“An Ongoing Curiosity” Warren Ellis Interviewed

No two records from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds sound the same. For every ‘Push The Sky Away’ for example, there’s a ‘Murder Ballads’; for every ‘Henry’s Dream’ there’s a ‘Tender Prey’ or even ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!’.

Even in this storied catalogue, however, 2019’s ‘Ghosteen’ stood apart. At times almost unbearably beautiful, and unfathomably honest, it seemed to stare grief in the eye, before emerging, utterly transformed on the other side.

New album ‘Wild God’ – released a few weeks ago – was tasked with following in its weighty shadow. Remarkably, the band have pivoted once more – Nick Cave’s pen remains as strong as ever, but there’s a return to the muscular heft, the swaggering brutality of the Bad Seeds as an entity.

A record marked by emotional truth and ear-rupturing noise, ‘Wild God’ is easily one of the best records Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have put out, a testimony to the illicit chemistry that drives these musicians forwards.

For the past decade and beyond Warren Ellis has essentially co-piloted these endeavours – a foil, a confidant to Nick Cave, but also a potent voice in his own right. Joining CLASH over Zoom just before the album’s release, his faithful pup Piglet by his side, he opens up about the sonic processes behind ‘Wild God’, the necessity of concert transcendence, and the sacred nature of the creative act.

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This is the final week of the album being truly ‘yours’ – does the run up to a release ever lose its magic?

Well, if it’s the sort of magic you’re talking about… that feeling is there from day one until the end of making it. And – hopefully – by the end you’ve fallen in love with it enough to let it go. And then when you do, there’s a period when it exists, but it doesn’t exist in the public’s mind… and that’s when you let it go, when it has its own life. There’s this period when you’ve let it go and you’re waiting for it to land and assume it’s own life. I’m excited for people to hear it. 

I guess with ‘Ghosteen’, that’s the only one I wanted to keep together in this quiet little place. It was this amazing composition that felt like it existed in its own space. That’s the only record where… I wasn’t nervous about it coming out, but I felt really different about it. When it came out I was really happy. 

The feeling is different now – you’re waiting for it to come out, but more importantly to get it onstage, to see where the songs go, and share them with people in that beautiful experience that is a live concert. The songs really change there. The songs either live or die onstage. Some aren’t made to go onstage, and some grow bigger and bigger. And that, I guess, is where the magic is. I have a different association with the recording now we’ve gone through that whole process.

‘Ghosteen’ is a very unique record.

It was so internal, that record. So internal and meditative. I guess I don’t really care what people say about things. Of course, you want people to respond to it but you’re not making things to make people happy – otherwise you’re just repeating yourself, and repeating the band’s history. And that’s never been the aim of the Bad Seeds… we’ve always been about pushing as far as we’re capable of in a different direction to where we’ve been. The longer you’ve been around, the less avenues there are to pursue. It can feel like that. But they constantly keep coming up, and that’s due to the people in the band. It’s the sum of its parts. For everybody in the Bad Seeds it’s always been like that – how can we take it further, to a place that we feel unsafe in, unsure of… and not comfortable. When you’re not comfortable, that’s when you know you’re in the right place. When you feel like you’re standing on solid ground, you’re doing a disservice to the creative act.

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You begin each record from a blank slate – and this one started on New Year’s Day, auspiciously. What’s that like for you as an artist?

The lead up to it is always – can we do it this time? And if you think about it too much it stops you, so you need to be a person of action, and you need to go into it with your eyes open and your heart open. You also need to realise you’re going to go back into that vulnerable place, and if you don’t something isn’t right. It’s not a big thing, like solving cancer or something, but it does have a weight of its own. 

When you’re engaging with the creative act, you know there’s a feeling… that if you don’t feel it, you’re not pushing in the right places. Every project I go into there’s always a degree of uncertainty, but I know if I turn up something will happen. It might not be good, and sometimes it’s terrible, but I know that within there, there will be some good stuff if I’m open to that. Working with Nick has always been… one of the key elements is taking risks, and trust. Knowing that you can take a risk, knowing that you can fail, seems to keep the creative process alive. The Bad Seeds are very much about that as well. That’s the nature of the people involved in making the record.

