Nick Cave may not have ever killed anyone, but the boy sure do like to sing about it. Now he's even wrapping whole albums around the subject. If Scotland Yard doesn't already have his flat under surveilance they likely will after hearing the new Bad Seeds album Murder Ballads.

From 1977, when he formed the Boys Next Door with fellow Melbourne, Australia miscreant Mick Harvey, through the macabre, lurching Birthday Party (who relocated to England shortly after forming), to the more cinematic moments of Cave's subsequent outfit the Bad Seeds (still squirming after twelve years), deadpan violence and seamy sexuality have been habitual subjects in his songwriting. Even in his incredibly accomplished 1992 Southern gothic novel And The Ass Saw The Angel, grisly, depraved homicide is the pervasive theme. But on Murder Ballads (Mute/Reprise), Nick Cave takes those obsessions to the limit -- concentrating his fascination with death, as well as his fetishes for folk tales and noir fiction, to create a singularly gleeful collection of homicidal music.

Perhaps the most surprising and certainly the most discussed tracks on Murder Ballads are Cave's duets: with Aussie pop star cum sex kitten Kylie Minogue on the misanthropic lullaby Where The Wild Roses Grow, and with British banshee PJ Harvey (with whom Cave has been reportedly romantically involved) on the traditional tune Henry Lee. During a recent promotional stop in New York, Cave spoke about the new album, those curious duets, his unmitigated lust for Minogue (hello PJ!), his novel, and a few of his other favorite subjects of the moment.

Stomp And Stammer: Murder Ballads isn't exactly a departure for you, is it?

Nick Cave: It certainly isn't the most original idea I could have had. But it was really something I'd wanted to do for quite a long time. One of the things that marks me as an artist is the fact that I grab hold of an idea and don't really know when to let go of it. This album is very much an indication of that. I've gone far beyond any reason or rationality.

Is it sort of like method acting -- you get into some altered state and can't get back?

Well, there's a greater purpose to Murder Ballads, which has yet to be realized. It's sort of making way for my next record. Murder Ballads is a little thing we threw together that would break up the personal, painful songwriting that happened in the Let Love In record [from 1994], and is in the new stuff I'm writing now.

What are your new songs like?

The new stuff is extremely introspective, so I wanted to do something in between that I didn't have a real emotional attachment to. The songs on Murder Ballads are like little exercises in songwriting.

So you've already moved on?

I'm interested in other things these days, but at the same time I like this record. I think it's a charming, funny little record.

Your rendition of Stagger Lee has drawn comparisions to gangsta rap, but its true source is the toasts, or dozens, right?

I found the song in a book, but you can compare it to gangsta rap if you want. I don't give a shit. It was recorded in about 20 minutes.

Where does Henry Lee come from?

It's an old ballad. I've heard Dylan do a version called Henry Love. I changed it around quite considerably. And PJ sings it beautifully, I think.

I take it there's no irony intended in your choosing Kylie Minogue to sing with you?

There's not. I've just always had a deep interest in Kylie Minogue -- in every possible way you could imagine. And quite a lot of those interests were realized. Not all of them, unfortunately. But enough to make me a happy man.

Really?

Yes. But more seriously, I'd written a lot of songs for her and never sent them. I guess because the songs I wanted her to sings were slow, brooding, slightly deeper kinds of songs than what she was coming up with. This was over the last six years, I'd been doing this and I never sent them -- because I knew if I sent one and she didn't respond that would be the end of my little fantasy.

So at what point did you decide to take the plunge?

Murder Ballads seemed to be the time. And I wrote this song [Where The Wild Roses Grow] that even though it is a "murder ballad," it is a tribute to my love for Kylie Minogue. I sent it to her and the rest is history...

Will you be amused if it's your biggest recording ever?

Well it already is. And so if there's one or two raised eyebrows...

One Christmas I was given a book by two different female friends. One gave me Cormac McCarthy's Child Of God. The other gave me your first novel, And The Ass Saw The Angel. What do you suppose that means?

[Laughs] Child Of God is a great book. But it's a nasty book, isn't it?

Being charitable to both of us, we could say Faulkner is a common thread, couldn't we?

Faulkner was a favorite of mine at school. I've always loved his use of language, of course. Flannery O'Connor was another big favorite. So I knew that kind of writing pretty well. At the time I wrote the book, I had this story in mind that was maybe a little too influenced by those sorts of things.

Do you have plans for another novel?

Well, I'd like to write another book, but I haven't really had the time lately. Writing is hard work.

I was happy to hear Shane McGowen sing with you on the album. How is he?

He's great. We're just friends... and we drink a lot together... And I hope he's OK, like everybody does.

Will you tour any time soon?

We're not going to tour until we make another record.

When will that be?

The next record is due out early next year, and we'll be recording it this summer. Then I guess we'll be forced to tour again.

Touring isn't fun for you?

It's alright when you're young. It's OK when you can still wake up with a hangover and think it's a funny thing. But when you get over 35, hangovers take on an entirely new dimension. There's something deeply, psychologically, profoundly horrific about a hangover now.

Do you manage to have a decent home life these days?

I live on my own -- but I have my kid with me three days a week [Cave has a son from a past girlfriend]. So I look after him and work on the other days. And I'm quite happy to do that.

What are you reading these days?

I'm reading the Bible a lot, but then I always have been. And theology books -- one after the other at the moment.

What kind?

Christian. Not that I'm a Christian, really. But I find it does something to me I can't explain.

So what's next?

I've got some beautiful songs coming up, I know that much. I'm really happy with my new songs. And I seem to be writing an incredible number of them.

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