NICK CAVE

'Nicholas Edward Cave' (born September 22, 1957) is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional actor. He is best known for his work in the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He currently lives in Brighton & Hove in England.

Youth and education

Cave was born in the small town of Warracknabeal in the state of Victoria, Australia, to Dawn and Colin Cave. He has two brothers: Tim (b. 1952) and Peter (b. 1954), and a sister, Julie (b. 1959).
As a child, Cave lived in Warracknabeal and then Wangaratta in rural Victoria, Australia. His father Colin was an English teacher and administrator, with a love of literature, and his mother was a librarian. Raised as an Anglican, Cave sang in the boys choir at Wangaratta Cathedral. However, he was often in trouble with the local school authorities, so his parents sent him to boarding school at Melbourne's Caulfield Grammar School in 1970. Cave joined the school choir under choirmaster Norman Kaye, and also benefitted from having a piano in his home. The following year he became a "day boy" when his family moved to Caulfield, a suburb of Melbourne.
After his secondary schooling, Cave studied painting (Fine Art) at the Caulfield Institute of Technology (now Monash University, Caulfield Campus) in 1976, but dropped out in 1977 to pursue music. He also began using heroin around this time. In late 1978, shortly after Cave's 21st birthday, his father was killed in a car accident.

Early career

In 1973, Cave met Mick Harvey (guitar), Tracy Pew (bass) and Phill Calvert (drums); fellow students at Caulfield Grammar. With them he founded his first band, with himself as singer. Their repertoire consisted of proto-punk cover versions of songs by Lou Reed, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Roxy Music and Alex Harvey. In 1977, after leaving school, they adopted the name The Boys Next Door and began playing predominantly original material penned by Cave. Guitarist and songwriter Rowland S. Howard joined the band in 1978.
From 1977 until their dissolution in 1984 the band explored various punk styles, often with rapid development: from Ramones riffing; through Bowie-esque New Wave; on to Post-punk expressionism (informed by Pere Ubu); and then a malevolent mix of Stooges-esque audience provocation, brooding art-rock and noise.
The Boys Next Door were a part of Melbourne's post-punk music scene in the late 1970s, playing hundreds of live shows in Australia before changing their name to the Birthday Party in 1980 and moving to London, then West Berlin. Cave's Australian girlfriend and muse Anita Lane accompanied them to London. The band were notorious for their provocative live performances which featured Cave shrieking, bellowing and throwing himself about the stage, backed up by harsh pounding rock music laced with guitar feedback.
After establishing a cult following in Europe and Australia, The Birthday Party disbanded in 1984. Howard and Cave found it difficult to continue working together and both were rather worn down from alcohol and drug use.

