Nick Cave says the loss of his sons shook him out of his previous “disgraceful self-indulgence”. Photo / ABC
Nick Cave says the loss of his sons shook him out of his previous “disgraceful self-indulgence”. Photo / ABC
In a candid new interview with Leigh Sales, music legend Nick Cave opens up about the two family tragedies he’s endured in the past decade.
The Australian music legendopens up about the death of two of his sons in an emotional new TV interview airing tonight on the ABC.
For the latest episode of Australian Story, Cave sits down with journalist Leigh Sales and explains how his life was forever altered by the death of his sons: first Arthur in 2015, aged 15, then Jethro in 2022, aged 31.
Before Arthur’s tragic death – he fell from a cliff near the family’s seaside home in Brighton, England after he had taken LSD – Cave lived life “in awe of [his] own genius,” he told Sales.
“I just saw the folly of that... disgraceful sort of self-indulgence,” Cave said.
“I’m a father and I’m a husband and a grandfather and a kind of person of the world. These things are much more important to me than the concept of being an artist.”
Seven years after Arthur’s death, another of Cave’s sons, former runway model Jethro Lazenby, died days after he’d been released from prison in Melbourne. He’d been in jail for a month after assaulting his mother.
In a moving interview with The Guardian earlier this year, Cave spoke about his new exhibition of ceramic sculptures and revealed that they “tell a story about a man’s culpability in the loss of his child, and addressing that in a way I wasn’t really able to do with music. That’s what happened without any intention”.
That confession prompted the journalist to ask if Cave “feels culpable” in the death of his sons.
Jethro Cave died in 2022 at the age of 31, shortly after being released from jail. Photo / Getty Images
“I think it’s something that people who lose children feel regardless of the situation, simply because the one thing you’re supposed to do is not let your children die,” Cave said.
“Forget that. The one thing you’re supposed to do is protect your children.”
Cave has two other sons: Luke, who was born 10 days after his half-brother Jethro to Cave’s then-wife, Brazilian journalist Viviane Carneiro. Luke was born in Brazil before moving to the UK, where he now works as the frontman for alternative band Cavey.
After relationships with Lane, Carneiro and fellow musician P.J. Harvey, Cave settled down with model Susie Bick in 1997 and the couple wed two years later.
In a 2017 interview about her fashion label – aptly titled The Vampire’s Wife – Bick said that her creativity had been a way for her to deal with her grief.
“I’ve always wanted to make beautiful things, but at the same time, it’s about not wanting to be a victim of what happened to Arthur, not wanting to be paralysed for the rest of my life. And, of course, wanting to show Earl the best way I can survive this. We had to keep it together for him and not let him feel scared he was losing his parents,” she said.
