Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / SZEPS WORLD TOUR - NICK CAVE on Faith, Melancholy, & Stardom

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SZEPS WORLD TOUR - NICK CAVE on Faith, Melancholy, & Stardom · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and to our final episode in the
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  iconic Zeppes Live around the world podcast marathon where we've been hopscotching the
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  globe sitting down with some of the most interesting people we could find in the biggest
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  global capitals if you have missed any of the past I don't know 8 to 10 episodes then
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  go back and check them out there is not a single one I wouldn't wholeheartedly recommend
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  the tour has been a wild success thanks to our guests and to sub stack and to you for
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  bearing with us over this exciting period today's guest is an icon of Australia the UK and
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  the globe Nick cave he founded the band Nick cave and the bad seeds back in the early 80s
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  it's one of the most enduring and influential bands of the past four decades but Nick is
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  also a novelist and a screen writer and a film score composer whose life has been marked
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  by tragedy in the sense of he had to endure the deaths of two sons and that profoundly
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  shaped his experience of grief and faith and love he started a blog called the red hand
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  files which he describes as a strange exercise in communal vulnerability and transparency
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  where his fans could submit questions not just about his music and his creativity but about
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  life and God and the universe and the purpose of everything he has received over a hundred thousand
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  questions and it's an amazing read he's an amazing mind we sat down in London to discuss
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  artificial intelligence and human creativity we got straight into it discussing religion and faith
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  and grief and why melancholy is an integral part of the human experience he had just heard
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  the most recent episode which had dropped which was with Sarah Hader an ex-Muslim former atheist
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  activist and that is a great episode as well because we talk about it for the first 10 minutes
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  and in relation to Nick's own sense of the divine it may be interesting to go back and listen to that
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  right now it's not like you won't understand this conversation without having heard it
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  but he sort of takes issue with my identification as a capital A atheist and we get into
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  interesting territory I hope you love and adore as much as I did the one the only Nick cave
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  tell the particular lines of questioning and interviews that you find particularly irritating
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  well there's there's ones that are just commonplace and they're the same ones over and over and over
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  and if you put out a record you basically guarantee that half the interview will be just repeating
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  something that you repeated in the interview before because the same questions get asked
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  these days however happily for me but for not many musicians my sort of what I'm prepared to talk
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  about has sort of expanded for some reason but mostly because of the red hand files yeah
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  and this is so people talk to me about other things and that's that's a kind of a relief
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  so you're now part musician part grief therapist well there is that yeah there is that what do you
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  want to go to an opportunity time for me isn't it we were just talking off air about the fact
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  that my father just died last week so it is interesting I mean what it where it lands for me is that
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  you I'm realizing well of the retrospectives about his life and looking at his childhood
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  that he was just a kid who grew big and had kids and muddle through
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  when we're close very close very very close muddle through did his heart had an impact and um
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  you just sort of think like it could have gone another way you know he didn't when you're a kid
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  you think that these people are masters of the universe yeah and then you grow up and realize
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  you're well there yeah and you have them yourself in real life so don't know what the fuck you
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  doing exactly you're winging it you're winging it um I found that very much now your grandparent
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  now I'm a grandparent and uh I'm rather I'm rather good at that
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  you do it you do a 20 minute 30 minute slot yeah the greatest human being that ever existed
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  right um and then you give them back yes no pressure no it's beautiful it's great yeah
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  is there a different role this this without going into too much but this little guy Roman his name is
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  is the spitting image of his father I mean it's just like a little I just remember this
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  so well and he looks the same and is the same kind of personality so it's like uh re-remembering
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  uh those years you forget you really do forget what what your children were like when they were
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  tiny and and he's like it's like uh I get to see him all over again it's it's actually unbelievably
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  moving the whole thing does it put you back in the frame of mind of when you or a father to a
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  child that young and doesn't make you I mean I was just um I mean I had so many
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  of my own problems to deal with at the same time as ridiculous so I was I was unable to be
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  uh I think a conscious father I was just a guy maybe like you're talking about with your your
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  father that was just doing his thing and winging it and doing a bit of parenting here and doing
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  this and that and and and also when when he was very young not really in shown condition you could
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  say I was you know I was dealing with a whole lot of different things and this
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  with the grandson suddenly that's all it's it's no longer a thing and I'm just this
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  person who's able to um focus and be sort of mindful if you like of of of this child it's amazing
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  yeah did you did you lack mindfulness during that was that the same period as your own drugs
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  or yeah yeah early on not not for not for his whole yeah childhood thank you so you kind of miss
