Nick Cave’s first words ‘Faith, hope and massacre’ These are: “Who wants to give an interview? Interviews in general are terrible. Really. They consume you. I don’t like them.” Not bad for a foreword to a book that’s essentially an interview. 300 pages. Perhaps driven by the need to find something to occupy his time during quarantine, Cave accepted the Northern Irish journalist’s (and friend’s) offer in 2020. Sean O’Hagan to continue a series
The central topic of these conversations, to which Cave returns again and again, is the death of his son Arthur, who fell off a cliff after taking LSD in Brighton in 2015, when he was 15. In the book’s foreword, O’Hagan admits to being “consistently” surprised by the “candor and frankness” with which the musician spoke about the tragedy, as well as the “frank nature” of his reactions. “It’s important to talk about this because The loss of my son defines me.” Cave says at one point in the interview.
Some passages are taken from: almost unbearable hardness. The part where the artist remembers the night of Arthur’s death was widely read. This is also the moment when he ensures that all his work in recent years has been completed. A way to seek “forgiveness”, to apologize to his son for what happened. But Cave tries to repeat over and over again that this unimaginable family catastrophe set him in motion. a personal and creative transformation This gave his life and work fuller meaning. ““Since Arthur died, I have been able to escape the absolute power of pain and experience a kind of joy that is completely new to me.” he assures. “Even though it was the most devastating thing that ever happened to me, I experienced periods of much more happiness than before. “This is the gift Arthur left me.”
come out of the dark
Nick Cave, who is in complete existential collapse and plunged into complete darkness, and his wife Susie Gradually, they discovered that people’s kindness could be a reliable source of light, and to leave the darkness behind, they clung to the belief that “the world is not animated by evil, as we are often told.” often, but for love.” They certainly found their way back to life, but They were no longer the people they used to be.. Cave says: “I would like to convey that there is a message on this subject: The question all grieving people ask themselves: Do you ever feel better? And the answer is yesHey. We become different. Top”.
The artist does not hide the connection of this trip, at the risk of alienating even the most skeptical fans. intense study of religious belief. It is true that this is an ancient interest, dating back to the primitive and savage times of history. Birthday party “There were plenty of people to confuse me, but few to accompany me to church,” he recalls of those days, and this was present in all his work as a source of artistic inspiration, but Cave emphasizes that in recent years there has been an increasing tendency to accept the “poetic truth” of God’s presence . And he goes a step further by stating quite categorically that: “Atheism is bad for the art of songwriting.” because it denies “the fundamental sacred dimension of music.”
Drugs and rock and roll
Although the topics discussed are of a certain seriousness, the ‘Faith, Hope and Massacre’ pages also provide some satisfaction to everyone who is in search. Delicious tales of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Although he makes a feeble complaint whenever the subject of his addictions comes up – “I find it tiring and uninteresting,” he notes – Cave speaks openly about his relationship with heroin and alcohol and describes some delusional episodes; On the day he left his first stay at the rehabilitation clinic, ‘New Musical Express’ magazine had the outrageous idea of holding a meeting. Shane MacGowan (Pogues) and Mark E. Smith (The Fall), two irreducible dipsomaniacs, now dead. What could go wrong? “They sat there doing drugs and drinking until they got lost. “They didn’t really empathize with my situation,” he says.
The book is filled with reflections on the convoluted process of composing music – “writing songs is a bloody business,” he argues – and descriptions of the internal dynamics of the bands he leads. As for its first and most legendary formation? Bad Seedsdraws attention to the importance of coexistence with multi-instrumentalists in the studio Mick Harvey and guitarist Blixa Bargeld “It was like Hitler, Stalin and fucking Mao Zedong trying to make a record together.” And he displays comical surprise as he describes the day the grumpy Bargeld left the band in the middle of a recording and uttered the immortal line: “I didn’t get into rock and roll to play rock and roll.”
But even when it comes to remembering funny scenes like this, Cave’s story seems filled with a deep sense of melancholy. O’Hagan describes this as a keen awareness “of the instability of life” that is present throughout the book. In fact, during the 12 months the conversations lasted, the artist lost his mother, his music producer friend Hal Willner, and his teenage girlfriend and close collaborator Anita Lane. Very soon after, his eldest son Jethro died at the age of 30. So much destruction that it leaves no trace of sadness even in the brightest passages. Cave admits this with a high-flying poetic statement: “Hope is optimism with a broken heart.”