The Bad Seeds

Cave and Harvey went on to form the first version of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. This name indicates the shift in Cave's role from band-member to band-leader, and coincides with a shift in Cave's songwriting from expressionism towards lyrical and detailed narratives. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were founded as an international backing group with German guitarist Blixa Bargeld (from Einstürzende Neubauten), English bassist Barry Adamson (formerly of Magazine) and Australian guitarist Hugo Race. Lane was also a creative influence and sometime lyricist. This line-up recorded their debut album, released in 1984, ''From Her to Eternity''.
Cave separated from Lane in the mid-1980s and began a relationship with Elisabeth Recker. While in Berlin, he released four albums with the Bad Seeds: ''The Firstborn Is Dead''; ''Kicking Against the Pricks''; ''Your Funeral, My Trial''; and ''Tender Prey''.
While he was based in West Berlin, Cave started working on what was to become his debut novel, ''And the Ass Saw the Angel'' (1989). Significant crossover is evident between the themes in the book and the lyrics Cave wrote in the late stages of the Birthday Party and the early stage of his solo career. "Swampland", from ''Mutiny'', in particular, uses the same linguistic stylings ('mah' for 'my', for instance) and some of the same themes (the narrator being haunted by the memory of a girl called Lucy, being hunted like an animal, approaching death and execution).
After completing ''And the Ass Saw the Angel'', Cave left West Berlin shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall and moved to São Paulo, Brazil, where he met Brazilian Viviane Carneiro. The two have a son, Luke (b. 1991), but never married. Cave has another son born in 1991, Jethro (named after one of his favourite bands Jethro Tull), who lives with his mother (Beau Lazenby) in Australia. ^[1]. In 1993, Cave moved back to London.
In 1996, Cave and the Bad Seeds released ''Murder Ballads''. It includes "Henry Lee," a duet with British rock singer PJ Harvey (with whom he had a brief relationship), and "Where the Wild Roses Grow," a duet with Australian pop idol Kylie Minogue. The latter was a mainstream hit in the UK and in Australia, winning three ARIA Awards including "Song of the Year".
His next album, ''The Boatman's Call'' (1997), is marked by a radical shift away from archetypal and violent narratives to biographical and confessional songs about his relationships with Carneiro and Harvey. It was also his first full album to be centred around his own piano playing.
Cave then took a break to rehabilitate from his 20 years of heroin and alcohol abuse. During this time, he met his current partner, British model Susie Bick. They married in summer 1999, and had twins, Arthur and Earl, shortly after.^[2]Cave resurfaced with ''No More Shall We Part'' with the Bad Seeds in 2001.
In 2000, one of Cave's heroes, Johnny Cash, covered Cave's "The Mercy Seat" on the album ''American III: Solitary Man'', seemingly repaying Cave for the compliment he paid by covering Cash's "The Long Black Veil" and "The Singer" (originally "The Folk Singer") on his ''Kicking Against the Pricks'' album. Cave was then invited to be one of many rock and country artists to contribute to the liner notes of the retrospective ''The Essential Johnny Cash'' CD, released to coincide with Cash's 70th birthday. Subsequently, Cave cut a duet with Cash on a version of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" for Cash's '' album (2002). A similar duet, the American folk song "Cindy", was released posthumously on the "Johnny Cash: Unearthed" boxset.
After the release of the 2003 album ''Nocturama'', which failed to excite reviewers, Bargeld announced he was leaving the Bad Seeds to devote more time to Einstürzende Neubauten, leaving Mick Harvey as the only original member still in the band, other than Cave himself. The next year Cave released his first double record - the acclaimed two-disc set ''Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus''.
In 2005, Cave and the Seeds released ''B-Sides & Rarities'', a three-disc, 56-track collection of B-sides, rarities and tracks that had appeared on film soundtracks.
In February 2007, Cave told ''Billboard'' that apart from his album with his other venture Grinderman (nicknamed ''Mini-Seeds'', because it consists of Seeds members - see below), he was preparing another studio album with the Bad Seeds, to be recorded in July. ^[3]

"Solo" work and Grinderman

In addition to his performances with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Cave has, since the '90s, performed live 'solo' tours with himself on piano/vocals, Warren Ellis on violin/accordion and various others on bass and drums. The current trio are Bad Seeds' Martyn P. Casey, Jim Sclavunos and Ellis (nicknamed the ''Mini-Seeds''). In 2006, this line-up, now including Cave on electric guitar, continued his 'solo' tours performing Bad Seeds material.
In the same year three other Bad Seeds, Mick Harvey, Thomas Wydler and James Johnston, undertook Harvey's first 'solo' tours of Europe and Australia performing material from his own albums. Melbourne double bassist Rosie Westbrook completed the quartet.
An album of new material by Cave's 'solo' quartet, now named Grinderman, was released in March 2007.
Nick Cave 'solo' and Grinderman both played at the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival in April 2007. This was Grinderman's first public performance. Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream accompanied Grinderman on backing vocals and percussion.

Other work

Literary involvement

Cave released his first book ''King Ink'', in 1988. It is a collection of lyrics and plays, including collaborations with American ''enfant terrible'' Lydia Lunch. His first, and only, novel ''And the Ass Saw the Angel'', was released a year later in 1989 and draws heavily on the themes presented in the early Bad Seeds albums.
Cave, a devout Christian^[4], wrote the foreword to a Canongate publication of the ''Gospel according to Mark'', published in the UK in 1998. The American publication of the same book contains a foreword by a different author.
Cave and Ellis composed scores for a production by the Icelandic theatre company Vesturport of ''Woyzeck'' by Georg Büchner, performed at the Barbican Theatre in the Barbican Arts Centre in London in 2005, and a stage adaptation of Franz Kafka's ''The Metamorphosis'' at the Lyric Hammersmith in London in 2006.

