I found Mick to be a pleasant cynic. He's very expressive in his facial gestures, is quietly spoken except for the occasional burst of chuckling or laughter, and takes his time when it's needed to answer questions as accurately as possible. Among other things, we chatted about music in general. I confess I was trying in some inept way to draw out some of those 'influences' things, preferably without sounding like a complete pillock. What I deduced from his replies is that... I don't reckon he has any. Not influences as such. He enjoys musical forms, from the Reels to Sonic Youth, to John Lee Hooker. I reckon further that this guy's 'influences' are simply the creation/existence of music in its possible forms... the quality of it and his tastes are his own. But any influences he may have can't be pinned down to say, the fact that he likes Lee Hazelwood... Lee Hazelwood ain't the influence. Nor is his music. That the music is possible, and contains further possibilities of musical form, is influence enough... that's it, really; pretty philosophical, huh? Anyway, that's how he appeared to me.

The interview has been reorganized from its original haphazard and chatty format, but I've tried to preserve the 'flavour' of the conversation...

On Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

EFFIGY: Does Nick always get last night's sort of reaction from a crowd, a field day of 'let's insult Nick Cave'?

MICK HARVEY: Oh, it very often happens. Sometimes people seem to think that's what he wants, they seem to think that the impression he gives is that of a big tough guy and he'll respect you if you insult him.

E: That's ridiculous.

M: Oh yeah, but it seems to happen a lot though. They probably think 'Oh, Nick won't like me if I suck up to him, but he'll probably like me if I'm abusive towards him.'

E: I noticed that there were a large number of women who were most vocal, is that unusual?

M: I don't know... no, it was quite unusual... it was quite a small crowd last night, and we're not really used to playing to that small a crowd. I think that sort of incited it a bit. Nick was just winding the crowd up right from the beginning, saying 'Oh, I feel sick...' so that everyone would say he wasn't doing a good performance. Actually, he sung really well last night, so if everyone thought they were getting a dull performance, it was just the between-song patter, which was just to wind them up. It was quite a good gig I thought.

E: He's quite a skilled ironist in his way, isn't he?

M: (hilarity)

E: Oh, you know what I mean...

M: Yes, I do know what you mean...

E: He's quite good at baiting, he's a terrific showman.

M: He's a terrific showman, that's his finest... his greatest talent... and that covers just about everything! (laughs)

E: Does this have much effect on the band... I mean, I saw you laughing last night...

M: Well, I was laughing at what Nick was saying, just thinking of all the people that would respond, how many people wouldn't get it... he did feel sick, but he was also doing it deliberately so that people wouldn't think they were getting...

E: A poor show?

M: Yeah, just thinking about all the people that would believe it, y'know, because Nick was telling them... but that's just... the way it goes. I don't think the audience reaction really affects me all that much.
Last night wasn't really an example of this, but some nights, Nick is just totally disinterested in playing.

E: Do you really blame him?

M: If he doesn't feel well or inspired that night, I'd rather he did a bad show than pull off some professional, slick kind of thing. I'd much rather he were just bad that night, it's a lot more honest.

E: The audience might not agree...

M: Well, the audience might want, I s'pose, professionalism, but it just happens that way, that's always been part of what we do, really. The good nights make up for the bad nights. The kind of good nights we have just would not happen if we were professional, it wouldn't be the same thing at all, it would be a completely different group you were watching.

E: He (Bit of sentence lost from page -KB)... ass them up a bit, doesn't he?

M: Yeah well, he doesn't like them, so it's not surprising. He's certainly not particularly open with them anymore.

E: It is any particular country, or is it just in general?

M: Yeah... it's just in general, really... which it shouldn't be... but that's just the way Nick is, he's not particularly 'logical'.

E: A description of Nick that a friend of mine came up with after seeing The Birthday Party in 1981, and chatting with Nick for a couple of hours was; 'He's a really sweet, nice guy with a few weirdy bits.'

M: 'With a few weirdy bits?' Well, he is actually a very nice guy, but very few people get to see it because they always throw something on him before he has a chance to be himself, and then of course, he just shuts off. And then the whole thing can just get worse... and so people have all these weird encounters and think he's a freak, or a total bastard or whatever...

E: I want to ask you about the Kicking Against the Pricks LP...

M: Do you?

E: Well, I don't know if you're going to answer me! I heard that it was to be a double LP, and that it was nearly finished in 1986... it's a single LP, what happened?

M: Well, we recorded about 23 or so backing tracks, but well a lot of them weren't that great. Some of them that are on the album are just 'okay' too... I mean they don't all sparkle. Long Black Veil could have been left on the shelf, surely? It became ordinary, a lot of the versions of the songs were just average and didn't really deserve to be released.

E: Is that why the note on the sleeve reads 'Time and money wasted at Richmond Recorders'?

