Nick Cave - Faith, Hope and Carnage

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For my family
N.C.

For Kieran
S.OH.

A little child shall lead them.

Isaiah 11:6

Sen OHagan: Im surprised you agreed to do this given that you havent done any interviews for a long time.

Nick Cave: Well, who wants to do an interview? Interviews, in general, suck. Really. They eat you up. I hate them. The whole premise is so demeaning: you have a new album out, or new film to promote, or a book to sell. After a while, you just get worn away by your own story. I guess, at some point, I just realised that doing that kind of interview was of no real benefit to me. It only ever took something away. I always had to recover a bit afterwards. It was like I had to go looking for myself again. So five or so years ago I just gave them up.

So how do you feel about this undertaking?

I dont know. I do like having a conversation. I like to talk, to engage with people. And weve always had our big, sprawling conversations, so when you suggested it, I was kind of intrigued to see where it would go. Lets see, shall we?

When I spoke to you back in March (2020), your world tour had just been cancelled because of the pandemic. I have to say, you sounded remarkably philosophical about it.

It was a strange moment, thats for sure. When Covid hit and my manager, Brian, told me that we wouldnt be going on tour, I felt this kind of emptying out, like the whole world had dropped out from under me. Wed all put an enormous amount of thought and effort into how we were going to present Ghosteen live wed been rehearsing with ten backing singers and created a whole visual structure for the show that felt completely unique and very exciting. A lot of work, mental energy and expense. So when I heard it definitely wasnt going to happen, I was initially horrified. It struck at the very core of my being because I was this thing that toured. Its what I was.

Now, I say this with great caution because I know how disappointed the fans were, but, to be honest, that feeling of existential collapse, well, it lasted about half an hour. Then I remember standing in my managers office and thinking somewhat guiltily, Fuck! Im not going on tour. And perhaps for an entire year. Suddenly, there was an extraordinary sense of relief, a sort of wave washing through me, a kind of euphoria, but also something more than that a crazy energy.

A sense of potential, maybe?

Yes, but true potential. Potential as powerlessness, ironically. Not the potential to do something, but the potential not to do something. It suddenly struck me that I could just be at home with Susie, my wife, and that was amazing in itself because wed always measured our relationship in terms of my leaving and my returning. Suddenly, I could see my kids, or just sit in a chair on my balcony and read books. It was like I had been given the license to just be, and not do.

And as it went on, there was the sense that time was out of joint, the days just drifting into each other. Did you feel that?

Yes, time seemed altered. It seems almost wrong to be saying this, but on one level, I really loved the strange freedom it gave me. I loved getting up in the morning and having another day where I could just exist and not have to do anything. The phone stopped ringing constantly and very quickly my days became beautifully repetitious. It was oddly like being a junkie again, the ritual, the routine, the habit.

Now, Im saying all this even though the previous tour, when we played the Skeleton Tree album live, was one of the defining periods of my professional life, just being on that stage every night with that fierce energy coming off the audience. It is difficult to exaggerate the extraordinary feeling of connection. It was life-changing. No, actually life-saving! But it was also seriously punishing, physically and mentally. So when the recent tour was cancelled, the initial disappointment was replaced by a feeling of relief and, yes, a strange and wayward potential. I feel guilty even saying this, because I know how devastating the pandemic has been for many people.

From the chats we had back then, it was clear that you sensed early on that the lockdown would be a time for reflection.

I instinctively felt that. I remember feeling that it really didnt seem right to try and do a performance online from my kitchen, or from my bathtub, or in my pyjamas, or whatever else it was that some artists were doing back then, all those artless and conspicuous displays of fellow feeling. It felt to me like it was a moment to sit inside history and just think. I felt chastened by the world. I had a weird, reflective time throughout that Covid summer. Ill never forget it, sitting on my balcony, reading a lot, writing loads of new stuff, responding to questions on The Red Hand Files. It was an interesting time, despite the constant background hum of anxiety and dread.

I remember that we were talking on the phone right at the start of the pandemic, and you said, This is the big one.

Yes, I think Id just read something that really brought home to me the sheer immense power of the virus, and how extraordinarily vulnerable we all were, and how completely unprepared as a society. You and I were both pretty spooked by this invisible thing that was outside the door. Everyone was. It really did feel like the end times had arrived, and the world had been caught sleeping. It felt as though, whatever we assumed was the story of our lives, this invisible hand had reached down and torn a great big hole in it.

That makes me think of the idea of the disrupted narrative I have heard you talk about in relation to your songwriting: how both the subject matter and meaning of your more recent songs have become less straightforward and more elusive.

Well, exactly. My songs have definitely become more abstracted, for want of a better word, and, yes, less dominated by a traditional narrative. At some point, I just grew tired of writing third-person songs that told a structured story that began at the beginning and moved obediently towards their conclusion. I just became suspicious of the form. It felt unfair to inflict these stories on people all the time. It felt like a kind of tyranny. It was almost as if I was hiding behind these neat, manicured narratives because I was afraid of the stuff that was boiling away inside me. I wanted to start writing songs that were truer somehow, that were authentic to my experience.

Specifically to your more recent experience?

Yes. Which was one of rupture, I would say, same as most peoples. But purely from a personal point of view, living my life within a neat narrative didnt make much sense any more. Arthur died and everything changed. That sense of disruption, of a disrupted life, infused everything.

In terms of what you and I are doing here, it is difficult for me to go back there, but it is also important to talk about it at some point, because the loss of my son defines me.