Nick Cave
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| Nick Cave | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Nicholas Edward Cave |
| Born | 22 September 1957 |
| Origin | Warracknabeal, Victoria, Australia |
| Instrument(s) | Guitar, piano, organ, vocals |
| Years active | 1973–present |
| Associated acts | Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Grinderman, The Birthday Party, The Boys Next Door, |
| Website | www.nickcaveandthebadseeds.com |
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.
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[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 band'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 A-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.
[edit] Music career
[edit] Early years and The Birthday Party (1973-1984)
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.
[edit] Later career with The Bad Seeds (1984-present)
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]
[edit] 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.
[edit] Soundtrack involvement
Numerous songs were featured in "Wings of Desire" which also included a cameo appearance.
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 Rareties album.
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.
The soundtrack for the movie 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.
[edit] 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".
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.
Nick also 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".
Nick 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 show the "Bad Seeds" on tour.
[edit] Discography
[edit] 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
- And the Ass Saw the Angel, (soundtrack and readings of the novel)- by Nick Cave and Mick Harvey
- The Road (2008) - composed with Ellis[7]
[edit] 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.
- 'Kiss of Love' (duet with Sam Brown) from Jools Holland's 2003 album Small World Big Band Friends 3 - Jack O The Green.
- Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys (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.
- "American IV: The Man Comes Around" (2003) Duet with Johnny Cash on "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".
- Batman Forever soundtrack - contributes the track "There is a Light"
- Ute Lemper's Punishing Kiss. Cave co-wrote (with Bruno Pisek) "Little Water Song."
[edit] Other
- The Secret Life of the Love Song - a spoken word lecture by Cave
[edit] Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
- See Discography for more details
[edit] 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
[edit] Awards and honours
- 2008 Awarded an Honorary degree as Doctor of Laws, by Monash University.[8]
- 2007 ARIA Awards ARIA Hall of Fame inductee
- 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: Best Album of 2004 (Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus)
- 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)
[edit] See also
- Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
- The Birthday Party (band)
- Grinderman
- Blixa Bargeld
- Mick Harvey
- Anita Lane
- PJ Harvey
- Warren Ellis
- Jim Sclavunos
- James Johnston
- Hugo Race
[edit] 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)
[edit] References
- ^ Feelings are a Bourgeois luxury... | | guardian.co.uk Arts
- ^ Nick Cave Online
- ^ allmusic ((( Nick Cave > Biography )))
- ^ Nick Cave sees debut novel 'And The Ass Saw the Angel' re-released as collectors edition
- ^ Paperback - Mark - Canongate Home
- ^ Dawtrey, Adam: 10 Screenwriters to Watch: Nick Cave, Variety, June 22, 2006.
- ^ Row Three » Nick Cave and Warren Ellis to Score The Road - Where Cinema is more than just $100 Million productions
- ^ Smith, Bridie. "Dr Cave is a law unto himself", The Age, March 29, 2008.
[edit] External links
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds official website
- nick-cave.com unofficial website
- Nick Cave at the Internet Movie Database
- Nick Cave at Last.fm
- The Proposition at the Internet Movie Database
- Nick Cave in the Yahoo! Directory
- Nick Cave fan site
- 2008 Nick Cave interview at musicOMH.com
- Nick Cave receives honorary Monash degree
- Nick Cave interview and article by Tony DuShane for Crawdaddy
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