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

History

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).

As a child, Cave lived in Warracknabeal and then Wangaratta in rural Victoria, Australia. His father was a teacher of English and Literature, his mother a librarian. Raised as an Anglican, he sang in the boys choir at Wangaratta Cathedral. He was often in trouble with the local school authorities, and so his parents sent him to boarding school at Melbourne's Caulfield Grammar School in 1970. The following year he became a "day boy" when his family moved to Murrumbeena, a suburb of Melbourne. There was a piano in the family home, and Cave joined the school choir under choirmaster Norman Kaye.

In 1973 at Caulfield, Cave met Mick Harvey, Tracy Pew and Phill Calvert, with whom he founded his first band, later to be named the Boys Next Door. Guitarist Rowland S. Howard later joined the band, in 1978. Cave's collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Harvey continues to this day. 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 was killed in a car accident. This affected him deeply and was major contributor to his lyrical inspirations.

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 band were notorious for their provocative high-energy 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 numerous recordings and 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 somewhat exhausted from alcohol and drug use. Cave and Harvey went on to form the first version of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, whose name indicates the shift in Cave's role from band-member to band-leader, and coincides with a shift in Cave's songwriting from expressionism towards lyrical and detailed narratives. The Bad Seeds were founded as 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.

That year, while he was based in West Berlin, Cave started working on what was to become his debut novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel. There was often significant crossover between the themes of the book and the songs Cave wrote in the late stages of the Birthday Party and the early stage of his solo career ("Swampland", from Mutiny, in particular could have been narrated by the novel's protagonist). By now, Cave had separated from Lane and began a relationship with the Berliner Elisabeth Recker. While there, he released four 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.

After completing his first 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 Viviane Carneiro. They never married, although some sources suggest they did. The two have a son, Luke, born 1991. Cave has another three children living in Australia, including Beau Lazenby's son Jethro (b. 1991) *. In 1993, Cave moved back to London. He now lives near Brighton, UK, and is married to British model Susie Bick, with whom he has twin sons, Arthur and Earl.

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. Cave also acted in Ghosts ... of the Civil Dead, a 1989 independent movie written and directed by John Hillcoat, and 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, a collection of songs about murder. It included "Henry Lee," a duet with British rock singer PJ Harvey (with whom he had a brief relationship), and "Where the Wild Roses Grow," a duet with Australian pop idol Kylie Minogue. The latter was a mainstream hit, winning three ARIA Awards including "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 time out to rehabilitate from his heavy heroin and alcohol habits. Rejuvenated, he resurfaced with his complex, moody, and much-acclaimed No More Shall We Part in 2001.

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

In addition to his performances with The Bad Seeds, Cave has, since the 90s, performed live 'solo' tours with Cave on piano and a bass/drums/violin trio with a fluctuating line-up. The current trio are Bad Seeds' Martyn P. Casey, Jim Sclavunos and Warren Ellis (nicknamed the Mini-Seeds).

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 "Muddy Water" and "The 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 The Man Comes Around album (2002). A similar duet, the American folk song "Cindy", was released post-humously on the "Johnny Cash: Unearthed" boxset.

After the release of the 2003 album Nocturama, which failed to excite reviewers, Bargeld announced he was leaving the 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 Cave released his first double record - the acclaimed two-disc set Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.

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

Following the Boxing Day Tsunami, Nick Cave appeared at the Wave Aid fundraising concert in Sydney, to raise funds for aid organisations working in disaster affected areas.

Displaying a continued interest in film, Cave wrote The Proposition, a poetic and savagely violent Western set in the Australian Outback. The film was directed by John Hillcoat and stars Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, John Hurt, David Wenham and Emily Watson. It was filmed in Queensland in 2004, premiered in October 2005 and has since been released world wide to critical acclaim. The generally ambient soundtrack was recorded by Cave and bandmember Warren Ellis, and was released a week before the film.

Cave and Hillcoat have plans to make a comedy film set in Britain. Its working title is "Death of a Ladies Man".

Trivia

  • Cave 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 that are also nouns: Pew, Lane, Bargeld (German for 'cash'), Race, Power(s), Wolf, Savage.
  • Cave collaborated with the band Current 93, most notably on their album All the Pretty Little Horses, where he reads text from the Pensées of Blaise Pascal.
  • The pop singer Kylie Minogue, who recorded a best-selling duet with Cave in 1995, has said that he was a positive influence: "He taught me to never veer too far from who I am, but to go further, try different things, and never lose sight of myself at the core. For me, the hard part was unleashing the core of myself and being totally truthful in my music".
  • Cave also wrote an introduction for the Gospel of Mark in the Pocket Canon Bible Series.
  • Appeared as himself, with the Bad Seeds, in the Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire.
  • 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 animated movie Shrek 2.
  • Cave has stated that the visible scar on his left cheek was given to him by then-girlfriend Anita Lane during a knife fight between the two.
  • Cave recorded a version of Pulp's "Disco 2000" as a B-Side for their single "Bad Cover Version".
  • Cave has performed his 'signature tune' "The Mercy Seat", at nearly every live show since 1988, including band and solo appearances.
  • Cave appeared on the I Am Sam soundtrack performing a cover version of The Beatles' famous song, "Let It Be". He later issued his version of their "Here Comes The Sun".

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

Other Nick Cave albums

Selected list of Video & DVD releases
  • The road to god knows where - US tour documentary film
  • Live at the Paradiso - live in Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: The videos
  • God is in the house - live in Lyon, France

Books by Nick Cave

  • And the Ass Saw the Angel - Nick Cave (1989) ISBN 1880985721
  • King Ink - Nick Cave (1988) ISBN 188098508X
  • King Ink II - Nick Cave (1997) ISBN 2842610539
  • The Pocket Canons Bible Series: Authorised King James Version: The Gospel According to Mark: Introduction - Nick Cave (1998) ISBN 0862417961
  • Complete Lyrics - Nick Cave (2001) ISBN 0141005157
  • Smack my Crack-Nick Cave-Various authors-contributor

The Bad Seeds

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

Awards

  • 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)
  • 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)

See also

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
  • Kicking Against the Pricks: An Armchair Guide to Nick Cave, Amy Hanson (2005), ISBN 190092496X
  • Liner notes to the CDs Original Seeds: Songs that inspired Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Kim Beissel (1998 & 2004), Rubber Records

External links

1957 births | Alternative musicians | Australian male singers | Australian songwriters | Living people | People from Victoria

Nick Cave | Nick Cave | Nick Cave | Nick Cave | Nick Cave | ניק קייב | Nick Cave | Nick Cave | Nick Cave | Nick Cave | Nick Cave | Кейв, Николас Эдвард | Nick Cave | Nick Cave | Nick Cave | Nick Cave

 

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