Nick Cave has addressed comments he made 25 years ago about US band the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The Australian musician said the “offhand and somewhat uncharitable remark” has “followed me around for the last quarter-century”, in a new post on his Red Hand Files website on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT).
“I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the f— is this garbage?’ And the answer is always, the Red Hot Chili Peppers,” it’s understood Cave said circa 2000.
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The exact details of what the Bad Seeds frontman said remain unknown but Melbourne-born bassist for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Flea, commented on the diss in 2006.
“I don’t care if Nick Cave hates my band because his music means everything to me,” Flea wrote in an open letter on Facebook.
“He is one of my favourite songwriters and singers and musicians of all time. I love all the incarnations of the Bad Seeds.
“But it only hurt my feelings for a second because my love for his music is bigger than all that shit, and if he thinks my band is lame then that’s OK.”
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Cave’s latest comments originated in response to a fan’s question on the matter, combined with another fan asking how to interpret a hurtful comment from a friend.
“There was no malice intended, it was just the sort of obnoxious thing I would say back then to piss people off,” the singer said of his incident.
“I was a troublemaker, a shit-stirrer, feeling most at ease in the role of a societal irritant.
“Perhaps it’s an Australian trait among people of my generation, I don’t know, but that comment has followed me around for the last quarter-century.”
The 67-year-old said what made him stop in his tracks was Flea’s “profoundly generous and open-hearted love letter” in response, which left Cave “genuinely moved” and “thinking what a classy guy Flea was”.
Cave says while the pair didn’t go on to become “close friends” they have collaborated a number of times since.
The Bad Seeds asked Flea to put together a choir for their Coachella performance in 2013, with kids from the Silverlake Conservatory of Music he founded.
The bassist also joined Cave and bandmate Warren Ellis to perform We No Who U R during their Carnage tour in 2021.
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Most recently, Cave revealed, he recorded vocals for Flea’s upcoming “trumpet record” last week.
He said the experience was like “an apology” all these years later.
“The track emerged as a beautiful conversation between Flea’s trumpet and my voice, filled with yearning and love, the song transcending its individual parts and becoming a slowly evolving cosmic dance, in the form of a reconciliation and an apology,” Cave wrote.
He ended by addressing the fan who had been hurt by their friend and hoped telling his story of being the one to cause a fellow Aussie musician “hurt” could help them.
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