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  that I mean you don't miss it I mean when one is in that state one misses what life passes one by
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  um I think what I what I mean is the church you're struggling um
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  you you're struggling with things in your life that that are that are a chaotic they're chaotic
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  they're sending everything spiraling all the time that's drug-taking alcoholism all of this sort of
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  stuff um and and you are simply I guess not fit to be a parent in some way you do your best um
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  but you know and if I have if I have regrets about that kind of thing it's really about
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  um you know my inability to be I think a a true parent you know what's true parent true
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  parent is is someone that's able to to um not be so not be entirely absorbed with their own
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  situation and be able to to spend time listening to and understanding a child
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  was it annoying parenting I I loved it like I said like I'm trying to say with with Luke
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  who's older now he's 34 or something like that um you know I was you know having my difficulties
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  when I when I was racing with with the twins I was not you know I was clean but um what was
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  the question was it annoying I felt I felt parenting I was annoyed I liked it right I really liked
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  I love children I love little babies um they get better year by year as you've absolutely
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  every year they're just like wow and the first year is amazing when suddenly they're coming
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  conscious of the world and it's a it's a beautiful thing and they I find that it just gets better
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  and better even into adulthood that's good to know yeah no it's not it doesn't do a sort of
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  nose dive when they stop being cute no I uh although I am I mean there are difficult periods ahead
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  yes I mean who likes a teenager nobody likes a teenager I'm sure I'll like my teenagers
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  because they're mine a bit yeah sure though it's fine as long as I don't I love I love five to
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  twelve the sweet spot like the daughter age curious little personalities you know talkative
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  still they still love you yes oh I mean it's incredible that I am the most important person
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  well one of the two most important people in the universe yeah well I'm all powerful to somebody
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  it's it's um it's it's it's an amazing thing that no matter what you're doing in a way
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  the child is sort of you know ever forgiving and and the default setting at least for me it was
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  that they just see you in a good light yes no matter what's in bubbling under the surface of your
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  life right so anyway I'm I love children I love to play with children I like to write about them
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  you know they they're uh both metaphorically and and in in in reality a huge thing within within
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  what I do creatively and and within my life did you know that was a terrible sentence did you know
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  did you know that I have an English literature teacher for a father and right who's
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  no longer with us okay that explain here we sort of sits there judging you their language
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  why choose a monosyllic word when you can choose a five syllable word yeah yeah yeah do you get
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  accused of that have you read the red hand files have you tried to read no I don't think of you as
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  being an overly pretentious writer I think you're quite clear oh I'm happy to hear that um where before
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  you had kids did you think that did you want to be a rock star did you want to be an artist I
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  want to be a painter that was the whole idea was that I I love painting I loved I loved art I
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  loved learning about art and I knew a lot about art I I was the probably the only person that was
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  doing art in my secondary school that actually was interested in the history of art and these
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  sorts of things so I was I was gearing that was what I was concerned with gearing up for went to
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  art school had an amazing first year in the second year I failed and I was I was shocked a horrified
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  that this had happened I couldn't understand why and then I just had this band at the same time
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  and so that's what I kind of continued to do really but it but I mean it's I'm happy that I failed
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  there was something you know pulling the strings perhaps but anyway I failed and
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  became a you know famous rock star when you say there was something pulling the strings
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  in diverting you from painting into music what's the something well I mean look I mean that
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  that it it feels a happy accident that I that I got out of painting which is a unbelievably
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  difficult job right but you don't have it lonely job it yeah we well we can get into we
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  can get into theology because yeah yeah I mean when you said you know something it wasn't just an
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  accident you will get a ride you can't get a ride the geology skyward well yeah I mean I'm not sure
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  how our lives are you know but I do raise my eyes skyward because I have a feeling of something
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  existing beat beyond us but that was also a flippant remarks and I don't think my life is
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  sort of carefully managed by some sort of overlord no sure but there can be in mues who gives you
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  like I would say I would say that um my I exist I would say in in in a in a in a place that exists
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  between between belief and doubt I would say my whole life exists in that way and but I would say
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  that I am pointed in the direction of belief that is in my view from from my feeling about myself
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  the direction that um feels better for me to go rather than away from belief and I'm always
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  and but sometimes I have serious doubts about this and a rational sort of person and and I have
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  doubts about this um and they these doubts worry me hugely and I thank God for podcasts like yours
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  where I I think yesterday I listened to you talking to Sarah Ada yes which was two atheists
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  talking to each other um and in a way I think you might disagree this might sound a little unfair
