1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.BZ 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ 3 00:00:08,200 --> 00:00:09,120 Record. Yep. 4 00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:23,960 The amazing thing about the world that Nick created 5 00:00:24,080 --> 00:00:25,840 through the movies, books, 6 00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:28,360 and the ones we know the most, songs, 7 00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:34,960 is they're full of the most divine, beautiful characters. 8 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:36,640 Does it look all right? 9 00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:38,240 Man, look. 10 00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:43,240 And then, you know, there's the most pathetic of victims. 11 00:00:43,960 --> 00:00:46,680 The most ruthless of evildoers, 12 00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:49,320 and just the worst of humanity. 13 00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:55,480 In Nick's world, there's always characters, 14 00:00:55,600 --> 00:00:59,080 people, songs, him dealing with the unknown. 15 00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:09,400 It's so deep, the worlds that he conjures up. 16 00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:13,520 The kind of feeling is always deep and intense in everything. 17 00:01:14,120 --> 00:01:17,200 You know he feels an incredible responsibility 18 00:01:17,320 --> 00:01:18,520 when he's writing. 19 00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:23,120 He's curious about words. 20 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:28,520 Sometimes it can be like ten years later, 21 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:31,560 and I'll call him up and say, "It's such a beautiful song." 22 00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:33,200 And he's like, "Duh!" 23 00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:38,720 He is and always was a poet. 24 00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:43,920 His creativity, his intelligence. 25 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:46,320 There's no fear. 26 00:01:49,080 --> 00:01:53,320 The sort of reference for songwriting is a mystical force. 27 00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:55,480 It's heavily influenced 28 00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:58,360 a lot of the way that I approach my work. 29 00:01:59,280 --> 00:02:01,280 Nick's constantly going "What if?" 30 00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:05,480 "What about here? What's happening there? What do we do with that? 31 00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:06,880 What's love?" 32 00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:11,880 I think it's his search for the human soul. 33 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:14,520 Nick wants to know why he's here. 34 00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:17,680 Not many people want to know that. 35 00:02:30,760 --> 00:02:33,600 I wanted to ask you about the music. 36 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:36,600 There's always been lots of archetypes in your music 37 00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:38,080 and mythic figures. 38 00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:41,440 It is my natural language to do it in that. 39 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:42,920 I'm a storyteller. 40 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:47,320 These characters in the songs, I don't look at them 41 00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:52,520 as sort of literary inventions as much as just parts of myself. 42 00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:56,720 I think what's interesting with Nick is 43 00:02:56,840 --> 00:02:59,160 the way it's evolved over time. 44 00:02:59,320 --> 00:03:02,840 He was somebody who wrote songs about characters. 45 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:05,200 He wrote songs, he wrote stories. 46 00:03:06,840 --> 00:03:10,640 The songs begin to take on these sort of archetypes, 47 00:03:11,440 --> 00:03:14,720 I think Nick is very good at pulling the gears 48 00:03:14,880 --> 00:03:15,760 to push forward 49 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:17,760 at different points of those characters. 50 00:03:17,920 --> 00:03:18,920 Yeah. 51 00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:23,200 We're not an outlaw, or we're not an angel 52 00:03:23,440 --> 00:03:26,000 or a saint or a devil or a god. 53 00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:28,200 We contain all of those things. 54 00:03:29,640 --> 00:03:33,480 But in a way, what they collectively show us is far more important 55 00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:35,960 than what they show us individually. 56 00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:39,800 An archetype is a set of characteristics 57 00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:41,920 that we recognize universally. 58 00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:46,480 The archetypes become like a roadmap 59 00:03:46,600 --> 00:03:48,480 showing you where you need to go. 60 00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:50,200 They're the things that lead you. 61 00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:54,000 The hero's journey and Jung and Freud, you name it, 62 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:57,720 going all the way to Buddhist and ancient Chinese myths. 63 00:03:57,840 --> 00:04:02,400 It's usually "how do you cope with the darkness? 64 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:04,120 What you do with that?" 65 00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:14,840 This is my room. 66 00:04:16,840 --> 00:04:17,760 My gun. 67 00:04:21,280 --> 00:04:25,120 Nick, I think, was very interested in the outlaw, 68 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:29,400 the kind of Old Testament type world, 69 00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:32,800 the so-called norms of society 70 00:04:32,920 --> 00:04:36,800 and what is considered acceptable, what is just. 71 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:41,440 The outlaw challenges all those things. 72 00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:44,080 What do you dream at night? 73 00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:46,480 Um... 74 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:49,720 Uh... 75 00:04:49,840 --> 00:04:51,200 Committing sins. 76 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:53,400 I dream about sin. 77 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:57,320 "He sticks a Lambert & Butler in his mouth, 78 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:00,600 lights it and blows a trumpet of smoke at his reflected image. 79 00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:03,200 Then he notices the shadows behind him 80 00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:06,200 have begun to bleed and smudge and reposition themselves. 81 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:09,000 They seem to be growing longer and taking on personalities 82 00:05:09,120 --> 00:05:10,920 that would not normally be attributed to them 83 00:05:11,040 --> 00:05:13,880 as if they were advancing upon him from the spirit world. 84 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:17,640 Bunny has the unforeseen feeling that he is going to die." 85 00:05:18,560 --> 00:05:21,680 Bunny Munro came out of this idea 86 00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:23,760 that I'd been formulating for a while 87 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:28,120 about a kind of total fuck up. 88 00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:30,840 Nick took those ideas, 89 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:33,560 embellishing it further as a novel. 90 00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:37,080 Crucially, Bunny Munro is a very complicated man. 91 00:05:37,240 --> 00:05:41,480 I think that he's sexy, he's funny, he's endlessly charismatic. 92 00:05:41,600 --> 00:05:46,440 He's also vile and thoughtless and careless 93 00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:48,880 and, crucially, I think, broken. 94 00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:51,080 Guess what my name is. 95 00:05:55,520 --> 00:05:56,600 I'm Bunny. 96 00:05:56,720 --> 00:05:58,120 - Bunny? - Bunny. 97 00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:02,200 I think part of what makes him so insidious 98 00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:04,800 is that he's great with women. 99 00:06:04,920 --> 00:06:07,240 He is able to give them what they need 100 00:06:07,360 --> 00:06:09,640 up to a certain point and then he's out. 101 00:06:10,840 --> 00:06:15,120 Bunny is an outlaw in that he exists outside of a moral framework 102 00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:18,760 we've all accepted as the moral framework to live by. 103 00:06:19,680 --> 00:06:22,120 Doesn't give a shit about any of it. 104 00:06:23,840 --> 00:06:26,640 I think the great thing about anti-heroes 105 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:29,640 is that they give us 106 00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:33,840 permission to transgress without actually transgressing. 107 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:39,400 I know Nick likes to write about these outlaws and bandits 108 00:06:39,520 --> 00:06:42,520 who are actually incredibly complex. 109 00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:45,800 And then it's incredibly intriguing. 110 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:50,760 You're developing this bond with this desperado. 111 00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:55,400 Well, I mean, it's cool that stuff, right? 112 00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:57,640 Everyone loves an outlaw, no? 113 00:07:01,960 --> 00:07:06,800 The outlaw is something that really galvanized us at a younger age. 114 00:07:06,920 --> 00:07:09,200 We're very taken by those figures. 115 00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:13,040 Ned Kelly was an outlaw figure 116 00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:17,120 that loomed very large in our imaginations. 