Nick Cave: “I’ve become the walking embodiment of loss

Reading the thousands of letters he receives, Nick Cave realizes that the tragedy that happened to him “is not an extraordinary situation, but an ordinary one. The circumstances were difficult, but I went through something that everyone experiences at some point. In this new interview, the Australian reflects on loss, but also on love, recalling how he met his wife, Susie Bick. “It was the happy culmination of 20 years of complete disaster”

In an interview with the English newspaper “The Telegraph”, Nick Cave spoke again about how he reacted to the death of his son, Arthur, who died in 2015 after falling off a cliff. In the same interview, the Australian discusses his therapeutic relationship with his fans, his marriage to Susie Bick, his relationship with God and his dependence on heroin, which has now been overcome.

“I don’t believe that grief comes and goes like a wave,” says Nick Cave, “I think you become a walking personification of loss. For me, it became impossible to be anything other than the person I became because of Arthur’s death. It became a condition, and it was very difficult to be anything other than a grieving father.”

Nick Cave describes Arthur’s temperament as opposite to that of his twin brother, Earl. “Arthur was precocious, but smart, funny, a crazy kid. He had a lot of energy, so when he got home from school he’d come bursting through the door and start going around the table, telling everything that had happened. Usually bad things,” he recalls, laughing. “Earl, on the other hand, would just stand there and stare at Arthur…he had a huge space in our family.”

This year, Nick Cave saw his oldest son, Jethro, die in “complicated” circumstances that he says he can’t talk about. His correspondence with fans, through the Red Hand Files website, has helped him feel useful, he says. “Basically, responding to letters made me turn my attention outward, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I feel like I have some things to say about that subject, so I can be of some use to the world, and I think there’s some virtue in that.”

Reading the thousands of letters he receives, Nick Cave has realized that the tragedy that happened to him “is not an extraordinary situation, but an ordinary one. The circumstances were difficult, but I went through something that everyone experiences at some point,” he says, recounting that many readers tell him they feel the presence of their loved one. “Usually these feelings are taken as intellectually dishonest, [the result of] magical thinking, sheer stupidity or lack of courage, but often they are what pulls people out of the darkness and leads them to a more meaningful life.”

About his relationship with fashion designer Susie Bick, Nick Cave tells how he met her at the first fashion show he attended, in 1997. In the eight months that followed, Bick disappeared from his life. “I was devastated. I couldn’t find her and no one would tell me where she was. I went through a particularly difficult period.” When she reappeared in his life, Susie Bick gave him ‘permission’ to continue using heroin. “She came to my house and said, ‘I love you, here I am, you can keep doing drugs, do whatever you want.’ And I was extremely happy, because it seemed to me that I could keep the girl and continue to do drugs.”

Three weeks later, Nick Cave realized that this situation was not going to work out, and he voluntarily checked himself into a rehabilitation clinic in the US state of Arizona. Since then, he has been drug-free and also doesn’t drink or smoke. “It was the happy culmination of 20 years of complete disaster, and ten years that were a nightmare of trying to stop and not succeeding, and the chaos and despair that followed those years,” he summarizes.

Explaining how the death of his son Arthur has made him a more religious person, Nick Cave, who showed a great interest in reading the Bible from a young age, also commented again on the so-called culture of cancellation. “I react badly to people’s certainties about what’s wrong in the world, and the idea that you have to draw a line on these things or you get on the wrong side of history-whatever that is.”