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  but in a way kind of patting each other on the back for their sort of intellectual honesty and
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  that they haven't fallen prey to sort of I think keep using the word stupid ideas stupid ideas
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  and and I look at these things I look at these things and I think fundamentally I am not that
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  I am not I am different I my entire makeup are the way I'm built is not that and I think we are
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  I think the sort of religious disposition is a you're just kind of born with it some people are
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  I think and some people are it's not that you can't cross you can't cross over but I think some
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  people are fundamentally atheistic in their their makeup and some people are sort of devotional
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  characters and I and it reminds me of that is what I am is a sort of is a devotional um
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  religious type you know that feels even though rationally there's a whole
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  you know there's a whole lot of stuff that takes a lot to get my head around
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  but deep down I'm I'm religious I would say by nature or spiritual sounds like wish you
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  was she to be religious I mean I think it's a it's a distinction worth making because if it's
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  the case and I will take your word for it that I called beliefs stupid when talking to Sarah Hader
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  what I would be referring to in that context would be um specific historical or cosmological
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  claims about the nature the material nature of reality that religious people from a particular
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  denomination claim to know so what happened to the physical body of Jesus to it
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  years ago whether or not Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse physically you know those kinds
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  of claims I'm comfortable calling stupid to believe in because I don't think there's enough
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  evidence to believe in them but I do think it's worth carving off those claims from I mean I
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  think it's an epistemological error to claim that you can know with confidence that those things
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  are true or not or not and well we generally believe I mean my all things aren't true a lot of
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  things aren't true yeah I think it's that what what I find different what what what I
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  read what when I look at your conversation and I think I'm not that or I listen to Sam Harris
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  and I think I'm not that or or any of the the atheists which I always love to watch and watch
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  I you know it's it's lovely sport to watch some sort of videos of Hitchens demolishing some
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  yeah Christian I I always felt that I also didn't like them I also didn't like them I it was
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  enjoyable but I knew that I was not that yeah no I guess and and that that is the sort of hubris
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  behind the the the the atheist that type of atheist that look that sort of looks down upon
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  people who who have different beliefs than them that that believe them to be true and there's
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  a lot of unbelievably smart intelligent people that are Christian by nature you you can't you there's
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  no way you can call some of these people stupid no I wouldn't no I might call a belief stupid yeah
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  I think I think I mean in my view if I was to give you some advice in life as an older gentleman
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  is to lose the word stupid I'm surprised that I didn't say it but I think you said it several times
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  I kept sort of okay flinching because it it's that sort of self-satisfied
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  way of viewing the world that I in actually in always I am not I feel I'm sort of mostly don't
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  know about things whether whether it's theological in nature political in nature I'm I exist in this
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  sort of muddy middle ground with a lot of these sorts of things and I don't have that I don't have
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  that this I don't have that kind of certainty about things I mean I think that's just not in my
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  nature I think that's why it's useful to make a distinction between religious and spiritual because
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  over the course of you know you say you can't necessarily change from the disposition of being
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  devotional to one of whatever the opposite of that is secularism or atheism but I actually have
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  evolved to become much more open to spirituality and to the divine over the course of my life I
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  mean I would have been much more what is the divine well to you just the deep inherent mystery of
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  what the fuck we're all doing here and how consciousness even is a thing and why the cosmos exists
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  in the first place it's just the wind horses that yes so that I think there are I understood I take
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  your criticism and I'll be mindful of it in the sense that I know that different ways of phrasing
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  things land differently for different people and so I'm probably needlessly alienating people who
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  find their devotion wrapped up in a particular set of sacred texts but I will still die on the hill
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  of saying that there are good reasons for believing things and bad reasons for believing things and
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  it's not inconsistent to be open to a devotional sense of the of the majesty of the cosmos and
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  the miracle of existence at the same time as saying that doesn't give us reason to believe that we
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  can know things about what happened in the Middle East 2000 years ago. Yeah and I know that's
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  all fair enough for me the word I don't like to use the word spiritual I much prefer to use for
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  myself religious by nature because to be religious by nature requires some kind of rigour I would say
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  whereas spirit to be spiritual by nature is like you know it's all lovely and we're all
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  spiritual and of course we're all spiritual and all that sort of stuff so it feels
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  when an atheist says he's spiritual you know it you know it frankly gives me the courage yeah
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  I know I totally it's kind of like it's like in a dipping your toe in or something like that
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  and and for me just to say even though I have huge and I don't call myself a Christian
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  because I just don't feel that perhaps I don't feel the need to but what
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  where I where I find my sort of belief system to be at its most acute and and