117 00:07:18,160 --> 00:07:21,440 Nick actually grew up in Kelly country. 118 00:07:23,800 --> 00:07:25,680 There's a direct lineage 119 00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:28,800 to some of the very dramatic things 120 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:30,280 that were happening in Melbourne 121 00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:32,080 when Nick was growing up. 122 00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:34,800 Tonight, Melbourne police are still at a loss to explain 123 00:07:34,920 --> 00:07:38,120 who bombed the city's police headquarters or why. 124 00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:43,720 But we're also in a very extreme part of the world. 125 00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:45,960 It's like another planet. 126 00:07:47,160 --> 00:07:49,200 And we are the uninvited. 127 00:07:51,960 --> 00:07:55,120 For me, it's always been fundamentally important 128 00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:57,360 that I'm seen as an Australian performer. 129 00:07:57,480 --> 00:07:59,800 I mean, it's always been my thing. 130 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:01,680 It's my shtick. 131 00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:04,840 And that the Bad Seeds are an Australian band. 132 00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:09,960 I think Nick could only come from Australia. 133 00:08:10,080 --> 00:08:14,600 Australian art, when it's at its best, someone like Barry Humphries, 134 00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:17,480 there's a poetic nature to it. 135 00:08:17,600 --> 00:08:20,600 There's a playfulness, a sort of sacredness, 136 00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:22,320 and a profanity to it. 137 00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:24,600 It wasn't many moons ago that they thought we were 138 00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:26,640 a bunch of rough diamonds down here. 139 00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:31,560 We've got more culture than a penicillin factory in Australia. 140 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:45,040 The Australian morality is like criminal morality. 141 00:08:45,160 --> 00:08:47,800 Like, the rules you're taught at school 142 00:08:47,920 --> 00:08:50,280 are very much jailhouse rules. 143 00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:53,520 In Australia, you had to be good 144 00:08:53,640 --> 00:08:56,120 or the audience would rip you apart. 145 00:08:57,760 --> 00:08:59,880 The Birthday Party and the early Bad Seeds 146 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:01,600 is confrontational music. 147 00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:04,720 The idea was to provoke. 148 00:09:06,160 --> 00:09:08,840 You got that feeling when you went to see them 149 00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:11,240 that anything could happen. Violence could erupt. 150 00:09:11,360 --> 00:09:14,520 Like, they were ready to die on stage, you know? 151 00:09:19,880 --> 00:09:21,840 Nick was always a figure of myth. 152 00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:24,160 He was like Jesus or something. 153 00:09:24,280 --> 00:09:26,880 Like evil Jesus of Melbourne. 154 00:09:38,160 --> 00:09:40,320 I met Nick at the drug dealer's. 155 00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:43,680 I was just an innocent private schoolboy 156 00:09:43,800 --> 00:09:45,400 working on my first heroin habit, 157 00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:48,520 and I walked in and there was the prince of darkness 158 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:49,680 sitting on the couch. 159 00:09:54,960 --> 00:09:58,160 He was watching a documentary about earthworms. 160 00:09:58,280 --> 00:10:00,480 I asked, "What are you watching?" 161 00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:03,720 And he just turned around and bared his teeth at me. 162 00:10:04,520 --> 00:10:06,880 For me, certain drugs... 163 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:08,920 It wasn't so much the drug itself. 164 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:11,520 It was more the chaotic lifestyle around it 165 00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:13,720 and the weird and wonderful people you meet 166 00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:15,080 when you're leading that lifestyle. 167 00:10:17,360 --> 00:10:21,400 That formative experience, provides a lot of the seed corn 168 00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:24,320 for the characters you subsequently create. 169 00:10:25,760 --> 00:10:28,960 The engine room of that creativity 170 00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:32,720 is often that kind of disinhibition of youth. 171 00:10:33,880 --> 00:10:37,000 I mean, they were definitely outlaws in Melbourne 172 00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:39,680 and then they came to London. 173 00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:42,680 And London clearly wasn't enough, so they went to Berlin. 174 00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:04,320 Berlin in the '80s was the ideal territory for Nick. 175 00:11:05,960 --> 00:11:07,520 It was an outlaw place. 176 00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:10,280 If you didn't shoot anybody, you could basically do 177 00:11:10,400 --> 00:11:12,120 everything else you wanted to do. 178 00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:15,000 Anything could happen. 179 00:11:15,120 --> 00:11:17,920 A lot of creative people came to Berlin. 180 00:11:18,040 --> 00:11:23,200 I mean, Bowie and Iggy Pop came here for a reason. 181 00:11:23,320 --> 00:11:26,040 And I think pretty much the same reason 182 00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:28,200 pulled Nick Cave to Berlin. 183 00:11:29,360 --> 00:11:30,760 The reason for going to Berlin 184 00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:32,320 was that each time we went there, 185 00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:34,200 we would become acquainted with people 186 00:11:34,400 --> 00:11:38,800 who just had an extremely open attitude towards music 187 00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:40,760 and towards art in general. 188 00:11:41,360 --> 00:11:44,400 They're just concerned in the joy of creating, 189 00:11:44,520 --> 00:11:46,840 which sounds totally pretentious. 190 00:11:46,960 --> 00:11:48,320 But it's quite true. 191 00:11:49,360 --> 00:11:54,880 People seem to conduct themselves in a decadent manner. 192 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:58,520 Always staying up all night, getting drunk, taking drugs. 193 00:11:59,960 --> 00:12:01,600 One more song, then it's over. 194 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:05,520 But I'm not gonna tell you about a girl. 195 00:12:06,120 --> 00:12:08,120 I wanna tell you about a girl. 196 00:12:09,760 --> 00:12:11,920 Nick was the king of Berlin. 197 00:12:12,800 --> 00:12:14,960 When I made Wings of Desire, 198 00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:17,520 he had split up The Birthday Party. 199 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:19,520 He had formed the Bad Seeds. 200 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:23,560 The Bad Seeds were always this kind of... 201 00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:27,160 It felt, as an onlooker, a force to be reckoned with. 202 00:12:27,280 --> 00:12:30,240 They looked amazing, didn't look like anything else. 203 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:41,160 The Bad Seeds was like this crew of mad pirates. 204 00:12:41,560 --> 00:12:45,400 Rare to have that place where it's art and action 205 00:12:45,560 --> 00:12:48,720 and yearning and danger and love, 206 00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:50,120 and all those things come together. 207 00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:53,760 What Nick did was he put together 208 00:12:53,880 --> 00:12:55,760 very dynamic individuals. 209 00:12:56,200 --> 00:12:58,200 So Blixa Bargeld 210 00:12:58,320 --> 00:13:00,640 was from Einsturzende Neubauten. 211 00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:04,600 He is so unique and such a creative force, 212 00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:08,600 and Mick Harvey was kind of like the anchor 213 00:13:08,720 --> 00:13:10,640 keeping everything together. 214 00:13:12,080 --> 00:13:16,200 The dynamic between him and all the Bad Seeds 215 00:13:16,920 --> 00:13:21,320 is unlike anything I have experienced with any other artist. 216 00:13:21,640 --> 00:13:24,600 Most bands write the song, do demos, 217 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:26,880 play that to the record producer. 218 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:30,800 The producer then has ideas, then they get into rehearsal 219 00:13:30,920 --> 00:13:34,120 and work out different arrangements and all that. 220 00:13:34,240 --> 00:13:35,240 There's none of that. 221 00:13:35,400 --> 00:13:37,400 He'll sit down at the piano and start going, 222 00:13:37,520 --> 00:13:40,560 "Right, this song goes like this. Dun-dun-dun!" 223 00:13:40,680 --> 00:13:43,080 And he goes, "There's another bit 224 00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:46,080 that comes in and goes like this. 225 00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:47,720 Then there's a stop. 226 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:50,680 And I don't know what happens after that. All right, you ready?" 227 00:13:50,800 --> 00:13:52,080 Shall we record it? 228 00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:53,920 - Yeah. - All right. 229 00:13:54,440 --> 00:13:55,560 One, two, three. 230 00:13:56,720 --> 00:13:59,720 That pressure of time is 100% down to the fact 231 00:13:59,840 --> 00:14:02,680 that he's just incredibly impatient. 232 00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:08,600 He's the most impatient person I've ever worked with. 233 00:14:28,640 --> 00:14:31,800 He has surrounded himself with these people 234 00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:34,520 who are so imaginative 235 00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:38,120 and have a beautiful aesthetic on music, 236 00:14:38,280 --> 00:14:42,440 but they can follow him and it works. 