M: No, no, it's not that, that's because... oh, it's a long story... we were meant to be using 'dead' time, which is on a special rate 'cause Nick was doing endless overdubs, hanging around there all the time. They just made a special deal that he could go in there whenever they had dead time, and the guy would ring up and get Tony (Cohen, their engineer for that LP) when there was dead time, and it was meant to be confirmed with us, that we were doing it... and it very often wasn't, because we just weren't free to go in at two hours notice at midnight... well anyway, it came to the end of the sessions, and they just billed Mute for everything, all their dead time, right through the last couple of months, and not only that, but at the full rate, and then they held the tapes until they were paid, and we were in Germany by then and couldn't get them... and then the tapes didn't arrive, and we wasted studio time in Germany. I feel really pissed off with all of that, but the guy who did all of that, he's in jail now... so it's not 'Richmond Recorders', full stop, it was just this guy who was running the place at the time, we should have just put his name on the cover instead of Richmond Recorders.

E: Have the Bad Seeds been to Japan again?

M: No, no, we haven't...

E: Will you get a similar riotous reception?

M: I think most people who go there get some form of riotous reception...

E: Yeah, they're really into pop stars over there, aren't they?

M: Yeah there's a real pop star problem there, so you get very strange behaviour. I think most people do get this, if they're well-known to be taken to Japan, then there's going to be that sort of response waiting for them there. It is quite hard to go there, since that tour, we've tried to organize another, but with the Japanese, it's got to be tied in with the new album release, and also at the right time of the year, so it gets quite complicated... I mean, Neubauten, who toured there, were massively successful, they sell more records there than anywhere else in the world.

E: Even in Germany?

M: Yeah, 'cause the Japanese really like the Germans, y'see, they've got this long-standing thing going...

E: !

M: Well, it makes sense to me, they've both got a national mind, they're both totally efficient, they both lost the last war, they're both really rich countries, they've got quite a lot in common...

So Neubauten represent one extreme of... 'German/European avant-garde music'... because every form of music has an audience in Japan, because they like its style for one reason or another... everyone directed their attention at Neubauten, and so they were really successful.

But they haven't been able to do a follow-up tour in two or three years for the same kinds of reasons as us, they're going there again when their next album comes out, they put off the release of their next album so that the timing's right for Japan, and then the Japanese go 'Oh, uh, no, no, not now, not now, it is not the right time.'

E: What did you feel like walking around Japan?

M: Quite strange, because I've always woken up at six in the morning! Nick said it was like going to a health farm for a week... although I'm no expert on Japan, so I'd rather not come up with some mundane observation.

E: What happened to Barry Adamson? He was advertised for this tour...

M: They must have just picked up some old record and thought he was still in the group... well, he had kind of a tempestuous stay in the Bad Seeds anyway, pretty much blighted during his time with us, in his personal life, which I won't go into for obvious reasons. He actually stopped playing with us for a while because things had simply gotten totally out of control in certain areas, and then it got better and he came back again.

After The First Born Is Dead, he went through a really bad stage with these certain problems, and so he went out for about six months, and then he came back again, he'd gotten over these problems. Then we did the tour of Australia, he was really good that tour, great... great... he's a really fantastic bass player. I think he'd had enough of groups, I think he'd just decided it was about time he did something for himself rather than just make everyone else sound great.

E: How interesting!

M: That's kind of an outrageous statement to make, but, um, it's true, he does do pick-up jobs occasionally, he needs money like everyone does... he left when we'd done Kicking Against The Pricks; he didn't come back to Berlin to finish the record. He talked to me, he said 'Oh, I just don't want to be on tour all the time,' and he set to work on doing soundtracks and stuff.

He's been doing that for about two years now, he's practically recorded a whole album, which is the soundtrack to his feature film that he's writing the script to... and the soundtrack album comes first!! Some of it's really great. He's got it scripted, y'know, the atmosphere and the music all set up, he also did five minutes for one section of the new Derek Jarman film, and some ad... he's just been trying to get into that field, really.

He toured with Iggy Pop the second half of last year... I saw them on that tour and they were just fantastic, really good. I've seen Iggy several times over the past few years and always thought he was really disappointing, for obvious reasons. But last year the band were really good, and he was fantastic, great. I don't know if he'd selected his songs, maybe he finally sat back and listened to what he'd done over the years, and realised what was good, and decided to play the good songs... and the band handled them really well, I thought. There were only a few times that they didn't really cope.

That was really good to see, and Barry really enjoyed doing that... he was going to be doing Iggy's new album, but I think he ran into problems with the management, and they just went 'ahhh... forget it'. Shame in a way, because I think Barry would've helped him do a good record.

E: Did you hear his (Iggy Pop) last record?

M: No, just the singles.

E: I thought they'd mixed the drums up really loud, to get everyone dancing...