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  and beautiful I would say is when I go to church you know and and stepping that there's a beautiful
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  I'm I'm going to miss hope this probably and and yourself Sullivan the the podcast if you talk
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  to him I spent last weekend with him in protest town okay there must have been fun it was great
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  we're going to do a podcast and he was so sweet that when he heard that my father would just die
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  he's not really oh forget about it let's just go ride it back up to the dunes and
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  but but he he's a Catholic and he sort of sums up going to church as a place I think where where
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  he feels he can go shut the fuck up and bow his head in worship to something that he doesn't
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  understand and there there is there is an acute focusing of of something that happens in church
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  for me which is religious by nature it's not a spiritual thing it is religious by nature it it
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  it has something to do with the stupid text and all the rest that is ex ex that that is
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  delivering a series of extraordinarily difficult claims that when you first go to church sort of
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  bulking at things that are being said all the time but there's but but church has a lovely way of
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  wearing you down if you go a lot and and that there's something else that exists that sort of
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  reverberates behind those words that is that it's truly beautiful and has in my views something to
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  do with a kind of truth that's a kind of truth that that that sits outside of what is I guess
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  rational or mechanistic and it's a very it's a very beautiful thing and I think a lot of people
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  who go to church feel that way they they when you drag the claims out into the cold light
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  that that that Christianity is asking you to believe it's often difficult to
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  you know there's this difficult things to I mean we're I very much given up arguing about the
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  existence of God with atheists primarily because atheists always win the arguments you know
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  because they have all the sort of artillery and and we we who believe in these sorts of things
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  really only have you know an intuition or a sort of a softly spoken idea about something
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  and and it's it's very difficult to you know it's very difficult to put
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  to be convincing about those sorts of things I mean it depends what you mean by God though doesn't
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  it because if you mean it's very hard to beat an atheist in argument about whether or not the God
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  of a particular Bible exists in the way that the Bible articulates his existence
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  because the claims are stupid pardon my French but it's very easy I think to beat an atheist in
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  an argument about whether or not the universe is sufficiently bizarre and complex to warrant for
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  the explanation than the reductionist materialist one yeah there there is that but at the same time
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  I think we're arguing rationally there are there are the sort of and there's something about
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  I know this sounds strange but there's something demeaning to religion about attempting to talk
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  about it rationally this is not a rational thing it's something that's to do with
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  it's an absurd in its nature and there's something it for me personally about giving
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  yourself over to something that's this crazy idea bizarre strange deeply strange idea I mean
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  the Christian story is deeply strange it's not it's difficult to to believe in but it but it's
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  but underneath the fabric of that story it's extraordinarily mysterious and and beautiful and
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  for some of us there is some kind of truth that exists underneath that it's not rational
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  to have a rational argument about these sort of things I think belittles the mystery of
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  of right you know it just brings it down to sort of yeah it's almost like I'll explain art
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  I'm trying to explain music into a robot but I mean I've been to mosques in Egypt and you know
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  heard the Muslim call to prayer and been touched by yeah something I've been to synagogues and
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  have heard the you know the singing and been touched do you think it's specific to Christianity that
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  there's something uniquely profound in Christianity um no not really I mean look the my argument
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  sort of starts color this is where the argument collapses a lot of the time I think in these
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  regards it's the it's the difficult thing um but you know for me it's just my it's it's the
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  religion that I know and the you know I'm I guess the church I go to is high Anglican
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  and it's it's the church I know and I'm comfortable with and I don't know it does meditation affect
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  your thinking about what consciousness is and what's divine meditation is hugely helpful do you
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  do that do you meditate not enough yeah I mean I do I meditate I have for I don't know 12 years
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  or something like that TM TM I do I was taught TM I made it 10 or 11 years ago and it had
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  unbelievable effect on me I don't know if it still does and it's and I'm a more kind of patchy
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  around like I used to do it every day twice a day in fact but it had a huge effect it was it was
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  a strangest thing because I just I can't remember why I decided to do it I maybe I'd read um
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  maybe I'd read the David Lynch's book was like that and and I always thought I didn't want to
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  get into meditation because it would make me all kind of and then I saw the David Lynch had
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  always meditated and he was anything but kind of woo woo and and so I went and and did you do
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  three days of lessons of TM and I didn't say much about it to Suzy my wife and stuff like that but
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  a week after doing it she's like all right she's like what's going on and I'm like well what are
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  you talking about she goes whenever I try and talk to you about something you sit there you look
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  at me in the eyes you listen you don't start madly rolling a cigarette and you know run for the