237 00:14:44,280 --> 00:14:47,160 Yeah, I'm Nick Cave. This is the Bad Seeds. 238 00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:52,560 I think his earlier music had more archetypes. 239 00:14:53,800 --> 00:14:59,200 These kind of wild men who were actually incredibly complex 240 00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:02,920 and you know, or homosexual or whatever, 241 00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:08,760 you know, just everything was much more than met the eye, 242 00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:11,640 but they had this threatening manner. 243 00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:16,320 But of course they had all this kind of devastation inside. 244 00:15:17,600 --> 00:15:19,360 The Mercy Seat. 245 00:15:44,160 --> 00:15:46,200 "The face of Jesus in my soup" 246 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:48,800 seems like a classic Nick Cave line 247 00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:53,280 because it is the transcendent and the ordinary, all together. 248 00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:56,400 "The meal trolley's wicked wheels" like... 249 00:15:56,680 --> 00:16:00,880 I think that's something I've so learned from him is just like... 250 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:03,440 The mystical and the mundane, 251 00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:06,720 bring them together, and that makes a good line. 252 00:16:12,560 --> 00:16:16,440 The Mercy Seat is his first monumentally great song. 253 00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:17,760 It's something he was drawing on, 254 00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:20,560 which came from an older tradition, 255 00:16:20,680 --> 00:16:22,520 with Johnny Cash, John Lee Hook and stuff, 256 00:16:22,640 --> 00:16:24,400 where you find a persona. 257 00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:26,800 For The Mercy Seat, 258 00:16:26,920 --> 00:16:29,840 you sing from the persona of the guy on death row. 259 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:42,080 The idea of the electric chair being called a mercy seat 260 00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:48,480 and then it gets so fast, and it's so manic and wild. 261 00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:54,320 It's just this sort of swirling miasma of terror 262 00:16:54,440 --> 00:16:59,160 that builds into this feeling of, "You're going to meet your maker." 263 00:17:00,280 --> 00:17:02,280 And it's just such 264 00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:04,640 a fantastic piece of theater. 265 00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:09,240 The kiss-off line at the end, about, you know, the confession. 266 00:17:26,800 --> 00:17:30,360 There's almost a joy in how dark the lyrics are being. 267 00:17:30,480 --> 00:17:32,600 It's so him. 268 00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:43,080 He's exploring the depths of the human psyche. 269 00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:46,520 It's like all these things that we're scared to admit 270 00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:48,560 'cause it's terrifying to admit it. 271 00:17:51,120 --> 00:17:52,800 Everybody has it in them. 272 00:17:56,920 --> 00:18:00,000 I think there's a voice that you have 273 00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:05,000 that stands outside of who you seem to be in this mortal life. 274 00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:07,520 The greatest gift that you have 275 00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:08,680 is a subconscious. 276 00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:10,920 That's the connection 277 00:18:11,040 --> 00:18:13,160 with the bigger forces in the world. 278 00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:16,760 The different dimensions, the different cosmic forces 279 00:18:16,880 --> 00:18:19,000 that you don't really understand yourself. 280 00:18:19,120 --> 00:18:21,920 So if you let the subconscious do the heavy lifting in art, 281 00:18:22,040 --> 00:18:24,200 that gets you into these places. 282 00:18:33,600 --> 00:18:35,640 We all have our shadow. 283 00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:40,400 Our shadow side, we tend to repress and bury, 284 00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:44,560 and that tends to unleash itself 285 00:18:44,680 --> 00:18:45,720 in other ways. 286 00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:49,040 It builds up and it will spill out. 287 00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:54,480 That shadow world of ours is almost limitless. 288 00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:58,480 I think it's a very healthy thing 289 00:18:58,600 --> 00:19:03,560 to force ourselves to look in the mirror and see the full picture. 290 00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:08,520 Much of the time we spend pushing down 291 00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:13,240 particular aspects of our characters that we don't want to look at, 292 00:19:13,360 --> 00:19:15,720 you know, I find that it is healthy 293 00:19:15,960 --> 00:19:18,040 and therapeutic, if you want to use that word, 294 00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:21,000 to look at those aspects of your character. 295 00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:32,360 There've been criticisms, really, 296 00:19:32,480 --> 00:19:37,720 about the kind of characters I write about, that they are me. 297 00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:39,640 And they're right. 298 00:19:44,120 --> 00:19:45,560 You know, Stagger Lee's exploits 299 00:19:45,680 --> 00:19:47,920 got more and more extreme. 300 00:19:48,080 --> 00:19:52,680 And provocative. And... what's the word? 301 00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:55,280 Transgressive, right? 302 00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:07,200 I remember seeing the first time they did Stagger Lee, 303 00:20:07,320 --> 00:20:10,200 which is obviously an old traditional song. 304 00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:14,280 When he got to the part about "I'll crawl over 50 pussies 305 00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:17,200 just to get to one fat boy's arsehole," 306 00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:20,560 you could feel the absolute shock. 307 00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:22,400 The audience was shocked. 308 00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:24,360 There's like 50,000 people 309 00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:27,320 that just felt like they'd been slapped. 310 00:20:30,120 --> 00:20:32,760 I believe there's some interesting projects in the works, 311 00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:35,160 a concept album based around the murder ballad. 312 00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:38,520 Is it a very strong genre of lyric writing? 313 00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:42,200 Yeah, particularly in blues and country music and stuff like that. 314 00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:46,200 It's just an excuse for me to write a whole lot of violent lyrics, really. 315 00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:50,840 Fucking "Murder Ballads" devastated me. 316 00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:55,800 It fucking shook me to my core. 317 00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:57,400 He's touching something in me 318 00:20:57,520 --> 00:20:59,680 in a way that is absolutely terrifying. 319 00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:01,320 I had nightmares for weeks. 320 00:21:01,440 --> 00:21:03,720 Getting out of bed shaking, panic. 321 00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:06,280 You know what I mean? Because it expressed 322 00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:09,160 such a fucking part of humanity that's so terrifying. 323 00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:12,160 So many people, I've played that record for them. 324 00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:15,080 "You gotta fucking hear this." They don't wanna hear it. 325 00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:17,920 They don't want to hear it. They don't want to admit it. 326 00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:20,400 You know what I mean? It's a mirror. 327 00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:23,920 Art has a purpose. 328 00:21:24,520 --> 00:21:26,440 It's not just entertainment. 329 00:21:27,080 --> 00:21:31,280 It's there for us to grow and understand how to be alive. 330 00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:38,480 We're all a lot darker than we like to believe. 331 00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:43,520 By the time we got to "Bunny Munro", 332 00:21:44,520 --> 00:21:47,200 Nick was well settled into Brighton. 333 00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:52,000 He is with the love of his life. 334 00:21:52,120 --> 00:21:55,000 She's pregnant, they're gonna have twins. 335 00:21:55,120 --> 00:21:56,520 They have twins. 336 00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:58,520 It was a whole new chapter. 337 00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:03,520 The Death of Bunny Munro is his feverish nightmare 338 00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:06,800 about how bad he could fuck up his own marriage. 339 00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:12,200 And like a sort of self-flagellating, masochistic horror tale 340 00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:16,160 about how evil he personally could be. 341 00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:21,920 "He realizes, in a shadowy way, for a brief moment, 342 00:22:22,040 --> 00:22:25,040 the weird imaginings and visitations and apparitions 343 00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:28,920 that he has encountered with the ghosts of his own grief 344 00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:32,000 and that he was being driven insane by them." 345 00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:36,240 The interesting thing about creating your own myth 346 00:22:36,360 --> 00:22:40,440 is, at a point, where does that line dissolve? 