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Nick Cave has said that the way he views the world was “fundamentally changed” following the death of two of his sons.
The Australian musician’s son Arthur died aged 15 after he fell from a cliff near the family’s home in Brighton, England.
Cave’s eldest son Jethro, whom he shared with model Beau Lazenby and with whom he had a complex relationship, died aged 31 in 2022.
Cave, 66, said he is now “less precious about [his] own place in the world” and added that his music had become braver as a result of these losses.
He told The Big Issue: “We change, sometimes multiple times, shattered by events. This can fundamentally change the way that you perceive the world and the way you behave.
“I think that happened to me to some degree, made me a little less precious about my own place in the world. The worst had happened. It maybe made me a little braver about things.”
Cave later discussed his 2007 song “O Children”, which remains his most popular track on Spotify, and which he wrote about not being “able to protect [his] children”.
The song is still relevant today, he said: “I wrote (‘O Children’) 22 years ago watching my children when they were little, playing in a playground.
“I wrote about this f*****-up world we were creating and that we had no way of protecting our children from. That seemed relevant when it came out but it’s always found its theme.
“From a personal level, I was not able to protect my children. Today too, children are dying everywhere in their thousands. And it asks the same question: what kind of a world are we creating for our children?”
Cave, who is married to British designer Susie Cave, has two other sons, Earl, an actor, and Luke.
Earlier this year, the “Red Right Hand” artist spoke about how he was forced to grieve publicly following Arthur’s death, which he found strangely consoling.
“It stopped me completely shutting the windows and bolting the doors and just living in this dark world,” he told The Guardian.
He said he had been overwhelmed by the messages of support he received from the public: “I had letter after letter addressed to ‘Nick Cave, Brighton’.
“It was a really extraordinary thing,” he explained. “And that attention, and sense of community, was extremely helpful to me.”
He continued: “I think people are usually just on their own with these sorts of things. Susie met somebody whose son had died seven years previously and she still hadn’t spoken to her husband about it.
“These people are utterly alone and maybe full of rage. So I can’t overstate that I’ve been in an extraordinarily privileged position in that respect.”
Cave’s full interview in the Big Issue is available on newstands now.
