a number of things Id like to ask Nick
but I was unable to interview him...
Why was that?
Its a very ticklish situation... I actually incidentally
didnt want to do this, I didnt want to interview him, for
a long time, partly because hes always surrounded by these
buggers that are trying to worm things out of him or hang out and be
his buddy and pal, even when he was really dirt poor, people were
always hanging off him and I really didnt want to be part of
that. Ive met him a couple of times before that and he just
seemed like a nice, reasonable kind of guy, a bit wacky and
thats it. No big deal, very talented, great performer;
hes his own person and he does what he wants to do and
thats fine, but I didnt want to get in his way. In the
end I was bullied into doing it and I approached him backstage at one
gig or another and asked him, and I was shit scared because now I was
one of the bastards that wanted something out of him. He said, send
me the manuscript. I said, yep, sent it too him and, I think he liked
some of it but didnt like others. But the basic point is, he
didnt want to be interviewed because, if I fucked this up, his
name was gonna be on it. Hes been seen to give his support to
something that is shit and hes so careful about that. I have no
problem with that, I think thats fine but boy, I tell you what,
I could sit him down and ask him a bunch of questions but if I ever
got the opportunity, Id like to make it a very informal
situation. I really hate the sort of situations that people put this
poor bastard through. I mean Im OK talking to you on the phone
but thats partly because Ive had five fucking years
talking to people on the phone in my jobs. Prior to that Id be
spluttering all over the place.
How then were the interviews with Phill and Rowland?
The interviews will Phill and Rowland were fine. Phill wanted to
talk, we got drunk more than a few times...
Yeah, theres a nice quote on the bio from him about you and
Vodka...
Well that particular incident... He met me at the airport which is
really nice of him, took me back to his place and we sat around
talking and we were looking through things and, out came the vodka,
and Id never had vodka straight from the freezer before, which
of course is the way youre supposed to drink it. This was a
complete revelation, so I just kept drinking, it was wonderful. I
only realised when I stood up how utterly smashed I was. I was
bumping into things... We went through two thirds of a bottle of
Stolley, and the tape of this interview is (slurs)... towards the end
its just insane.
Phill and Rowland have been treated, if thats the right word,
to all too vivid instances of a grown man rolling around on their
carpet or wherever I happened to be with them, holding my sides with
laughter because they tell so many hilarious and ridiculous stories.
And I actually had to leave a lot out of the book otherwise itd
be this endless roller coaster and people would get bored, and the
roller coaster doesnt tell you anything. So what Ive
tried to do is pace it and tried to explain how these things
demonstrate what this bands personalities were like, how they
were and why they were rather than just give, ha-ha-ha, isnt
this funny?
How do you go about deciding what youre going to use from a
time that is essentially clouded by drugs and alcohol?
Thats a very good question, Im glad you asked... it
wasnt that clouded oddly enough... it was certainly clouded by
drunkenness. Nicks always been a great drinker. Tracy was drunk
a huge amount of the time, when he was touring with the band he was.
That doesnt mean to say they were all a dour bunch of bastards,
the point is that they enjoyed themselves a lot, and when things got
too bored theyd make their own entertainment and Nick still
does this. I know of innumerable instances when Nick just entertains
himself because hes so bored.
When you ask people these things... its a while ago and quite
often Id find that their recollection was wrong, and Id
have physical evidence to the contrary, so Id explain that to
them and theyd agree. Theres one classic example where
there was an incident when they were living in London where some
money was pinched and Phill thought Rowland had taken it, and that
was what Phills belief still was. When I spoke to Rowland about
it, he said, well thats typical of Phill because I didnt
and it was actually this guy here. And I thought, well, fair
enough... and I put it to Phill and he said, oh yeah, maybe it was.
So that funny little bugbear that had been between these two guys,
well I wont say it got resolved but it became clearer too them
in hindsight. I had to enmass a large amount of physical evidence...
