Tom Waits presents Nicolas Cage with lifetime achievement award
Although rarely seen in public these days, the reclusive singer-songwriter Tom Waits emerged this week to present actor Nicolas Cage with a lifetime achievement award during the SFFilm Awards ceremony in San Francisco.
The pair have been friends and artistic collaborators for several decades. Waits recalled that they co-starred in Rumble Fish, a 1983 movie directed by Cage’s esteemed uncle, Francis Ford Coppola.
“He was the same as a teenager,” Waits said during his speech, as quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle. “It was troublesome for his family and other people around him. He needed some kind of a swimming pool to put that [talent] all in, and I’m sure glad that he has that now.”
Waits noted that he and Cage went back further than 1983, however. Before they shared the screen together, Cage had worked as Waits’ personal driver and formed a tight bond.
Years later, when Cage was a star in his own right, Waits was inspired to write the Bone Machine cut ‘Eyeball Kid’ while remembering a conversation he’d had with Cage about his love for comic books.
Cage has previously called Waits a close friend and his musical “hero” in an interview with the NME.
Last week, Waits made it to the headlines with a touching tribute to Shane MacGowan. The Pogues frontman sadly passed away on November 30th. “Ah, the blessings of the cursed,” Waits wrote in a social media post. “Shane McGowan’s torrid and mighty voice is mud and roses punched out with swaggering stagger, ancient longing that is blasted all to hell. A Bard’s bard, may he cast his spell upon us all forevermore.”
Listen to Tom Waits’ Nicolas Cage-inspired song, ‘Eyeball Kid’, below.
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