Grinderman - Minehead, UK - Spring 2007
By: Chris O'Toole
After touring for a number of years with the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have taken a step back towards the primitive, aggressive, nonchalant recording that characterised their work with the Birthday Party. Rockfeedback sat down with the band at the Dirty Three curated All Tomorrows Parties to find out what inspired this change in direction and what the band hoped would happen to the project.
Rockfeedback: You work on so many projects, Dirty Three, Bad Seeds, solo work and now Grinderman, how do you decide which has priority?
NickCave: One of the problems that we are having with multiple projects is that we cannot actually see them through to conclusion. I basically say; 'now we are going to write this record'. I am supposed to be writing the new Bad Seeds records, but this just happened, so I don't really know. It just happens. We just sat down after the hugely enjoyable debut and talked to our booking agent, to see if we can do some shows later in the year, but unfortunately nobody was available at any time, so I don't think we will be doing another Grinderman show for a while.
RFB: Was it hugely enjoyable, the Grinderman show?
NC: It was the most nerve racking thing I've done in thirty five years actually.
Warren Ellis: Good start! (In reference to their failed attempt to play their opening number).
RFB: I thought the idea was for you to be staying away from the keyboard or piano for Grinderman, but it only took you a couple songs to find your way back to the ivories last night.
NC: Well, to an organ. We wanted to take the piano out of it. Well, there is a little piano in one song, but it was more to get it away from the stateliness of the piano, if I may use that term.
WE: The songs aren't based around the piano either, that's what we really wanted to move away from.
RFB: Could you talk us through your relationship with the electric guitar?
NC: I can see this press conference is going to be a mojo sapper! It's a work in progress; I haven't really played it much before. Warren took me to the guitar shop in New York and we bought a guitar. They asked me if I wanted to try it out, and I said no. I took it home, and a month later we recorded Grinderman. When we writing the songs I was never supposed to be the guitarist. I always thought we would get a guitarist, but as it turns out I'm the guitarist.
RFB: What do you think of ATP as an idea?
NC: It's Auschwitz with good music! Luckily we are in the officer's quarters. I think it's fantastic actually. You have got some stuff that a lot of people will have never heard or listen to in their lives, they spend a lot of time trying to work out what they are listening to.
WE: We really didn't know what sort of shape the festival would take. We just wrote a bunch of things down, looked who was dead, who's not dead, and who available. Some people say no and some send you an estimate that's the whole budget of the festival. I will show you my letters of refusal. Leonard Cohen for one, Jerry Lee was too much. I wanted to showcase old people! But also have people that would attract people, but also be honest and representative as well, of the things that have inspired us through our career. People who have been important to us, and I am actually very happy with it, much better than I thought so far; 6000 English people and there don't seem to be any fights.
RFB: Somebody did feint though, during the Dirty Three, I was right at the front and they were being passed over my head.
WE: I should hope so; we are actually a girls band! You're probably one rare exception of a man that likes the Dirty Three.
RFB: How did Bobby Gillespie get involved to play last night?
WE: He just kept phoning up! "Come on man, let me sing, I love the record!" So we found a compromise and put him on percussion. I have known him since last century and he loved the spirit of the new record. But he is not on it this time. Just seemed like a good choice, he just jumps in straight away, no standing back, and looks great too.
NC: The thing about Bobby is that he is so enthusiastic. He just loves rock and roll! He got the record and loved it. He came into the studio when we mixed it.
RFB: What was all that with the apple (after dedicating a song to 'an apple' the previous night)?
WE: Some turd threw an apple at me! Hit me right in the fucking head! I mean, a bottle, fair enough, but an apple? Right in front of my kids! I told my guitar tech to jump into the crowd and kill someone, didn't matter who! It was just indignant! I felt violated. It exploded when it hit my head, so there was apple all over my pedals.
NC: The apple is the original fruit after all. You know about that? From some story long ago.
RFB: Did you manage to catch any of the other acts so far this weekend?
WE: Conway Savage were amazing, Spiritualized and Alan Vega, we love him. All top stuff. I was so tired after watching so much stuff yesterday.
RFB: How do you approach playing two different sets in one day?
NC: He is the curator, so I have to be careful what I say. But I thought we were playing to two different audiences. Last year they didn't have the main stage, so they let two different crowds in on two different nights. But this year we are in the rather strange position of having to play again, to the same people! If indeed any of them actually turn up! With the solo stuff I can just do different songs, and with the Grinderman I can just work on my guitar playing.
