Entrevista a Nick Cave de Nanni Jacobson Los Ángeles (1997) (Subtitulado)

so Nick the last time we talked was in '94 and which was a long time ago and a lot of things you actually mind taking your glasses off you have such beautiful eyes you do all right thanks come and uh shs going all shy now back on and um spit it out well you worked on the murder bullets back then yeah and um you know and you told me it was a side project well we know all know now what happened so could you tell me a little bit what your initial idea actually was about the murder ballot and you know how it developed then after it was released um yeah I mean it was it was um I mean I'd written a sorry I got all try and take this seriously right um I uh I wrote a couple of songs um a Al's Bar and U song of Joy I think I think they were and they were two very long songs um one of them I don't know om Al's Bar is 10 minutes long or something like that 13 minutes is it I can't remember it's very long anyway and I really liked I really liked these songs but they didn't uh particularly M's bar but but they didn't kind of they never kind of fitted on any record that we're making around that time they'd been floating around for for fair while and uh so I think that the idea came along that we'd make a murder ballads record to accommodate these two songs really and um you know but we we didn't take it very seriously we took it um I mean it was an idea that's been floating around for a long time back since the end of the birthday party to make a to make an album of just murder ballad so it was um so it was it was wasn't taken very seriously but and we recorded it very quickly and wrote the songs very quickly and then you did the duet with Kylie and we did the Duets as well um and um yeah and then I became a hit yeah I mean in your long career I mean this was the first hit you had what um this commercial success what you know how did that change things for you and how did you feel about that that it actually came you know to a record which you didn't even considered as a well I mean it I think we all just sort of sat back and and looked at it with with a certain kind of healthy sense of irony about the whole thing because um I mean I because I think I think was it would be fairly true to say that the the the people would have bought the album A lot of people would have bought the album on the strength of the the Kylie song and uh and the album isn't really like that at all and so there was a certain kind of satisfaction about um about knowing that you could get uh that we could get our records into into the kind of living rooms of people they where where they would normally where they don't really belong that was quite there's something satisfying in that you know I had very I had little kids come up to me and say you're that old bastard do things with Kylie Mano don't you and stuff like that and but I was kind of for for a week or two was a well-known face around town but that all kind of that all it all sort of settled down back and I'm back you know living in obscurity again that's quite nice as well yeah I I mean can you guys keep it down please could too we actually reserved this area for this time about 10 minutes no a bit longer yeah okay um yeah I mean for you I mean you you always been kind of shy you know and suddenly the spotlight was on you everywhere you had to do all these MTV R coing and when was it been kind of awkward for you was it um all promotion for me is awkward you know it doesn't sit well for me in any in any form whether it's MTV or whether it's this or it's anything it's all uh it's all the same to me it's all um um it's all talking about stuff that actually I'd rather not talk about that I don't really think needs to be talked about I don't really think it does anybody much good me doing you're doing this sort of thing but at the same time um I have a very we I have a very kind of strong working relationship with my record company and and they give me absolute freedom to do whatever I like and the band freedom to do whatever whatever we want to do and um I think part of the kind of deal is that I do a certain amount of promotion so that's that's kind of the way I look at it or Justify doing it really um after the murder ballets which were you know stories and narrative stories which had nothing to do with your life and um I don't know but I mean in a way I thought you might have you exercised in a way this kind of you know storytelling and and your likes of murder stories and stuff and and um and I remember that at the same time you already wrote songs for the Goldman's call do you think that was almost like you exercise one thing to allow the other one really to come up I don't know I think that um um you know the murder ballads was dealing with something that I deal dealt with a lot anyway and and you know always written songs like that and I've been writing songs like that all my life and uh the boatman's call songs were kind of new in in the in that they were they were very much uh tied to to to experience and um there were really a kind of poetic articulation of what was going on in my life and um and that's quite that's that in a way is quite a new thing for me to do I'm to do it so boldly I guess and um so I mean I think that all all my songw writings been kind of heading towards that towards um towards this anyway I think that that when I when I we we put out a record the last record we put out which is the best of record looking at that it made things quite clear to me about what I've actually been banging on about all these years and uh and and I really I think that I have been kind of um trying to write a particular sort of song and uh and probably going going about it in a lot of wrong ways but trying to work out how to write a particular sort of song and um and and and and it is a I'm trying to write um a great love song in some way and um and that's and and I guess that's been my kind of mission in in some sort of a way and that becomes clearer I mean there's been escapades into other things but that's basically what I've been trying to do and um um and I mean I think and and I think that that it just becomes more and more so the more I write more the new stuff that I've been writing becomes more is more along those lines as well really I still have a um I still get a real kick out of uh writing aggressively and violently I still I still of a real fondness for kind of violent language and uh and that always sort of pokes its head in in my most tender of love songs probably but um anyway that's what I've been trying to do I think I mean to me the world call was your most fearless and brave record in many ways um from the singing because you