Webmaster's Note: I am assuming that this was written by the same person who wrote the 1983 interview with the Birthday Party, so I am giving it the same attributions. If you have reason to believe that this should be otherwise, let me know.

Tim: It was April of 83 that I last saw you as a member of The Birthday Party. You went back to England after that tour to record the Mutiny EP?

Mick: No, we went back to Berlin. Flew to Berlin, had a week there recording, and then went back to England, played the Electric Ballroom, and then left the next day. Well, everyone left the next day for Australia.

Tim: Was the whole EP recorded during that week?

Mick: We recorded about 7 songs and then finished it in London in August. No, we didn't finish it when we first recorded it. It was a total mess of unfinished songs.

Tim: Say a Spell and Swampland were both played in your live U.S. set, so those two should've been pretty well ready to go. You probably did them?

Mick: Yeah, Say a Spell, Swampland, Pleasure Avalanche Six Strings um, and on top of that we did Jennifer's Veil Mutiny and another song Wings off Flies which is a different version from the song on the Bad Seeds album.

Tim: Did Blixa play with you some that early, that first week?

Mick: No, he didn't play anything. He was there sort of making a nuisance of himself the whole time cause we were in Berlin. He was at the controls while everyone else were in states of total depression. Blixa was keeping everything going.

Tim: So you, Nick, Tracy, and Rowland were still recording together at that point. And then you flew to England, did a show, and then everyone flew back to Australia?

Mick: Yeah, except for me.

Tim: You had made a decision at that time?

Mick: No, I had made a decision long before that. Basically, The Birthday Party had gotten to a stage where there was no new direction. No one was coming up with new material for the BP as such. It had sort of dried up a little bit. Rowland was very much into... he'd keep some, a lot of the things he was writing for his own projects, none of which has surfaced yet, but he would only give the BP one of every four of his songs as the song he would write for the group. Nick was becoming more and more interested in just writing, I think, and had stopped writing music. So there was no real flow of new material for some time. Everything had stagnated to some degree, and I just thought it was about time we stopped, cause there wasn't going to be that spark anymore. If we'd kept going it would've just been a case of keeping going because we were too gutless to do something else.

Tim: So you knew before you left for the U.S. that that tour was going to be your last?

Mick: Around February I rang up Nick and told him I thought we should stop, and he agreed with me completely. Then I rang up Rowland, and the only thing Rowland said he was surprised about was that he hadn't said it first. So obviously everyone knew what was going down. They all completely understood my reasons for it, so it was basically a group decision really. Tracy was quite willing to just keep rolling along forever, but I think he sees now that it was necessary, simply because of the way Nick and Rowland had changed and developed. They basically stopped communicating on what we were doing, which was a bit of a problem since they were the two main writers. And the competitive element of their writing had gotten to a ridiculous stage. Rowland couldn't get any satisfaction out of what he was writing for the group cause Nick wouldn't sing it the way he wanted him to, or he just wouldn't want to do it. And Nick was becoming more powerful in terms of his control over the group. So there was a lot of dissatisfaction going on from Rowland's end. But then after I made this decision I said 'Right, I'll go as far as the American tour, cause as far as I can see that's the last thing that will present any kind of challenge to the group, which will bring out the good side of what's still possible there.' Then they started getting worried, I think. They started panicking about what the hell are we going to do next, just normal fear sort of things, and they wanted to try to keep it going a little while longer so they could put off their decision a little longer. I don't know what they were doing; I really couldn't figure it out. Within a week of them all talking to me on the phone saying "Yeah it's a good decision" they were coming back saying "come on let's do an Australian tour after the American one" I just said no... 'cause whenever we went back to Australia, all we got was this fawning adoration that was no challenge, no nothing. And the only way we could be good under those circumstances was to react completely against being totally adored, which I didn't see was going to happen this time, because we didn't have new material or something different we could throw in their face. It just would've been a case of us getting up and playing. Just no good, basically, and I think that's what happened to them-- except that they were given the challenge of having to play with a fill-in drummer and trying to pull it off.

Tim: Were there many dates they did?

Mick: No, they only did about 8 or 9.

Tim: And you stayed in England and bided your time?

Mick: Yeah. Basically I think that tour was a mistake. I refused to go right from the outset, but eventually they just wouldn't accept my decision and they went ahead and arranged the Australian tour before we went to America. I was still saying no and they were still arguing back at me, which was pretty absurd after having made a final decision earlier. So I said all right, you ring up Ken West and you tell him whether you think we're doing it or not. I still say no. Nick went ahead and said yes.

Tim: Ken was the tour manger for the Violent Femmes when they last played Columbus, and he told me he had some world tour lined up for the group also, but the band would've had to have been billed as Nick Cave and The Birthday Party.

Mick: I don't know what Ken... Ken has some pretty weird ideas.

Tim: He saw Stache's and advised me "Nick would take one look at the place and refuse to play there because of the small size of the club." He was saying that the Bad Seeds could sell out the Lyceum, so you'd never want to play a club like Stache's.

