Historical Figure
Nick Cave
b. 1957
Australian post punk/alternative rock band
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Biography
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1983 by lead vocalist Nick Cave, multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and German guitarist-vocalist Blixa Bargeld. The band has featured international personnel throughout its career and presently consists of Cave, violinist and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, bassist Martyn P. Casey, guitarist George Vjestica, touring keyboardist/percussionist Larry Mullins, also known as Toby Dammit, and drummers Thomas Wydler (Switzerland) and Jim Sclavunos. Described as "one of the most original and celebrated bands of the post-punk and alternative rock eras in the '80s and onward", they have released eighteen studio albums and completed numerous international tours.
Timeline
The story of Nick Cave, told in moments.
Formed the Boys Next Door in Melbourne while still at boarding school. The band played frantic post-punk. They renamed themselves the Birthday Party in 1978.
Founded Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in Melbourne with Mick Harvey and Blixa Bargeld. The band blended blues, gospel, post-punk, and literary storytelling.
Released Murder Ballads, featuring "Where the Wild Roses Grow" with Kylie Minogue. It became his biggest commercial hit. He also published his novel And the Ass Saw the Angel.
His 15-year-old son Arthur fell from a cliff in Brighton, England. Cave channeled his grief into the album Skeleton Tree and the documentary One More Time with Feeling.
In Their Own Words (20)
Bunny takes another bite of his Big Mac and knows what everybody who is into this sort of things knows - that with its flaccid bun, its spongy meat, the cheese, the slimy little pickle and, of course, the briny special sauce, biting into a Big Mac is as close to eating pussy as, well, eating pussy.
The Death of Bunny Munro (2009), 2009
The boy watches his father cross the road and thinks there is something about the way his dad moves through the world that is truly impressive. Cars screech to a halt, drives shake their fists and stick their heads out the windows and curse and blow their horns and Bunny walks on as if radiating some super-human force field, like he has walked off the pages of a comic book. The world can't touch him. He seems to be the grand generator of some hyper-powerful electricity.
The Death of Bunny Munro (2009), 2009
If you're involved with imagination and the creative process, it's not such a difficult thing to believe in a God. But I'm not involved in any religions, and I've never intended to make religious records or records that preach some kind of point of view.
"Interview with Nick Cave", musicOMH (March, 2008), 2008
God is in everything whether I’m mentioning him or not.
Cave's response to an interviewer calling Grinderman a "secular record", 2007
The actualising of God through the medium of the love song remains my prime motivation as an artist.
Given during a lecture at the Vienna Poetry Festival (1998), 1998
Artifacts (15)
The Complete Lyrics: The perfect music gift for fans of the Australian musician and writer
The complete lyrics from cultural icon and bestselling author Nick Cave, spanning his entire career to date, with a new foreword by Andrew O'Hagan From Nick Cave's writing for The Birthday Party,...
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