Was there a moment on this record that felt like a breakthrough?

For me, I think it was… the album didn’t feel realised until we went in and mixed it with Dave Friedman. We done the work on it, but… what to do with it? And Dave Friedman found something within the tracks that we wouldn’t have been able to, left to our own devices. So that was actually a really big moment, to hear these songs in a way that we wouldn’t have been able to imagine. The way we’ve treated it, the way he’s made it sound, it something that we wouldn’t have been able to achieve. So that was a kind of ‘wow!’ moment.

As soon as we get into the sessions, there are moments. With ‘Frogs’ when that started to take shape, there was this emotional reaction, a gut reaction to something when you don’t know what it is. And it’s exciting. ‘Joy’ was the same… it appeared pretty much instantly. Which quite a few of the songs do. The initial improvisation was familiar, but also really different. There was something about it. 

Most of the songs, if they appear, it’s because there’s been some kind of a ‘wow’ moment. Even if it’s two notes, or a sound, or a lyrical phrase or something like that, it kind of makes you grab on to it. It’s interesting when you look back, the initial ideas that we move towards it’s like… God, what a leap of faith to take! You hear it, but you don’t hear it any more because it’s become something else. I guess it shows you the wasteland you can get into to, as well. Sitting there, doing the work, and allowing yourself for hours and hours just to sit there mining absolute nonsense! (laughs) Or ideas that are just no good. Suddenly, out of that desperation – and it does feel like desperation – something happens and raises its head.

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You mentioned the emotional impact of constructing ‘Ghosteen’, did that also extend to this record?

Well, the band reconvened in a much more obvious way. I know Nick has discussed this in interviews, and it feels like the two records prior – ‘Skeleton Tree’ and ‘Ghosteen’ – it was difficult to find a place because they were such fragile and internal songs. Some of the elements, when you add them, it changes the song. A guitar, the rhythm section… it can change the drive of the song. Those two albums felt like they couldn’t take that or carry that. We tried, and the people involved agreed that it wasn’t bringing anything, it was detracting from it. And that’s what the Bad Seeds have always been incredible with – it’s not an ego thing, people can say ‘this doesn’t work’. It’s about what best serves the songs that we’re making at that time. 

To bring the band back in – it’s not as if they were taken out – but this album, it became apparent that it called for that great, big, wonderful, meteoric, cataclysmic sound that is the Bad Seeds. It brought an energy to things. I guess, Nick felt in a place also where he wanted to explore that side of the band again. The last few records have been determined by how Nick has been. I think it’s fabulous that he’s had this vehicle to make sense of what’s been going on with him. It’s interesting, because they seem incredibly personal records – those two in particular – this feels like a much more inclusive record. The songs on ‘Skeleton Tree’ and ‘Ghosteen’, when we did the CARNAGE tour, they became more communal experiences onstage. They became less internal. And that was a really beautiful thing to see. This record feels, to my ear, more like it’s inclusive from the get-go. It’s more outwardly projecting, and I can sense a real shift in Nick’s writing, and I guess in his state of mind.

You had a Dirty Three record earlier this, too! Each project exists in its own cosmos or universe, but do you feel scratching that itch pushed you to a different place, creatively?

I mean, it does and it doesn’t exist in its own universe. It’s the same with our score work? For me, it’s all part of the same thing – how can I engage again with the creative act of making music? It’s always been something I’ve taken incredibly seriously. It’s defined me life and it’s a big part of who I am. The way I can express myself musically, whether that’s onstage or compositionally. I realised this back in the 90s, when I started playing with Nick, the Dirty Three was still functioning very much as a band… I realised that everything else we did, benefited our work. It’s part of this ongoing narrative, rather than being locked into one band. For sure, going out with Dirty Three allowed me to scratch an itch I can only get with that band. But it’s also an itch that I get with everything I do, so as long as I’m engaged with making music I’m scratching that itch. 

