Nick Cave claims grief stopped him living with a “disgraceful sort of self-indulgence”
Nick Cave has spoken about the impact of grief not only on his outlook on life but his outlook on his own artistry, claiming that the devastating experiences of his son’s deaths transformed his view on his work.
Tragically, Cave’s son, Arthur, passed away in 2015, which changed the singer-songwriter’s life forever. The Australian has been very open about his grief, which helped mould the 2019 album, Ghosteen. Furthermore, Cave began a frequent dialogue with his fans through his The Red Hand Files newsletter, with no topic off-limits, and covering everything from his favourite podcast to memories of his late son.
Now, in a new interview with Australian Story, Cave admitted that before the death of Arthur, “I was in awe of my own genius.” Throughout his role in The Birthday Party and for the decades he’s spent as one of the most revered names in rock, Cave claimed that music was always the focus, with his personal life merely simply orbiting around art as the main focus of his world.
However, in the wake of the death of Arthur in 2015, he said that his way of living “collapsed completely”. The musician added, “I just saw the folly of that … disgraceful sort of self-indulgence.”
In 2022, Cave’s life was impacted by devastating grief once again as his son, Jethro Lazenby, died. In the aftermath of these two incredible losses, Cave found himself totally reevaluating his life, his role within it and what he wanted his focus to be, causing his priority to shift from simply being an artist to being more than that.
“I’m a father and I’m a husband and a grandfather and a kind of person of the world. These things are much more important to me than the concept of being an artist,” he said. This is a thought Cave has explored time and time again now, regularly writing about it on his Red Hand Files. He also spoke about it in depth in his 2022 documentary, This Much I Know To Be True, as a follow-up to the emotive and freshly grieving piece, One More Time With Feeling.
The result, having navigated these incredibly difficult experiences, is that the musician has been asking, “What exactly is Nick Cave?” While most would know him as an artist, an early punk, a writer and a performer, none of that is enough for him now. Instead, he’s looking for a more balanced life between his role as an artist and as a person. “That idea, that art sort of trounces everything, it just doesn’t apply to me anymore,” he said.
Nevertheless, that isn’t to say that Cave is done with his duties as a musician or isn’t still deeply inspired. Wild God, his 18th album with the Bad Seeds, is set for release on August 30th, after which the band will set out on tour to bring their new record. It’s clear that music still powers Cave forward, but after a string of personal tragedies, he’s no longer willing to exist only for art, and the musician is unwilling to solely be defined by his craft.
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