347 00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:44,760 Are you the myth or are you the person? 348 00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:00,840 After most of the shoots I did with him, 349 00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:02,120 I'd go, "Never again. 350 00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:05,440 I'm never gonna fucking photograph Nick again." 351 00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:07,400 'Cause it was torturous. 352 00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:14,160 Am I being too revealing? 353 00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:18,440 You know someone so well, you don't want to piss them off. 354 00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:23,440 The hair was a huge thing. 355 00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:28,280 I remember him spending hours on his hair. 356 00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:33,160 I started to point out to him that I never had got 357 00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:35,040 really a bad photo of him. 358 00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:40,080 And I think he just started to kind of give himself to the process. 359 00:23:47,080 --> 00:23:50,800 This is the famous Nick Cave in Blue Wig. 360 00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,960 He didn't question me dressing him up. 361 00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:58,120 You know, he loved the feeling of the Lycra, 362 00:23:58,240 --> 00:23:59,800 and he was up for that. 363 00:24:00,360 --> 00:24:02,360 Everything's so dusty in here. 364 00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:04,360 My God. 365 00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:06,240 Okay, so this is what... 366 00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:09,760 This is what he was wearing. 367 00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:16,120 And, of course, in my usual perverted way, 368 00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:20,600 I cut the nipples out, but we don't get to see that in the photo. 369 00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:25,320 So that's what I would have done. 370 00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:29,440 And then I would have painted the lipstick here. 371 00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:33,560 You know, he wanted to be in uncharted territory 372 00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:37,280 with not S&M or any of the other fetishes. 373 00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:39,720 There was no guardrails. 374 00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,720 Nick's just got this capacity to grow, grow, grow. 375 00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:49,560 Like, that's what he does. He's never still. 376 00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:53,920 There's definitely a feeling of restlessness. 377 00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:56,000 Like these pilgrims, 378 00:24:56,320 --> 00:25:00,200 these characters, these adventuring guys trying to find new worlds. 379 00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:01,360 It is him. 380 00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:12,360 The Pilgrim is the person who has to, in the human form, 381 00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:14,320 journey out into the world, 382 00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:19,680 with all its complexity and all the fragility of being a human. 383 00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:25,440 I love the word anyway, the pilgrim. 384 00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:26,800 Nick is on a mission. 385 00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:32,040 I think it's his search for the human soul. 386 00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:35,880 Nick wants to know why he's here. 387 00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:38,880 Not many people want to know that. 388 00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:48,000 The Pilgrim's journey is both towards what is known and what is unknown. 389 00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:51,960 You're going somewhere. You're not just rambling. 390 00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:56,800 And then, on that journey, you meet people, have conversations. 391 00:25:56,960 --> 00:25:58,120 They... 392 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:00,960 sometimes hold you back and they sometimes push you forward. 393 00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,040 Nick decided one day 394 00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:08,720 that he wanted to do a duet with Kylie. 395 00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:12,760 She was pure pop, 396 00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,680 and everyone was like, "What the fuck?" 397 00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:17,200 But that was Nick. 398 00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:26,120 It was hugely controversial within her own management. 399 00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:32,880 And so it was something for her to step into this male drug-addicted world, 400 00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,840 which she did, to sing this song. 401 00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:39,520 And she just showed extraordinary courage to do that. 402 00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:47,600 He's a believer in the unknown 403 00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:50,280 and in having a relationship with the unknown. 404 00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:51,960 He's a believer in putting himself 405 00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:55,280 in situations where he doesn't exactly know what he's doing. 406 00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:57,760 I think collaboration is like that, because 407 00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,360 you're dealing with an element that's beyond your control. 408 00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:01,960 It's the other person. 409 00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,120 Nick had finally cracked the drugs. 410 00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:19,040 He was not returning and he was on fire, creatively. 411 00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:22,240 He was always, like a lot of addicts, 412 00:27:22,360 --> 00:27:25,840 very nervous that without the drugs, 413 00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,920 will that creative energy be fully expressed? 414 00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:34,000 And I tried very hard to convince him 415 00:27:34,120 --> 00:27:38,400 that's a trick and a delusion that a lot of artists fall into. 416 00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:43,600 I think the people he collaborated with along the way 417 00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:45,560 have changed definitively, 418 00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:48,200 and the nature of the collaboration has changed. 419 00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:56,480 I think the collaboration with Warren is different, 420 00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,440 because they actually sit and do it together. 421 00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:01,600 They make music together. 422 00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,240 Whereas I don't think that's what was going on 423 00:28:04,360 --> 00:28:06,880 with Nick and Blixa back in the day. 424 00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:09,720 If you don't change, you just stagnate. 425 00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:12,480 Is that all right, then? 426 00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,120 Ninety eight out of a hundred. 427 00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:22,160 I just love working with the guy, right? I-I don't... 428 00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:25,720 I don't really look at what he's doing or... 429 00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:28,800 That's for you guys to do, 430 00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:31,320 fucking journalists or whatever. 431 00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:39,200 There's also an improvisational element to Warren and Nick, 432 00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:43,720 how they work, versus the early days of the Bad Seeds. 433 00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:59,480 Certainly, by the time they get to Push the Sky Away, 434 00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:01,720 it's the first inkling that things are shifting, 435 00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:03,520 that Nick's idea of the song is shifting. 436 00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:16,000 Nick called one day and said, "We're about to start a new record. 437 00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,600 Do you want to come down to Brighton and hang out?" 438 00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:23,920 On the first day we got there, 439 00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,360 they came in, and Nick sat at his desk 440 00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,400 with piano at the side of him, 441 00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,200 and Warren sat on the floor 442 00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:35,120 with synths and pedals and weird... 443 00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,240 stuff all around him. 444 00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,600 And they just started hammering away at these things. 445 00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,160 It was the most bizarre... 446 00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:49,640 Chaos. 447 00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,400 Sonic chaos. 448 00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,960 We had to avoid looking at each other 449 00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:58,840 for either giggling or going, 450 00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:00,280 "This is gonna be the worst record ever. 451 00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:01,840 What are they doing?" 