Id been such a fan already so Id been keeping the
cuttings and Id already enmassed this massive collection of
tapes and dates and so on and so on, so I had a lot of physical stuff
to go on. Now Id been in contact with two really huge fans of
the band and theyd been able to fill me in on a few bits and
pieces as well... Quite often Id find myself in a situation
where Id have to ask these guys, which year was this? And
theyd go... er... um... they wouldnt know, so Id
have to figure it out myself. The amount of research is just
enormous. Id be going through the manuscript and find little
inconsistencies and Id be ringing up Phill and Rowland going,
Ive got four questions for you, and Id ask these really
specific questions and Rowland would be going, I dont know! Or
you could hear him thinking... (groan) Its agonising.
What was the time span of the research?
Eight years. You can actually stretch it longer than that if you want
to but I decided Id write the book in 1988 when I was doing
some fanzines and by, lets say the middle of 1989, I was
definite about it, Id got a fair way into it and I thought, I
can do this, I can complete it. Because I was living in Adelaide at
the time and because I was working, it was very difficult to go
bounding from one state to another. Of course, thats what my
holidays were, and my long weekends. Zooming back and forth, and
despite the fact that I was working, I always managed to do it on the
bus or train or something vile like that. So I havent had much
of a holiday these last few years.
What are you going to do now that its done?
Ive got a book of verse coming out, I say verse because I
cant stand the word poetry and spoken words usually for
people like Hank Rollins or Jello Biaffra who used to be in punk
bands and they have to explain to the hardcore punks, this is not got
guitar on it... there is no music on this record. So spoken
words the wrong thing, especially since its written. But
its called Realm, itll be coming out before
the end of the year with any luck. Itll be through a publisher
called Fitzgerald. Ive got two novels set up and I
need to put them in a presentable state. Ones a crime novel set
in Adelaide, with the tentative title of The Adelaide
Quintet. Im going to try and make as many people die as
possible... because thats what I think should happen to people
in Adelaide... Its not a very thrilling city, it really
isnt. Honest.
Murder in the city of churches...
Something like that... Its not really a city of churches.
Its sort of a... drab little place. Actually the ugliest
building in Adelaide has got to be the Police station. The ugliest
edifice has got to be the Victoria Square fountain, its just
vile, its just utterly, utterly hideous. You see these Japanese
people taking their photographs in front of it and you think, what
the fuck are you thinking? Why? Its just so fucking absurd.
The other book is an Elizabethan crime thriller, spy thriller, and
thats called Jacks stick and its got a
lot of work to do on it. Ive got a very good idea about it and
Ive actually written more on it than the Adelaide
Quintet but hopefully Ill be able to sell both of those
in the next six months or so...
What kind of response did you get in Melbourne at the book
signing?
Fifty to sixty people came through... which was gratifying. Sold
about fifty copies, Im told that, theyre shipping them
out from England, theyve almost gone through all of their stock
already. Its pretty good. The thing is it only goes on sale,
officially, today in England, and theyve got fuck all left. The
thing is that it is, its selling. People are asking about it,
people are coming into shops and asking, do you have it? Its
very gratifying... The nicest thing about it is that people are
saying, I really enjoyed reading that...
These are the fans?
Well not just fans... I mean people who dont know much about
it. My mother is utterly bemused but she enjoyed reading it. And
people like Nancy Pew, Tracys mother, she said that she enjoyed
reading it and, to me thats very important because, for her,
she lived a very different aspect of it. So its almost like
its strange... so for her its important and I just hope
Ive done her son justice too. For a long time people have even
got his death wrong and thats just so important. Even Johnston
got it wrong. And he had the opportunity to get it right. Never
mind...
