Nick Cave is my favorite singer and I’ve had three conversations with him.

The first time I talked to Nick Cave was in 1994 at the Fillmore. I interrupted his set.

“Play ‘Hard On for Love’,” I yelled.

“What?” Nick said.

“Play ‘Hard On for Love.’”

“We have our set taken care of, thank you,” he said and I looked at my girlfriend with big hearts in my eyes and my mouth gaping open. She knew I was a huge fan of Nick Cave and I got to speak to him—in front of 1250 people. Me, the irritating fan yelling out songs his band the Bad Seeds normally don’t perform live. But still… we had our moment.

Since then, I’m a little older, used to be a standup comic, and know that being an audience helper or a heckler sucks for the performer. So I don’t yell out song requests these days, just clap and woo-hoo when I approve.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was a project started by Mick Harvey and Nick Cave of the Birthday Party with Blixa Bargeld, the lead singer of Einstürzende Neubauten coming in on guitar. The personnel of the band changed over the years, even including Kid Congo Powers (of the Cramps and Gun Club) for a few recordings and tours. Blixa Bargeld left the Bad Seeds amicably about 20 years after its formation.

The second time I spoke with Nick Cave it was a proper telephone conversation set up by his publicist, who also set up separate phone time with Bad Seed percussionist Jim Sclavunos. This was for their new project Grinderman, which is a quartet that came together during Nick’s solo shows and they released a self-titled CD.

“Hi Tony,” he said and I was already thrown off. Nick just said “Tony.” Addressing me personally.

I was a teenage girl crushing through a crowd to touch the limo that Justin Timberlake was in and screaming and crying in my guts, but my professional journalistic demeanor pathetically squashed that down and I asked my first question really quickly when Nick interrupted me.

“Tony?” he said.

“Yeah?”

“How are you doin’?” He knew I needed to breathe.

“Actually I’m a bit hung over,” I said looking at the beer and a couple of 0.5mg pills of Xanax within reaching distance just in case I had a panic attack talking to my gothic god.

“I see,” Cave said and there was actually a pause of more than 5/10ths of a second on our conversation, and I breathed.

Nick has had a reputation for being difficult during interviews. When asked what one of his songs is about, he sometimes avoids the topic and insults the interviewer. When asked about his personal life, he might give it up or insult you again. During one interview recorded during the documentary The Road to God Knows Where, Nick Cave was on a cell phone speaking to a journalist.

“Wha’?” he says and listens, “Uh, you ask the questions, I really, I’ve just been rung up and told to do an interview… so you ask the questions and I’ll answer them and we’ll have an interview.”

I made sure to have questions that would last two hours if things went at a quick pace because I never wanted him to say that to me; rather, I wouldn’t mind if my favorite singer said anything to me. I’d rather he think of me as a interviewer who does his research so well that he has a depth of knowledge and does this for all his interviews, and is not a gushing Nick Cave fan, even though I really am.

“Are you seeing more mustaches in the crowd at your shows?” I ask.

Silence. I know… it’s a lame question. Oh dear god, hang in there, be a journalist, let the subject think in his mind of a reply, and don’t feel weird when there’s a silence.

“Well, I hope so. You know a man without a mustache is like a woman with one. Have you got one?” Nick asks.

“I do,” I say.

“Well done. I’m actually involved with the European mustache competition; it’s in about two month’s time. I’m one of the judges. I know I’ll be humbled by some of the facial hair that’s going to turn up there… there’s people who spend their entire year growing facial hair for this event and I don’t think it’s anything you’re supposed to take with a sense of humor. People are very serious about them. I’m not actually very serious about mine. Mine is probably going to go at some point. But it’s a serious business, as you know.”

“Yeah, it takes a while to grow,” I say and Nick laughs, either with me or at me.

“Do you have a waife?” he asks.

“I’m sorry?”

“Do you have waife?” he repeats.

“Do I have a what?”

“Waife.”

I realize he’s saying “wife” in his Aussie accent.

“Yes?”

“That’s actually problematic, as well, I find,” Nick says.

“Actually, my wife likes the TV show Deadwood and she wanted me to grow a mustache after watching the show. She thinks it’s sexy.”

“That’s interesting,” Nick says.

“Your wife doesn’t like it?”

“She likes to look at it,” he says.

And Nick and I are bantering about our wives and mustaches. The king of junkie Goth rock who had a reputation for fighting with audience members while in the Birthday Party and an on-again, off-again heroin addiction. And we’re on the phone discussing our marriages.