452 00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,320 You're asking me to map a process 453 00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,920 that I've never tried to analyze 454 00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:25,240 because, call it superstitious or whatever, 455 00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:28,800 I've always felt that whatever was kind of, 456 00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:32,240 you know, mystical about it or whatever, 457 00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:33,920 should remain that way. 458 00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:39,120 You know, five, six hours of hammering away 459 00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:44,560 and you just figure, "This is the end of anything creative at all." 460 00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:46,600 Then something will appear. 461 00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:59,240 Warren doesn't know where he's going, and he doesn't care. 462 00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:01,080 It's in the process of making it 463 00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:03,080 that you're discovering what it is. 464 00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:04,760 Just jamming. 465 00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:09,160 And when you do that, the song itself surprises you. 466 00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:11,360 It gets out of what you think you should do, 467 00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:13,480 and it gets out of what you know, 468 00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:17,800 and it becomes something that's its own thing by itself. 469 00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,400 All I care about is the exhilaration 470 00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,080 of being in that moment 471 00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:30,120 when the fucking atom's splitting. 472 00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:12,360 "Higgs Boson Blues", obviously it's a journey, 473 00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:14,880 but it's a hallucinatory journey, isn't it? 474 00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:25,800 It questions whether there's a god, 475 00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:30,040 and you've got this guy who's driving to Geneva 476 00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:32,240 uh, because he doesn't like the fact 477 00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:34,920 that they're experimenting with the atoms, 478 00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,000 and if it comes out a certain way, 479 00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:39,920 it means God doesn't exist. 480 00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:42,920 I mean, that's to me, the underlying threat. 481 00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:44,560 But it's not obvious. 482 00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:49,840 There's this journey to check in on what's happening 483 00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:51,360 to the spiritual state of the world 484 00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:52,800 as well as 485 00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:55,080 the physical, atomic state of the world. 486 00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:02,720 Think of them in the line of people like Carl Sagan or Carlo Rovelli. 487 00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:05,440 These are explorers. 488 00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:10,040 They're explorers of "what does it mean to be human?" 489 00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:15,920 When that record Push the Sky Away was finished, 490 00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:17,120 it felt like it wasn't the end. 491 00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,800 It felt like it was the beginning of something, 492 00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:21,720 it was going to go somewhere else. 493 00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:25,240 I remember Nick and I having a talk, you know... 494 00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:30,640 It was like a promise, and it was like it was signaling. 495 00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,480 It was like a promise being thrown down. 496 00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,200 The Pilgrim is just a reminder to stay grounded, 497 00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,640 even with this transcendent power, 498 00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,120 to kind of stay attached to the Earth 499 00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:46,160 and to stay attached to the people in it, 500 00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,680 and that the human connection as well as the divine 501 00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:51,560 is just as important. 502 00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:05,400 On a journey of any kind, 503 00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,440 the weather will sometimes be good, and sometimes bad. 504 00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:11,840 Sometimes it will feel like a pilgrimage. 505 00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:15,840 Sometimes, it'll just feel like a really difficult journey. 506 00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:20,160 We respond as best we can to what comes to us along the way, 507 00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,520 in terms of trial, frustration, company, support. 508 00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:27,000 We learn as we walk, and we learn to cope 509 00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:30,000 with the dead times, the empty times, 510 00:34:31,720 --> 00:34:32,680 when we walk. 511 00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:38,600 This is a sensitive but important question. 512 00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:43,920 How did the tragic death of Nick's teenage son 513 00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:47,520 impact on him, not just as a man, but as an artist? 514 00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:27,160 For most of my life, I was just sort of, um... 515 00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:33,320 in awe of my own genius, you know. 516 00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:36,400 A-And I had an office, and I would sit there 517 00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:37,960 and write every day, 518 00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:43,040 and whatever else happened in my life, it was peripheral... 519 00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:46,600 Even annoyances, 520 00:36:46,720 --> 00:36:48,680 because I was involved 521 00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:53,240 in this great work that I, you know... 522 00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,240 And this just collapsed completely. 523 00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:59,440 And I just sort of saw the folly of that, 524 00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:06,600 the kind of disgraceful sort of self-indulgence of the whole thing. 525 00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:12,040 Um, it just... My priorities changed. 526 00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,240 You know, I still work all the time. 527 00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:17,520 Um, I still go on tour. 528 00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,400 I still piss everyone off because I'm making a new record 529 00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,960 or I'm depressed because I can't write songs. 530 00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:31,200 So the same things still apply. But that, um, that... 531 00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:38,040 that idea that art sort of trounces everything, 532 00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:39,880 it just doesn't apply to me anymore. 533 00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:45,200 I'm a father and I'm a husband and a person of the world. 534 00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:49,520 These things are much more important to me 535 00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,040 than the concept of being an artist. 536 00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,640 That kind of grief is a form of madness. 537 00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:01,880 It brings you pretty close to going under. 538 00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:07,400 We're all gonna know pain and loss. 539 00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,280 We're all gonna know joy and euphoria. 540 00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:12,840 These elements are battling away within us, 541 00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,160 and I think that's, to me, is a place 542 00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:17,640 where great things are made. 543 00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:23,160 He's just got to put one foot in front of the other. 544 00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:53,200 Suddenly, it felt like the worlds collided, 545 00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,920 his creative world and his sort of private life. 546 00:39:00,240 --> 00:39:02,840 Children in Nick's work, and certainly in "Bunny Munro," 547 00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:05,280 are symbols of hope and potential. 548 00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:08,600 and unsullied as yet 549 00:39:08,720 --> 00:39:10,680 and impossibly wise, I think. 