What are your thoughts on Bad Seed? (Robert must have
thought I meant the Bad Seeds, rather than Ian Johnstons
book)
Theyre two totally different things, and anyone who says
Nicks not as good as he was in the Birthday Party
have got it totally wrong. The reason the Birthday Party were so damn
good is because it was five guys jostling up against each other,
competing, teasing... they were guys, and the chemistry between them
was so thick you could hold it in your hands, squeeze it and it would
drip. It was really quite an amazing thing to watch these guys on
stage. Theres one video that Ive got of them walking out
on stage, and I showed it to Phill and he goes Oh yeah, I
remember that, we had this argument backstage. And I went,
hmmm, thats why. Cause its this really weird gig.
Theyre doing it but for a while theyre really preoccupied
with something. Its Odd.
The Bad Seeds are a great band, but theyre a
rocknroll band and Ive always maintained that the
Birthday Party went one step beyond into an area that was utterly
unchartered, and I still dont think people fully appreciate
this. And its given rise to a huge number of bands just going,
wow! and getting all inspired. Im not saying they wouldnt
have done it without the band but the way theyve done it, the
direction theyve taken and the power that theyve given to
their music comes, in some part, from the Birthday Party.
Johnstons book... What are your thoughts on that?
Oh God... Ive gotta make this really clear. I dont know
the guy, never met him, probably never will, hes probably a
really nice guy OK. Hes done something... he took something
upon himself which is essentially a huge bloody task... Nicks
life is very difficult to trace, its very difficult to deal
with, and you also really have to have an understanding of Australia
in order to touch on Nick. I think personally, that Ian has a very
odd idea about the Birthday Party, and I suspect this is because he
interviewed Nick, although that is not stated in the book very
clearly, all the quotes youll notice come from magazines, this
is something I deliberately didnt do because I thought the
magazines, the interviews they did when they were around, they got so
many things wrong. Why do it, why copy them, why get it wrong
again?
Why quote the NME anyway?
Particularly Emeric Wry. They still think thats a great
interview, and its just appalling, its a dreadful
interview and I thought, why make the same mistake again, what
Im going to do is go to the primary source and I did all my own
research. I think the only times Ive ever quoted the papers is
twice and I think I quote them with contempt.
I dont like Johnstons writing style in the book and I
dont like his notion that Nick did this, the band neatly tagged
along. That wasnt how it was at all. Nick had to fight tooth
and nail, he had to bully people, browbeat them down to get what he
wanted. The others were equally stand offish, except Phill. Now,
Tracy was inscrutable, so was Rowland to a degree, he was distant in
many ways. Mick was the organiser and was contemptuous of anyone who
couldnt handle things. The Jim Thirwell song, I am
surrounded by Incompetence, is a Mick Harvey quote, he used to
say that a lot. Why am I surrounded by incompetents! As
Phill described it to me, they came on pretty strong man. It
was pretty hard to stand up to them.
To say it was all tension is wrong, they balanced each other out in
different ways and it was constantly a moving, shifting thing.
Thats where their chemistry came from, and thats what I
dont think Johnston understands. And I think, youve got
to keep in mind that, Nick does what he wants to do now because he
knows he can say I want to do this to the Bad Seeds.
Hell say I want to do this set for the entire tour
and whether the band like it or not, theyve got no say in the
matter, its not their fucking choice. Cause Nicks the
boss. Thats why Nick likes playing with the Dirty Three, cause
he can slip into a band that does instrumentals and have a good time,
he likes being the boss. Theres nothing wrong with that, but
when youre dealing with four other people who also want to be
the boss, imagine the sparks. Thats why Phill copped so much
flak, because he wasnt so much the weaker party but he
didnt play the same games that they did. He was interested in
other things.
What is Phill actually doing these days?
Hes working, hes got a job. I dont know that I
should tell you exactly what hes doing, but hes
essentially working in an office. Hes not getting a shitty
income, hes getting quite a good income. Hes looking
around for another gig at the moment. I mean, he really wants to
,basically, play fucking rocknroll drums, and hes a
damn good drummer too. The amazing thing is that he is really still
shit hot, he doesnt lose it.
Rowland still plays, I guess you know that, and hes extremely
good I might add. I brought him over to Adelaide I was that
impressed, about two months ago. He left with a reasonable sum of
money that was very gratifying. It was better than dragging him over
and saying Heres your two hundred, fuck off!