WE: Last year when Thurston Moore did it, the smaller stage was the main stage. But they only found out in February that they were going to have that main stage, but by then we had already been booked for the two nights! Nick thinks it's great really.
NC: Last night there was this extraordinary pressure, building all night. Watching other artists play, these amazing people, some top grade shit. So for me, there was an enormous amount of pressure. But that is now done with, so this time we can get down and loosen up a bit. With the Grinderman there was all this stuff, like how does the song go, it was a lot more complicated.
RFB: Do you feel any different between the two sets?
NC: Well, the solo stuff we usually do in a different environment. It is very intimate. But in this situation it probably doesn't translate like it does in those smaller, seated, sorts of venues. There is usually a lot of dialogue with the audience. Then with the Grinderman stuff, there is an urgency; the thing is pretty much on the edge. This is why we are doing it actually.
RFB: What did you go into the studio with as Grinderman?
WE: There were some bits and pieces I guess, Nick had a couple of lines scribbled down...
NC: 'Yeah' and 'Woah'!!!
WE: But we put it all together in the studio. Bashed around for four or five days, see what came out it. Made a load of stuff, maybe fifty or sixty bits of music, and then listened back to it really quickly, really critically.
NC: We were trying to make a record we could listen to at home. With the Bad Seeds I can never do it. It is not the music, but I feel there is so much of myself in there that it is quite painful to listen to. Weirdly enough I can actually go home and put it on, listen to it and enjoy it. That is the first time that has ever happened, at least for a very long time. That is not to say that I don't think the Bad Seeds records are good, but there is just so much of me, about me and my world in there, that I just don't listen.
RFB: Why didn't you play with the Bad Seeds this weekend, they are all here?
WE: We couldn't afford them! Financial problems.
NC: Originally Dirty Three were billed to play and then other members of the group manipulated events to get themselves involved, their other side projects. This is just how it worked out.
RFB: What was it like working with Barry Hogan?
WE: Who's that?
RFB: The organiser of the ATP festival...
WE: Oh, him! He has been fantastic; we have pushed him into a different world, especially with a lot of the jazz stuff. It was an area he had previously had no exposure to at all in the past. But right from the start he was willing to take risks, there was no compromise. He wanted us to put on what we wanted, which was great. He showed a lot of faith in us. A lot of courage. He said himself that this year was a particularly different line-up. I saw a lot of Nick's Meltdown festival and it was so broad, so extreme, and that really influenced a lot of what I wanted to do with this one. I don't really know very much about modern music, who's around, so it kind of reflects that. Also the TV and the films were a real bonus.
RFB: Have you been tempted to appear, as the curator, with other artists?
WE: No, not really. Nobody asked us. It's not supposed to be a celebration of us! Obviously there are some crossovers, Jim (White) played with Nina Nastasia. I didn't feel any desire to get up there and fiddle away on anything, music that I play on is the last thing I want to listen to. I mean, I stopped listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and enjoying it a long time ago. I mean what is to like? But I guess, because the Dirty Three is an instrumental act, a lot of singers have come to ask us, to play with them, and when that happens we see what we can do.
RFB: Do you have any idea when you will be making another Dirty Three album?
WE: Hopefully we will get round to it this year. Jim (White) is just finishing recording with Cat Power, and Mick (Turner) has another exhibition on, and he has to get all his stuff ready for that. And we all live so far apart these days, the same thing, so many things going on, just need to find the time.
RFB: Can I ask Martin and Jim how you feel the Grinderman differs from your other work?
Jim Sclavunos: Yeah, there is a lot of difference. It's a lot more high energy. Gives me an opportunity to bring out my pink wardrobe. We can stretch out a little.
Martin P Casey: With only four people there is a lot more space. That is the main difference. There is a lot area to fill. A lot of the Grinderman material is based around the guitar, rather than the piano, which is it is with the Bad Seeds.
WE: Usually Nick comes in with a handful of songs and we work out how to play them. That was not the case this time, we all had a lot more input on the song writing process. It was a lot less formal, a lot less considered. We were trying to find what sort of sound we had, what sort or music we had there. We knew it had to be short and to the point. Under forty minutes.
RFB: And finally, did you see Australia win the cricket yesterday?
NC/WE: No.
Artists in this article: Grinderman