Who is Nick Cave

Biography

Nick Cave is a talented rock musician, writer and poet, screenwriter and author of music for many famous films, leader of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Nicholas Edward Cave was born in September 1957 in Warraknabil, Australia. Besides Nick, there were three other children in the family of library employee Dawn Treadwell and English teacher Colin Frank Cave: sons Tim and Peter and daughter Julie.

Nick Cave discovered his musical abilities early on. After high school, the young man entered an art college, where he met like-minded Mick Harvey, without whom no project of the star went on.

Music

In the late 1970s, Cave and Harvey formed a musical band called Boys Next Door. The group existed for several years, but by 1980 it broke up. Nick and Mick formed a new band to replace it, calling it The Birthday Party. But even this group was short-lived: in 1983, after a tour of European countries, the musicians broke up.

At the very beginning of the 1980s Nick Cave got acquainted with the leader of the German band Blixa Bargeld. The Australian singer liked Blixa’s music so much that he suggested the German play together. Bargeld agreed. The collaboration lasted for nearly 20 years.

In 1984 the renewed Cave’s band named “Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds” (unlike the previous projects it still exists today) presented the fans the debut album “From Her To Eternity”. The disc received critical acclaim and was warmly received by the band’s fans. Eight years later, the band recorded a stellar disc called “Henry’s Dream”. The authoritative British tabloid Melody Maker recognized this album as the best in Nick Cave’s creativity and even ranked it 7th in the list of the best discs of 1992.

In the mid and late 1990s the creative biography of Nick Cave and the band was enriched by two more albums Let Love In, which included the tracks “Red Right Hand”, “Do You Love Me?”, “Loverman” and “Murder Ballads” with the songs “Song of Joy”, “Stagger Lee”. Fans of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds consider the compositions included in the named discs the best in Cave’s creativity.

The end of the century was marked by the recording of two more albums – The Boatman’s Call, which was ranked number 26 on the list of the “Best 100 Australian albums” and the Live at the Royal Albert Hall. In 2001, after two years of creative exploration, Cave released No More Shall We Part. In 2003, the music video for Nick Cave’s song “Bring It On” was very popular.

In 2013, Nick Cave’s fans welcomed the 15th album “Push the Sky Away”. Shortly before its release, the band left Mick Harvey, with whom Nick Cave had walked hand in hand for 30 years. In 2015, the track “All The Gold In California” was included on the soundtrack album for the second season of the iconic American TV series True Detective. In addition to Cave, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Lera Lynn participated in the recording of music for the film. Nick Cave is often compared to the compositions of Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. They are related by their echoing dusky motifs.

Apart from his musical activity, Nick Cave is also famous for his literary work. The musician wrote the novel And the Donkey Behold the Angel of God, which was published in 1989. Cave is an excellent poet. Two published collections “King Ink. Volume I” and “King Ink. Volume II” are popular with fans of the poetic word and have been translated into Russian.

Nick Cave has written many tracks for movies. His music can be heard in Love and Cigarettes, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Drunkest County in the World and three dozen others. A video of Nick Cave performing at a concert made it into Wim Wenders’ cult film “Skies Over Berlin.”

In the film Dandy directed by Peter Sempel, Cave, together with Blixa Bargeld, starred as an actor. The debut was successful, and in 2005 the musician appeared in the western The Proposal. In 2007, the crime film How the Cowardly Robert Ford Killed Jesse James, starring Brad Pitt, was released with Nick Cave.

At the same time, Nick Cave continued to write film music. Among the musician’s works are the documentary The English Surgeon, the post-apocalyptic film The Road about a civilization destroyed by natural disasters, and the crime drama The Drunkest District in the World, starring Tom Hardy and Jessica Chastain. In 2014, the artist released an auteur film project “20,000 Days on Earth,” for which he wrote the music and starred himself. In another biographical film, Shepherd’s Sacrifice, Nick Cave again played the lead role and also wrote the music.

Nick Cave is associated with the cinema not only with music or acting experiences. The artist acted as a talented screenwriter, with whom many directors collaborated. The stories of Cave were used in the films “The Drunkest County in the World”, “The Death of Bunny Munroe”, “The Raven”, “Ghosts of Civil Death”.

Personal life

For a long time, Nick Cave’s personal life was connected with the member of the band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds he led, Anita Lane. The girl was called Nick’s muse. But ten years later the young people broke up.

In 1991, Nick Cave became a father twice: one son was born to a Brazilian journalist Vivien Carneiro, and the second – to a compatriot Bo Lazenby. But the musician did not want to link his life for a long time with any of these women. The romance with P.J. Harvey, a member of his band in the 1990s, was also short.

Nick Cave’s personal life went on a steady course after he met British model Susie Bick. They met in 1997, and in 1999 they got married. In this marriage, twin boys Arthur and Earl were born.

In 2015, it was revealed that 15-year-old Arthur had died. The teenager fell off a cliff and died from multiple injuries. The family of the musician stayed in mourning for a long time.

Nick Cave’s hobbies include the creation of signature outfits, which the musician himself calls Soundsuits – “sound suits”. The unusual outfits are created from different materials, at the same time being comfortable and fully hiding the person inside. Cave uses any kind of trash as a material: branches, dyed human hair, fake fur, wire, sequins, buttons, feathers.

Nick Cave Now.

Nick Cave, while remaining a rock legend, continues to pack stadiums. In 2016, along with his bandmates, Nick released another album, Skeleton Tree. The concert, which featured new music from the stage of the Danish Royal Arena, was recorded as a music documentary by director David Barnard. At the same time Nick Cave delighted his fans with music videos for the musical compositions “Jesus Alone” and “Red Right Hand” (Angel Heart).

Now the concert film has begun its journey around the world. In 2018, in April, Nick Cave’s video was broadcast in Ukraine and Russia. At the same time, a full-scale tour in support of the album began. In Russia, Nick Cave plans to perform in July. The musician will be with concerts in two cities – Moscow and St Petersburg.