Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are back in action with a new album, Push The Sky Away. Receiving rave reviews around the planet, the band are embarking on an Australian tour to promote the record. Now seemed as good a time as any to dig out this piece with Nick from our archives which was done in 2011 as Cave was releasing the second Grinderman album.
As Nick Cave was approaching 50, he headed to a guitar store in midtown Manhattan. He’d never really played the electric guitar and now was as good a time as any to start. A salesman pointed out an axe hanging on the back wall. Cave took a moment to admire the instrument and the person behind the counter asked if he’d like to plug it in and take it for a test drive.
“Just put it in a bag, man,” was Cave’s reply and Grinderman were under way. Cave sees Grinderman as a parallel project to his work with the Bad Seeds and to his other life as a novelist and scriptwriter.
The Grinderman quartet comprises three other Bad Seeds: multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, bassist Martyn P. Casey and drummer Jim Sclavunos.
Last year the group released their second album, Grinderman 2. Now they’re embarking on a series of gigs that includes a spot on the Big Day Out. Observing Grinderman over two nights on their first Australian tour in 2007 was incendiary. Cave believes they’ve only gotten better.
“We were learning how to play live,” he says on the line from his home in Brighton. “When we [first] came to Australia, we hadn’t done a lot of shows at all. We were just still learning the songs on stage in some way. Now we’ve done it, we’ve played a lot. We did a full European tour; we’ve done an American tour. We know what to do on stage; just grind them out. The concerts have been amazing.”
To record the album, the band reunited with producer Nick Launay. Sessions began as a series of improvisations. Cave and Ellis would listen to the tapes later, select a musical part they liked and develop the piece from there. Cave, known for going to his office every day to write, relished the freedom of reacting on the spot to the music and hurling words at the microphone.
These sonic experiments were then refined, tweaked and given a structure as the album was put together. Cave has talked about a loose narrative between the tunes but he’s lost for what it is.
“I can’t remember now,” he laughs. “It’s a really long time ago. I couldn’t tell you but there’s certain hints at it within the artwork within the cover, which we spent a lot of time on with the artist in attempting to impose upon the songs a kind of a narrative.
“The songs are strongly linked lyrically. The connections come out of the ad-libbed vocals, really, just kind of riffing on one thing and then a new piece of music starts off and you got a riff on another thing but they’re kind of related.”
Grinderman 2 is a taut listen, clocking in at 40 minutes. Cave says “records [are] way too long these days. They just become a kind of collection of songs rather than something that has a overriding purpose that binds the songs together.”
There’s often an allusion to the “good book” in Cave’s work. Wary of organised religion, Cave “reserves the right to believe in the possibility of a God” and believes there’s a certain divinity in creating songs. “There is a mystery and absurdity about both of them that seem to go together,” he says.
“There’s a spark that happens with a song – whether you’re playing it or whether you’re writing it – that is very elusive and very difficult to define. It’s something that I think songwriters and musicians know about.
“It’s a moment when you’re playing live where everything suddenly clicks together. It’s something that just happens and you can’t force.
“It also happens with writing songs, when suddenly something happens; your whole inner machinery changes and your body chemistry changes. Even time becomes different; that is unique to the creative process.
“That feels, at times, like a spiritual thing and something that’s very difficult to define and something that’s very mysterious.”
Sean Sennett
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have announced dates for 2013 in Australia, Mexico, USA and Canada.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey, Thomas Wydler, Jim Sclavunos and Conway Savage.
AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES FEBRUARY/MARCH 2013
Tue 26, Wed 27, Thu 28 February | SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE ALL SOLD OUT
Performing classic and new material for their Opera House debut, part of the evening will feature members of the Sydney Symphony
Tickets: www.sydneyoperahouse.com/music presented by Sydney Opera House, Sydney Symphony & FBi Radio
Sat 2 Mar | SIDNEY MYER MUSIC BOWL, Melbourne
Tickets: www.ticketmaster.com.au presented by RRR
Sun 3 Mar | THEBARTON THEATRE, Adelaide SOLD OUT
Tickets: www.venuetix.com.au presented in association with the Adelaide Festival
Wed 6 Mar | RED HILL AUDITORIUM, Perth
Tickets: www.redhillgigs.com.au or www.oztix.com.au presented by RTRFM
Fri 8 Mar | RIVERSTAGE, Brisbane
Tickets: www.ticketmaster.com.au or www.oztix.com.au
Sat 9 Mar | ENMORE THEATRE, Sydney SOLD OUT
Tickets: www.enmoretheatre.com.au or www.ticketek.com.au
Bad Seed Ltd.
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