Jump to content

Nick Cave

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Largesock (talk | contribs) at 14:25, 20 August 2008 (→‎Soundtrack involvement: Corrected film name). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Nick Cave

Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 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, and his fascination with American music and its roots. His music is characterised by intensity, high energy and a wide variety of influences. 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 benefited 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. Cave was 19 when his father was killed in a car accident.

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. He would later receive an honorary Doctor of Laws from this university.

Personal life

Cave dated Anita Lane from the late '70s to mid '80s. She had an undeniably strong influence upon Cave and his work, often cited as his "muse." Despite this, Cave and Lane recorded together on only a few occasions. Their most notable collaborations include Lane's 'cameo' verse on Cave's Bob Dylan cover "Death Is Not The End" from the album Murder Ballads, and a cover of the Serge Gainsbourg/Jane Birkin song "Je t`aime/ I love you nor do I". Lane co-wrote the lyrics to the title track for Cave's 1984 LP, From Her to Eternity, as well as the lyrics of the song "Stranger Than Kindness" from Your Funeral, My Trial. Cave, Lydia Lunch and Lane wrote a Comic book together, entitled AS-FIX-E-8, in the style of the old "Pussy Galore"/Russ Meyer movies.

Lane and Cave were a couple until they separated due mostly to her wanting to have children being at odds with his addiction to drugs and functional inability to marry and have a family at the time. He was given a choice by the Government to go to jail or try an anti-drug therapy. He attempted to overcome his drug addiction and was successful. He later said that he was glad about it, for he had brought many friends to heroin abuse and he needed one week to write a song. It is well-known that he took drugs later on, such as LSD and Speed. In an interview for the German Rolling Stone music magazine, he took a break during the interview to conspicuously drop LSD.

After he broke up with Anita, he spent some time with a journalist from Berlin named Elizabeth Recker completing a tour of Australia with her in an R.V., although they were never considered a couple.

After completing his debut novel 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 journalist 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. In 1993, Cave moved back to London, where he and Viviane separated, but his son Luke does live with him some days of the week and some with his mother. Cave calls himself more a father to Luke, than to Jethro.

He also briefly dated P. J. Harvey during the mid '90s, the love affair and their break inspired him to write the album The Boatman's Call. Cave then met his current partner, British model Susie Bick. They married in 1999, and have twins, Arthur and Earl.[1][2]

Cave and Bick lived for some time on a houseboat near Hove. He now lives with his family in Brighton.

Cave performed "Into My Arms" at the televised funeral of Michael Hutchence, but refused to play in front of the cameras. He was named godfather of Hutchence's only child, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, after the original choice, Bono, refused out of respect for his friend Bob Geldof, who had previously been married to the child's mother, Paula Yates.

Music career

Early years and The Birthday Party (1973-1984)

Main article: The Birthday Party (band)

In 1973, Cave met Mick Harvey (guitar), Tracy Pew (bass) and Phill Calvert (drums); fellow students at Caulfield Grammar. They founded a band with Cave as singer. Their repertoire consisted of proto-punk cover versions of songs by Lou Reed, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Roxy Music and Alex Harvey, among others. In 1977, after leaving school, they adopted the name The Boys Next Door and began playing predominantly original material. Guitarist and songwriter Rowland S. Howard joined the band in 1978.

From 1977 until their dissolution in 1984 (by which time they were known as The Birthday Party) the band explored various styles. They 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.

Current career with The Bad Seeds (1984-onwards)

Main article: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

The band with Cave as their leader and frontman has released fourteen studio albums. Their most recent album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! was released on April 8, 2008.

Critics Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Steve Huey write, "With the Bad Seeds, Cave continued to explore his obsessions with religion, death, love, America, and violence with a bizarre, sometimes self-consciously eclectic hybrid of blues, gospel, rock, and arty post-punk, although in a more subdued fashion than his work with the Birthday Party".[3]

Solo work and Grinderman

Main article: 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.

Soundtrack involvement

Two of Cave's songs were featured in Wim Wender's 1989 film "Wings of Desire" (aka "Der himmel über Berlin"). Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds make a cameo appearance in this film.

Two of Cave's songs were included in Wender's 1993 sequel "Far Away, So Close!" (aka "In weiter Ferne, so nah!"), including the title track.

The soundtrack for the Wim Wender's 1991 film Until the End of the World features a title track "(I'll Love You) Till the End of the World" performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

The song "There is a Light" appears on the 1995 soundtrack for "Batman Forever."

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). In Scream 3, the song was given a reworking with Cave writing new lyrics and adding an orchestra to the arrangement of the track. This version appears on The Bad Seeds B-Sides and Rarities album.

Cave wrote a song for the soundtrack of the French documentary film "Le Peuple Migrateur", "To Be By Your Side".

