Nick Cave, Warren Ellis On Yoko Ono, The Bad Seeds, And 'Carnage' Remixes

A preview of their audio Q&A Talk Carnage...

*Nick Cave* and *Warren Ellis* discuss Yoko Ono, The Bad Seeds, and the prospect of 'Carnage' remixes in a new audio Q&A.

The new Q&A is titled Talk Carnage and it goes live on Friday - June 18th - at 7pm, with selected quotes being made available beforehand.

The genial duo discuss the making of their album 'Carnage', all while answering questions from fans.

At one point, the two elaborate on the prospect of Warren Ellis becoming the 'Yoko Ono' of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Nick Cave comments: "I'd also like to say here the best thing that Yoko Ono ever did was break up the Beatles... They’re a band in decline and Yoko Ono stepped in and allowed everyone the freedom to go on to make some really beautiful records. John Lennon and the other guy."

He adds: "Just on that question, first of all, The Bad Seeds haven't split up. The Bad Seeds have always been something that morphs into different forms. And the lineup changes all the time, it always has changed all the time."

'Carnage' was released earlier this year, a surprise drop that split fans. Nick Cave discussed its release, saying: "I think it's our duty to divide people. That's part of what keeps our music alive and what keeps it interesting, but it's also difficult to do, to lose fans, you know, to do something where you lose fans. And I was worried that that would you know, that that might be the response on some level."

"And when I when I looked at *The Red Hand Files* in the following morning, because there had been some bad stuff going on that night or something, I can't really remember why, but there was something that made me very nervous about how people would receive 'Carnage'. And then I looked at, sat down in the morning and made a cup of coffee and opened up The Red Hand Files questions. And there was just this incredible support for the record. It was really incredibly moving to read, but then, but occasionally there were ‘I'm sorry, this is just too far you've lost me on this one, I don't like, just don't like this record’. So that there was a little bit of that. Essentially, there was a great love for 'Carnage' when it came out."

Collaborator Warren Ellis added: "I find it more terrifying when people would just say ‘Oh, it's like the last record’ that to me is way more terrifying than someone saying I fucking don't get it or I hate it or… I personally would rather push beyond what last came out and not procrastinate to just keep moving and till we get in a room and find that there's just nothing happening, and then I think we have - that's when we'll have to look at what's going on between us you know like, and that hasn't happened yet but when it does, then we'll know what to do with that."

"Like I remember hearing (the Brian Eno album) 'Here Comes The Warm Jets' when it came out. I took it back to the record store because I just couldn't afford to spend that much money on a record that I didn't like, and it's now like one of my favorite records ever, like I love that record. I think I find a record I find difficult at first but takes a while with me, eventually becomes this."

Asked about the song 'Catastrophe', Nick Cave muses on the over-arching sense of apocalypse, and views the the pandemic as a chance for renewal. He says: "I hope through the pandemic that we rise out of this as better people. And I think that this happens with our own personal calamities as well, that we have the capacity to be able to rise out of them, and improve ourselves in the process. I understand that."

"The record feels to me that it is embedded in a catastrophe of some sort. I don't think that you can listen to 'Carnage' and not feel that at some point. But I am not ever interested in writing hopeless songs, all our songs that we always do are hopeful. They may be coming out of disasters, and they may be coming out of the sorrows and things like that. But they're always there's always an upward trajectory towards the songs."

Finally, the pair were asked about the potential for 'Carnage' remixes, akin to the remixed edition of 'Grinderman II' which both worked on. Warren Ellis was keen: "I mean, why not? ...We should throw it out at the guys."

Talk Carnage goes live at 7pm on June 18th - find it *HERE.* The CD and vinyl editions of 'Carnage' are released on June 18th.

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