Nick Cave

By Cameron Adams
(originally published in Music Trader, issue 21 - April 1997)

Many artists can create thunder with their music, many can create the exact opposite through minimalism and mood but few can create both. Nick Cave has made a career out of extremes, spending the late 70s and early 80s fronting the raw, organic punk of the Boys Next Door and the Birthday Party, then the equally dark but more melodic Bad Seeds. In the 90s, Nick Cave is maturing but no mellowing.

The Bad Seeds' ninth album, The Boatman's Call, is perhaps the most stark Nick Cave album to date. It is also perhaps the most beautiful. After the album-with-a-body-count, Murder Ballads, which took their brooding folk music to bloody heights, The Boatman's Call is based around a piano and a broken heart. Both belong to Cave.

Low on his beloved characters but high on emotion, Cave refuses to identify the subject of these charged love/hate songs, but speculation is rife that his inspiration came from the break up with his Brazilian wife, Viviane Carneiro (mother of his son Luke) and a relationship with British musician Polly Jean (PJ) Harvey.

Polly Jean met Cave through Mick Harvey (no relation), longtime Boys Next Door/Birthday Party/Bad Seeds guitarist and guest musician on PJ Harvey's classic album To Bring You My Love. At the time she said of Cave "I admire his work amazingly, it's good to meet someone who is on your musical plane." PJ Harvey dueted with Cave on Murder Ballads. Their song Henry Lee was one of the few where Cave's character was killed by a woman in the narrative. This time it was Harvey puncturing Cave with a penknife. The video for the song featured Cave and Harvey dressed alike, continually caressing and embracing.

While neither has confirmed a relationship, Black Hair makes a slight reference to the singer. Lines like 'In a colonial hotel we fucked up the sun and then we fucked it down again' (Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere) or 'I don't believe in the existence of angels, but looking at you I wonder if that's true' (Into My Arms) depict the capturing of the heart. The end of the alleged relationship is also uniquely documented: "to our love send a dozen white lilies, to our love send a coffin of wood" (People Ain't No Good).

The Boatman's Call is grim in its instrumentation. The energy comes from the passion and emotions Cave is revealing, with the usual musical suspects (including the Dirty Three's Warren Ellis on trademark weeping violin and piano accordion). Aside from the piano and bass minimalism of Into My Arms (an instant classic), there's the keyboard assisted mood of Brompton Oratory, the splendour of There is a Kingdom, the dark beauty of Black Hair and the stunning Far From Me. His most personal album in years, it's also far from the commercial effort many may have expected after the overdue (and Kylie-assisted) chart success of Murder Ballads.

"Writing these kinds of songs requires a different approach," says Cave. "It's much easier to write narrative fictional songs, I can do that anytime. Those stories just live up in my head, I can get them down easily. To write a good personal, for lack of a better term, song is something I have to wait for, it's given to me in some way or another. I wrote a lot of them at the same time as the Murder Ballads record. I was writing the record when we decided to make Murder Ballads, so while I was writing these love songs I sat down and wrote twelve songs about murder.

"When we were mixing Murder Ballads" Cave continues, "I went into the studio next door, sat down at the piano and wrote and recorded a lot of these songs with a little bit of drum and a bit of bass but mainly just me at the piano. I liked the whole tape we recorded, so when we made the record I took the original tape in and tried to get the album to sound like the tape. It was about being very economical with the instrumentation, only playing when absolutely necessary, keeping it sparse and fragile."

The Boatman's Call sees Cave's friend Warren Ellis, also a member of the Dirty Three, become a semipermanent Bad Seed. He is photographed on the album and will tour with the band. Cave and the Dirty Three teamed up for the X Files soundtrack album, while Ellis played on the last two Bad Seeds albums (Murder Ballads, Let Love In). Cave has also been known to jump on stage at Dirty Three gigs; the vocalist they normally don't feature. While the album features his trademark tortured violin sounds, Ellis also plays piano accordion on Black Hair. "A lot of what Warren plays on the record is up to him," says Cave. "There were songs I felt needed violin. He consistently comes up with beautiful melodies and countermelodies, he did some great stuff."