Film involvement

Cave's music is featured in several of Wim Wenders' movies, including ''Wings of Desire'' (in which Cave also appears, in a live performance), ''Until the End of the World'', ''Faraway, So Close!'' and ''Soul of a Man''. Other songs of his appeared in a variety of independent and mainstream films including ''Shrek'', ''Shrek 2'', the ''Scream'' trilogy, and others.
Cave has made occasional appearances as an actor, most prominently in ''Ghosts ... of the Civil Dead'' (1989) written and directed by John Hillcoat, and in the 1991 film ''Johnny Suede'', with Brad Pitt.
Displaying a continued interest in film, Cave wrote the screenplay for ''The Proposition'', a Western set in the Outback. Directed by John Hillcoat and filmed in Queensland in 2004, it premiered in October 2005 and has since been released worldwide to critical acclaim. The generally ambient soundtrack was recorded by Cave and bandmember Warren Ellis.
Cave and Hillcoat have plans to make a comedy film set in Britain. Its working title is ''Death of a Ladies Man'', and is based around the bawdy exploits of a travelling salesman.
Cave appeared in the 2005 homage to Leonard Cohen, ''. Cave performed "I'm Your Man" solo and "Suzanne" with Julie Christensen and Perla Batalla.

Soundtrack involvement

Cave's song "Red Right Hand" has appeared in a number of films and TV shows including: ''The X-Files; Dumb & Dumber; Scream'', its sequels ''Scream 2'' and ''3''; and ''Hellboy'' (performed by Pete Yorn).
The song "People Ain't No Good" was featured in the animated movie ''Shrek 2'', as well as in one of the episodes of the television series ''L Word''.

Work with other artists

Nick Cave has also played with Shane McGowan, in a cover version of Bob Dylan's "Death is Not the End", and Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". Cave has also performed "What a Wonderful World" live with The Flaming Lips. Cave recorded a cover version of the Pogues song "Rainy Night in Soho", written by MacGowan.
McGowan also sings a version of "Lucy", released on ''B-Sides and Rarities''. Pulp's single "Bad Cover Version" includes on its B-side a cover version by Cave of that band's song "Disco 2000".
In 2004, Cave gave a hand to Marianne Faithfull on the album ''Before The Poison''. He co-wrote and produced three songs ("Crazy Love", "There Is a Ghost" and "Desperanto"), and the Bad Seeds are featured on all of them.
Cave collaborated with the band Current 93, most notably on their album ''All the Pretty Little Horses'', where he reads text from the ''Pensées'' of Blaise Pascal.

Trivia

★ Cave is jokingly reported to be a member of the Sons of Lee Marvin — a "semi-secret society" founded by director Jim Jarmusch and including Tom Waits.

★ Cave has stated that the visible scar on his left cheek was given to him by then-girlfriend Anita Lane during a knife fight between the two.

★ In 1997, Cave performed at Michael Hutchence's funeral, and out of reverence for the deceased, refused to have his performance recorded.

★ In 1998, the same year that Cave issued a "Best Of" CD, a compilation surfaced in Australia entitled ''Original Seeds: Songs That Inspired Nick Cave'', featuring Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and others. ''Original Seeds Volume 2'' was issued in 2004.

★ Cave has performed "The Mercy Seat" at nearly every live show since 1988, including band and solo appearances.

★ Following the Boxing Day Tsunami in December 2004, Nick Cave appeared at the Wave Aid fundraising concert in Sydney.

★ In 2006-2007, AArhus Theater setup a theater concert called "Nick Cave". The concert consisted of Nick Cave songs translated into Danish. In 2007 it won the Danish Reumert adward for best play of the year.

★ On 1 September 2007 Nick Cave appeared as a judge at the 2007 World Beard and Moustache Championships in Brighton. He judged the moustache section.

Discography

Nick Cave's releases with the Bad Seeds are listed on the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds page.

