Demon preacher sees the light

Nick Cave

It's friday night and I'm waiting for Nick Cave to call. It makes a nice change. Usually, I watch Trinny and Susannah on the telly and burp the baby a lot.

There's also the small fact that I've dreamed of talking to Nick Cave - as have so many of the women in his audiences. Certainly the one who, at a Sydney concert, yelled out "I love you Nick."

Cave: "I'm married."

Fan: "I love you more than your wife."

It was obvious he doubted it, but he was a good sport. Like that fan, I always thought we'd get on like Posh and Becks - pre-Rebecca Loos - if only we could speak.

So here I am at a few minutes to nine, lining the pens up on my desk and breathing into a paper bag. I'm also marvelling about my good fortune that the office was short-staffed and desperate for someone familiar with his music and no social life ... when, brnng, brnng. Nick. Cave. Is. Calling. Me. All the way from London. I don't care if it's just to talk about the Abattoir Blues Tour.

It's the first time in more than 10 years that Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have headlined here. Both the Auckland concert at the St James on May 13 and the Wellington concert the day before have sold out. He hasn't been intentionally avoiding us but, as this is an extendion of his Australian tour, he's managed to make it include us and says it will be a pleasure. Not that he's spent much time here but he does remember it being a beautiful place. So polite.

The European tour of the band's 13th album, Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus, and what we're about to see, had critics raving both about the music and the performances. Because of the two-album sets' heavy use of gospel singers, he's bringing four on tour, as well as the full eight-member Bad Seeds lineup. "I haven't actually rehearsed with the band for this particular tour so I don't quite know what we're doing, but I imagine there will be a lot of new material," he says.

"The Bad Seeds don't rehearse much. We like things to be loose and have a sense of adventure."

He'd like to play a few songs from the newly released B-Sides and Rarities three-CD boxed set, which is his favourite Bad Seeds album. It includes 56 songs, spanning the band's 21-year history, including acoustic versions of Deanna and The Mercy Seat, the duet of Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World with Pogues' frontman Shane MacGowan and a version of Where the Wild Roses Grow with former Bad Seed Blixa Bargeld singing Kylie Minogue's part.

"I love the record," says Cave, his Aussie vowels softened by years in Britain. "It's the only one I can play without wanting to throw up. I can't really remember recording a lot of it so I don't have any memories attached to it.

"For one reason or another it didn't feel appropriate for them to go on the record that we were working on at the time. Either you think they're not good enough or they're too light, too heavy or whatever. They're songs you never hear of again, so to me, they're just a whole treasure-trove of songs. It was like listening to some other band when I put it on and listened to it. A really good band."

And while he doesn't have much interest in listening to the rest of his output, performing is different, partly because the recordings are just a blueprint and Cave and the band keep themselves entertained by performing them differently live.

At 47, age hasn't made him more sedate or any less noisy than his early post-punk Birthday Party days. "I love performing. I can get to be that person I always wanted to be - godlike."

See the performance. Then buy the souvenir Lyre of Orpheus teatowel. Cave is hoping the teatowel that sold in Europe will also be on sale here.

"They're a beautiful thing," he laughs. "I'm a big fan of teatowels and am always on the lookout for a good one."

He may have plenty but he's not admitting to being a domestic god and using them himself. "I've seen them used around the house."

Fair enough. It's hard to imagine the Prince of Darkness, demon preacher and whatever else he's been called over the years, responsible for a socially phobic old flatmate shutting himself in his bedroom listening to Birthday Party and Bad Seeds' records over and over, drying the plates.

Today though, you'd hardly credit him as the eternal pessimist with a line in murder ballads: "I'm looking out the window. The sun's shining. The bees are buzzing. Life's good."

These days, work is pretty much a nine-to-five thing in an office away from the Brighton home he shares with wife Susie and their twin sons.

"I work all the time so I need to do other things. I'm just not happy with the idea of writing 13 songs every three years. I love to work and I've got a great job."

He's working on his second script at the moment. Although it's very hush-hush, his first, a bushranger movie called The Proposition, is due for release in Australia in August.

"It's much easier to write a script than a song. A script is a few characters.

"It's one idea and you take it through to the end, whereas with a song, you constantly have to start a new song again. You're always going back to the original creation."

So far, so good. I don't think he's worked out I'm the fashion editor and, while I should doubtless be asking about his musical influences, I really want to know where he shops. He does, after all, dress a lot better than your average T-shirt-and-jeans rocker.

But I risk sounding like Bridget Jones in her second diary when she interviews Colin Firth and repeatedly asks him about the wet-shirt scene he did as Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.

So I refrain from asking for some of his wardrobe no-no's and how come he's the only person in the world - brides aside - who manages to pull off white shoes, instead asking about those trademark suits.

Pause. "George, is there an ashtray there, mate, or a cup or something?"

Hmm. Not something he's asked often then.

Another pause.

"I've always worn suits. To me they're a very practical kind of thing to wear. You put one on and don't really have to think about what you're going to wear.

"You have four suits in your wardrobe and your choice is limited. A little guy in Berwick St in London has been doing my suits for 30 years but I won't tell you his name. A gentleman never talks about his tailor."

He may be joking about the tailor, but it's best not to mention the wild years, especially the legend that has him writing lyrics with his own blood from a needle.

He's read it all before. As he told the Daily Telegraph, the blood coagulates in the syringe so you'd have about 30 seconds maximum.

"It's boring and tedious. The only memories you have are the ones you read about yourself in the newspapers. You start to think they're true."

How about this for a memory then: what a nice chat with that lovely woman from the New Zealand Herald. She didn't seem at all shallow. If only.