Nick Cave (AU)

About

Also known as: Edward Cave, Nic Cave, Nicholas Cave, Nicholas Edward, Nicholas Edward Cave, Nick Caeve, Nick Kave, Nik Cave, ニック・ケイヴ

Nick Cave has built one of rock's most singular careers by refusing to stay still. The Australian singer and writer fronted The Birthday Party, the ferociously dark post punk act that helped give gothic rock its blueprint, before forming Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in 1984. With the Bad Seeds he carved out a world soaked in Old Testament fury, Delta blues mythology and an obsessive circling of death, love and violence, all delivered in that unmistakable baritone. "The Mercy Seat" remains his signature song, later covered by Johnny Cash and Metallica, which says something about the breadth of its reach. Over the decades Cave has kept expanding his frame. He co wrote and scored the gritty prison film Ghosts of the Civil Dead, wrote the Australian western The Proposition, and has racked up a string of acclaimed film scores with Warren Ellis. His novels, two of them now, sit alongside the music as genuine literary work. The Bad Seeds' 2019 album Ghosteen, shaped by the grief of losing his son Arthur, marks one of the most emotionally raw records of his career, and the band's 18th album Wild God followed in 2024.