Nick Cave has explained the story behind what he dubbed an “offhand and somewhat uncharitable” remark about Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The Australian musician’s comments about the LA funk-rock band have haunted him for approximately 25 years.
While the exact details of when and where the remark was made are uncertain, the Bad Seeds frontman is believed to have said: “I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the f*** is this garbage?’ And the answer is always, ‘The Red Hot Chili Peppers’.”
Chilis bassist Flea, who also hails from the Australian state of Victoria, responded to the remark in 2006, acknowledging that it hurt his feelings at first because he is a huge fan of Cave.
“I don’t care if Nick Cave hates my band because his music means everything to me,” Flea said. “He is one of my favourite songwriters and singers and musicians of all time. I love all the incarnations of the Bad Seeds.
“But it only hurt my feelings for a second because my love for his music is bigger than all that s***, and if he thinks my band is lame then that’s OK.”
Posting to his Red Hand Files website, Cave, 67, responded to a fan who asked about the origins of his comment.
“There was no malice intended. It was just the sort of obnoxious thing I would say back then to piss people off,” he wrote.
“I was a troublemaker, a s***-stirrer, feeling most at ease in the role of a societal irritant. Perhaps it’s an Australian trait among people of my generation, I don’t know, but that comment has followed me around for the last quarter-century.”
Cave said the “most interesting” thing about the situation was not his comment, but “rather the response from Flea”.
“On Facebook, [he] expressed how hurt he felt by my remark, but went on to say, in great detail, that he loved my music regardless.”
The musician said he recalled being “genuinely moved” by Flea’s words and thinking “what a classy guy Flea was”.
Over the years, he said, they ran into one another at festivals where their bands were performing and saw each other backstage at shows in Los Angeles.
“Although we didn’t become close friends, my encounters with him were always pleasant – there was a presence to Flea that felt genuine and oddly affecting,” he wrote, recalling how they once worked together to assemble a children’s choir to accompany the Bad Seeds at Coachella Festival.
He and his bandmate, Warren Ellis, also invited Flea to join them during their Carnage tour for a performance of “We No Who U R”, remarking: “Watching Warren and Flea perform together with such heart and mutual regard was a glorious sight”.
More recently, Cave said, Flea asked him to add vocals to a song for a new “trumpet record” he’s making, with “arguably the greatest lyric ever written, a song of such esteem that I would never have dared to sing it had Flea not asked me to”.
“The track emerged as a beautiful conversation between Flea’s trumpet and my voice, filled with yearning and love, the song transcending its individual parts and becoming a slowly evolving cosmic dance, in the form of a reconciliation and an apology,” he said.
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