Over more than 30 years as a musician, songwriter, novelist, screenwriter and jack of pretty much all trades, Nick Cave has gotten entangled in a number of creative partnerships. Here are some of the more noteworthy ones.
1. Mick Harvey
From the Boys Next Door through the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds, Cave’s partnership with Harvey was his longest – and most lucrative. Cave’s lyrics and Harvey’s compositions made them the Jagger and Richards of gloom, the Andersson and Ulvaeus of post-punk.
2. Warren Ellis
After studying classical violin and busking through Europe, Ellis formed the Australian instrumental rock band the Dirty Three in 1992. He’s been a member of the Bad Seeds since 1995, but in recent years he and Cave have worked closely together on soundtracks and Grinderman, and Ellis has a most unmistakable presence on Push The Sky Away.
3. PJ Harvey
Cave briefly dated English musician Polly Jean Harvey in the mid-90s, collaborating with her on Henry Lee, from the bestselling 1996 Bad Seeds LP Murder Ballads. Harvey’s influence on Cave extends beyond this one-off, though. Their breakup forms the thematic crux of The Boatman’s Call, the Bad Seeds’ stunning, sparse follow-up to Murder Ballads. Harvey’s spirit (and especially her black hair) haunts songs like Into My Arms, Green Eyes, West Country Girl and, of course, Black Hair. So maybe Leonard Cohen was lying when he said, “True love leaves no traces.”
4. John Hillcoat
Cave and filmmaker John Hillcoat have crossed paths in all kinds of ways. A young Cave appears in the director’s first film, 1988’s Ghosts… Of The Civil Dead. Cave wrote the screenplays for the excellent The Proposition and the so-so Lawless. Cave and Ellis have also scored the bulk of Hillcoat’s recent films.
5. Kylie Minogue
When Cave collaborated with Minogue on the 1996 single Where The Wild Roses Grow, it produced an Australian pop-punk implosion. And Cave’s vivid descriptions of Minogue’s, uh, particulars in his second novel, The Death Of Bunny Munro, make us wonder if there wasn’t something else going on between them.
