Nick Cave and Warren Ellis Talk About “Carnage”
A Conversation About the Album
For two men who are as media-shy as Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, events such as tonight’s candid conversation, recorded live — where the pair got together over a good old chinwag, answering fan questions, and also discussing their collaborative dynamics relative to their most recent album, Carnage — are a pure gem.
One thing I think gets particularly overlooked with the “Prince of Darkness” label cast on Nick Cave is the man’s sense of humor, and from the outset of the conversation, you can feel these two humble musical geniuses riffing off each other with delight, especially when a fan asks if Warren Ellis is the Yoko Ono of the band who caused Cave to “split” from the rest of the Bad Seeds. The humility in Warren’s answer, in that he finds the question insulting to Yoko, because “she’s awesome and I’m not,” is not only cute, as it is moving.
We get the very clear feeling that both musicians have an intense admiration for each other and, as Cave says, ”I feel that the ideas that I have are just made a lot better when I collaborate with you.”
And, to an extent, this much is true: were it not for the rich inventiveness of Cave’s collaborators, especially Ellis, one gets the feeling that Cave’s songs, simply, at the piano, would be more those of a witty…
