Nicholas Edward Cave AO (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian singer, songwriter, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional actor, best known for fronting the
rock band
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Cave's music is generally characterised by his
baritone voice, emotional intensity, a wide variety of influences and lyrical obsessions with death, religion, love and violence.
[2]
Born and raised in rural
Victoria, Cave studied art in
Melbourne before fronting
The Birthday Party, one of the city's leading
post-punk bands, in the late 1970s. They relocated to
London in 1980, but, disillusioned by life there, evolved towards a darker, more challenging sound that helped inspire
gothic rock, and acquired a reputation as "the most violent live band in the world".
[3] Cave became recognised for his confrontational performances, his shock of black hair and pale, emaciated look. The band broke up soon after moving to
Berlin in 1982, and Cave formed Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds the year after, later described as one of rock's "most redoubtable, enduring" bands.
[4] Much of their early material is set in a mythic American
Deep South, drawing on
spirituals and
Delta blues, while Cave's preoccupation with
Old Testament notions of good versus evil culminated in what has been called his
signature song, "
The Mercy Seat" (1988), and in his debut novel,
And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989). Also in 1988, he starred in
Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, an Australian prison film which he co-wrote and scored.
The 1990s saw Cave move to
São Paulo and find inspiration in the
New Testament. He went on to achieve mainstream success with quieter, piano-driven ballads, notably the
Kylie Minogue duet "
Where the Wild Roses Grow" (1996), and "
Into My Arms" (1997). Based in
Brighton, England by the early 2000s, Cave wrote the Australian Western
The Proposition (2005), composing its soundtrack with frequent collaborator
Warren Ellis. The pair's film score credits include
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007),
The Road (2009) and
Lawless (2012), and their
garage rock side project
Grinderman has released two LPs since 2006. In 2009, he released his second novel
The Death of Bunny Munro, and starred in the semi-fictional "
day in the life" film
20,000 Days on Earth (2014). His more recent musical work features
ambient and
electronic elements, as well as increasingly abstract lyrics, informed in part by grief over his son Arthur's 2015 death, which is explored in the documentary
One More Time with Feeling (2016) and the Bad Seeds' 17th and latest LP,
Ghosteen (2019).
Cave maintains The Red Hand Files, a newsletter he uses to respond to questions from fans. His work is the subject of academic study, and his songs have been
covered by a wide range of artists, including
Johnny Cash ("The Mercy Seat"),
Metallica ("
Loverman") and
Snoop Dogg ("
Red Right Hand"). He was inducted into the
ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007,
[5] and named an
Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017.
In June 2020
Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition had its world premiere at The Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen. The comprehensive exhibition shows Cave's life and work and was co-curated by the artist himself.
[6]