couldn't hide or you didn't hide um behind a lot of instrumentation when you you know you carry all the songs basically with your voice and also from the lyrics and I can imagine I'm inviting them and Performing them but then you have people like me um who ask questions about it and because they are so personal and and so you know natural in a way well the be the beautiful thing about songwriting I think is that um I mean to me to me the the great joy of of songwriting is that that I'm left with these songs I mean the relationships come and go and relationships are very transitory sorts of things and they and they come and go and they lose their importance and um and what obsessed me and kind of uh it was everything in my life a year ago is is absolutely nothing nothing in my life this year and I guess it's the whole nature of the thing but what I get from it is is the songs and the songs are my way of of kind of myth mythologizing my own past and kind of keeping a pulse running through my past so that the songs themselves become they're more real to me than than the actual events themselves um so my kind of past in that way lives on through those songs and I think that's that's the beauty of the whole thing to me um all of my songs uh attach themselves very strongly to particular situations whether I've actually written them about them or not they're they're to me in my mind all attached to to particular situations that have gone on um so that I that that I have the opportunity to kind of reinvent my past and um you mythologize it to make it heroic and to make it bold and to make it uh full of love and and a lot of things perhaps it actually isn't that it isn't like at all how was it then when um you know when these things become ped but I mean we still perform these songs does that bring all this back or do you just translate it to the next person no I don't just translate to the next person but um um I write new songs for for new people but uh the songs the songs themselves are written um the kind of the last thing the songs are written for is to make a record out of them they're generally written two people and uh they're they're written to flatter or to to to take revenge or to hurt or to to to make people feel good or better or um they're they're written for for a host of different reasons but um they they're pretty much written for other people as kind of um gifts in some kind of way um to other people and and so the the the people that they are written for remain attached to those to those songs um um I don't know how to put this really but um I I often found in your songs that there are two ways you write about women there's uh one is very physical you know how you describe it and and then there's a spiritual ones but I hardly find what other ways are there H there are what other ways are there no but they are separate you write you never combine that in one song you I you know and on the vman's call especially it's it's the very the spiritual side is very emphasizing I mean I don't want to say person but even you know you even sense that I mean I think that I think that songs are written in different uh in different feeling in in different ways and I mean um most of my my uh relationships have been quite short and uh that's oh actually that's not true at all so edit that new ones maybe new ones um I don't know I forgot question you see that in the past your your description of women was always very physical you know more certain features I mean you still do that but somehow there's a very spiritual quality in the v call and maybe it's also that forgivingness and the I I I think um describing a woman a woman's physicality or whatever is that's a word physicalness is um is a spiritual thing I didn't mean it that I meant the more the physicality of love you know not the I don't know if that's a word actually should word physicality yeah sorry myish um that's my my English isn't too good either sometimes um I don't know I don't know what you mean actually yeah it's hard to describe but it's just um in a way to me always kind of separated the the the last from the love when I hardly find I don't see any difference I don't I don't I don't see any difference between the two and I don't I certainly don't think that um that uh sex is uh is is non-spiritual I think it's quite the opposite I I think it's the uh um it's about as close to God as you can get I would say um or it can be can be about as far away from it as well well I totally agree on this one um I mean God is something which um you you know I remember we talked a lot about this in the past but um you always kind of kept that a very personal thing but I mean on the last Rec of the bman call I I consider that your last record I know there is a best but that's a combination um you speak very freely about that more though than not so much metaphors I mean really and you also talked in interviews more about it you know so um is that because you kind of sorted it out more for yourself and and feel like you yeah to to degree and I think that um yeah it's become stronger and become a little bit more a little bit more clear about it not not that much clearer but a bit more clearer um and you're going to write about it now right a book you write in a chapter I've written I've written uh quite a lot of stuff about that actually I've written the introduction to um The Gospel According to mark for for um for a publishing company in uh Europe that's um uh that's that's releasing the Bible in separate books I got different people to write the introduction I mean I'm just a bit more um I just feel that I have a bit more authority to talk about that sort of stuff because my beliefs in that sort of things seem to have Consolidated a bit more and not they don't sort of wave around quite so much when after the Goldman's call um was released you were really proud of that record and I mean I know that from the past that usually right after the record comes out you always CR and then I meet you two months later and you already start doubting has that lasted is that record uh no I like this record a lot I think it's a good record um and you also had kind of you were uncertain where it would go from now because it was and it is a change you know I mean it is a beginning of something new for you I think and yeah I mean I think I get I I I get I tend to sort of think that when when I finish a record that that's uh that's it and I can't do anything better and all that sort of stuff and um but you know I mean and then I write new songs and you know and and I mean I don't really I don't really know what the next record will be like at all but I'm writing songs and stuff like that I mean the it also has changed