Soundtracks/Scores

★ ''Ghosts... of the Civil Dead (Soundtrack)'' - composed with Harvey & Bargeld

★ ''To Have And To Hold (Soundtrack)'' - composed with Harvey & Bargeld

★ ''The Proposition (Soundtrack)'' (2005) - composed with Ellis

★ ''The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Soundtrack)'' (2007) - composed with Ellis

Contributions/Appearances

★ Die Haut and Nick Cave: ''Burnin' the Ice'' (1982), features Nick Cave's vocals on 4 songs

★ ''September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill'' produced by Hal Willner. Cave contributes a cover of "Mack the Knife".

★ ''Nick Cave i Przyjaciele'' (''Nick Cave and Friends'') (2001). A tribute album by Polish musicians. Cave appears on tracks 1 & 10.

★ ''I Am Sam'' (2002). Cave contributes a cover of The Beatles' "Let It Be", which was later issued as a single with a cover of "Here Comes the Sun" as the B-side.

★ '' (2006). Cave contributes the tracks "Fire Down Below" & "Pinery Boy".

★ "Bad Cover Version" single by Pulp. Cave contributes a cover of Pulp's song "Disco 2000".

★ "Helpless" single by Neil Young. He did this in 1989 for the Neil Young tribute Album "The Bridge"

★ "" (2003) Duet with Johnny Cash on I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

Other

★ ''The Secret Life of the Love Song'' - a spoken word lecture by Cave

Books by Nick Cave

★ ''And the Ass Saw the Angel'' - Nick Cave (1989) ISBN 1-880985-72-1

★ ''King Ink'' - Nick Cave (1988) ISBN 1-880985-08-X

★ ''King Ink II'' - Nick Cave (1997) ISBN 2-84261-053-9

★ ''The Pocket Canons Bible Series: Authorised King James Version: The Gospel According to Mark: Introduction'' - Nick Cave (1998) ISBN 0-86241-796-1

★ ''Complete Lyrics'' - Nick Cave (2001) ISBN 0-14-100515-7

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

See main article under Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for band line-ups and other information.

Awards

★ 2006 Venice Film Festival: 'Gucci Award' (for the script to ''The Proposition'')

★ 2005 Q magazine: 'Q Classic Songwriter Award'

★ 2005 AFI Awards: 'Best Original Music Score' (''The Proposition'')

★ 2005 Inside Film Awards: 'Best Music' (''The Proposition'')

★ 2005 Film Critics Circle Of Australia Awards: 'Best Musical Score' (''The Proposition'')

★ 2004 Mojo Magazine: Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus elected the best album of 2004

★ 2001 ARIA Awards: 'Best Male Artist' (''No more shall we part'')

★ 2001 APRA Music Awards: ''The Ship Song'' voted in the 'Top 30 Best Australian Songs' of the previous 75 years

★ 1997 APRA Music Awards: 'Songwriter of the year'

★ 1997 ARIA Awards: 'Best Original Soundtrack' (''To have and to hold'')

★ 1996 ARIA Awards: 'Song of the Year' & 'Single of the Year' & 'Best Pop Release' (''Where the wild roses grow'')

★ 1996 MTV Europe Music Awards: Nick Cave formally requested that his nomination for "Best Male Artist" be withdrawn as he was not comfortable with the "competitive nature" of such awards.

★ 1990 Time Out Magazine: 'Book Of The Year' (''And The Ass Saw The Angel'')

External links

★ Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds official website

★ nick-cave.com unofficial website

★ The Mercy Site: unofficial Italian website

★ From The Archives unofficial website

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★ Article on Toronto premiere of The Proposition

★ Video performance from KCRW featuring four songs and an interview.

★ ''Breathless 5: a Berlinale diary'' on Nick Cave's script 'The Proposition' at signandsight.com

★ Nick Cave at Lollapalooza 1994 interview with Popular Naughty (formerly Hypno Magazine)

★ 'The New Romantic' - Nick Cave interviewed by Ginny Dougary (1999)

★ VBS Meets Nick Cave (part 1) (part 2)

★ http://home.iae.nl/users/maes/cave/live/ncbs90.html#93 Concert listing in Europe for 1994

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