550 00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:13,760 You know, I think that being able to see the world unfiltered 551 00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,080 allows us then to see the world through their eyes, 552 00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:17,760 and to see it in different ways. 553 00:39:20,240 --> 00:39:23,360 Nick still has that inner child. 554 00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:26,680 He actually was always great with kids 555 00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:30,080 because there was a freedom and a kind of anarchy, 556 00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:31,680 to kids that he loved. 557 00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:34,800 He loved the naughtiness of kids, 558 00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:38,200 when the kids were calling out the adults. 559 00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:40,680 That's one of the great things about kids, 560 00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:43,800 is they-they expose our bullshit. 561 00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:48,640 You have a song like "O Children", which is like an anthem 562 00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:53,800 to all the children that get abandoned by the adults. 563 00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:32,240 That, to me, is what storytelling is. 564 00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:34,080 It's not just the narrative. 565 00:40:34,240 --> 00:40:37,320 It's all the emotional sort of landscapes 566 00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:39,840 and the thematic issues that you can dive into. 567 00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,240 And he managed to do that in song. 568 00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:47,840 I was in awe of that artistry, that majesty, really. 569 00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:48,960 And I still am. 570 00:40:55,440 --> 00:41:00,320 He dealt with a tragedy that I cannot fucking imagine 571 00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:03,600 the depth of pain and suffering that he's gone through. 572 00:41:04,240 --> 00:41:06,960 And to come through it to the other side, 573 00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:09,560 into a place of honoring his son 574 00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:12,440 and living a life of art and dealing with his pain, 575 00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:14,400 fucking handling it and dealing with it. 576 00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:17,360 Who can do that? Very few fucking people. 577 00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:24,320 "Ghosteen" is made in such an extraordinary context. 578 00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:27,600 You know, after this personal catastrophe. 579 00:41:29,240 --> 00:41:31,480 I was living with Nick in LA at the time. 580 00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:35,960 And my introduction to Ghosteen was him with his computer 581 00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:37,840 just playing various bits of music 582 00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,760 and actually just singing over the top in his kitchen. 583 00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:44,720 And then I went out to where they were recording, 584 00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:47,000 this place out in Malibu. 585 00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:53,720 That record was a really isolated experience. 586 00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,720 We'd just set up and do all this... 587 00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:01,280 these overdubs and that, and then go to bed 588 00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:03,880 and I'd sleep for a couple of hours 589 00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:06,400 and then the mixers would be there, 590 00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:08,920 and I'd go down in my underpants 591 00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:11,760 and sit on the bench and just listen to them. 592 00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:14,840 And I couldn't really believe what was coming out. 593 00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:20,480 "Ghosteen", for me, felt like the only time I've been in the studio 594 00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,400 where it really felt like something else was in there, 595 00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:26,200 there was another force present in there. 596 00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:33,800 They were locked into something. 597 00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:36,920 And it does make a nonbeliever like me suddenly think, 598 00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:38,920 "Hang on. What was going on in that studio? 599 00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:40,560 What was hovering about there?" 600 00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:44,960 'Cause there were spirits hovering around them, for sure. 601 00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:50,960 I remember when he and Warren were making "Ghosteen," 602 00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,080 and I just remember feeling like my heart would explode. 603 00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:56,320 It was so affecting, 604 00:42:56,440 --> 00:43:00,360 and so, um, extreme, the feelings, 605 00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:04,400 and to be in the room while that was happening, was... 606 00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:06,360 fascinating. 607 00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:25,040 Whoa. 608 00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:26,920 So... 609 00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:29,800 You know... 610 00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:36,240 here's a guy writing about... 611 00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:40,760 these things that are beautiful and terrifying, 612 00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,400 mythological and hard to imagine, 613 00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:47,920 but so vividly you can imagine them, the way he writes about them, 614 00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:51,480 these horses on fire, running into these magical fields. 615 00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:58,800 I just wanted it to be in my system, 616 00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:04,080 so I was resonating with this thing that Nick had done, 617 00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:06,320 which was to make this record that... 618 00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:09,600 was about after Arthur's death. 619 00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:14,400 And I wanted to be part of that, because Arthur was my godson. 620 00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:16,280 And I never... 621 00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:21,160 I wanted him to be in my system irrevocably 622 00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:24,480 and never to leave. And this was another way 623 00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:28,880 of having that child's imprint in me, 624 00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:32,840 and being able to hold on to him for as long as I live. 625 00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:41,680 I'd sort of had this young person's idea 626 00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:46,840 that I'd make something really great one day, 627 00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:50,440 and that would be the end of it. Like, a masterpiece. 628 00:45:50,560 --> 00:45:51,640 Um... 629 00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:55,800 And when we finished Ghosteen, 630 00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,720 Nick just looked at me and he said, "Fuck, we did it." 631 00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:03,840 But I just thought maybe that's the end of our collaboration. 632 00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:06,680 Like, how could you get outside of that? 633 00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:12,440 You find a place where Arthur exists, 634 00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:16,560 and his spirit enlivens and animates that place, 635 00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:22,520 and you can possibly begin to think about him 636 00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:25,960 without that terrible, searing pain of loss. 637 00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:32,000 Nick was sharing his grief. 638 00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:33,480 He shared the pain, 639 00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,560 how thoroughly he reached people 640 00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:39,240 and moved people in a different way 641 00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:41,200 than rock and roll can ever move them. 642 00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:45,320 He moved them in an existential way. 643 00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:52,080 The songs took on a whole different quality afterwards. 644 00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:12,920 So I don't know where I read it 645 00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:15,880 that he was asked by a teacher in high school 646 00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:17,560 what he wanted to be when he grew up. 647 00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:19,680 He said, "I wanna be a guru." 648 00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:23,400 And I thought that was interesting. 649 00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:34,680 Well, what do prophets do in the Biblical stories? 