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 The L Word.

Cave composed the soundtrack for the 2005 film "The Proposition" with fellow Australian and Bad Seed Warren Ellis. Cave also wrote the script for this film. Cave and Ellis once again collaborated on the music for the 2007 film "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford".

Work with other artists

Nick Cave has also played with Shane MacGowan, 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.

MacGowan also sings a version of "Lucy", released on B-Sides and Rarities. On May 3rd 2008, during the Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! tour Shane MacGowan joined Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds on stage to perform "Lucy" at Dublin Castle in Ireland. Pulp's single "Bad Cover Version" includes on its B-side a cover version by Cave of that band's song "Disco 2000". On the Deluxe Edition of Pulp's Different Class another take of this cover can be found.

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 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 American IV: The Man Comes Around album (2002). A similar duet, the American folk song "Cindy", was released posthumously on the "Johnny Cash: Unearthed" boxset. Cave's song "Let the Bells Ring" is a posthumous tribute to Cash. Cave has also covered the song Wanted Man which is best known by Johnny Cash but is in fact a Bob Dylan composition.

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 on their album All the Pretty Little Horses, where he sings the title track, a children's sleep song.

For his 1996 album "Murder Ballads", Cave recorded "Where The Wild Roses Grow" with Kylie Minogue, and "Henry Lee" with P.J. Harvey.

In the 1980s he sang some tracks for the instrumentally based band "Die Haut" from Germany, like "Pleasure is the boss". The drummer of the Bad Seeds, Thomas Wydler, is a member of the group "Die Haut".

Cave as well took part in the "X-Files" compilation CD with some other artists, where he reads parts from the Bible combined with own texts, like "Time Jesum...", he outed himself as a fan of the series some years ago, but since he does not watch much TV, it was one of the only things he watched.

Literary career

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.

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).

On 21 January 2008 a special edition of Cave's novel And the Ass Saw the Angel was released.[4]

Cave wrote the foreword to a Canongate publication of the Gospel according to Mark, published in the UK in 1998[5]. 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 career

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 colonial film set in the Australian 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 band member Warren Ellis.

At the request of friend Russell Crowe, Cave wrote a script for a proposed sequel to Gladiator, which was rejected by the studio.[6]

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, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man. Cave performed "I'm Your Man" solo and "Suzanne" with Julie Christensen and Perla Batalla. Mr. Cave appears in the 2007 film adaptation of Ron Hansen's novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, he sings a song about "Jesse James" in the end of the movie. Cave and Warren Ellis are credited for the film's soundtrack.

Cave has also lent his voice in narrating a short animated film in current production called The Cat Piano which is written and directed by Eddie White of The People’s Republic Of Animation with music by Benjamin Speed.

The Bad Seeds took part in an advertisement spot for BMW some years ago, which was not shown officially, but only on BMW member gatherings.

"The Road to God knows where" was recently re-published on DVD and shows the "Bad Seeds" on tour.

Discography

Main articles: The Birthday Party discography, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds discography, and Grinderman discography

Soundtracks/scores

Contributions/appearances

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds appear on the Martin Scorcese series "The Blues"

Other

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

See Discography for more details

Books by Nick Cave

  • King Ink - Nick Cave (1988) ISBN 1-880985-08-X
  • And the Ass Saw the Angel - Nick Cave (1989) ISBN 1-880985-72-1
  • 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

Awards and honours

See also

Further reading

  • Bad Seed: A Biography of Nick Cave, Ian Johnston (1997) ISBN 0316908339
  • The Life and Music of Nick Cave: An Illustrated Biography, Maximilian Dax & Johannes Beck (1999) ISBN 3-931126-27-7
  • Liner notes to the CDs Original Seeds: Songs that inspired Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Kim Beissel (1998 & 2004), Rubber Records
  • Kicking Against the Pricks: An Armchair Guide to Nick Cave, Amy Hanson (2005), ISBN 1-900924-96-X
  • Nick Cave Stories, Janine Barrand (2007)

References

  1. ^ Feelings are a Bourgeois luxury... | | guardian.co.uk Arts
  2. ^ Nick Cave Online
  3. ^ allmusic ((( Nick Cave > Biography )))
  4. ^ Nick Cave sees debut novel 'And The Ass Saw the Angel' re-released as collectors edition
  5. ^ Paperback - Mark - Canongate Home
  6. ^ Dawtrey, Adam: 10 Screenwriters to Watch: Nick Cave, Variety, June 22, 2006.
  7. ^ Row Three » Nick Cave and Warren Ellis to Score The Road – Where Cinema is more than just $100 Million productions
  8. ^ Smith, Bridie (March 29, 2008). "Dr Cave is a law unto himself". The Age. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nick_Cave&oldid=233117484"