It’s the same with films – it’s slightly different in that it’s engaging with someone else’s work, but it’s also a creative act. For me, I’m only as good as the next thing I’m doing. I don’t look at my older stuff and think ‘oh great, I can sit down now!’ You’ve done it, you’ve gone through the process, and it exists… but it’s what is coming up and whether you can do it that, I think, gives me my worth in this ongoing narrative. The next thing that’s coming up is the most important thing to me. That’s what I feel my credibility stands on. Whether I can actually get through that process, and whether I can within myself know that I’ve done the best I can before it goes somewhere else. We’re also dealing with limited tools, and we have a certain skillset that is minimal in some respects. We’re not solving some massive scientific problem or something, but we are entering some kind of battle, or sorts, every time we go in there.

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Joining you in this battle are a couple of soldiers-for-hire… Colin Greenwood popped by – how is he to work with?

He’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So beautiful, a musical guy. He brought a different energy. It happened because we wanted to get people in from the start, for the initial sessions. Tommy turned up and it was so great to hear him play the drums again. Marty is in Perth, so we got him over for a couple of days. Colin was around, so he came in for a few days, and it was fabulous… he brought this different style of playing. A beautiful feel. He’s really into the whole process of playing and what he can bring to stuff. Marty played some stuff as well over in Perth. It wasn’t by design, it was a practical thing. It turned out, I think, in the songs’ favour… to have this split of the bass on the record.

Is accepting those different voices important to the record, do you feel? It must broaden the creative palette, a little?

I think that’s the history of the Bad Seeds. Can they bring a different thing to the sessions? And also, if what they’re doing isn’t working, they realise that. It’s about serving the song, not the musicians’ needs, in a way. I don’t know, I guess if you’re looking to change things that means you’ve got to grab something else. In my case, I’m constantly picking up new instruments to learn – I figure in every instrument there’s got to be a tune, so I’ll pick one up and I’ll try to find it. I’m no expert on any of them, but I’ll give it a shot! Film scores really showed me that the less I know about things, that serves as an advantage to me as I got into it with a naivety. I’m not worried about the technical side of things, it’s more listening with my ears and being curious about sound. I think that’s the thing, actually, with the Bad Seeds – an ongoing curiosity.

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You’ve mentioned the Bad Seeds live performances a few times, and they’re always a cataclysmic experience. Nick Cave has spoken eloquently about the shift those recent performances have triggered inside him – what has that been like for you to observe and to participate in?

You could see with Nick, this thing happened to him. When we toured ‘Skeleton Tree’ his relationship to the audience changed, and he got something very different from the audience that he hadn’t got before. Suddenly, it was like he needed them. And it was incredibly beautiful and moving to watch. When we sat down to rehearse, we didn’t even know if we would tour; and when we toured, we didn’t know how it was going to be. Watching Nick re-find himself, and redefine himself… it was just an extraordinarily beautiful and heartbreaking thing to witness, and a real privilege to stand behind him and next to him as he navigated those new waters. It was so profound and spiritual.

My relationship to playing live is that it’s always been the best place to be in that particular moment in time. It’s the best thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. And for that time onstage you’re not part of the wider world, and there is the real possibility that you can create something that you can’t experience in the normal world. I’ve experienced that, myself. My life has changed after seeing certain concerts, and my life has changed after seeing something that was beyond the sum of its parts.

The tour that I did this year – with the Dirty Three – was the first time that I felt this urgency. I spoke about it with Jim White, and I don’t know if it has to do with age… but every note felt so important up there. I’ve never had this shift within me. It was like every note mattered. The shows that we did were, for us, truly, truly beautiful. It’s always been a very engaging and a very emotional show to do, but these shows were different. I think there’s a realisation that everything matters now. For some reason. I felt it every night. Halfway through I spoke to Jim, and he was like: I feel the same thing! Maybe it’s part of growing up and finding a relationship to this thing we’ve done for so long. I go on, and I never know if it’s going to happen… it’s terrifying, and as soon as you step into the light something happens. When it doesn’t, it’s the longest couple of hours of your life. But when it does, it’s like a summation of everything – the audience, this sacred stage that you step on to… whether it’s three people or 3000 people, it’s like stepping into a different kind of dimension. But you never know if it’s going to happen, and you pray that it does.

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‘Wild God’ is out now.

Words: Robin Murray
Main Photo Credit: Colin Greenwood

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