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  back porch you know well you know you're not angry about things anymore it it within a week it had
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  a massive um it it's sort of wiped away all of these sort of awful nasty little human habits
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  that I I had and made me a much more bearable person to be around didn't make you feel differently
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  about what humans are and what consciousness or no no I've never I've never found it to be anything
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  more than a sort of sort of stress relief or something like that I've tried different sorts of
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  meditation and I'm not sitting there having you know whatever right it's mind explosions and stuff
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  how did you do psychedelics when you were doing drugs I did when I was when I was at school yeah
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  did those provide profound profound or well they were profound I suppose but they didn't
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  and I mean I think that sort of things quite different these days right the stuff that you get
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  I mean the stuff that we were taking back then God knows what that was you know I think the
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  psychedelic psychedelic experiences come a long way yeah but I but I haven't done that okay
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  what's the closest that you've been to God
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  well I can I can tell you a story I haven't actually ever told this story which is rare for me I'm
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  pretty much exhausted everything um that at the time I didn't feel anything except deep
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  confusion about this but I was in rehab for the second time after the first time I'd come out
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  of rehab and my and I'd spend a year it was the worst year of my life I was clean but I couldn't
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  communicate with anyone it was sort of veil between me and the world that I was just terrified
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  my creative juices dried up it was it was it was it was just it was just an unlivable life
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  clean um and um I went everything I started using again everything spiraled out of control I went
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  back to rehab um and I was three weeks into to rehab and a friend who became visiting
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  visiting time which is the dreaded time in rehab where the family members come along and
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  friends and they will tell you what an asshole you were when you were using drugs and lots of stuff
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  anyway this was a visiting and a friend of mine came and he told me he was telling me about a
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  Tarantino movie that he'd seen and I just felt this this thing go down between me and this guy and
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  and I just thought oh my god um my life is in such chaos from using drugs but without drugs
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  I'm I'm just entirely alone and and couldn't um couldn't relate or there was just something between
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  me and the world was a horrifying situation because both being clean and using were both
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  in possibility unto themselves and and I he went and I just broke down uh and it was a a moment of
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  deep despair which I really didn't know what to do with myself and uh then I went into the um the
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  the meeting room uh there's the green room what have you called the room the sitting room
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  and I was sitting there on my own and I I was in deep despair and the first guy comes in uh one of
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  the patients comes in and he just was sort of glowing and I felt this feeling in my heart of
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  sudden deep love for this person it was just this random junkie that was walking in and it was
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  the strangest thing and then then another one came in and the same thing happened and I just
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  felt this um incredible love for everyone it was it was terrifying feeling in a way and I went
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  and told went and told one of my counselors looked was I don't know what's going on here and they
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  said oh you know whatever go away uh and and I went to sleep that and I came down for for breakfast
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  and it was still like that the whole room was just and and there was this feeling towards
• 33:13
  basic broken humanity it felt like that was um of a religious nature although I didn't see it
• 33:20
  as a religious nature at the time I was just confused by it and I still that then it dissipated
• 33:26
  it just went away after a couple of days um but it was it was a deeply profound feeling and
• 33:34
  it's a feeling that I still have this sort of residual feeling about that I'm not all the time
• 33:39
  but when I make some connection between a random person in the smallest possible way one human
• 33:47
  connection from one person to another I feel this sort of blossoming uh inside myself and
• 33:57
  and perhaps I don't know that was a a religious experience amazing if I if I had if I had a felt
• 34:04
  that now I would certainly think but you know it was you know a hallowly moment at that time
• 34:11
  I didn't I didn't uh I didn't see things in that way so so that form of connectedness if that's
• 34:17
  what sort of makes us fundamentally human at our best versus the aloneness that you were feeling
• 34:22
  behind the veil what do you make of the rise of social media which connects us all superficially
• 34:29
  and yet leaves us sitting in our rooms by ourselves alone yes it's um I guess it's it's it's terrifying
• 34:37
  I don't do social media um I tried it uh some years ago sounds like drugs I tried I used to try
• 34:47
  a bit of pot well I tried Twitter for a while for for maybe six months I didn't actively use it
• 34:53
  but I just scrolled and I found myself getting physically ill I just I would get up in the morning
• 35:01
  look and I just start getting headaches and all this sort of stuff and I and I sort of gave it up
• 35:05
  was this pre or post the alon takeover oh pre right okay yeah it's even worse now if that's any
• 35:11
  consolation yeah no it's so it's so I hear um but I mean you know the go across to blue sky or
• 35:16
  something like that but you know the stats about you know lonely that the loneliness epidemic more
• 35:22
  and more people are living alone more and more people of saying that they're lonely more and more
• 35:25
  people are you know and part of this has to be caused by the fact that we it's so easy to have
• 35:32
  these ersatz versions of connectedness that make us feel like we're doing all the things that friends
• 35:36
  do do which is talk to each other but we're doing it to an avatar on a screen instead of yeah
• 35:41
  to a human being in the real well I I don't know what my wife for example gets a lot out of
• 35:46
  social media she loves it and I don't see any adverse reaction although she's tough I don't I'm not
• 35:55
  I don't think ultimately I'm tough enough for social media I can't I don't like being in
• 36:02
  adversarial situations it doesn't even though I constantly am it seems for one reason or another
• 36:11
  I don't like it I don't like getting letters into the red hand files that are that that that
• 36:19
  you know tell me what an asshole I am for whatever reason it might be it's not a feeling that
• 36:26
  that I mean some people sort of thrive on that stuff I'm I'm not one of those people but um
• 36:34
  yeah I mean it it it feels like a an epidemic and and um
• 36:45
  and a deep problem in our society if you don't like getting adversarial letters to the red hand
• 36:51
