Your new book, The Sick Bag Song, started from writing down ideas, observations, memories – on actual sick bags – on a US tour to promote your 2013 album Push the Sky Away. When did you realise that these jottings could be a book?

There was certainly a point where I had to let go of the idea that it was just a really long song. Then I had to get over the particular hurdle of writing something that would open myself up to a certain amount of criticism, possibly. Because I’m stepping outside what I normally do, which is songwriting, into something that there’s a whole different critical approach to, which is poetry. I’ve always stayed away from poetry. Maybe I should stay away from poetry!

There are elements of memoir in there, but it’s a long way from a tour diary. Would you say that The Sick Bag Song exists somewhere between fact and fiction?

Yeah, I guess. For me, it’s a character-driven story and that character is on some level a literary invention that just happens to be an ageing rock star on the same tour I’m doing. I feel I can stand outside that character and invent things for it to do, so it’s not like a confessional poem.

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There’s a story in the book where you go round to Bryan Ferry’s house and have a conversation with him about writing and creativity. Did that really happen?



Yeah, it’s a true story. It was very much exactly like that. I feel a little guilty for putting it into the book, but as it was a riff on creativity, I thought it deserved to be in there.

To fill out the story: you fall asleep next to his swimming pool surrounded by beautiful orchards; when you wake up, Bryan Ferry’s in the pool and he says he hasn’t written a song in years because “There’s nothing to write about.” Do you believe then that you – as a writer – can get too comfortable?

No, because the inspiration for writing isn’t really without, it’s within. And you can write really anywhere if your imagination is in good shape. It needs to be exercised. But it doesn’t really matter where you are.

How do you keep your imagination in good shape then?

Well, I work all the time and I change the sort of things I do. There’s no way I’d still be a songwriter – of any worth at least – if that’s all I did. I would go the route of most songwriters, I’d say. Dipping into areas that are different helps keep that alive.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The lyric video for Mermaids, the third single from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Push the Sky Away.

You’ve written a couple of novels, written or co-written four screenplays and various film and theatre scores – those things?

The actual output in those extracurricular activities isn’t of major importance to me. As much as I have a personal pride in some of the other stuff that I’ve done – let’s say a low-level pride – and they mean a lot to me on a personal level, it’s the songs themselves that feel like this body of work that I’m trying to amass. But the other projects keep the imagination on its toes and the songwriting alive.

Push the Sky Away was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ most successful record to date; a number one in eight countries. Do you feel you’re getting better?

I always, on some level, feel that I’m getting better, but whether I actually am or not is a completely different thing. But you have to feel that way. You can’t carry on and feel you’re getting worse. Well, maybe you can carry on that way and think, “OK, I’m doing this because it’s my bread and butter…” But at the moment I haven’t been forced to see my work in that way. It’s still something of an ongoing project, an accumulation of songs to create this particular world that I’m trying to create. And it still feels I’m adding to that world rather than destroying it.

The Bad Seeds are known for their exuberant live shows. Do you still enjoy going on the road?

There’s a particular state of mind that goes on with touring, where you are repeating the same day over and over again. But it’s a tedium I actually enjoy. You’re just told what to do all the time: when to eat, when to get up, when to do a fucking interview – it’s all on a piece of paper there. And if you don’t do what’s on the piece of paper, someone very quickly will force you back into line. So it’s probably not dissimilar to prison, but at the same time, your mind wanders and that allows for a kind of free-thinking, if you like.

You’ve said you wouldn’t like to have been any more successful, because of the trade-off that would have been with privacy. You really feel that strongly?

Yeah, my privacy has always been very important. But living in Brighton is great, I don’t know why, but in Brighton, I can just go about my business and it feels that I’m left alone to do that. Maybe it’s because I never go out of the house [laughs]. My wife got her driving licence so she takes the car now and I’m stranded at home, maybe that’s got something to do with it.

But there are some intimate moments in The Sick Bag Song, like when you describe standing in front of a mirror with paste in a bowl “painting” your hair black…

Yes, I do!

How do you decide what to share?

The idea of censoring things as you write, it’s just something that I don’t do. Maybe I should, but I feel I can’t afford to be doing that. And I always choose something that feels right or reads right, or sounds right in a song, above any personal feelings. I’ve always felt like that.

The Sick Bag Song is only available through its own website – not bookshops, not Amazon. Why did you choose to do that?

Perhaps you should ask my publisher. It was a joint decision. For me, personally, I like to go into a bookshop, but the thing about buying on the website is that you get other things that a bookshop couldn’t facilitate, a download and a bunch of other stuff. So that’s the reason for that.

And you’ll have a new record next year. Will that be influenced by the success of Push the Sky Away?

Part of the reason for writing The Sick Bag Song was to rid myself of the influences I felt hung over the last record. I needed to bury the ghosts, build a wall between the last record and this one. And we’ve been working on stuff and it just doesn’t sound like Push the Sky Away. Which, of course, we’re pleased with.

What about ‘If it ain’t broke…’?

Well, I don’t feel that way, but I know you could feel that way. For me, the idea of trying to repeat things that were successful in the past is a recipe for disaster.

The Sick Bag Song by Nick Cave (Canongate) is available exclusively from thesickbagsong.com. Unlimited edition, £30; limited edition with a sick bag annotated by Cave himself, £750