Nick Cave dabbled in acting. He played a part in the film he helped write called Ghosts… of the Civil Dead, directed by John Hillcoat, who also directed Nick’s script, The Proposition.

In 1987, he and the Bad Seeds played themselves performing at a bar in the final scenes of Wim Wenders’ film Wings of Desire.

When I interviewed Wenders for another film he was promoting, I brought up Berlin of the mid-‘80s and Nick Cave, and Wenders said, “Now ve are talking… I was a huge fan of the Birthday Party, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were big underground heroes in Berlin. Nick was grunge before it was even coined, that phrase. And to make a movie in Berlin in 1986, without Nick, for me that was inconceivable. I saw them play every week; they’d play all of the clubs. I knew Nick a little bit, as well as the guys in his band.”

Regarding filming Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for Wings of Desire, Wenders says, “One of the greatest moments of my life was when I had all of my favorite musicians in front of me… I’ve remained friends with Nick ever since, in fact, I don’t think I’ve worked with anyone as often on as many soundtracks. Nick worked on Faraway, So Close, he wrote a song for Until the End of the World, he appeared again in Soul of a Man, and only with Bono have I worked more together in musical terms.

“Nick is one of my greatest friends and one of my favorite singers, and it’s amazing how much better and better he gets, both as a singer and as a songwriter.”

Nick Cave had a part in Tom DiCillo’s first film, Johnny Suede, which starred Brad Pitt. Cave played a
n albino singer named Freak Storm. DiCillo wrote the script that happened to be on a friend’s coffee table at a house in Berlin where Nick was crashing at. Nick read the script and called DiCillo and asked if he could play Freak Storm.

“One night I’m at home, it’s about midnight and my phone rings, I pick it up,” DiCillo says, then mimics Nick Cave’s Aussie accent, ‘Hello is Tom there?’ Yeah, this is Tom. ‘Tom it’s Nick Cave.’” Then Tom goes on to talk about Nick’s interest in playing Freak.

There’s a song that Nick has to sing in the film called “Momma’s Boy”, written by DiCillo, which goes like this: “I was born in a motel room / The night daddy lost his job / Just after one he pulled a gun / And blew the brains out of some poor slob / They call me momma / They call me momma / They call me momma’s boy / But I don’t care / I’ll be a momma / I’ll be a momma / I’ve been a momma’s boy / Since daddy got the electric chair.”

“After Nick said yes (to Johnny Suede) I got a phone call from him,” DiCillo says, then mimics Nick’s accent again, “’Tom I don’t think I can sing your song, Momma’s Boy.’ I said why not? ‘The lyrics are just too stupid.’ Part of me was a little pissed off because they’re supposed to be stupid, so I said, ‘Nick, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you write your own lyrics? Write your own lyrics, let’s see what we get.’

“He sends this audio tape. I wish to Christ I saved it. I don’t know why I was so stupid, but I lost it. It was him singing his lyrics, and they are so pretentious, and so heavy, and like, serious, and then he stops and you hear him on the tape and he goes, ‘You know, Tom, I think I’m just going to sing your lyrics, because mine are even more stupid than yours.’”

I asked Nick about his part in DiCillo’s film and how DiCillo really loved his performance and working with him on Johnny Suede.

“I thought I was a bit of a disaster in that film,” Cave says.

We’re probably not going to see Nick on the big screen again since he’s not interested in acting again. “I get sent a lot of scripts and offers but I don’t really enjoy it, actually.”

Nick Cave has stayed junkie skinny even though he’s been off of heroin for a while. He still smokes, though, so I asked the question written in my notes that I was pretty scared to ask.

“Nick, how do you stay so skinny?”

“I don’t know. I’m just lucky I guess, a fast metabolism, something like that. I just eat what I want and don’t exercise. That’s my dieting tip, eat what you want and don’t exercise.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and we say goodbye.