  files then what do you like what's the ideal letter the ideal letter yeah the one that makes you
• 36:59
  light up when it comes in the inbox well within the red hand files is just a kind of river of
• 37:08
  grief and love and loss and need and kind of yearning that runs through you know runs through
• 37:18
  like a beautiful river the red hand files I love that stuff on the on the sort of banks you know
• 37:25
  on the banks of it there's a sort of nasty snarking kind of you said this you think that why don't
• 37:33
  you say this um that goes on that that's like a kind of um what's that word a fluvium or is that
• 37:42
  well you're your father the literary professor would be proud of a fluvium. You just told us
• 37:46
  about that yeah yeah that's sort of um I don't know uh I the flocks them in jetham
• 37:54
  yes it's it's it's a it's a peripheral ship on the side of the bank that stuff yeah it's a strange river
• 38:01
  you've chosen to consume well it was it started really as a trickle you know it was really a very
• 38:09
  very small impulse was to which I actually and thank god I never did this with all due respect
• 38:17
  wanted to do a podcast this was ten you know back in the day I thought I'll do a podcast
• 38:25
  it would want to be consigned to such a fact and it might my long suffering assistant even did a
• 38:31
  podcast uh course of how to do a podcast and then when she finished the course I decided that I
• 38:38
  didn't want to do a podcast that I just answered letters and and write answers to them and so that
• 38:43
  was just uh that that started with people going you know what what's your favorite band who who
• 38:49
  you influenced by just you general rock and roll questions that slowly morphed into other things
• 38:54
  and I was able to guide it in a little bit and and start to write about things that I wanted to
• 39:00
  talk about um you know and I was having my you know my son had died and and there was just these
• 39:08
  there was just these letters that started coming in from other people who had experienced the same thing
• 39:14
  and it became a beautiful a beautiful and strange
• 39:20
  to and to to and throwing uh and this now is just this massive this is just this onslaught of
• 39:30
  of these sorts of things which which I read it all takes a huge amount of time
• 39:35
  but it's very beautiful you know it's very the whole thing's very moving it's very good for me
• 39:41
  um it's not at all it's a toll to some degree but once I sort of sit down and start reading and I
• 39:49
  just you know um yeah I mean it's it's it's a beautiful thing it's a very strange place you've
• 40:02
  ended up as a like elder statesman philosophy king as well as musician you know like an advisor
• 40:10
  yeah I mean weirdly the things that I the questions I like answering the most is when I get asked
• 40:16
  to you know advice about things that clearly I know nothing about like you know uh you know
• 40:23
  a 15-year-old girl writing about what what I should do because I'm feeling lonely you know it's just
• 40:28
  it's just not on it's not a good look and all the rest of it but but she asked and so it's it's
• 40:35
  there's some sort of there's a challenge in that that's that I find um exciting and and it's
• 40:44
  it's it's um how can I say it it's uh it's it's it's it's it's kind of exciting to to sort of step
• 40:55
  into a realm where you don't really know no things and you try and work them out and you try and work
• 41:01
  the the best most compassionate way to answer a particular question this by the way
• 41:08
  is not does not come naturally to me I'm not um I'm not naturally an empathetic
• 41:16
  person you know I don't it it requires something of me to sort of
• 41:22
  drag myself up to the better end of my nature you could say um it takes some days sometimes to just
• 41:29
  sort of get all the like no for fuck's sake get over it or you know that these sorts of
• 41:36
  things that go through my mind when I sometimes read someone's letter and work out um
• 41:43
  uh you know a compassionate way of addressing that person's concern it's so funny Nick that you
• 41:53
  were talking about religion as opposed to spirituality and your love of the church and in a way
• 41:59
  the formality of the church and the structure of formal religion because what you're describing
• 42:04
  there in your relationship to the red hand files in terms of struggling your way and dragging
• 42:10
  yourself towards being a better person and then trying to figure out a way to create the most
• 42:15
  compassionate answer it sounds like a pastoral role that's what a priest does yeah well I obviously
• 42:26
  I don't look at this in that way and it's sort of it's it's very uncomfortable for you to say
• 42:31
  that to me because that's not um once once again I like like I think what I do with the red hand
• 42:40
  files is position myself in a place where I don't really know I think we all understand that I'm
• 42:47
  not actually the oracle um or most people understand that and that I'm just sort of
• 42:54
  trying to work myself way through these anyone who said they were an oracle would not be a true
• 43:00
  oracle fair enough um but what the red hand files is most resistant to is is the kind of
• 43:09
  stridentcy and dogma of opinion and that it's trying to sit in the middle there and just work
• 43:19
  things out with people um sometimes they get a little dogmatic I would say some of the answers
• 43:26
  I read them back you know a few weeks later read it back I think um you know that I that they have
• 43:35
  a sort of self correcting feel I can read them back and and realize that you know I'm getting
• 43:41
  on my high horse here a bit or whatever and they they very good for me they're very good for me
• 43:48
  and in terms of connection and that kinship that you can have both with people who are writing
• 43:53
  into you and with the random person who's in your rehab room how does that relate to your
• 44:00
  kinship with an audience when you're on stage it's very similar um you can go you can go it's
• 44:08
  funny because you can go on stage although I don't often do this but you can go on stage in a kind of
• 44:13
  way where um maybe you'd say I don't like to use this word either actually I really hate this
• 44:20
  word but in a in an unmindful way that is to say you get up there and you're concerned with
• 44:28
  you're concerned with um other things on stage like the sound or the words or whatever and
• 44:36
  you forget the audience in a way there's other times that you can focus your attention deep into
• 44:41
  the audience and this create the the audience understand that this creates a kind of feeling
• 44:47
  as sort of incoming and an outpouring and incoming of love you could say that that is very much
• 44:55
  religious in its nature for me um that feels like it's um on some level a legitimate
• 45:06
  transcendent experience um and I think some people find that too you know and that's that's
• 45:15
  enormously rewarding to hear people see that that's not a preacher role that's more of a sort of
• 45:22
  a conduit for a feeling that exists in the in the world um that that I have a huge a privileged
• 45:31
  position to be able to um help people get there um and there there is a duty I would say
• 45:42
  for musicians to attempt to find that place um and to go on stage and kind of phone in a performance
• 45:55
  uh and to sort of sit there you know it is in my viewer kind of moral it's a sin it's a sin
• 46:03
  I would say to use the language of religion I mean I think you're when I say a pastoral role
• 46:10
  or a priest I'm not talking about a Southern Baptist fire and Brimstone preacher who's literally
• 46:14
  preaching at people as to what they should do but the best form of I mean the sort of the ultimate
• 46:21
  role of a pastor is to be uncertain and is to sit with people in the mystery of life and
• 46:28
  hardship of loss and uh you know experience of a few years and if you met pastors like that no
• 46:36
  I said in an ideal world Nick in an ideal world um do you think people are becoming more or less
• 46:46
  open to humanity or is it always too humanity yeah I guess to like as well to that sort of connectedness
• 46:53
  that we're talking about I guess and more and reset their receptiveness to being fully loving
• 47:00
  feeling human beings there's a lot of I mean I feel in myself the the pool of distractedness and
• 47:06
  busyness of yeah I think I mean it seems to be that way there's a lot being made out of a kind of
• 47:12
  return to religion with the young and this sort of stuff I'm not exactly sure about that I have
• 47:18
  noticed um at my church there's just a whole bunch of young people they didn't used to be um and
• 47:26
  and you know I don't know how you say it but like cool young people right not not not nerds
