Nick Cave struggled with his mental health recording album after son’s death

The rocker admits throwing himself back into work after his son died made his mental health worse. Photo / Getty Images

Nick Cave regrets ploughing ahead with recording an album in the aftermath of his son’s death because it made his mental health “worse”.

The 66-year-old rocker was working on Skeleton Tree — his 16th album with his band the Bad Seeds — in 2015 when his 15-year-old son, Arthur, fell from a cliff near the family home in Brighton, England, and Nick went ahead with work on the record despite his grief, even changing some of the songs to reflect themes of loss.

However, he now wishes he had not thrown himself back into the project so soon because it worsened his suffering. He told the Sunday Times: “That is the only album that made matters worse — my mental health was made worse because I did it very soon after my son died, and I shouldn’t have done.”

The album was released in 2016, a little more than a year after Arthur’s death.

During the interview, the musician went on to talk about how he’s doing almost a decade on from the tragedy.

Skeleton Tree was released a little more than a year after Arthur’s death. Photo / Snapchat

Nick admitted he and his wife Susie Bick have managed to find some happiness again, but they will never have “closure” following the loss of Arthur and the subsequent death of the rocker’s elder son Jethro from a previous relationship who passed away aged 31 in 2022.

He explained: “I’m very uncertain about what happens after you die, but it concerned me how the spirit of Arthur would feel if he saw the misery his mother and father were going through because of his passing ... One thing we can say to him now is that things are okay. I say that cautiously.

“There’s no closure. Things haven’t settled back to the place they were before Arthur or Jethro died. However, we are happy.”