The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Nick Cave

Some people call Nick Cave the Godfather of Goth, and the name is equally apt to his artistic output and his personal history. A towering, dark, intense figure whose lanky frame is nigh-invariably clad in a tailored suit, his imposing presence can lure you to believe that the man exists on a separate plane of gloom and suffering, hovering somewhere slightly above mere mortals. This is no exaggeration: As the Independent reports, Cave once mentioned taking a train to a show, which his audience found difficult to believe. When the bemused artist inquired how exactly people thought he got there, the answer was: "I dunno. A hearse?" 

Still, even if the man takes the train just like the rest of us, his gloomy fire-and-brimstone image is not entirely unjustified. Over the decades, Cave has been forced to soak a lot of damage, both self-inflicted and brought on by unforeseen tragedy. There have been many storm clouds over his head, and here are some of the darkest ones. This is the tragic real-life story of Nick Cave. 

One of the major tragedies in Nick Cave's life struck when the singer was only 19-years-old. As the Guardian tells us, the nascent post-punk poet was estranged from his father, Colin. Colin Cave, who was a teacher by trade, was a serious person who appreciated culture and beauty, which put his outlook at odds with that of his son, who tended to find all beauty "corrupted and destructive." Unfortunately, the father and son were never able to mend fences, as Colin unexpectedly died in a car accident. 

By his own admission, Cave is still profoundly upset by the incident, and he has been known to ask journalists to skip asking about the subject entirely and "just Google it." This may have something to do with the fact that at the time of his father's car crash, Cave himself was in jail thanks to a burglary charge, and his mother was bailing him out at the police station. Perhaps not coincidentally, Cave's life went through a number of major changes after the tragedy: His art school studies came to a halt, and he decided to move to England with the Birthday Party. 

Nick Cave is famously suspicious of journalists, and arguably one of his worst experiences came in 1988 when Jack Barron conducted an interview that cut deeper than Cave intended. As the Guardian tells us, the Bad Seeds frontman was already exhausted by an insane year that involved editing his debut novel And The Ass Saw An Angel, releasing his King Ink literary collection, getting involved in two different movies, and taking care of his day job during the Tender Prey album cycle. Add to all this his gargantuan heroin habit, and you have a recipe for an unmitigated disaster. 

Having followed the Bad Seeds around, documenting their day-to-day life for some time, Barron got his first interview with Cave at 3 a.m. in a hotel room. Despite finding the singer a "journalist's nightmare," he managed to get Cave talk about his drug habit, which was an open, but virtually unreported secret at the time. Unfortunately, Cave soon regretted opening up, and forced a deal where he'd give a second, more measured interview about the subject on the condition that Barron would keep the more sensitive material from the first interview under wraps. The second interview was an extremely hostile affair that ended when an enraged and clearly worse-for-wear Cave attempted to beat up the writer and destroy the tapes. Unsurprisingly, Barron's article about Cave was less than pleasing, starting from its very title: "Nick Cave: 'I have to spend hours talking to f***ing idiots like you.'"

Nick Cave has fathered four sons, and as is often the case with him, things have not always been as straightforward as one would expect them to be. According to the Guardian, apart from Arthur and Earl, the twins he had with his current wife Susie Bick, he also has a pair of older sons who are the same age, Luke and Jethro. However, the two elder sons are not twins. In fact, they were born to two different women, just 10 days apart — Luke in Brazil, where Cave was living at the time with Viviane Carneiro, and Jethro in Australia. To his "eternal regret," Cave chose to keep out of Jethro's life for the boy's early years, though he insists he now "has a great relationship with him." 

When Cave was asked whether there was any "domestic strife" over the situation, he admitted that things were awkward for a while: "It was difficult at the time, but it turned out great in the end."

Nick Cave is no stranger to narcotic substances. According to Entertainment Weekly, his drug of choice has always been heroin, and around 1988 he was so deep in the pit (and so very, very sensitive about it) that the Guardian reports he once physically attacked a journalist who tried to get him talk about it. However, even then, Cave seemed to realize how bad the thing he was shooting in his veins was, and was deeply concerned that his fans might start using drugs because of their idol. "I can't help it that I take this particular drug," he said. "I mean, it is that evil and insidious and it does worm its way into your life and it's very difficult to get it out again. Never have I spoken about it in any other way." 

Cave eventually conquered his addiction after a couple of stints in rehab, and though he says that getting clean killed his creativity for a good seven months, it's probably fair to say that it returned with a vengeance. According to Junkee, he has been known to address his addict past on his "Conversations with Nick Cave" Q&A tour. He particularly credits Narcotics Anonymous for his recovery, saying that while he found their meetings "difficult," they were nevertheless helpful in his quest to ditch heroin for good. 

In 2015, Nick Cave and his family experienced the biggest tragedy of their lives. As the Guardian reports, on July 14 of that year, Cave's teenage son Arthur accidentally fell off a cliff in Brighton and died of the head injuries he sustained. It was a particularly horrifying accident, as it soon transpired that Arthur and a friend had experimented with LSD earlier that day. The friend said that the experience was initially pleasant, but the trip soon turned bad with paranoia and intense hallucinations. Presumably, Arthur experienced similar symptoms, as multiple witnesses saw him "staggering" near the top of the cliff before he fell. 

Cave's family was obviously shocked beyond belief, and as CBC tells us, they immediately issued a short statement: "Our son Arthur died on Tuesday evening. He was our beautiful, happy loving boy. We ask that we be given the privacy our family needs to grieve at this difficult time." In 2018, Cave discussed the grief he has dealt with ever since on his Red Hand Files website, saying that he has come to accept grief as an inevitable companion of love, and sharing some poetic advice on how to find your way back to the light. 

In 2010, Nick Cave found himself in the center of an odd plagiarism accusation when, as NME reports, a 29-year-old Scottish musician called Frankie Duffy claimed that the musician had "borrowed" one of his songs for "Palaces of Montezuma," a song the Bad Seeds frontman wrote for his Grinderman side project. Duffy says that the song "Grey Man" by his old band Rising Signs is remarkably similar to the Grinderman tune, and alleges that Cave may have discovered the song by browsing for unsigned bands and stumbling upon the now defunct Rising Signs' MySpace, where "Grey Man" was still online. 

As Paste notes, Cave utterly dismisses all notions of plagiarism. Shortly after the news broke, he almost mockingly addressed the situation to the audience during a Grinderman show: "You may have read that some 17-year-old kid in Dundee is trying to sue me and is claiming to have written this song. That's funny, because I wrote it for my wife."