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Lazarus rises again at Nick's call for band's new album
WITH slicked-back jet-black hair and moustachioed mouth, there's something of Saturday Night Fever about Nick Cave.
But his image belies a darker canon of works, ranging from Old Testament damnation "A eye for an eye / a tooth for a tooth" (The Mercy Seat from Tender Prey) to the fragile, religion-tinged Into my Arms from The Boatman's Call (1997), whose softly-sung lyrics could woo the coldest of hearts: "Into my arms/Oh Lord."
Now Cave is celebrating the critical acclaim amassed by his 2008 album Dig Lazarus Dig, a gritty, riff-tinged work that took only five days to record and produce. The album is marked by shrewd Tom Waits-like lyrical characterisations – "Larry made his nest up in the autumn branches" – and punchy drumming.
Cave says "I wanted to make, on the new Bad Seeds record, an acoustically-driven record that was at the same time electric, so that the basis of the sound was acoustic guitar, drums and bass."
The album's title was taken from the New Testament figure, Cave said: "The figure of Lazarus always worried me. There was kind of Christ's miracle, but it kind of traumatised me a bit, about Lazarus and how he would feel and this guy being raised up from the tomb and wandering around. You never really find out what happened to him or even if he particularly liked the experience."
"The characters in the record are kind of asleep and hypnotised and in states of apathy, in comas and kind of generally not functioning particularly well.
"Some are dead and the kind of the Lazarus figure seems like the right figure as the guide through a kind of dream world, a neurotic dream world, which this record seems to me to be."
James Sclavunos, Bad Seeds drummer, describes Dig Lazarus, Dig as possessing a "more groove and rhythm sections," where other albums have been piano-led.
Sclavunos describes working with the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds as an "infrequent pleasure but when we do get together it's pretty intense."
He has been playing in the Bad Seeds since 1994, although he met Cave long before that.
"When Cave was in Birthday Party I was playing in Lydia Lunch on the same bill. When I met Cave he was ensconced in a pedal trash bin, though he doesn't have any memory of this."
This week Cave and the Bad Seeds play at the Carling Academy as part of a very brief UK tour – Sheffield is one of only six UK dates. Sclavunos says the set is likely to be "a smattering of old and new – we usually like to pull out the old numbers."
Cave might be 50 years old but his career is far from stagnating. Where his early days with the Bad Seeds were marked by heroin abuse, his current lifestyle is the polar opposite – Cave sets out to work early each morning in his office, attached to his home in Hove, East Sussex. He doesn't take drugs, drink or smoke.
But his sober, structured lifestyle has been long in waiting.
Born and raised in rural Victoria, Australia, he was an unruly child, a fact that led his schoolteacher father and librarian mother to send him to boarding school in Melbourne.
After leaving school Cave was still attracted to rebellion. At 19 years old his mother had to bail him out after he was taken to the police station. It was here that Cave learned of his dad's death, caused by a car crash.
Perhaps his turbulent history has contributed to his unpredictable style which, according to the artist, can be divided into the categories Old Testament and New Testament.
"After a while I started to feel a little kinder and warmer to the world, and at the same time started to read the New Testament," he said.
Sclavunos describes Cave as being "very driven – I don't know what makes him tick exactly but he's got a very big work ethic.
"He is adamant about achieving his goal. I wouldn't want to speculate about his personal history, I wouldn't want to be an armchair psychologist."
As for the jet-black hair, Sclavunos says: "It feeds directly on his soul – his roots suck up the darkness and sprout out that black hair."
Nick Cave plays at the Academy on Thursday (November 27).
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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