Nick Cave has published a list of his favourite books on his Red Hand Files blog, a "rather formless and incoherent grab bag of titles that come to mind at this moment that, for one reason or another, I have loved over the years" (all of his books are at an exhibition now). It's nice to see there's plenty of poetry there, some familiar names, and some that just might be a starting point of a discovery.

Nick Cave, Joan Jett, Devendra Banhart, Lucinda Williams, Father John Misty, Peaches, Beth Orton, King Khan, U2 (ft. Elton John), David Johansen, John Cameron Mitchell, Emily Haines, Perry Farrell, Marc Almond, Todd Rundgren, Kesha, Sean Lennon + Charlotte Kemph Muhl, Julian Lennon + Victoria Williams - more famous musicians than on some live aid are gathered 'round on Marc Bolan/T. Rex tribute album 'AngelHeaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan and T.Rex'. It was curated by the late Hal Willner and it comes out September 4. The first song out from it is Nick Cave's rendition of T. Rex classic 'Cosmic Dancer'. The tribute album features 26 covers of songs Bolan released between 1968 and 1977, both with T. Rex and back when they were more of a folk rock band called Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Nick Cave has launched a new livestream Bad Seed Teevee on YouTube, a 24-hour broadcast that will air concert footage, music videos, interviews and other rarities around the clock "for the foreseeable future".

Two albums by the late great Rowland S Howard - 'Teenage Snuff Film' and 'Pop Crimes' - are being reissued, and the Quietus did a great job of talking to his former colleagues and fans like Nick Cave, Henry Rollins, Mick Harvey, and Lydia Lunch, trying to recapitulate his work. Henry Rollins saw him in 1983 - "I stood in front of Rowland to get as much of him in the mix as possible. It was like he was an extension of the guitar... I had never heard sounds like the ones that Rowland made that night. To this day, I think he’s one of the most amazing musicians I’ve ever seen or heard". Howard's former The Birthday Party bandmate Nick Cave shared a laudable, albeit a diplomatic answer: "Rowland S Howard's guitar sound defined a generation. He was the best of us all. His influence continues to reverberate, down the years, to this day. He was truly one of the greats".

"Perhaps there is some wisdom in treating all songs, or for that matter, all experiences, with a certain care and reverence, as if encountering these things for the last time" - Nick Cave told his fans on his Red Hand Files blog. Specifically, he was answering fans' questions about the newest Bob Dylan song 'Murder Most Foul' - "I say this not just in the light of the novel coronavirus, rather that it is an eloquent way to lead one’s life and to appreciate the here and now, by savouring it as if it were for the last time. To have a drink with a friend as if it were the last time, to eat with your family as it were the last time, to read to your child as if it were the last time, or indeed, to sit in the kitchen listening to a new Bob Dylan song as if it were the last time. It permeates all that we do with greater meaning, placing us within the present, our uncertain future, temporarily arrested".

Answering to a question about his "problematic" lyrics, Nick Cave had this to say on his The Red Hand Files blog: "Perhaps we writers should have been more careful with our words – I can own this, and I may even agree – however, we should never blame the songs themselves. Songs are divinely constituted organisms. They have their own integrity. As flawed as they may be, the souls of the songs must be protected at all costs. They must be allowed to exist in all their aberrant horror, unmolested by these strident advocates of the innocuous, even if just as some indication that the world has moved toward a better, fairer and more sensitive place. If punishment must be administered, punish the creators, not the songs. We can handle it. I would rather be remembered for writing something that was discomforting or offensive, than to be forgotten for writing something bloodless and bland".

Nick Cave has opened up on how the death of his son Arthur inspired the 2016 track ‘Girl In Amber’, and how the song relieved him and his wife of their pain. He described on his The Red Hand Files blog how he was "numbly sitting" in a studio a few months after “Arthur, my son, had died", existing "in a kind of fugue-state... and as I listened to the version of ‘Girl in Amber’, I was completely overwhelmed by what I heard. It was suddenly and tragically clear that ‘Girl in Amber’ had found its ‘who’. The ‘who’ was Susie, my wife - held impossibly, as she was at the time, within her grief, reliving each day a relentless spinning song that began with the ringing of the phone and ended with the collapse of her world". Cave goes on to explain that the early live performances of the track on the ‘Skeleton Tree’ tour made him feel like he was singing to his “wife, [who was] still trapped in the amber of her grief”, but he continued to perform it and that has “released" his wife Susie "at least in part, from the suffocating darkness that surrounded her”.

