“We know exactly what we are playing, but we don’t know how it will end. There’s a wonderful tension and a great power,” guitarist George Vjestica describes what it’s like to be part of The Bad Seeds, Nick Cave’s band. “This tension is transferred to the audience, creates a very general moment. Nick is a good communicator. He knows how to draw the audience into the music,” he said.
A bad seed does not mean a bad seed from which nothing will grow. The English expression refers to a person who is fundamentally corrupt who delights in vices and vices, with which he often affects those around him. And they are really happy about it.
The ensemble was founded in 1983, with twenty musicians. It remains the same constant Nick CaveAustralian singer who lives in England and America. Now that they come to the Czech Republic for the eleventh time, they will play in Prague on October 17 O2 Arena. Tickets are almost sold out, although Bad Seeds have not heard much in recent years.
Until recently, Nick Cave seemed to spread his songs in the crystalline hum of synthesizers and instead cut specific sounds. Perhaps it is a response to the series of accidents that befell the frontman. Arthur is fifteen years old he died in 2015, after an unfortunate fall from a cliff, Jethro, thirty-one he fell asleep the previous year. The almost abstract album Ghosteen from 2019 looked like it was from some kind of spirit realm. But on the album that had just been released called Wild God, the Bad Seeds, rockers in their hearts, made a splash again.
“They are powerful and spacious songs. The album is recorded in a way that it works live. It corresponds to the concept of the band,” says guitarist George Vjestica in a phone interview for Aktuálně .cz. “Most of the songs will work well together,” he believes.
The art of listening
The 57-year-old musician of Serbo-Croatian ancestry was born in the English city of Stoke-on-Trent and has lived in London for years. He first tried to break through in the 90s of the last century with a band that he doesn’t even want to name after a look. He says they had a major label deal on the table. “In the end, it was about ego and politics. It was on my head, so I decided to play guitar for others, “he explains how he started touring and recording with, for example, the electronic duo Groove Armada. at the beginning of the millennium .
Along with Nick Cave and his collaborator Warren Ellis, he first recorded music for Western films A suggestion a A land without lawfor which the Australian also wrote the scripts. During the preparation of the record Push The Sky Away then frontman Vjestic called to see if he would play twelve-string guitar on a few songs. He later invited him on a European tour.
“A band like the Bad Seeds can look scary, maybe scary from the outside. But I didn’t feel that way. I’ve known everyone for a long time,” Vjestica describes his transformation into the “rotten seed” he was. 2013.
“Before the tour, we spent two days in the rehearsal room. Suddenly I’m standing on the main stage of the Primavera festival. After the end of the line, Nick Cave asked me if I would continue went with them to America. And suddenly I belonged to them,” he explains.
He was used to big concerts, he usually played on the main stages. But the Bad Seeds gave him a whole new experience. “Nick is in great demand, especially himself. He can be wild on stage because our performances are very real. We are a body, connected to each other,” he says.
What does it take to get into a bad seed? “You have to be able to really listen,” Vjestica said. “Every musician that went through the lineup had their own identity. Everyone brought a piece of themselves to the songs. But Nick is a good conductor, he reminds me of Igor Stravinsky, for example. He can also lead us on stage. At one point there is such silence that you could hear it A pin drops. And then comes the storm familiar by 2022 at the Metronome festival.
But, according to Vjestici, the magic of Bad Seeds lies in its austere minimalism. “That is a real quality. The songs are not crowded. You have to understand what each one needs. You have to see,” he emphasizes.
The two minute video shows how Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds recorded the album Wild God. | Video: Pias Recordings
A real song
When asked what his favorite from the new album Wild God is, he names the track frogs. “It’s almost cinematic. I love how it changes,” he says of the song, which is driven by singing synths reminiscent of dream sirens.
He also describes him as an exceptional guitarist Oh Wow Oh Wow (How amazing she is). “It almost doesn’t cut,” he describes the other world-sounding composition, which the frontman gave to Australian musician Anita Lane. She died in April 2021, she was 61 years old.
She met Cave when she was seventeen in Australia. They got together for a few years, they got together while working on songs for the apocalyptic group Birthday Party, in which they both worked.
Then Anita Lane wrote several lyrics and songs for the Bad Seeds as well, and she was a short part of them. She played the guitar and sang, sometimes the lead part. Her voice closes the new song. It has a slightly twangy rhythm, provided by half classical, half electronic drums. Warren Ellis even whispers here like somewhere in a meadow. All this adds up to one of Cave’s most optimistic songs.
A kind of other world started entering his work on the album Pust the Sky Away. This was the first one that guitarist Mick Harvey did not appear in a long time. The role of the “second man” was played by the bearded electric violinist and experimentalist Warren Ellis, who always has a small synthesizer or drum machine on hand. It was then that one of the many changes in the musical language of Nawam took place.
Of course the divine motif is omnipresent from the title of the current album Wild God, but the main theme is joy. Rediscovered and stronger. The album often feels arranged and, by the musician’s standards, very light. It could have been a memorial service for his first great love or his sons, instead it celebrates life.
The recording of the phone conversation with Anita Lane is not like a bitter memory, but a greeting from the most beautiful place in the world. “It’s a completely direct, honest and real song,” said George Vjestica. “Everyone can relate to these,” he said.
A slightly different concert
The horse motif also appears frequently on the new album. In the song Song of the lake they belong to some king, in another they are “cinnamon horses” and they graze among “turpentine trees”.
However, the wild and sometimes surreal images hide real human stories.
“Nick is very personal in everything he does,” notes the guitarist. While this remains a constant, their concerts change.
The chaotic scenes that were previously chaotic over the years began to look like some kind of religious meeting, where people in the front rows reach out their hands to Nick Cave and he, for example, lets with them touch his heart.
The Bad Seeds sing about people and their often painful experiences. The theme of the current recording could be explained by the title of the song The final rescue attemptie The last rescue attempt. After the musician experienced a darker time following a series of deaths, it seems he has now drawn a thick line behind the grief. The sky has faded over the years.
“No matter what place and mood Nick Cave is in, he’s still true to his art. And we’re part of his world. We know what he wrote the songs about that and we will always stand behind it,” concluded George Vjestica.
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