2024-09-17 00:18:34
“We know exactly what we are playing, but we never know how it will end. There’s a wonderful tension and great power to it,” guitarist George Vjestica describes what it’s like to be part of The Bad Seeds, Nick Cave’s band. “This tension is transferred to the listeners, creating a very communal moment. Nick is a great communicator. He knows how to draw the audience into the music,” he adds.
Bad Seed does not mean a bad seed from which nothing will sprout. The English phrase refers to a fundamentally corrupt individual who revels in vices and vices, with which he often infects those around him. And they are genuinely happy about it.
The ensemble was formed in 1983, with twenty musicians. The only constant remains Nick Cave, an Australian singer living in England and America. Now they will come to the Czech Republic for the eleventh time, they will play on October 17 in Prague’s O2 arena. Tickets are almost sold out, even though Bad Seeds haven’t heard much in recent years.
Until recently, Nick Cave seemed to dissolve his songs in the crystalline hum of synthesizers and rather cut off specific sounds. It may be a reaction to the series of tragedies that befell the frontman. His fifteen-year-old Arthur died in 2015 after an unfortunate fall from a cliff, thirty-one-year-old Jethro passed away the year before. The almost abstract album Ghosteen from 2019 sounded like something from a spirit realm. But on the just-released record called Wild God, the Bad Seeds, rockers at heart, were once again wreaking havoc.
“They are powerful and expansive songs. The album is recorded in such a way that it works live. It corresponds to the concept of the band,” says guitarist George Vjestica in a telephone interview for Aktuálně.cz. “Most of the songs will work great in concert,” he believes.
The art of listening
George Vjestica, a 57-year-old musician with Serbo-Croatian ancestry, was born in the English city of Stoke-on-Trent and has lived in London for years. He first tried to break through in the 90s of the last century with a band that he doesn’t even want to name in retrospect. He says they had a major label deal on the table. “In the end, it was all about ego and politics. It was all over my head, so I decided to play guitar for others,” he explains, explaining how he started touring and recording with, for example, the electronic duo Groove Armada at the turn of the millennium.
Nick Cave will perform on October 17 in Prague’s O2 Arena. | Photo: Reuters
With Nick Cave and his close collaborator Warren Ellis, he first recorded the music for the western films Proposition and Lawless Land, for which the Australian also wrote the scripts. During the preparations of the Push The Sky Away album, the frontman called Vjestic to see if he would play a twelve-string guitar on several songs. He subsequently invited him on a European tour.
“A band like the Bad Seeds can seem creepy, maybe scary from the outside. But I didn’t feel that way. I’ve known everyone for a long time,” Vjestica describes his transformation into the “rotten seed” he became in 2013.
“Before the tour, we spent two days in the rehearsal room. Suddenly I’m standing on the main stage of the Primavera festival. After the end of the line, Nick Cave asked me if I would continue with them to America. And suddenly I belonged to them,” he recounts.
He was used to big concerts, he usually played on the main stages. But the Bad Seeds offered him a completely new kind of experience. “Nick is very demanding, especially on himself. It can be wild on stage because our concerts are very real. We are a body, connected to each other,” he says.
What is required to enter Bad Seeds? “You have to be able to really listen,” muses Vjestica. “All the musicians who went through the line-up had their own identity. Everyone brought a piece of themselves to the songs. But Nick is a great leader, he reminds me of Igor Stravinsky, for example. He can direct us even on stage. At one point there is such silence that you could hear a pin drop . The band whispers. And then the storm comes. You have to develop a great feeling,” the people of Prague last experienced at the 2022 Metronome festival.
However, according to Vjestici, the magic of Bad Seeds lies in its strict minimalism. “That’s real quality. The songs aren’t crowded. You have to realize what each one requires. You have to perceive,” he emphasizes.
The two-minute video shows how Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds recorded the Wild God album. | Video: Pias Recordings
True song
When asked what he likes best from the new Wild God album, he names the track Frogs. “It’s almost cinematic. I love how it transforms,” he says of the song, which is paced by lingering synths reminiscent of dreamy sirens.
He also calls O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is) an extraordinary guitarist. “It almost cuts,” describes the otherworldly-sounding composition, which the frontman dedicated to Australian musician Anita Lane. She died in April 2021, she was 61 years old.
She met Cave when she was seventeen in Australia. They dated for a few years, they got together while working on songs for the apocalyptic group Birthday Party, in which they both worked.
Anita Lane then wrote several lyrics and songs for the Bad Seeds as well, of which she was briefly a part. She played the guitar and sang, sometimes the lead part. Her voice closes the new song. It has a slightly twangy rhythm, given by half classical drums, half electronic. Warren Ellis even whistles here like somewhere in a meadow. It all adds up to one of Cave’s most positive songs.
A kind of otherworldliness began to seep into his work on the Pust the Sky Away album. It was the first to not feature longtime guitarist Mick Harvey. The role of the “second man” was played by the bearded electric violin player and experimenter Warren Ellis, who always has a small synthesizer or drum machine on hand. It was then that one of the many changes in Cave’s musical language took place.
The current album Wild God indeed has the omnipresent divine motif from the title, but the main theme is joy. Rediscovered and stronger. The record often sounds conciliatory and, by the musician’s standards, unusually light. It could have been a memorial service for his first great love or his sons, instead it celebrates life.
The recording of the telephone conversation with Anita Lane does not sound like a bittersweet memory, but a greeting from the most beautiful place in the world. “It’s a completely direct, honest and true song,” comments George Vjestica. “Everyone can relate to those,” he adds.
The main theme of Nick Cave’s new album is joy. | Photo: Ian Allen
A little different concerts
The motif of horses also often appears on the new album. In Song of the Lake they belong to a kind of king, in another they are “cinnamon horses” grazing among “turpentine trees”.
However, the wild and sometimes surreal images hide real human stories.
“Nick is very personal in everything he does,” notes the guitarist. While this remains a constant, their concerts are morphing.
The previously crazy chaotic scenes over the years began to resemble some kind of religious meeting, where people in the front rows reach out their hands to Nick Cave and he, for example, lets them touch his heart.
The Bad Seeds sing about people and their often painful experiences. The theme of the current recording could be described by the title of the song Final Rescue Attempt. After the musician experienced a darker period after a series of deaths, it seems that he has now drawn a thick line behind the sadness. The sky has faded over the years.
“Whatever place and mood Nick Cave finds himself in, he remains completely true to his art. And we are part of his world. We know what he wrote those songs about and we always stand behind him,” concludes George Vjestica.
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