Back to the grind
What's Nick Cave doing enjoying the nice weather? As his Grinderman side project gears up for a brief Irish tour, the dark lord of countrified goth-pop looks forward to his next Bad Seeds record and discusses his forays into writing for cinema...
Roisin Dwyer, 13 Jun 2011
“God it’s a beautiful day today here. What’s it like over there?” effuses Nick Cave.
Er… it’s a bit overcast unfortunately.
“Blue skies all the way here.”
Cave’s startling bonhomie happily confounds expectations. The legendary antipodean songsmith has a reputation for being an occasionally prickly interviewee, but on this occasion proves thoroughly convivial. He is only too happy to chew the fat on a range of topics; even the royal nuptials make it onto the verbal agenda.
“I didn’t watch it at the time but I did see some shots of the bride,” says the UK resident. “She looked good. Especially with the veil down, the veil looked amazing… she looked like a ghost.”
Cave is on the promo trail in advance of Grinderman’s upcoming Vicar St. and Live at the Marquee dates. Since the release of their lauded second long-player (a compelling sonic cacophony of lust and sleaze, more abstract and unconventional than its predecessor), the band have been uncharacteristically active on the gig circuit.
“We were meant to finish up at the end of last year but we decided to carry on and do more concerts through the summer,” he says. “This is unheard of for us, usually we’re desperate to finish touring. But we’re just discovering something in the live situation that seems really important to us at the moment.”
The extensive live duties included an appearance at the Big Day Out festival in Australia, where they were joined on stage by Bobby Gillespie. The Primal Scream frontman was in fact a bona fide member of the nascent outfit.
“He got up with us for the first few shows and played percussion” confirms Cave. “There was a lot of added percussion on the first Grinderman record and we didn’t really know how to deal with that in a live situation. We needed an extra pair of hands to shake maracas and to help out with backing vocals. We are very dear friends with Bobby and asked him to help us out.”
More recently, Cave called on the assistance of another Briton when he invited Robert Fripp to play guitar on Grinderman 2’s ‘Heathen Child’.
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