Nick Cave explains his “problem with the cancel culture”
In a new interview, Nick Cave explained why he wouldn’t ignore somebody’s art because of a disagreement with their political beliefs and “his problem with cancel culture”.
During a conversation with NME, Cave was asked for his thoughts on whether it was possible for “good art” to “come from nihilism”, which elicited the following response, “I don’t think art can come from nihilism at all.”
Detailing further, he continued: “You’re doing something, and art is in its essence good – it’s morally good. It doesn’t matter where it’s coming from, if you’re putting this particular force out into the world then it is for its betterment.”
As Cave believes art is a force for good, he doesn’t care about the personal opinions of those who make it, as long as he likes what they create. He explained: “It doesn’t bother me if someone wears a For Britain badge [Morrissey] or is an anti-semite or whatever and they’re making extraordinary music”.
He elaborated: “I just think the world is in a fucked up place and we need to rehabilitate the world in some way. Music is at least one good thing we can do. It worries me when music is shut down. ‘Shut that down! Take that one away’! Just because the people who are making it are fucked up individuals.”
On the other hand, Cave admitted: “I don’t separate the artist from the art. I don’t think you can do that, but I think that the art is all that stuff moulded together.” The Bad Seeds frontman also suggested it was “no accident that the really great stuff is often made by the most problematic people.”
Cave concluded: “I just value art and see that the need for it is too urgent to be fucking around and taking this stuff down. That’s where my problem with the cancel culture business begins and ends. It’s not some great fight I’m having with these people. I just worry about the world and we need as much good stuff as possible.”
On the topic of cancel culture, in a recent interview with Unherd, Cave conceded that his classic song ‘Stagger Lee’ is “highly problematic”. The Bad Seeds leader said: “This is a famous Bad Seeds song, and it’s offensive on many, many levels. I won’t go through all the different sorts of people that it offends, but it’s pretty much everybody. It’s a highly problematic song. It is sort of spoken-sung over this crawling, predatory music.”
Listen to ‘Stagger Lee’ below.
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