Cuz: It’s time to welcome Melbourne’s favourite son Nick Cave.

Nick: What's that? I’m Melbourne’s favourite what?

Cuz: Melbourne’s favorite son.

Nick: Oh! Son. How sweet.

Cuz: Since you released ‘The Boatman’s Call’ what has Nick Cave been up to?

Nick: I’ve been doing lectures in London and I’ve been touring around with my little band, whatever they’re called around Europe and so on. I put on a festival called ‘The Meltdown Festival’ in London which was 10 days of extraordinary music, painting and film and so on. I got married, that was good. I don’t know. Stuff like that. Written a bunch of good songs, it’s been a good year actually. 

Cuz: The transition between your albums ‘The Murder Ballads’ and ‘The Boatman’s Call’ was a real contrast. Where did the idea come about to do such a stripped down sound with ‘The Boatman’s Call’?

Nick: It pretty much came about just sitting down at the piano and writing these songs and seeing that they worked in that basic form. That the songs didn’t need a lot of embellishment. I sat down in the studio and played them and sang them. I think we were recording something else and I did them at that time. Martin P. Casey played a bit of bass while I was playing the songs and we listened to them back and they sounded great exactly as they were. They didn’t need a lot of decoration and we tried to stay faithful to that.   

Cuz: You’ve made an extreme shift to the other side of the spectrum to go from the intense ‘Murder Ballads’ to the dare I say sweet sounding ‘Boatman’s Call’.. If I can call it sweet.

Nick: You can call it what you like Mr Creep.

Cuz: Have you had a chance to hear ‘Jimmy Little’s version of ‘Are you The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?’ ?

Nick: I have and I love it, it’s beautiful. I think he did a beautiful job of that.

Cuz: You appeared in two films around the same time ‘Wings of Desire’ and ‘Ghosts of the Civil Dead’. Have you had any other film offers?

Nick: Yeah. I get offered lots of film parts actually and turn them down pretty much. I don’t really have much interest in doing that sort of thing. I sort of see that as being an indulgence of my younger years. I don’t really enjoy it that much. 

Cuz: Your performance in ‘Ghosts of the Civil Dead’ was impressive.

Nick: Well, that was great, I was given pretty much free reign in that part and was allowed to do what I liked. There just a kind of gap in the script I was supposed to come on and scream racial abuse at someone, run around and all that sort of stuff. And it was really enjoyable, but flicks like that don’t come about very often.

Cuz: The last few times you’ve toured has been part of The Big Day Out. Do you still get cultural cringe when you come back to Australia? 

Nick: I never suffered that, I love Australia very much. I’m aching to get back to Australia. The older I get the more I wonder why I ever left actually. 

Cuz: At one time in Australia you were part of the absolute fringe with your earlier work and you’ve now gained a very middle audience…

Nick: What does that mean?

Cuz: Well maybe the track you did with Kylie helped..

Nick: Well maybe. I don’t really know what my profile is like over there. For me I’ve always been Nick Cave and I don’t really know. I think if it was because of that then that would have been sad and I think that in a lot of ways it’s unfortunate that it has taken so long for that sort of thing to happen in Australia. I'm not really saying that from my point of view, so much as for a lot of other bands that are there who I think should be recognized much more than they are. And they should be household names, I don’t really know to be honest. 

Cuz: What about writing, any chance of a follow up to ‘The Ass Saw the Angel’?

Nick: No. I haven't written any other fiction. I've written quite a few lectures about things which get published and that I’ve preformed. But I stay away from fiction, I don’t really read fiction any more and I don’t have much interest in writing it. I've been writing a lot of songs and that’s been really good. That’s pretty much what I spend my time doing these days. I think I kind of got over the idea of wanting to write another book. I think I wasn’t really writing that sort of stuff for myself, it wasn’t what I really wanted to do. I’m still very happy about being a song writer and feel very proud to be a song writer and that’s kind of what I’m concentrating on.

Cuz: Which artists would you say have inspired you or influenced you over the years?

Nick: I’ve always had an interest in certain country music singers I guess Johnny Cash being a particular favourite of mine. Certain blues singers Leadbelly or Johnny Lee Hooker and they’ve had a massive influence over what I’ve done. Lyrically in the way they phrase their stuff in the sounds of their voices and the kind of music that they play. So they’ve had a huge impact on me. 

Cuz: Why has the bible been such a major source of material for your songs?

Nick: Have you ever read it?

Cuz: Yeah I was forced to a while back but…um

Nick: Maybe it’s time to read it again. It’s a extraordinary book. Perhaps if you can let go of the way it was presented to you and see it of what it actually is. It’s the most extraordinary piece of writing you could ever want to read. And I am very influenced by what I read as well across the board really. 

Cuz: So what then was the inspiration initially for ‘Murder Ballads’?

Nick: Well, I don’t really remember. What happened with that record we were making before that, I had written were I guess ‘murder ballads'. They were two very very long songs ‘Nellie’s Bar’ and ‘Song of Joy'. They were great songs and they were floating around but they didn’t fit thematically on that record. So we decided to write a whole album of murder ballads in order so those songs could be released in some way. It’s a kind of pretty dubious idea to begin with. We approached the idea with a sense of humor and made I believe essentially a comic record. I love that record the freedom that we were given in order to make it. Because we didn’t approach the record so seriously which it would be the death of great music. Seriousness. We approached it with a lot of fun and passion and we made a really good record. I think a really strange record.

Cuz: The ‘Stagger Lee’ track is a cack!

Nick: Well it is yes.

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