Grinderman performed at the Great American Music Hall. It was brilliant. They did all the tracks off the Grinderman record and said good night. Then came back out and did a set of Bad Seeds material, including “Jack the Ripper”, “Red Right Hand”, and special guest singer Blixa Bargeld came out to sing “The Weeping Song”, though Bargeld was way out of time with the rest of the band and forgot lyrics and Nick kept laughing and pulling Bargeld towards his keyboards where the lyrics were.

The next night they performed at Slim’s and seemed looser. It could’ve been they finally got some sleep. We were really close to the stage for both shows. The second night someone threw a cigarette to the stage and Nick picked it up to smoke it, but smelled it first and said:

“Is this menthol? I don’t mind dying of cancer, but I won’t die of frostbite.”

There was a guy next to me yelling for an old Birthday Party song whenever there was a silence in the crowd.

“’Sonny’s Burning’,” he kept yelling, to the point where even I was getting irritated.

“You want to hear Birthday Party,” Nick said and pointed directly at me.

The third time I talked to Nick Cave was at the Grinderman show at Slim’s.

“Me?” I pointed at myself.

“Yeah, fucking you,” he replied.

“Sure,” I said, because I would love to hear some Birthday Party.

“What other song do you want to hear?” I never considered I’d be in a situation where Nick Cave would solicit my advice on what songs he should play without any instigation from me. I felt it appropriate to yell out a request.

“’Deep in the Woods,’” I said.

“Your beard is pathetic,” he replied.

I felt tears start to well up but, through years of therapy, I’ve learned how to deal with my emotions. Within seconds I moved from denial (oh no he didn’t), to anger (how dare Nick Cave think he has any right to say anything about the way my beard looks), to bargaining (Nick may have had a rough day, noticed my beard was sweaty from the crowd and heat, and it could be misshaped, and I am at the wrong place at the wrong time), to depression (Nick thinks my beard is pathetic, I’m ugly, and he’s absolutely right), to acceptance (Nick still thought I was the guy yelling out requests, and it was Nick’s way of giving a dig to someone who was interrupting his performance).

Nick and my eyes didn’t part while I went through all the emotions in my heart and mind, and I quickly forgave him and I mouthed I love you and pointed to my eye, making a heart shape with my fingers and pointing at him.

“I love you too,” he said, “I’m sure you’re a nice person,” he commented, hopefully figuring out by that point that I wasn’t the guy obnoxiously yelling out Birthday Party requests, who, by the way, didn’t make a peep for the rest of the show after Nick and me, you know, talked.

After they performed all the Grinderman material, Nick and the guys came out for an encore of material from the Bad Seeds. Nick pointed at me and said, “This is for you,” and I said, “Thank you.” And before performing “Henry Lee”, a duet he sang with PJ Harvey, whom he had an affair with for a while, he said, “This is the song that made PJ Harvey’s career.”

There were some guffaws and ughs from the crowd, as well as laughter. Then Nick added:

“This song’s for her.” Beat. “No, it’s not.”

They played “Henry Lee”, “Red Right Hand”, “Lucy”, “The Ship Song”, “The Weeping Song” (without Bargeld and it sounded amazing), and “Tupelo” where Nick said before the song:

“We can’t leave America without doing ‘Tupelo.’” Beat. “We may have to leave America for doing ‘Tupelo.’”

“Good night,” Nick said and the band walked off the stage, but the house lights didn’t come on and nobody moved.

Grinderman came out with Henry Rollins and went right into the Bad Seeds song, “Deanna”, with Rollins singing along with the band.

Rollins had flown in from Beirut just to see the two San Francisco shows of Grinderman because the last time he had seen Nick Cave as a quartet with similar energy was when he was in the Birthday Party.

If Nick and I speak again, let’s hope it’s arranged after another introduction and not during his show, which I may have to travel to Europe for if I care to see him anytime soon.

I love you, too, Nick. I love you, too.

Watch: Grinderman’s “No Pussy Blues“

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