The lesson that Nick Cave learned from Flea

Nick Cave For years now a communication channel has opened with his fans called The Red Hand Fileshere the Australian musician answers the questions that are asked on him on the most disparate topics. Beatriz and Brendanrespectively from Brazil and the United States, ask two questions that Nick believes connected.

Beatriz asks: ‘My best friend recently said something that seemed really perfidious to me. It was really useless and bad and I feel wounded. I am furious with my friend. How do I forgive her? What should I do? ‘. While Brendan remembers an old story: ‘We all heard the famous quote attributed to you on Red Hot Chili Peppers. Could you illuminate us on the truthfulness of that quote? ‘.

Here’s what Nick replied to the two fans: ‘Dear Beatriz and Brendan, about twenty -five years ago, I made a hurry and a little unloading comment on the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

There was no badness, it was just the type of hateful thing that I said then to paste people. I was a plane, a agitator, I felt more comfortable in the role of the annoying social. Perhaps it is an Australian feature among the people of my generation, I don’t know, but that comment has persecuted me for the last quarter of a century. But the most interesting aspect of all this is not what I said on the Peppers kilos, but rather Flea’s answer, their bass player. On Facebook, Flea expressed how much he felt wounded by my comment, but he continued saying, in great detail, that he loved my music regardless of everything. He wrote a deeply generous and sincere love letter to Nick Cave. I remember having been sincerely moved by his words and that he thought that kind of class had Flea, and that he had heard at an underground level that I was unable to fully understand in that moment of my life, that Flea was a human being of a completely different caliber, indeed, of a higher order.

Over the years, I have met Flea at the music festivals in which both our bands performed and saw him in the backstage when we played in Los Angeles. Although we did not become close friends, my meetings with him were always pleasant: there was a presence in Flea that seemed genuine and strangely touching. During the Push The Sky Away Tour, we asked Flea if he could put together a choir of children from the Silverlake music conservatory he founded, to accompany the Bad Seeds to the Coachella Festival. When Warren and I were engaged in Carnage’s tour, we asked Flea to join us and play the song “We no Who Ur”. Watching Warren and Flea performing together with so much heart and mutual respect was a glorious show.

Last week, Flea sent me a song and asked me if I wanted to add a few vocal parts. It was for a “trumpet album” that is realizing. It is not up to me to reveal what it is, only that it is a song that I appreciate more than others, with probably the most beautiful text ever written, a song of this value that I would never have dared to sing it if Flea had not asked me. I went to the studio on Wednesday and recorded my voice. The song emerged as a beautiful conversation between Flea’s trumpet and my voice, full of desire and love, the song that transcends its individual parts and becomes a cosmic dance in slow evolution, in the form of reconciliation.

My friend, the artist Thomas Houseago, told a story that involves Flea.

A couple of years ago, Flea, his daughter, Thomas and a guide were making an excursion in the hinterland of Yosemite. They had been around for five days and were walking along a wooded path when a bear appeared in front of them. They all blocked. The bear was about three meters away. It was a large black bear with a reddish nuance. Thomas and the guide grabbed the poles of the tent, perhaps to defend themselves in the event that the bear had attacked. Flea came forward, stopped in front of the bear and spoke to him. He knew they were guests in the bear territory, expressed his love for the bear and asked him permission to continue along the path. The bear moved away from the path and let them pass. Beatriz, I hope this letter proves useful and that it will somehow contribute to answering your question and providing a solution. With affection, nick. ‘ .