Ive got something here from the goodson list on the
Internet, where your book has been the source of some discussion.
Oh God... thats right, something actually thought I was Mick
Harvey... I am Mick Harvey. I wear my pants up around my tummy.
I figured that Id get a response from you on some of the
criticisms...
Why dont you do a reasonable transcribe of this and just bang
it on there...
OK... Here goes. The author seems to labour
under the theory that every song Nick ever wrote was either about the
demise of the Birthday Party, or the performers relationship with the
audience, and that every idea he ever had was taken from William
Blake.
Thats not true. Theyre misreading it. All Im doing
is pointing out things about his lyrics. The beauty of Nicks
lyrics is that you can discuss them until you are blue in the face
and you will get precisely nowhere because there is no clear, simple
analysis. You also have to remember that, I cut that fucking book
down from 200,000 words, and Id written about 300,000 in total
and edited that down over the course of how ever long I was writing
it, distilled it, if you like... No when it came time to talk to the
publisher, the publisher said, well we cant have 200,000
words, its too big, cut it down to 90,000 I had to run
away and do interviews while I was fleshing it down. If youve
ever looked at how long 200,000 words is, youll know what a
hideous task that is. I only had about five weeks. So I added 20,000
words as I was pounding away, editing down the book. I ended up
throwing my hands up in the air and sending 107,000 words off. I then
got sent back another edited version of that, and unfortunately, I
didnt have time to reread the whole thing. By that time, I was
too knackered to do it with any justice anyway. So I made as many
corrections as I possibly could and shoved it back.
Now what Im trying to say here is that I certainly dont
think that Nick got his ideas from Blake, certainly not the Birthday
Party anyway. There are a lot of similarities and that just simply
indicates to me, something that is very important... what would have
happened, do you think, when Nick picked up William Blake in 1986, or
87, which is when he did pick it up. He must have felt some
sort of kinship with him. On the Murder Ballads album he
actually gives two of his characters the names William Blake and
Billy Blake. He read recently on a poetry program, he actually read
one of Blakes works. He likes Blake. Go and look at Charles
Neils book, Tape delay, theres a photograph
of him in Christoph Dreyers flat with William Blake fucking
right in the foreground, and its the same copy, oddly enough,
that Ive got. Collected Works. Its battered
as fuck, but it looks like hes pretty much only discovered it,
and he likes Blake. The reason he like him is because theres a
similarity in the concerns that he and Blake have, and if thats
not clear in the book then, Im sorry, I did my best. The point
is that there are many similarities and I think, Im trying to
point out here that Nick is actually, this is part of his fucking
genius. Now a lot of songs that he did do were, in fact, covertly
about the breakup of the Birthday Party, that was their inspiration.
Particularly on the first and second albums. The reason Ive
focused on this is because thats not as obvious. You could say,
yeah its a tale about a guy who walks down the road
tapping his cane, or its its about
Elvis, I could waffle on about that for ages, but the point is,
if I actually did sit down and do an analysis of say, if I picked one
song off each of the Bad Seeds albums, and did an analysis of
them, I could actually do 100,000 words on that, very easily,
probably more. You have to take into account a lot of things with
Nicks Bad Seeds stuff, with the general exception of the
Murder Ballads album, because he writes about himself, he
conceals himself within his lyrics. He puts forward a storyline or a
character, and he hides inside it and the sometimes he runs with the
ball and hes not inside it. Its very odd. The interesting
thing is when he performs, hes not singing about himself any
more. Hes written the song, thats when he was talking
about himself, when hes singing it, hes not singing about
himself. You can actually see the evidence for this in the film
Wings of Desire. When he says, Im not gonna
tell you about a girl, Im not gonna tell you about a
girl... and he turns to the mike and says, I wanna tell
you about a girl.