650 00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:38,480 They name what other people don't name. 651 00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:40,800 What's going on, I think, 652 00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,960 in some of the great classical prophets of the Bible, 653 00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:47,400 they call people back, to say, 654 00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:49,320 "This is what you're supposed to be. 655 00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:53,280 This was the vision that got you going. What have you forgotten?" 656 00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:58,560 I've always had a religious temperament, even as a child, 657 00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:00,640 but no need for it. 658 00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:03,800 And I was sort of drug addicted for a couple of decades, 659 00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:06,480 and had a great interest in this sort of stuff, 660 00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:08,360 but no need for it. 661 00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:13,720 And, I think, after Arthur died, not immediately, but... 662 00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:15,800 You know, it's been quite a while now, 663 00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:20,120 but rather than feeling anger towards that sort of stuff 664 00:48:20,240 --> 00:48:22,400 or rejecting that sort of stuff, 665 00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:28,320 I felt a slow movement towards a religious life 666 00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:32,560 that I've found extremely helpful, 667 00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:37,720 and a kind of widening thing that's happened in my life. 668 00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:42,960 One time, we had a conversation 669 00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:43,880 about Christianity, 670 00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:45,160 and I said, "So, do you believe 671 00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:46,280 in redemption then? 672 00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:48,200 You know, the fundamental tenet 673 00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:49,240 of the Christian faith, 674 00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:50,960 that you're born again." 675 00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:53,120 He goes, "That doesn't interest me in the slightest. 676 00:48:53,240 --> 00:48:54,640 I never even think about that." 677 00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:57,840 That is the fundamental thing, 678 00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:00,720 but that is not what's foreground in his mind. 679 00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:05,280 His line on it is that to believe in God, 680 00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:07,880 it's an act of imagination, you know? 681 00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:10,400 And he believes in the imagination. 682 00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:11,800 But he's also somebody 683 00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:12,800 that would see doubt 684 00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:15,160 as being part of faith. 685 00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:20,640 It's a more responsible way to be. 686 00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,400 It's more responsible to be a believer. 687 00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:28,400 And it's easy to be a cynic. 688 00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:31,000 He's a doubter of faith, right? 689 00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:32,640 My last conversation with him, 690 00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:33,720 I don't even know 691 00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:35,040 if I should be saying this, 692 00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:38,040 but it was about-- He can have these moments 693 00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:44,680 where we'll really go into, you know, "Is it foolish to have faith?" 694 00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:46,880 Is it ridiculous to have faith? 695 00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,320 He'll have no problem opening that up. 696 00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:55,320 And that's what I feel like, with Nick, it's more like God working through him, 697 00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:58,400 and sometimes, I'll be trying to remind him of that. 698 00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:07,920 He will write in what you might call 699 00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:10,000 strongly mythological terms sometimes. 700 00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:12,360 Like "Wild God." 701 00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:14,960 It's both... 702 00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:19,920 chaotic and life-giving. 703 00:50:20,800 --> 00:50:22,640 Interesting title, as well. 704 00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:24,800 "Wild God." 705 00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:28,360 That notion that the god isn't just benevolent, 706 00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:32,280 that it's an unpredictable spirit. 707 00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:37,560 I mean, the power with which he's doing it now is staggering. 708 00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:38,720 You just can't believe it. 709 00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:41,200 I couldn't believe it when he played me Wild God. 710 00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:42,760 I literally couldn't believe it. 711 00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:50,320 He's always looking to not repeat himself in a way, 712 00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:54,280 yet there are themes that follow through. 713 00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:12,120 The songs are not loaded with the weight of the other records. 714 00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:15,760 They're kind of-- "It's a new dawn. 715 00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:17,040 Come on, here we go." 716 00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:07,280 His voice, too, is coming into his own. 717 00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:11,880 He's finding that voice that talks to humanity. 718 00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:18,000 I was sent a copy of "Faith, Hope and Carnage." 719 00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:20,960 This is the book of conversations between Sean O'Hagan and Nick. 720 00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:25,400 And was really very, very moved, very struck by it. 721 00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:27,000 Two things he insisted on 722 00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:28,400 when we agreed to the book 723 00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:30,320 was that we wouldn't go back 724 00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:32,480 and be nostalgic about the old days. 725 00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:35,720 And that it wouldn't be an interview. It had to be a conversation. 726 00:52:38,240 --> 00:52:40,880 Sean O'Hagan is kind of prodding Nick 727 00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:43,680 to say more about what is it that feeds 728 00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:46,600 and nourishes and energizes him, 729 00:52:46,720 --> 00:52:50,680 and how does that relate to his experiences of deep trauma 730 00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:55,120 and dislocation, disconnection and almost unbearable loss 731 00:52:55,240 --> 00:52:57,160 that he's been through. 732 00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:00,240 Nick has a way of rising to that challenge 733 00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:03,640 and digging quite deeply, and, I guess quite painfully, 734 00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:07,440 and talking about the decision to... 735 00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:10,360 to let other people in 736 00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:13,040 to the world of trauma and how you handle it. 737 00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:16,560 When we toured the book around Britain and Europe, 738 00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:18,160 people would come up and tell you, 739 00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:20,200 "This book has changed everything. 740 00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:21,520 I feel there's hope." 741 00:53:21,640 --> 00:53:23,360 Particularly people who have lost a child, 742 00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:25,320 which is as bad as it gets. 743 00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:28,560 There was a lot of that stuff. It was, it was profound. 744 00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:31,880 That's the interesting thing that Nick talks about. 745 00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:36,200 How he used to wind himself up to go on stage, and he would... 746 00:53:36,720 --> 00:53:39,160 He sort of intimated that he didn't like them. 747 00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:40,720 He didn't particularly like his audience. 748 00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:42,200 He went to war with them. 749 00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:46,360 So, I always think the distance he has traveled since that 750 00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:47,600 is kind of... 751 00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:52,200 to a position of complete respect for his audience 752 00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:53,920 and love for them even. 753 00:53:56,280 --> 00:54:00,240 This is really quite a complicated thing, 754 00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:04,320 but the sort of void that was left... 755 00:54:04,440 --> 00:54:07,120 There was a kind of rushing in of meaning 756 00:54:07,240 --> 00:54:10,440 that came into that void, in all sorts of different ways... 757 00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,160 that allowed me to see the world in a different way. 758 00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:19,480 Allowed me to be much more, um... 759 00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:23,320 basically compassionate towards the human predicament. 