Photograph by Bleddyn Butcher Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher

WEST BERLIN, AUGUST 1985

‘Nick spent much of the mid-1980s writing his first novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel,’ says photographer Bleddyn Butcher. ‘He would retreat to Berlin and immerse himself in the world of its protagonist, the deaf-mute Euchrid Eucrow. Like Eucrow, he decorated the walls of his retreat – a tiny closet in a prewar apartment – with tokens and fetishes, all the better to commune with his muse.’





Photograph by Bleddyn Butcher Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher

LONDON, APRIL 1982

‘A dank Kilburn basement. Destiny calls. I’d been dogging the Birthday Party for a year but hadn’t taken a definitive pic. Nick Cave threw an arm around Rowland [S Howard] and loured at the camera. This musketeer moment would soon pass. In 1983, he decided he could not, or would no longer, sing Rowland’s lyrics. Rowland was not content with the lead guitarist’s role. The Party was over.’

Photograph by Bleddyn Butcher Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher

LONDON, AUGUST 1996

‘Nick on stage with the Bad Seeds at the Brixton Academy during the Murder Ballads tour. I’ve spent many avid hours at Bad Seeds concerts, sometimes, as here, observing from sniper positions, but such confluence of lighting and action is rare.’

Photograph by Bleddyn Butcher Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1983

‘Nick with his then girlfriend, Anita Lane (whose name is etched on his arm), at Tudor Close, Brixton Hill. Anita’s influence on Nick’s early thinking and creative confidence was catalytic.’

Photograph by Bleddyn Butcher Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher

LONDON, JANUARY 1989

‘Nick, Mark E Smith and Shane MacGowan. This was taken at NME’s so-called summit meeting, convened at a pub in Peckham by features editor James Brown and adjourned to his flat in Camberwell. Nick, conspicuously sober, took an amused back seat while Mark [E Smith] and Shane [MacGowan] took potshots at one another and abused the hospitality. Shane tipped his red wine into the white shagpile. I”m not sure it was an accident.’

Photograph by Bleddyn Butcher Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher

LONDON, MAY 1982

With Louis Wain postcards in his bedroom in Bayswater, west London.

Photograph by Bleddyn Butcher Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 2002

The Bad Seeds – Martyn P Casey, Conway Savage, Mick Harvey, Nick Cave, Jim Sclavunos, Warren Ellis, Thomas Wydler, Blixa Bargeld – in Three Mills Studios, Bromley-by-Bow, east London, where they were recording Babe, I’m on Fire. ‘They’re balancing plastic spoons on the ends of their noses to illustrate Nick’s reference in the song to koala love. In Australian folklore, the back of a spoon resembles a koala’s nose.’



Photograph by Bleddyn Butcher Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher

LONDON, MARCH 1985

In Stepney, east London. ‘Avoiding eye contact is his idea of acting.’



Photograph by Bleddyn Butcher Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher

LONDON, OCTOBER 1981

The Birthday Party performing at West Hampstead’s Moonlight Club in north London. ‘The band was an unruly beast, champing at every bit, straining at every leash. Everyone had an opinion; they all had to be heard.’



Photograph by Bleddyn Butcher Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher

LONDON, MARCH 2001

On the set of Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow in the old town hall, Bethnal Green, east London.

A Little History: Photographs of Nick Cave & Cohorts 1981-2013 by Bleddyn Butcher is published by Allen & Unwin (£18.99). Click here to buy it for £15.19 with free UK p&p