Nick Cave was asked “Do you like Kanye?” on his blog. This is his not-so-disambiguous answer: “Making art is a form of madness – we slip deep within our own singular vision and become lost to it. There is no musician on Earth that is as committed to their own derangement as Kanye, and in this respect, at this point in time, he is our greatest artist”.

Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds bandmate Warren Ellis have donated $500,000 to help those battling Australia’s bushfire emergency, Billboard reports. Metallica have also pledged to donate, A$750,000 (more than $500,000) to bushfire relief efforts in Australia, Rolling Stone reports. Elton John, Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman, Pink and Flume have already donated to Australian firefighters.

"My duty as a songwriter is not to try to save the world, but rather to save the soul of the world. This requires me to live my life on the other side of truth, beyond conviction and within uncertainty, where things make less sense, absurdity is a virtue and art rages and burns; where dogma is […]

“I feel very bad about myself. I cannot see anything positive in my body, I hate to look at myself in the mirror and it makes me suffer a lot" - a young fan named Barbara asked Nick Cave on his Red Hand File blog. Cave thanked her for “entrusting him with such a courageous […]

Guardian's music critic totally likes the new Cave&Seeds album: "The most straightforwardly beautiful set of songs that Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have ever recorded". In comparison, "Ghosteen occasionally feels like an infinitely warmer, sweeter sibling of 2016’s 'Skeleton Tree'", and Cave, getting older, of course, but his voice "sounds rich". The album is composed of […]

In a surprise announcement, Nick Cave said that the Bad Seeds‘ new album ‘Ghosteen’ will be arriving next week. Answering fan's question on his Red Hand Files blog, Cave said it is a double album, with part 1 comprised of eight songs, and part 2 consisted of two long songs, linked by a spoken word […]

"The truth of the matter is that I didn’t give up on PJ Harvey, PJ Harvey gave up on me... I pick up the phone and it’s Polly. 'Hi,' I say 'I want to break up with you.'  'Why?!' I ask. 'It’s just over,' she says" - Nick Cave writes in latest edition of his The […]

Nick Cave got a letter in his The Red Hand Files box from a fan asking him what his thoughts were on merchandising of art. Cave's answer is heartwarming and funny, a very nice read: "Would I wear a pair of merch socks myself? The answer is well, yeah, I do – when I do […]

Nick Cave received quite a nasty question from one of his fans, George from Alabama who asked him: “Do you ever get tired of all the pretentious fat lesbians who enjoy your music? Personally I enjoy a lot of your music, but I find most of your fans insufferable". Cave told him he was being […]

Cave likes Morrissey's music, doesn't like his political views, but he should still have the right to express those. Just separate the two, in order not to ruin the music. "He has written a vast and extraordinary catalogue... original and distinctive works of unparalleled beauty", Nick Cave writes in a new blog post at The […]

At the start of his career with the Birthday Party, Nick Cave's fans were trying to set him on fire or to piss on his bassist, and the fans themselves were leaving B'Party's shows with bloodied heads. On his latest 'Conversations With...' tour Cave is - talking to his fans, answering their questions, in an […]

“Contemporary rock music no longer seems to have the fortitude to contend with enemies of the imagination, enemies of art – and in this present form perhaps rock music isn’t worth saving. The permafrost of puritanism could be the antidote for the weariness and nostalgia that grips it” - Nick Cave wrote in an answer […]

Nick Cave is bringing his ‘Conversations’ tour to Europe - he just finished Australian leg of the tour, and it sees Cave taking a widespread selection of questions from fans and performing some of his most iconic tracks on piano (NME). Describing the tour as “an exercise in connectivity”, he considers topics such as grief, […]

“I do not support the current government in Israel, yet do not accept that my decision to play in the country is any kind of tacit support for that government’s policies. Nor do I condone the atrocities that you have described; nor am I ignorant of them.” Nick Cave wrote in his letter to Brian […]