Sunday, October 03, 2004
A great Interview with Nick came from the New Zealand Herald:
Just in the time of Nick
11.09.2004 By FIONA STURGES
Read the full article. An Excerpt is below:
Looking back, he realises his parents were very supportive despite his best efforts to undermine their expectations. His father, who died when he was 19, was an English Literature teacher and helped nurture his son's love of books. Was starting up a band an act of rebellion? "It may have been but I don't think he saw it that way," Cave replies.
"I remember showing him my first record which had a song on it called Masturbation Generation. He just looked baffled, which was quite crushing but at the same time I understood his reaction. In some fucked-up way I probably encouraged it.
"He thought literature was at the very top of the learning pyramid and that Shakespeare was there balancing on the top. He may well have thought that all his efforts that he had put into me had been squandered. And then he died, so he never got to see where that kind of stuff went."
Cave's mother, to whom he is close, is a much-valued critic of his work. Of his own role as a parent Cave says: "I do make some efforts to guide [my children's] interests but I also encourage them in whatever they want to do. My game plan as a father is non-existent. It's only when you become a parent that you suddenly realise that your own parents were winging it day by day as well and that's enormously reassuring."
It has taken nearly 25 years for him to become comfortable with his position, if not as an icon, then as a singer and songwriter of acclaim. "I suppose I can write musician on an immigration document as my profession without blushing with shame," he says grudgingly. "I've come to understand music better in the last 10 years, and my place in it. For a start I can play it better - I'm a better pianist and singer, and with that comes a certain confidence. For most of my 20s and 30s I just felt like an impostor."
posted by Ross Sunday, October 03, 2004
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