The line up of the Bad Seeds remains stable: Cave, Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Thomas Wydler, Conway Savage and occasional guest Jim Sclavunos. Cave and Harvey's relationship dates back to the late 70s at Caulfield Boys' Grammar School, an institution which spawned the Boys Next Door (responsible for the Australian underground classic Shivers). Bargeld joined Cave in 1983 from German industrial outfit Einstuerzende Neubauten, and he has been with him since. The band continue to live on different continents, spread between Germany, London and Sydney. Cave remains the main songwriter in the band. His motivation is simple: "I just want to make good records. It's the thing I like to do most. I like to write songs very much and recording them, I enjoy immensely also. I don't need a lot of motivation to write songs. I put a lot of work into the songs and in that respect it's difficult. The songs take a long time to write, I go back and rework them, edit verses, write new verses, this goes on for months. This is difficult, you don't know if a song is any good but you continue anyway. But I do enjoy it, it's still an exciting thing to write what I feel is a good song.

While named Songwriter of the Year by APRA last year, his belated ARIA success (Murder Ballads and the Kylie Minogue duet Where the Wild Roses Grow swept the board at the event last year) amuses Cave. While he turned down an MTV award ("I don't want the MTV award. It's as simple as that."), he regrets not being present at last year's ARIA awards.

"I would have liked to have gone to the ARIAs in order to be able to get up on stage and tell the Australian recording industry exactly where they could shove their award. I don't feel I've had any support - or very little - from the Australian music industry. Certainly not when we needed it anyway, when we (the Birthday Party) left Australia and tried to do something overseas. Unfortunately there are a lot of bands in the same position, - they have to leave Australia and battle it out on their own overseas. I don't know if things have changed, I hope they have, but certainly in my day it was like that. I mean, to get an ARIA award at this stage, after 20 fucking years or whatever it's been, is just...I don't want their awards."

Cave is embarking on a world tour for The Boatman's Call, starting in Portugal in April. He has also contributed a song for the upcoming Kylie Minogue album. "To record with Kylie Minogue was one of the things I've always wanted to do. To have that dream realised was amazing for me. To have her involve herself so fully in it, to be prepared to go wherever the involvement took her was wonderful. I may have the odd eight year old kid ask me for my autograph which is embarrassing but it's worth it. I'm really happy to have done it."

The Boatman's Call is out through Mute/Liberation. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds will tour Australia mid to late 1997.

Selected Discography

From Her To Eternity (1984)
Longtime girlfriend Anita Lane features on the cover. The title track is a Cave classic that still punctuates his live shows on occasion. CD versions contain his cover of In The Ghetto, made famous by one of his heroes Elvis Presley.

The Firstborn Is Dead (1985)
Home to the distinctive Tupelo, but not regarded as the band's finest hour.

Kicking Against The Pricks (1986)
A collection of covers that display Cave's broad influence, from Velvet Underground (All Tomorrow's Parties) to standards like By The Time I Get To Pheonix, Something's Gotten Hold of my Heart and Black Betty.

Your Funeral, My Trial (1986)
Perhaps their darkest hour, includes Sad Waters, which the Dirty Three sometimes cover, plus fan favourite The Carny.

Tender Prey (1988)
One of Cave's most popular albums, and the one that established him as one of the decade's most important songwriters. The Mercy Seat remains one of his best songs, while Deanna and City of Refuge still echo around alternative nightclubs.

The Good Son (1990)
Contains The Ship Song (later covered by Denis Walter) and The Weeping Song, as well as several other of Cave's most dramatic ballads.

Henry's Dream (1992)
Inspired by the birth of his son Luke, the album's lead track Papa Won't Leave You, Henry is a gift to his child. Other highlights include the wonderful Straight to You, I Had a Dream Joe and Jack the Ripper.

Live Seeds (1993)
Unhappy with the production on Henry's Dream, Cave says this raw live album captures the sound he was after, as well as doubling as a virtual greatest hits.

Let Love In (1994)
Finally accepted into the mainstream, Do You Love Me? was an impressive single, while Red Right Hand was used on the X-Files soundtrack.

Murder Ballads (1996)
His concept album - and the concept is death. Actually fueled by a dry humour, guests include PJ Harvey, Kylie Minogue, Shane MacGowan, Anita Lane on some of his finest songs. Ironically his biggest selling album to date.

(this was a horrible article to type out. I had to fix heaps of typos and I couldn't be bothered fixing up the style inconsistencies regarding song titles etc. I'm also sorry about the terrible punctuation, but I felt I should at least try to print it as it was published)