• 47:37
  right not nerds it's quite it's it's interesting and my and my son um you'll probably kill me
• 47:42
  for saying this but uh Earl who's 25 he uh and and his and his you know deeply embedded in
• 47:51
  the the sort of counterculture and all the rest of it um city wanted to get baptized and um
• 47:58
  which I'd never which I never which I never did with my kids and um I said what's going on
• 48:05
  what why you know what what's going on with you young people you know I just see so many coming
• 48:13
  to the church I go to and it goes um uh atheism is something your parents did
• 48:22
  I think it's okay it's like it's the Facebook of beliefs it's like something that was once new
• 48:29
  in the early 2000s but it was it was very it was a kind of heartening thing to hear
• 48:34
  anyway rather than being on the sort of on the wrong end of the stick yeah um but anyway that
• 48:43
  that's don't know what that actually means but they're they're they're you hear a great
• 48:49
  tide of of you know rushing back towards Catholicism and that's a bit different though isn't it
• 48:58
  than I'm not so sure that's yeah there might be other things going on there culturally then
• 49:05
  yeah simply the quest to be more present which is sort of what I mean by humanity like the the
• 49:11
  fact that we're so swept up in the busyness of everyday life that we've lost the ability to
• 49:16
  notice what's going on it may be part of that a spiritual yearning yeah yeah do you have a
• 49:25
  I don't have a spiritual yearning yes I mean have you always had something like that would you say
• 49:31
  no in my teens I was a devotee of Sam Harrison Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and I would have
• 49:38
  said that the materialist worldview was um sure but but did you I mean from I think from as far
• 49:47
  back as I can remember I had a feeling of a pull like a like a a pulled towards some other thing
• 49:55
  or or something missing or or a kind of longing or yearning for something other the outside of
• 50:03
  myself yes it's nothing I could ever articulate or put into words every now and you know I went to
• 50:08
  the to church as a to the Anglican church and in in Wangerada where I grew up um and I was I was
• 50:20
  always felt when when I heard the stories of Christ and stuff like that told I was actually
• 50:25
  interested in them no no one out none of the other choir boys cared less about that something but I
• 50:31
  was interested and I felt a kind of I was just I had a kind it had a kind of an allure that was
• 50:43
  strange to me and sort of always has and and it felt like a in some weird way kind of defining
• 50:53
  emotion for me well you've got the god-shaped hole is that the god is just the god-shaped
• 50:59
  I don't I mean I I've never had that relationship to a church no but I've had I think everyone
• 51:03
  I don't I mean in general I mean in general I kind of feeling a feeling like like like like for
• 51:10
  example in Wangerada where I grew up it's a country town in Australia I've been telling I
• 51:18
  were I'm telling you this I've been telling the story on stage because I I play a particular song
• 51:23
  but I I had this feeling I always had this feeling as a young boy right as a teenager 12 30
• 51:31
  of some of of of a kind of melancholy um feeling toward the world that I couldn't find any answer to
• 51:40
  in Wangerada this town that just abaked in the sun and was and it was all sort of glare and and
• 51:47
  kind of um I just didn't find that and and a friend of my um though the sister of my best friend
• 51:56
  said you've got to come to to my house now I found something and and we went to her little
• 52:02
  shack out the back of the place that she lived and she put on this Leonard Cohen record songs of
• 52:09
  love and hate and this dark um deep music started that just feel that that just spoke directly to
• 52:21
  that I remember just feeling this incredible feeling of music of this particular music uh
• 52:30
  speaking to that part of me in some kind of way that felt um you know when and when I think
• 52:36
  back again that's it's a little bit like that other story in in rehab of a kind of spiritual awakening
• 52:43
  of some sort through music and I think music I know I've gone a bit off topic I think music can
• 52:51
  can do that too I think it's uh you know which is why you know song generating apps and stuff
• 52:59
  like that for me are a terrifying it's a terrifying situation that no one seems to be really
• 53:08
  speaking much about that there are these that there are these whatever they are what do you call them
• 53:15
  apps or AI the AI platforms or whatever they are where you literally put in a prompt an
• 53:22
  out comes a song you can put into a you know a dark gothic song about my dead grandmother
• 53:28
  an out comes a song and they're not they're actually not bad right um
• 53:34
  but it's this is this is this for me is a
• 53:41
  I I feel personally with with music I find this with music more than with the other arts for some reason
• 53:49
  is it is a direct and cynical attack on what it is to be a human being that is that the idea
• 53:55
  that we can take the struggle we can take the the sort of the epiphany away and go straight
• 54:06
  to the thing um that that that the artistic struggle is just some kind of inconvenience along the
• 54:16
  way um and that the notions of striving and and these sorts of things are I just
• 54:24
  completely demolished is for me uh uh I feel a direct attack on on on our very soul and
• 54:33
  and it worries me because I don't think that there are very many legitimate transcendent
• 54:40
  experiences sort of left to us in a way I mean we have nature although we're sort of abusing
• 54:48
  that um religion is whatever been swept away by your mates mostly well more people are
• 54:57
  coming back to it your church is full of young cool kids these days uh is is writing music you
• 55:03
  said a struggle like the sort of yeah it's yeah it's it's you know it's a monumental
• 55:14
  monumentally difficult thing to do to write a song surround on concern some people don't actually
• 55:19
  don't have that problem some people can pick up a guitar at a party and start strumming out
• 55:25
  some chords and and sing some words and they have a song it's not made that for me at all it's
• 55:31
  it's um very much hard work getting up in the morning and trying to piece together some lyrics and
• 55:39
  stuff like that and do you feel like it's coming from you or do you feel like you're tuning into
• 55:44
  something well it's it's it's it's kind of a mystery what's happening I probably tend to think
• 55:52
  more that it that it's coming from elsewhere but I don't know I don't know where I don't make those
• 56:00
  sorts of claims um I don't think God is writing my songs for me um I mean he could if he was
• 56:12
  he could probably do a little bit that's a crude way of putting it Nick but I think everyone who's
• 56:17
  been creative everyone who has written something of any duration whether it's in words or in music
• 56:22
  has known the experience of forcing yourself to sit your ass down in the chair yeah turn off your
• 56:27
  phone and do the hard work yeah I mean I see something happens and there's a mute there's something
• 56:32
  else in the room that's not there is there's there's a there's a there's a sort of um it's a terrible
• 56:38
  time for me I sit I sit down and at nine o'clock in the morning and I do that till five o'clock when
• 56:45
  I'm when I'm writing when I decide that I'm going to write a new new new new record and
• 56:52
  try and write a song and and and very very slowly something comes but it and and this there's a
• 56:59
  sort of meeting of of lines there might be a line over here that I've written or a line over
• 57:05
  there and they sort of come together in something forms and there's a what I call a kind of shimmering
• 57:11
  or vibrational thing that starts to happen between the lines it's almost visual um and
• 57:18
  this and then suddenly hang on that's an idea and you stick another line next to it's like okay
• 57:24
  you nearly got a verse there it's it's there's something beautiful happening between these
• 57:29
  lines that is beyond meaning it's not got anything to do with what you're trying to I'm not
• 57:34
  sat down and tried to write a song about Brexit or something like that this is some other this is
• 57:40
  something going this is something going on and the beautiful thing or the frustrating thing is that
• 57:46
  this little epiphany is is sits adjacent to boredom and frustration and despair you just sit there
• 57:56
  like nothing's coming and suddenly this little thing starts to happen and you never know whether it
• 58:02