760 00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:25,960 Less embittered. 761 00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:30,480 It was kind of a counterfactual response. 762 00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:34,640 It, in fact, rather than made me bitter, 763 00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:38,480 it did the opposite in some way. 764 00:54:38,600 --> 00:54:43,280 It made me much more connected to, um, people in general. 765 00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:48,880 There's something prophet-like about coming back 766 00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:51,160 and trying to talk about hope. 767 00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:54,360 Nick's trauma that he had 768 00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:55,360 been processing 769 00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:57,280 was a horrendous one, 770 00:54:57,400 --> 00:54:58,520 and it was a current one. 771 00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:01,040 It was the loss of a child. 772 00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:03,760 Mine was like another form of trauma. 773 00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:06,680 What I was realizing in my trauma recovery 774 00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:08,920 was that I'd already died a long, long time ago. 775 00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:09,960 I died... 776 00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:13,400 as an infant, when I was first abused. 777 00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:14,640 You've died. 778 00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:20,080 Thomas decided that he was gonna give up art, you know? 779 00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:23,720 Nick was like, "Okay, that's not a good idea." 780 00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:27,840 And Nick, at the at that time, I think was struggling with... 781 00:55:28,520 --> 00:55:31,760 he was in his three-month depressive period 782 00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:32,960 of having to write songs, 783 00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:36,000 struggling to come up with some songs. 784 00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:39,120 He said, "Well, I'm going to write you a poem. 785 00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:42,120 And if I do that, you've got to at least make me something." 786 00:55:42,240 --> 00:55:43,840 He made this kind of weird trade. 787 00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:45,720 Two days later, I get White Elephant. 788 00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:17,920 I can vividly right now remember reading it 789 00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:22,360 and understanding that this was his invitation to an intimacy. 790 00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:45,760 The violence in that song was my violence. 791 00:56:46,360 --> 00:56:50,800 I would shoot you in the fucking face if you got too close to me. 792 00:56:50,920 --> 00:56:52,280 You know what I mean? At that time. 793 00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:03,680 I was trail running after he'd written me that song. 794 00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:05,840 There'd been these huge fires in Malibu, 795 00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:08,840 so it'd be like a volcanic wasteland. 796 00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:17,320 I'd see this purple flower, almost like a thistle, 797 00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:20,640 but it was like, in the morning sun, like... 798 00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:22,760 And there was something about this song 799 00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:25,200 and seeing that flower that I felt like... 800 00:57:25,360 --> 00:57:28,560 My feeling was that that was Nick, that flower. 801 00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:30,840 That was who Nick was in my life. 802 00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:03,920 Yeah, it's a beautiful gift. 803 00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:05,920 You know? 804 00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:07,640 And out of that, 805 00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:11,280 I painted... 806 00:58:11,800 --> 00:58:13,960 I painted The Kingdom in the Sky. 807 00:58:24,880 --> 00:58:27,920 Really early on, any chance I'd get, 808 00:58:28,040 --> 00:58:30,600 I would go and see the Bad Seeds tour. 809 00:58:31,520 --> 00:58:34,200 And then, when I joined the band, 810 00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:37,160 suddenly I was either behind him or to the left of him 811 00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:40,080 or to the right of him, or in the studio. 812 00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:43,560 And it wasn't until recently, 813 00:58:43,680 --> 00:58:47,560 I was mixing the live show from Paris, 814 00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:51,000 and I watched the film of it as I was mixing it, 815 00:58:51,680 --> 00:58:54,160 and it was the first time I'd watched him 816 00:58:54,280 --> 00:58:57,840 from the audience, for a few decades. 817 00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:02,840 And I was moved to tears watching him. 818 00:59:02,960 --> 00:59:04,840 You know, he does have this thing 819 00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:08,160 that he's a conduit for something else. 820 00:59:11,320 --> 00:59:14,720 And you know he fucking means it. 821 00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:16,120 He just means it. 822 00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:19,880 He means it when he delivers. 823 00:59:22,040 --> 00:59:24,240 The spirit of the music is moving through him. 824 00:59:25,080 --> 00:59:28,680 The different levels of focus, concentration, humility, respect, 825 00:59:28,800 --> 00:59:32,920 that's swirling around in the moment. It's just so brilliant. 826 00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:38,520 His persona on stage became different. 827 00:59:39,240 --> 00:59:41,400 He became so much more generous. 828 00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:45,240 The way he sees single people in the audience, 829 00:59:45,360 --> 00:59:48,360 the way he communicates with people, really communicates, 830 00:59:48,480 --> 00:59:51,320 not just as a show, but he wants to communicate. 831 00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:54,960 And that is such a great thing in rock and roll, because... 832 00:59:56,240 --> 00:59:58,080 The Rolling Stones don't communicate. 833 00:59:59,200 --> 01:00:02,040 They're a great band, but they do not communicate. 834 01:00:02,160 --> 01:00:03,400 And Nick is communicating. 835 01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:11,600 I think now it's, um... 836 01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:14,840 It's less "bad boy fire and brimstone" 837 01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:19,720 and more like, "How do we heal? How do we look after each other?" 838 01:00:22,120 --> 01:00:24,360 He's probably become more of a helpful preacher, 839 01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:28,120 even though he was also a helpful preacher to me 840 01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:30,560 in the fire and brimstone era. 841 01:00:32,640 --> 01:00:36,120 When I went to see Nick Cave perform, I see, like... 842 01:00:36,720 --> 01:00:39,840 To me, I guess the way that I understand God is 843 01:00:39,960 --> 01:00:41,400 I understand it through performance. 844 01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:43,000 And when I see Nick... 845 01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:47,480 And for a second, something is pouring into the room 846 01:00:47,600 --> 01:00:51,560 and I think it's love or presence or something, 847 01:00:52,240 --> 01:00:55,240 it really does feel like the heavens kind of pour in. 848 01:01:37,360 --> 01:01:42,840 The Prophet traditionally has the skills of a showman, 849 01:01:43,600 --> 01:01:45,120 of a magician, 850 01:01:45,240 --> 01:01:47,560 and is able to conjure something. 851 01:01:47,680 --> 01:01:50,840 These great kind of religious experiences 852 01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:54,280 that people very eloquently described over the centuries, 853 01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:58,320 the moments of revelation, are moments of conjuring. 854 01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:24,080 Joy in this context is radical. 855 01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:25,280 It is revolutionary. 856 01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:27,600 It's certainly not happiness, 857 01:02:28,280 --> 01:02:31,960 not sort of mindless, beaming complacency. 858 01:02:32,080 --> 01:02:34,680 That's not quite a Nick Cave style. 859 01:02:35,120 --> 01:02:37,800 It's not even positivity, positive thinking. 860 01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:41,000 It's just letting something of the... 861 01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:45,960 exuberance of life... Exuberance even is the wrong word. 862 01:02:46,080 --> 01:02:49,080 The abundance of life rise up. 863 01:03:56,760 --> 01:03:59,000 I think Nick's pretty happy. 864 01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:01,480 And it's weird, you know, 865 01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:04,360 because ten years ago, 866 01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:08,680 the idea of Nick ever being happy again seemed impossible. 867 01:04:08,800 --> 01:04:11,800 And I'm sure if the Nick from ten years ago 868 01:04:11,920 --> 01:04:14,880 met the Nick from now, he wouldn't be ready for him. 869 01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:17,240 You know what I'm saying? 870 01:05:07,600 --> 01:05:08,680 Thank you very much!