Mick: Oh no, that's not the way it goes.

Tim: Anyways, they returned from Australia, the three guys?

Mick: Rowland and NIck came back to London, then Nick got Tracy to come back over to finish Mutiny, and the group was finished after that. It was definitely over.

Tim: So that's when Blixa played on Mutiny in Heaven?

Mick: Rowland and Nick were arguing the whole time during those sessions. Rowland eventually just went away and didn't come back for the last two days to the studio. Blixa and I ended up finishing the guitars on it in August. Then Mutiny came out and that was it.

Tim: At least Pleasure Avalanche and Six Strings came out on the Pleasure Heads video.

Mick: Pretty strange versions of them.

Tim: The idea germinated right away to have a fresh start with a new band?

Mick: No, I think Nick decide he had to have an outlet for his writing, but since he realized he wouldn't be able to put out a book quickly, he called me and Blixa together and we went into a studio in London to start recording, without any songs or anything.

Tim: Barry was in there, too?

Mick: Barry came down from Manchester about halfway through the sessions. We needed some bass. I refuse to write any music because I thought Nick was just interested in writing and I suspected he might have wanted music just as a vehicle for his words. I thought that if he was still going to be involved in music, if he was going to have a continuing musical career, then he'd have to be more interested in that end of it. But he hadn't really been writing any music for some time so I left it for him and he eventually did it, and did a damn good job of it too. It's really good music, and it did renew his interest in the musical side of it, I think. This group has become fairly much just Nick's group to an extent. All of us contribute, obviously, but it's very much presenting Nick Cave.

Tim: So in September and October the three songs on the second side (Huck, Wings, and Black Paul) were recorded, and also Barry told me earlier there was a different version of From Her... done then?

Mick: Yeah, that's right. It was then pretty much a rock song, pretty straight forward, strong beat, just rollicked along.

Tim: Still moves pretty good on the album compared to some of the others.

Mick: Yeah it's a pretty slow record. Not slow, that's not a very good description of it. Not really slow, but it's... atmospheric. That was around September then Nick came to America and did the Immaculate Consumptive. That was a bit of an aside, I think. I'd gone back to Australia to see my friends and family, 'cause I was sick to death of England. Barry's married to an Australian girl, so he'd gone over there for Christmas to stay with her family, and Nick went back there from America. So by December we were back together, and Nick said OK, let's play a few dates. we pulled together a group, Tracy was in it, he played bass, Barry played guitar and piano, Hugo came in on guitar and I was playing drums. We did about six dates in Australia through January. Then either Nick decided or it was suggested that we should record some more and make an album. Originally what we had recorded earlier in September was going to be an EP.

Tim: What was the band billed as in Australia?

Mick: In Australia we were Nick Cave: Man or Myth, which was going to be the name of the EP. So then in February everyone drifted back to England except for Tracy, cause Tracy decided he wanted to stay and go to University. Blixa hadn't come to Australia with us, naturally, so Blixa came back in. Barry went back on the bass, and it was a group. We finished the album and then started playing scattered dates, about ten in England and about ten around Europe. Not exactly excessive touring.

Tim: Probably no one's interested in doing anything on a grand scale?

Mick: Well, originally it was going to be, but the agents there just couldn't really get it together. There was nothing there until the album came out, and by the time it did it was too late obviously to be booking the tours. There was no press; there was no record out, there was nothing to indicate what the band actually was or to create any interest.

Tim: It seems like the press that has come out now has been overwhelmingly positive.

Mick: Yeah, I find that quite surprising to some degree. I can see such room for improvement in Nick's working this way, picking up musicians to back him. I think if he records another record or plays again that it's going to be 10 times better. Hopefully he'll have moved completely away from The Birthday Party thing, and he'll have more time to write more songs and get a really strong set together. I think there's a few weak spots in what we are doing at the moment.

Tim: You wouldn't want to pinpoint them, would you?

Mick: Oh no, I think they very much speak for themselves! That's not to say I don't think what we're doing can be very... on the right night, when everything clicks, you wouldn't know there were any weak spots, because everything's happening.

Tim: I understand. There aren't any group photos available, I've been told. I tried to get one, but I guess everyone expects the membership to fluctuate over the next few months.

Mick: Yeah, I think the personnel will probably fluctuate a bit. After this tour, everyone's going their separate ways. Hugo's going back to Australia, Blixa will go back to Germany, I'll go back to London, Barry will go back to Manchester, Nick's staying in America.

Tim: He is?! Why's he doing that?

Mick: He wants to.

Tim: New York, huh?

Mick: I don't know if he wants to stay in New York, but you'll have to ask him what he plans to pull together next. I think he's looking at recording again in September or October. It wouldn't surprise me if myself, Blixa and Barry were still involved.

Tim: Any idea who might be some likely candidates for admission into the group?

Mick: No idea.

Tim: Or who would be the most likely to get the boot?