  will or whether it won't now where that comes from um you know for me that's juries out about that
• 58:12
  but it's certainly um if I certainly trust that that the meaning will come that I'll create this
• 58:23
  thing and look at it and in time it will mean something of of to me personally of some significance
• 58:30
  it's it's a it's a it's a beautiful thing because a song a song is just not this thing it's this living
• 58:37
  organism that's releasing meaning all the time every time you every time you you get up on stage and
• 58:44
  sing it if it's a if it's a good song and possibly different meanings to each of the individuals who
• 58:49
  are hearing it yeah well that too as well yeah right you know people will little land differently
• 58:53
  for different people depending on where they are yeah it's magical isn't it I mean I suspect that
• 58:58
  your antipathy the artificial systems generating this may be because there's no way to replicate
• 59:05
  that experience that you're talking about but quite a lot of music that we consume I mean I know some
• 59:11
  American music producers have quite glib and superficial about their relationship to the art
• 59:16
  form they know exactly where the beats have to go they know exactly what kind of music audio
• 59:20
  program to filter it through that it's going to you know then it's going to rise this way and when
• 59:24
  when that when that stands over then it's quite already quite mechanical producing pop songs right
• 59:31
  so is there a lot there that's not a very good argument though I think against you sort of taking
• 59:38
  the worst the worst of it as if well the worst of it that's what they do with the worst of it but
• 59:45
  the I think the best of it the best of creation requires some suffering and some struggle and
• 59:53
  is a reflection of what we are as human beings which in my view are things that suffer and and I
• 1:00:02
  think that this is at the base at the sort of groundwork underneath all good music and maybe you're
• 1:00:11
  all good art in a way what if an artificial system could suffer yeah I don't know in the future
• 1:00:21
  yeah maybe I mean it's it's frightening that what you really I don't I don't know about that I don't
• 1:00:27
  I'm not a you know my my larger concern I guess is that so much has been taken away from us as human beings
• 1:00:41
  you know I think we're I think we're losing things are not being left with much and I think this
• 1:00:54
  is one other sort of massive bite out of the apple which is which is AI taking away it's just AI
• 1:01:04
  within music I'm not talking about AI in general in medicine and all of this sort of stuff I don't
• 1:01:09
  know about that and I'm sure it will read great rewards I'm talking about within music I think is
• 1:01:17
  a it should be and may not be and that's even more of a problem a massive demoralizing force on
• 1:01:24
  what it is to be human being that the the thing that scares me most is that it's not you know that
• 1:01:30
  we just allow it to happen and who cares if you know I don't know there's it I think there's a
• 1:01:36
  Drake song out that was made by AI and an actual Drake song and the AI ones doing better or
• 1:01:43
  something like that I might have got that wrong but that people actually are in a way so
• 1:01:53
  have become so demoralized that they don't really care I mean that's a sort of bleak
• 1:02:01
  viewer things but maybe people really do care maybe people really feel that going and seeing a band
• 1:02:08
  actually playing on stage is something that can't be replicated I think enough to you know I hope
• 1:02:15
  that's I think enough to I think I mean there for a start there aren't very many of you
• 1:02:19
  in the overall landscape of musicians people who are so so generous and so dedicated to their craft
• 1:02:26
  and so motivated by you know communicating in the way that you do with your audiences so
• 1:02:32
  it may be the case that people are willing to tolerate pop songs from AI and those aren't your
• 1:02:37
  people yeah you know this yeah I mean I having said all that I I like pop songs you know I like
• 1:02:51
  sort of plastic pop songs that make you feel happy and everything like that so maybe this room
• 1:02:58
  for for both yeah I don't want to sort of backtrack no no I think that's fine you might you might
• 1:03:05
  be right that there there is room you know I out there's a story with stock eight cannon
• 1:03:13
  waterman this may be not true I don't know but that they were supposed to meet Kylie Minogue in
• 1:03:20
  London and do a song with her this is when she was nobody and she turned up to the studio and they'd
• 1:03:28
  forgotten that she was coming and they're something like oh fuck this is girl this is young girl
• 1:03:34
  and within half an hour they'd written a song for her to go and sing which is I should be so lucky
• 1:03:40
  that they just sort of sat down and gone don't let that do this do that do that I should be you know
• 1:03:44
  I think you know and and this kind of this is an unbelievably beautiful song in its way if you
• 1:03:51
  look if you like pop music it's a great it's a brilliant pop song and you can you can say that
• 1:04:00
  there is no struggle that happened behind that it's just three unbelievably clever guys who could
• 1:04:06
  just do this and maybe this room for maybe this room for everyone yeah I mean I think you're selling
• 1:04:13
  yourself short by framing it only as struggle that you're trying to cling to I think you're trying
• 1:04:18
  to cling to some deeper vision of humanity and creativity than just things that arise from struggle
• 1:04:26
  well I suspect I suspect that your resistance to artificially produced music is deeper than
• 1:04:34
  simply worrying that it doesn't that it doesn't come out of a place of struggle it's a it's I think
• 1:04:38
  you were worried about AI alienating us from what it means to be human yeah yeah and all of this
• 1:04:46
  variance yeah struggle happiness richness depth curiosity sure I'm a kind of gloomy bastard
• 1:04:56
  you know I personally I think very much affected by the red hand files and by reading what comes
• 1:05:04
  through the red hand files which obviously is not all of life but they're they're it feels to me
• 1:05:12
  that the to define ourselves as sort of creatures of loss seems pretty much true to me that we are all
• 1:05:21
  on some level losing something and so I think that that you know of course that you can sit
• 1:05:39
  down with great joy in your heart and write something too but I think that I think that fundamental
• 1:05:44
  sense of loss animates everything personally you are melancholy bastard how do you feel about
• 1:05:51
  don't I I'm not too I'm not too worried about it it's not something that I spend much time contemplating
• 1:06:03
  I don't know what happens when we die I don't have any particular hopes one way or another
• 1:06:10
  um I feel that the lights don't just go out but I don't I couldn't say one way I don't have the
• 1:06:19
  authority to say in your professional plaster role yeah but I do feel you know I do feel a sort of
• 1:06:28
  sense of a continuance with people who've died that exists in in the living world and
• 1:06:40
  you know maybe that's there's something in that and there's concepts of consciousness and
• 1:06:45
  so I so I don't know what happens when I die so I'm not particularly concerned one way or the other
• 1:06:50
  and do you think about your legacy um no I don't I don't think I think I don't think the legacy lasts
• 1:07:03
  uh particularly long you know I well I was talking well I was talking to a young guy and I
• 1:07:14
  talked about sex pistol and Johnny Rotten they were just like who's that and you and you think
• 1:07:19
  these you know in when I was young when I was you know this was like everybody on earth
• 1:07:28
  knew the sex pistols and now they're largely forgotten that's quite terrifying in a way so
• 1:07:35
  I'm not I don't have a high hopes shall we say for my legacy maybe making friends with that is
• 1:07:41
  the true job of living a human life that we're all going to end up as dust and that's fine yeah I
• 1:07:47
  think that that's that's okay I'm not this feels like we're winding up here well thank you Nick
• 1:07:57
  you're not a less morbid note you can if you are um no I'm you know I you leave you like you
• 1:08:08
  don't sadly when you die you leave behind a lot of sorrow you know without I'm trying to find a
• 1:08:15
  happy way to end this you don't have to that happens you you you leave behind a lot of sorrow but
• 1:08:23
  I think out of that sorrow comes great uh the potential for great beauty and growth as well so
• 1:08:31
  there we have it it's lovely to talk to you both you're melancholy self and you're poly on
• 1:08:36
  yourself so thank you Nick thank you very much