Profile of Nick Cave on Famous Like Me

Nicholas Edward Cave (born September 22, 1957) is an Australian rock musician, songwriter, poet, author, and actor, best known for his work in rock and roll band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and his fascination with American music and its roots. He currently resides in the U.K.

Cave was born in the small town of Warracknabeal in the state of Victoria, Australia, the son of Dawn and Colin Cave, brother of Tim (b. 1952), Peter (b. 1954) and Julie (b. 1959).

History

As a child Cave lived in Warracknabeal and then Wangaratta in rural Victoria, Australia. His family moved to the city, a year after Nick began boarding at Melbourne's Caulfield Grammar School.

In 1973 at Caulfield Grammar, Cave met Mick Harvey, Tracy Pew and Phill Calvert with whom he founded his first band, later to be named The Boys Next Door. Cave also studied painting at the Caulfield Institute of Technology in 1976, but dropped out in 1977 to pursue music. In late 1978, shortly after Cave's 21st birthday, his father Colin was killed in a car accident. This trauma affected Cave deeply.

The band played a role in Melbourne's post-punk music scene of 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 Birthday Party disbanded in 1984, and Cave and Harvey went on to form the first version of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, an international backing group with German guitarist Blixa Bargeld (from Einstürzende Neubauten), British 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.

In 1984, based in West Berlin, Cave started working on what was to become his debut novel And The Ass Saw The Angel. He had split from Lane and began a relationship with the Berliner Elisabeth Recker. While there, he released 4 albums with The Bad Seeds: The Firstborn Is Dead, Kicking Against the Pricks, Your Funeral, My Trial and Tender Prey. In 1988, Cave also released his book King Ink, a collection of lyrics and plays, including some from his collaboration with American enfant terrible Lydia Lunch.

Cave left West Berlin shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall and moved to São Paulo, Brazil, where he married Brazilian Viviane Carneiro. The two have a son, Luke, born 1991. In spring of 1993, Cave moved back to London. He now lives near Brighton, U.K. and is married to British actress Susie Bick, with whom he has twin sons, Arthur and Earl.

Nick Cave's music is featured in several of Wim Wenders' movies, including Wings of Desire (where Cave also appears, in a live performance), Until the End of the World, Faraway... So Close and Soul of a Man. Cave also acted in Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, a 1989 independent movie written and directed by John Hillcoat. Also in 1989, Cave published his novel And the Ass Saw the Angel, to critical acclaim. The themes of the book greatly influenced (and were influenced by) his first few albums with The Bad Seeds.

Cave also starred in the 1991 film, Johnny Suede, with Brad Pitt.

In 1996, Cave and The Bad Seeds released an album, Murder Ballads, which was, as the title suggests an album of songs about murder. It included a duet with British rock singer PJ Harvey (with whom he had brief relationship), plus a duet with Australian pop idol Kylie Minogue: "Where The Wild Roses Grow". The Kylie track was a mainstream hit, winning an ARIA Award for "Song of the Year". His next album, The Boatman's Call, was marked by a radical shift away from archetypal and violent narratives to biographical and confessional songs about his relationships with Carneiro and PJ Harvey. After the album's release Cave took some time rehabilitating from his heavy heroin and alcohol habits. Rejuvenated, he resurfaced with his dark and gloomy, but much acclaimed No More Shall We Part in 2001.

In 1998, the same year that Cave issued a 'Best Of' CD, an intriguing compilation surfaced in Australia entitled Original Seeds: songs that inspired Nick Cave featuring Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and more obscure artists (Original Seeds Volume 2 was issued in 2004).

In 2000, one of Cave's heroes, Johnny Cash, covered Cave's song "The Mercy Seat" on the album American III: Solitary Man, seemingly repaying Cave for the compliment he paid by covering Cash's "The Folk Singer" on his Kicking Against the Pricks album. Cave was then invited to be one of many rock and country artists and luminaries to contribute a paragraph or two to the liner notes of the retrospective Johnny Cash double CD The Essential Johnny Cash, 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)

After the release of the 2003 album Nocturama, which failed to excite reviewers, Blixa Bargeld announced he was leaving the band to devote more time to Einstürzende Neubauten, leaving Mick Harvey as the only surviving original member of the band other than Cave himself. Undisturbed, the very next year 2004 Cave released his first double record - the acclaimed 2 disc set Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.

In 2005, Cave and The Seeds released B-Sides & Rarities a comprehensive three disc 56 track collection of b-sides, rarities, and tracks that appeared on film soundtracks.

The Proposition, a film written by Cave, directed by John Hillcoat and starring Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, David Wenham and Emily Watson, was filmed in Queensland in 2004 and premiered in October 2005 to mostly positive reviews. The generally ambient soundtrack was recorded by Nick Cave and bandmember Warren Ellis and was released a week before the film.

Trivia

• Cave's parents both had a literary bent: Dawn was a librarian; Colin was a teacher and lecturer in English.
• The band most likely derived its name from the novel (and subsequent 1956 horror movie) The Bad Seed.
• He is jokingly reported to be a member of The Sons of Lee Marvin — a "semi-secret society" founded by director Jim Jarmusch.
• Like Cave himself, many of his collaborators have surnames which are also nouns: Pew, Lane, Bargeld (German for 'cash'), Race, Power(s), Wolf, Savage.
• Cave collaborated with the band Current 93 on their album All the Pretty Little Horses, most notably on the final track, "Patripassian", where he reads text from the Pensées of Blaise Pascal.
• Cave also wrote an introduction for the Gospel of Mark in the Pockets Canon Bible Series.

Movie trivia

• Appeared as himself, with the Bad Seeds, in the Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire.
• Co-starred with Brad Pitt in the cult classic Johnny Suede.
• 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 & 3; and Hellboy (performed by Pete Yorn).
• The song "People Ain't No Good" was featured in the movie Shrek 2

Discography for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Studio Albums

1. From Her To Eternity (1984)
2. The Firstborn Is Dead (1985)
3. Kicking Against the Pricks (1986)
4. Your Funeral, My Trial (1986)
5. Tender Prey (1988)
6. The Good Son (1990)
7. Henry's Dream (1992)
8. Let Love In (1994)
9. Murder Ballads (1996)
10. The Boatman's Call (1997)
11. No More Shall We Part (2001)
12. Nocturama (2003)
13. Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (2CD) (2004)

Live Albums and Compilations

• Live Seeds (1993)
• The Best Of (1998)
• B-Sides & Rarities (3CD) (2005)

The Bad Seeds

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

See Also

• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• The Birthday Party (band)
• Blixa Bargeld
• Mick Harvey
• Anita Lane

Further Reading

• Bad Seed: A biography of Nick Cave - Ian Johnston (1995) ISBN 0-316-90589-4
• The life and music of Nick Cave: An illustrated biography - Maximilian Dax & Johannes Beck (1999) ISBN 3-931126-27-7

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Nick Cave