the look of your life performances and um can you describe that a bit and also do you think if that's going to be for future concerts that's kind of an indication that is more going in that direction in what direction well you know the the life has changed very much I don't know I I have my back to the to it most of the time I don't really know what's going on back there but I I I'm told that there's a um there's quite a impressive light show going on and I think we've got I think uh I occasionally turn around and think God those lights look really good which is something I've never done before so that's quite nice um but I think that the the major difference uh that's going on in in the band is there there's well for me anyway it's probably always been this way for the for the musicians but I feel much more um a part of the band much more involved within um musically um you know so I I think that that's that's quite um it seems to be much more concentrated number four has your confidence was that a boost on your confidence that record in regards of songwriting yeah mhm in what way well I just I think I'm uh uh I think I'm able to write I think I'm able to write really good songs and I think that um and I and I think that the songs uh the they they they're good in that I can sit down and there was a piano here I could play most of them and they would work uh in that setting of just in the in the most rarest naked setting um these songs work and and a lot of other songs that I've written depend upon other things they they depend on on aband and kind of energy levels and things like that and these songs these songs work in most yeah basic form so um that's quite pleasing you're going to do a seminar know right yeah it's great yeah I'm teaching that the Poetry Academy I'm going to reintroduce corporal punishment and so for but you're also going to teach them how to write a love song right yeah I'm doing I'm doing U I'm I'm I'm doing uh I have to do a lecture and I have to do uh classes on um teaching on the love song yeah have you ever done something like that no no I haven't should be quite interesting do you teach Luke the piano or an instrument not really no but um I mean you have a really good relationship with luk right and this is the windup question isn't it you hate that question no it's just when they always ask me about my kid at the end and then it's time then it's then that's it kind of glaz over and no it's not um I haven't finished the question and um has I having Luke has that kind of changed your look at your own relationship with your dad you retrospect um yeah I guess it has yeah my father has kind of reared up uh out of uh out of I don't know where over the last few years and I guess that's definitely got to do with me having my own son and um he seems to have his hand in just about everything the moment um it doesn't seem to be anything that I can that that I can do that doesn't doesn't make me more and more like him at the moment I'm maybe teaching now for example teaching so um yeah so yeah he's he's he's become he's become very prominent in my life um I mean he's dead as you know um over the last few years yeah that's quite that's quite interesting right there you go you did So Silent when you talk about him have to kind of move forward to understand um I mean with Luke I mean having children is like I mean their his love to you is kind of unconditional you know they I don't know i' have to ask him that I don't know people say it's unconditional but I think there's quite a few conditions actually as long as I buy him lots of things and play with him all the time and look after him yeah um but how that um has that kind of I mean you always were never really happy with yourself as a person but I mean has that kind of changed to look because I think you're a pretty good dad from that I'm a good yeah I'm a good dad I'm quite good when I'm around I'm really good um I um I mean I spend I I spend a lot of time with him actually um he he lives you know he lives half the time with me um yeah and I seem to do that quite well I seem to have a um I have quite a gift with children in general I think I think I've always been quite good with kids and um I find to be I find being a father really easy I mean I uh I meet other fathers and other parents and um and they seem they they they seem to be kind of exhausted by the whole whole thing and I don't I find it really energizing and um very easy thing to do to be a father are you more happier man nowadays I'm pretty happy at the moment yeah just m Harvey said in an interview that um he thinks you know that you still kind of not really allowing to be calm and happy that you always invite chaos into your life well um but um I think that that's a necessary part of of um my life and and I think I will continue to do that my pet Theory at the moment is that um um I think that the creative sides of ourselves need a certain amount of they they they particularly in what I'm doing um the place where it flourishes uh is is in a state of kind of loss and longing about things I find that that's where my creativity really comes from comes out of and if it isn't there um the the the creative needs within me create that and they create it creates catastrophes in my life um in order that that the creative side of me flourishes um I think that the the creative side of me is is is is also the most destructive side of me um and I don't really go I don't really believe this I don't um I don't really believe that you can get much out of much of substance um out of living a a life that that is um content and I and I know that might sound like a kind of hack need old theory about things but I actually don't really think that um being content with things um creates much space for for the for the the the challenges the creative parts of us um so me I'm you know I'm quite happy to be sad or whatever but actually I'm very happy at the moment things are going really well you look for me yeah I don't know about that but I'm uh healthy I'm not particularly healthy but I'm um I I everything just everything's keeps going really well for for me at the moment and I'm not kind of wanting for anything um so in biblical terms you're going from crucifixion to Resurrection and that Force well it it um it tends to tends to be that way but I've never been I've never been so uh uh complete as I that my life doesn't seem to be so complete as it is at as at the moment ever and uh and that's quite good I don't know how long that will last of course but um that's certainly the way it feels at the moment and on that note one last thing what is the next upcoming SCS for you um well I'm just going to do a lot I'm going to do more writing