I have to be pretty emphatic about this cause Im not labouring
under any misapprehensions here, Ive just chosen to zero
in on these things because to me, theyre really interesting,
they show you a lot about Nick. I could dissect these things, waffle
on, but why bother? Everybody else does.
I actually think its a good comment. Its a good criticism
of the book because it indicates to me that thats not bloody
clear enough. Thats good cause it means Ive now got to
sit down, with the book, put this on the Net... Im actually
planning to send the publisher an updated version in the next week or
two, which includes corrections, cause there are some factual
problems, which Im not going to go into, there are a lot of
factual problems that no one will get, or about four people will...
but thats neither here nor there. Theres a couple of
typos, horrible ones. About four of them... ADDC, thats just
the printer. Thats par for the course but I must admit the
great Australian draft was a bit bad. And they mis-spelt Geoffrey
Dahmer. Christ. All the wrong things. I could forgive them if they
spelt its wrong.
Last words?
My intention, now that the book is done, is that people are able to
reread it with enjoyment, again and again, and that it doesnt
fucking sit on the shelf gathering dust. I want people to be able to
reread it and get great enjoyment out of it in the same way that the
best books about the Beatles, you can reread and reread with
enjoyment cause theyre not dry. I want people to realise that
this band were very, very important and they were a lot of fun and
they were an experience that... if you didnt see them, never
mind, that doesnt matter, youve got some sort of record,
now go off and be inspired and form your own fucking band.
One of the things about the Birthday Party was that they always tried
to have good support bands and the reason they did that was because
thats the way you praise people. You say We love you,
come on our bill. Rather than, heres a shit band,
lets take it on tour with us. A lot bands do take shit bands on
tour with them cause they know theyll blow them off stage, and
thats not what the Birthday Party did. Theyd take the
Go-Betweens on tour with them, you cant imagine a more
inappropriate band to go on tour with the Birthday Party in some
ways. The Laughing Clowns.
Nick, Tracy and Phill used to go down the front of Radio Birdman and
Saints gigs and dance themselves stupid. Theyd fuck off
to the bar, drink pots and pots and pots, come back, sweat it all
out, go back to the bar, grab a few pots, come back, sweat it all
out. Theyd thrash themselves insane. They loved the Saints.
They loved Birdman too. Why shouldnt they? So Keupper would be
doing his thing, theyd see him, and say, hey look,
Keuppers doing something great, lets see it, lets
get him on. I happen to know that Nick approached Kim Salmon after
the Scientists played at Storey Hall and said how much hed
enjoyed their set. They support people they like.
Its still quite incestuous like that...
Shit yeah... look at all the great people they take out through
Europe. Nick and Mick still do this with bands like Once Upon a Time,
the Cruel Sea, True Spirit and the Dirty Three... what Id like
to see them do is drag Rowland Howards band These
Immortal Souls around with them, cause theyre just as
fucking good, if not more powerful than True Spirit.
Whats Rowland been up to lately?
I dont know if hes got a label yet... I dont know
if hes gonna be able to a record out, hes got the
material for it. Hes going to be doing a solo album for sure
this year and hes going off to LA or New Orleans at the end of
August to record another album with Lydia. Im really looking
forward to hearing the solo album, he is just so fucking good!
He actually played Shivers for the first time since 1979
when I got him over to Adelaide. I dont think hes going
to be doing it again in a hurry, but my God. I cant even begin
to describe it... That gig was actually magical, it really was. The
whole mood of the crowd was completely with Rowland. Rowland walked
out... You how you or I might walk out and its like, Joe Wanker
standing on stage, going, here Ive got a song for you...
Rowlands got charisma. He really does. He just had the audience
in the palm of his hand. He almost didnt do it. I yelled out
If Nick can do it, you can. And he changed his mind and
said Oh all right, and played it.
It was fabulous. It was very, very different to the original
version... brilliant... a really, really powerful song. You just
think, fuck, thats amazing.
ENDS
Back
To Euchrid's Cave of Nick






