Nick Cave Accused Of Plagiarism

By Scottish musician

Nick Cave has been accused of plagiarism by a Scottish musician after the release of Grinderman’s new album.

When Nick Cave helped form Grinderman it was a step back in time for the Australian. Returning to his roots as the frontman of the feral Birthday Party, the band’s blues rock sound was celebrated by fans.

But not everyone was happy. In Dundee, songwriter Frankie Duffy was left fuming after hearing Grinderman’s track ‘Palaces Of Montezuma’. Taken from Grinderman’s new album, Duffy claims that the song plagiarises one of his own efforts.

Frankie Duffy sang with Dundee group Rising Signs, who later split. Contemporaries with The View, Rising Signs wrote a song called ‘Grey Men’ which the songwriter claims Nick Cave could be aware of.

Speaking to The Courier, the songwriter argued that the songs contain many similarities. “When you hear that track you can totally spot the similarities. I sat down with my guitar and played along with it and it’s exactly the same A, E and B chords, which to be fair anybody could use to write a song at any time.”

“But it’s the chord progression and when the vocal hook comes in with some “ooohs”, it’s exactly the same, you can just hear it’s the same thing.”

Continuing, Frankie Duffy explained that the track remains on MySpace. “It’s been up on our MySpace even after Rising Signs split, and I don’t know, I can’t help thinking that Nick Cave was sitting in his house one night and decided to surf some unsigned bands and saw our site, saw we were split up and thought, ‘I’ll have that track, nobody will ever know.'”

Bold claims! Widely reported, Nick Cave chose to reflect on the accusation during Grinderman’s show in London on Friday (October 1st). Speaking before playing ‘Palaces Of Montezuma’ the singer explained that the band had been sued by a “17-year-old from Dundee”.

Nick Cave insisted that “I wrote it for my wife” before pointing at bearded drummer Jim Sclavunos.

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