Tim: Did Nick know him for a while before asking him to come in?

Mick: Not really, no, didn't keep in touch, just saw him when we went back in December.

Tim: I wonder why Nick thought to approach him about this whole thing.

Mick: Well, because he went "We need a guitarist." I said "We could get Hugo or Edward; they're all right."

Tim: Who's the other one?

Mick: Edward, the other guitarist in Plays With Marionettes. They were there in Melbourne, floating aimlessly. Then they actually supported the Nick Cave: Man or Myth thing in Sydney. So Hugo was doing two gigs a night, which was good for him. Made him work a bit for once.

Tim: Do you know how old he is?

Mick: He's 21.

Tim: The youngest member, I assume?

Mick: Yes.

Tim: This must be an exciting opportunity for him.

Mick: Yeah, I think along with the rest of it he's had quite a fun time. It was part of the purpose of him agreeing to do it all, he'd get to drift around the world with a group.

Tim: Do you think Nick would ever consider getting a sax player in the group?

Mick: Nick is fairly anti-saxophone at the moment, I think. I don't know why. He goes through these stages of being anti- a particular instrument.

Tim: It's interesting how Nick's name is always included in whatever the band's called.

Mick: The group doesn't exist outside of Nick being there and putting it together, which is why it's totally different from The Birthday Party. The BP was very much and all-contributing, democratic group, whereas this one is very much just Nick Cave and the people he puts together around him. I don't think there's any likelihood whatsoever of having the group without Nick.

Tim: It was Nick Cave: Man or Myth, then the Nick Cave Experience.

Mick: That was just what teasers in England decided to call it for a joke, which was quite good. Then there was Nick Cave and the Cavemen, which we played under for the first few gigs in England, then we finally settled on the Bad Seeds. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's a different name with the next record.

Tim: It was quite an EP. That's a good record to take your name from, The Bad Seed EP.

Mick: This is another point. When we went to Berlin, after we'd kicked Phil out, I wanted to change the name of The Birthday Party to the Bad Seeds and carry on. But I think it was indicative of the general attitude of the group, which eventually led to us not being able to carry on, that everybody was too gutless to change the name. Everyone. I think that that's actually quite important. It shows that people were very much wanting to carry on and not risk losing what we had. Keeping the BP, keeping our following. People had lost that feeling of "let's throw everything up in the air, keep putting ourselves in an awkward position." They just wanted that bit of security which I think was really unusual to the way it had always worked. I think it would have been a very good thing, had we changed our name at that stage. If everyone had the right attitude to be able to do something like that, then they also would have had fresh attitudes about the possibilities about what we could do. We didn't anyway. We stayed with The Birthday Party and called it The Bad Seed EP. It's a good name for this group. We're Bad Seeds. Bad eggs.

Tim: When you went to England for the first time as The Birthday Party, Nick didn't mention Magazine to me as one of his favorite groups that he saw upon arriving. Did you meet Barry pretty quick?

Mick: I think you'll find we met Barry the second time we went to England, starting in 1981 after we did our first tour of Australia. We were fairly much outsiders in England. We couldn't slip into the social scene and get in with all the "in" people because we were Australians, which is pretty bad in England. Australians are looked down upon. Barry toured Australia with Magazine in 1980 and met a couple of our friends there, then came back to England with one of them on his arm. So then we met him at the start of 1981 and just became friendly with him. The first thing he would have played on was about a year later, when he played on a couple of the tracks from Junkyard.

Tim: When I asked Rowland about These Immortal Souls last year, the group he was putting together, he mentioned that he wanted to use Barry in that.

Mick: Yeah, and he still does. And it's still These Immortal Souls.

Tim: And Genevieve's still with him, and Geoffrey Wagner on drums?

Mick: That's still what he's trying to do. He actually did demos in January with Geoffrey and Chris Walsh of The Moodists on bass, but they're just demos. He did three songs or something, Since then he hasn't gotten any further with putting anything together. Obviously with that line-up it couldn't be a full-time group; Geoffrey's still in the Laughing Clowns and Chris is still in The Moodists. But Rowland wants to put together a full-time, committed group, which is why I really don't want to play with him. He'd just be dissatisfied with it in the long run, because he wants a full-time group, and personally I don't think he's trying hard enough. If he really tried, he'd be able to start getting it together. And if he had recordings ready, I think Mute would be interested in releasing it. Mute has our publishing, so anything that's recorded by any member of the BP would involve Mute.

Tim: But nothing really came of these demos?

Mick: The demo I don't think was actually finished, mixed. Rowland just hasn't put anything definite together since. He's still trying though. It's all he wants to do, basically, as opposed to other people who talk at length about all their other projects that they're putting together. Rowland just wants to have his group.

Tim: It's interesting to compare how fast you guys have slapped things together while he's still really struggling.

Mick: What did I slap together? I haven't slapped anything together! Nick slapped us all together. I got slapped. No, I've done my bit, yes, I confess.

Tim: I understand you still keep in touch with Ivo. I still don't know exactly what the deal is with Mute, but could there be any future recordings on 4AD?

Mick: I don't know. It depends. If something is recorded and Mute aren't interested in releasing it, then Ivo could well be. I really like Ivo.

Tim: When Mute took everyone on, they understood that was that was the way it was going to be - no real permanency?

Mick: They signed up The Birthday Party's publishing before The Bad Seed, from The Bad Seed on. Even though that record was on 4AD, they did our publishing. Fairly soon after that the group was breaking up, right before we did Mutiny, so they knew that was going on. But we haven't got a recording deal with them, you see. This is the point, we don't have a recording deal with Mute; they've just got the publishing. So it works pretty oddly. I think we owe them a bit of money.

Tim: As far as the album's sleeve design, I know Anita is Nick's girlfriend and all, but she didn't really make a contribution to the record.

Mick: She wrote some of the lyrics to From Her..., which does refer in some way to her. I don't see what other "her" it relates to. Originally it was just going to be the big picture of Nick on the front and a big picture of her on the back, which I think would've been pretty nice. Instead of that photo of me looking like some wharfside worker!

Tim: Jack Nicholson in The Shining I thought.

Mick: That's pretty good.

Tim: Nick looks like the head of a dying horse, kind of gaunt and sticking out, looking ahead at nothing. I thought 4AD would've come up with something better, but if it's all Nick's doing then it must be the way it was meant to be.