After 21 highly eventful years, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds are currently in the richest and most prolific form of their lives. Last year’s double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus saw Cave’s songwriting hit a new level of finesse, while the Bad Seeds (even without the input of recently departed founder member Blixa Bargeld) sounded re-energised and almost impenetrably tight. With the band due to play their final UK shows of the year at the end of the summer, RC spoke to Mick Harvey – the only remaining original member and musical centre-point of the Bad Seeds – about his opinions on both the band’s back-catalogue and his new solo album.
THE DEATH OF THE PARTY
Before The Bad Seeds had been planted, Mick Harvey and Nick Cave were busy cementing their musical relationship in the insanity stricken melée known as The Birthday Party. Formed in Australia under the moniker of The Boys Next Door, Cave, Harvey, bassist Tracey Pew, guitarist Rowland S. Howard and drummer Phill Calvert decamped to London at the start of the 1980s in hope of finding some more sympathetic ears for their ferociously unhinged avant-goth sound.
But as Harvey notes, the notoriety they gained for their incendiary and intensely confrontational live shows began to backfire, as reports of violence between band members and audience soon overtook what The Birthday Party were doing musically. “It was something that the press seized on,” he states with a clear sense of annoyance. “It makes much better copy to write about some guy pulling out an iron bar and waving it at Tracy’s head or someone else getting kicked in the face. But the actual percentage of gigs we did when things like that happened was pretty low.” With their initial impact beginning to wane after a couple of years, Harvey is credited with being the first to make movements toward disbanding the band in 1983. “We were such an explosive group that we weren’t gonna be able to keep that up anyway, plus I don’t think Nick really liked the music that The Birthday Party made that much anyway. He and Roland hadn’t had the best of relationships in the last 12 months and it was generally going a bit stale. It needed a shake-up and what better way to do that than to split?” Their legacy is perhaps that they haven’t got one – no-one either before or since has managed to recreate The Birthday Party’s sonic chaos, and it would be a foolhardy thing for any new band even to try.
“THEIR LEGACY IS THAT THEY HAVEN’T GOT ONE”
Q&A MICK HARVEY
As keen followers will note, Mick Harvey has been issuing albums under his own name for many years. As well as the filmscore albums Alta Marea And Vaterland (1993), Chopper(2000) and the awardwinning Australian Rules (2002), the original Bad Seed has also recorded two collections of Serge Gainsbourg songs translated into English. But with the forthcoming One Man’s Treasure, Harvey is at long last issuing his first fully-fledged solo effort of original material. As he explains to RC, it could (and probably should) have happened a lot sooner…
Do you rate this as your first album?
It depends on how you look at it. With all the other albums, they seemed more like projects, and in the case of the Gainsbourg collections, obviously I was handling someone else’s work but this is definitely the first album that feels like it’s all mine.
Do you feel your voice is as strong as it could be?
I suppose it could be stronger in places, but I actually sang a lot of the lyrics on the album quite gently on purpose, as a way of helping everything fit together. A lot of the arrangements are quite soft so I couldn’t really have my voice dominating everything. There’s an element of vulnerability to the way I sing, which reflects the lyrical content of human frailty, love, loneliness and issues of that kind. A lot of people in the songs are searching in vain for the meaning of it all – it’s a common theme on the album, I would say.
It almost sounds like a Bad Seeds album when you describe it like that.
Well, I’m a big fan of Nick’s songwriting and I’m not in the band by default – it’s because of a strong commonality. A lot of the things he writes about resonate with me and that’s why we’ve been able to work together for so long. I don’t think it’s that much of a surprise to find similarities between this album and the Bad Seeds’ stuff.
Are you prepared for the inevitable comparisons?
Actually, I hadn’t thought about it until just now. Part of the reason that I did those soundtrack projects and Gainsbourg tribute albums was because they weren’t like proper solo albums and I could completely avoid any comparisons with Nick’s work. For the most part that worked, but I might be in for an ugly surprise when the reviews for One Man’s Treasure come out (laughs). I expect I’ll be there going… “Oh Christ, another fucking article talking about Nick again”.
At times like this, do you ever regret not releasing more solo material?
When I look back now, I realize that I could have prioritised things better but it’s too late now. I don’t regret the stuff I did with Polly Harvey, for example, but perhaps more the Crime And The City Solution material because at the time I was in two full-time bands and I probably could have done without one of them. It was pretty draining on every level – personally, professionally, socially – and it didn’t leave me any time to do things on my own. In hindsight I wish I’d stayed in The Bad Seeds and done more on my own instead of sacrificing so much for some people who, dare I say, probably didn’t deserve it. Regrets, I have a few, but then again, a couple worth mentioning… (laughs).
So what does Nick think of the album?
I’ve only got one line from him so far, which he sent in an email, and he doesn’t send too many emails so I guess I should just be pleased at that. He just said “I really like the album, Mick” but I didn’t get any more from him as yet. He probably hates it but although his and the rest of the band’s opinions matter to me, I can’t worry about them liking it. I’m more worried about me liking it. Which I do by the way…
