Manning Up

After announcing from the Supernatural Amphitheatre stage that their Meredith 2011 set marked the end of Grinderman, this scribe descended into a state of woe. “Well you've gotta move on,” Nick Cave, who fronts The Bad Seeds and Grinderman, points out. “We made a lot of records. I dunno what's gonna happen with Grinderman, to be honest. I really don't know.” You don't want to be the type of person who rules out a re-formation in case you feel like doing it again now, do you? “You mean Grinderman?” Yeah. “What, do you want me to tell you whether it's going to happen again or not?” No, it's better to not… “You do,” Cave interjects with a chuckle. “To be honest I have no idea. Um, right now we've got this [Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds] record to concentrate on, so. I mean, you know – I dunno, I dunno.” How does… “This is a weird couch, huh?” *

True enough. Inside the suite at St Kilda's Prince hotel where we chat, the settee is quite rigid. Hence we both sit facing straight ahead, taking in the view and occasionally exercising our neck muscles to make eye contact. “First date,” Cave jests before repositioning himself into a more relaxed pose, facing this interviewer and extending one arm along the back of the couch. Of course he's immaculate, clean shaven and modelling the latest in sartorial elegance. A piece of paper and grey lead pencil sit between us, but the writing is in way too minuscule a font to decode discreetly. Cave's presence is commanding, but he's a lot more affable than his onstage bravado portends. 

In Mark Seymour's riveting autobiography, Thirteen Tonne Theory, the author recounts an incident from when he was a roadie for The Birthday Party. Seymour allegedly saved an audience member who was in danger of being strangled by Cave's mic chord when it looped around the punk's neck as the frontman leapt from the stage and careened through the crowd. “Did he save him?” Cave queries, raising an eyebrow. “Um, who's Mark Seymour?” From Hunters & Collectors. “Uh, from Hunters & Collectors. Oh, okay. No, I haven't read that one. Yeah, I'll look out for it.” Seymour describes being part of Cave's congregation when The Birthday Party arrived home from Old Blighty as an intoxicating trip, equal parts terror and euphoria. Being a member of such an audience sounds electrifying. Not that you'd wish for a near death experience by way of gig souvenir. “You'd like Mark Seymour to save you, though,” Cave teases. “The concert's always like that, they always have been.” Have any of the concerts felt way out of control? “I haven't strangled anyone for a while.” Cave's not letting go. “Although maybe that's untrue. Some of the Grinderman shows… Women love Grinderman, I found in general. You know, it was a chick's band.”

On how many fan injuries he'd estimate go unreported, Cave concludes, “Well, you know, I'm worried about strangling people because without having Mark Seymour there to save the day…” Punters certainly get wound up with Cave as ringmaster. Some YouTube footage circulated at one stage capturing Cave interrupting a song to scold a front row opportunist for attempting to touch his cock. Does he remember that occasion? “Oh no, people do that anyway,” he shares. “I probably made that up and had just forgotten the words or something like that. I can't remember that specific one, no.”

The first evidence of new Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds material arrived by way of the Push The Sky Away album trailer late last year. “We didn't do any long lead press,” Cave acknowledges of how this news seemed to drop out of nowhere. “We just wanted to release the record to everybody at the same time, press included, more or less.” The clip shows Cave and co larking it up at La Fabrique, a recording studio based in a 19th century mansion in the South of France, and Cave allows: “It was quite a sort of joyful event, really… There was a steadiness about the recording of [Push The Sky Away] and a sound that kind of emerged. I mean, we recorded it very quickly but there was something very relaxed about the recording of this. It's not often the way of a Bad Seeds recording. It's strange, because the record is quite dark in its way, but the way it's put across is very relaxed and kind of meditative and not hysterical in the way a lot of Bad Seeds records can get.” A suggestion is thrown out there that the listening experience calls to mind sleepwalking. “Mmm, you can say that.” Cave ponders how this will read on the page and then offers: “They sleepwalked through this one.”

This in-the-studio footage also hints that “pygmies” feature within the lyrical content but, after scouring the album's lyric sheets, it appears said pygmies wound up on the cutting room floor. “No, that's in the song,” Cave counters. “You better go back and do your homework. It's there in the middle of Higgs Boson Blues. There's a lot of Higgs Boson Blues that didn't get into Higgs Boson Blues but that did: 'The pygmies eat the monkeys' and all that.”

Widely regarded as a hirsute Cave muse, Warren Ellis conjures many trademark mystery sounds throughout the forthcoming Bad Seeds release. It sounds as if a swarm of insects closes in and puts an end to We Real Cool. “Oh yeah? It probably is,” Cave offers. Cue laughter. “Really,” he insists. “He kind of comes to the studio with stuff and god knows where a lot of that stuff comes from. Warren is very secretive about his loops. He brings different ingredients in, stirs them around at home and comes with this sound that we've never heard anything like. But he doesn't sort of advertise, he doesn't tell anyone what he's actually up to in that respect. [Pauses.] Largely because I don't think anyone gives a fuck,” he laughs. “It's just – we're not certain: he plays his stuff, there's a kind of instant atmosphere that comes from this music that infects everything, and it's really beautiful to be able to sing over this stuff. It's an absolute privilege, because you can have a few words, and have this sound, and to sing over it is instantly really emotional. And much of the emotional resonance of those songs comes from what Warren's doing with his loops, I would say. He's amazing.”

After a longstanding relationship with Mute Records, the imprint responsible for releasing every Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Grinderman record to date, Push The Sky Away will be released independently. “I was worried about it initially – because I was wondering how we could do that, and if we could do that, because I guess you're sort of led to believe really that it takes certain expertise to be able to do this,” Cave ruminates on the adjustment. “And it does, but it's not impossible to do it yourself and there's an enormous freedom to doing it yourself where you can have more control over its outcome. And that's really exciting. The biggest benefit for me is that you feel very attached to the product in a way that I haven't really felt for a while with a record. Not that I haven't felt attached to the record, but, you know, basically I record the thing, I make the cover and kind of walk away from it and this has been much more involved in all the different details of it. It makes the object more precious in a way.” The experience must have given Cave some insight into the job descriptions of record company employees. “I wonder what they do get up to,” Cave admits.

* Grinderman have since announced a 'one-off' performance within Coachella's 2013 line-up.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds will be playing the following dates:

Tuesday 26 February – Sydney Opera House NSW
Wednesday 27 February – Sydney Opera House NSW
Thursday 28 February – Sydney Opera House NSW
Saturday 2 March – Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne VIC
Sunday 3 March – Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide SA
Wednesday 6 March – Red Hill Auditorium, Perth WA
Friday 8 March – Riverstage, Brisbane QLD
Saturday 9 March - Enmore Theatre, Sydney NSW