Nick Cave on the Bad Seeds, God, and the Roar of a Grateful Heart

If there’s one thing Nick Cave does better than rip your heart out with a ballad, it’s write like a man possessed.

In the latest entry of The Red Hand Files, Cave answered three fan letters — from Seattle and Los Angeles — that all asked, in their own way: How do you feel now that the tour is over? Do you even know how good the Bad Seeds really are? Is God… energy?

Cave’s reply came at 4am, jetlagged, freshly home in London, Susie sleeping beside him, and the American leg of the tour still ringing in his ears. What followed was a kind of fevered gratitude — not just for the music or the moments, but for everyone who made the tour happen. From stage crew to caterers to the fans who sang Into My Arms like it was gospel.

He spoke of his band — not just by name, but with reverence. Each one a force, each one integral. Ellis, Greenwood, Carly Paradis, Wendi Rose, Janet Ramus, and more — described not like bandmates, but like deities in a very personal mythology. “So deft, so expressive, so anarchic, so bloody awesome,” he wrote, and yeah — there it is.

As for America, he called it dark, desperate, dissonant, but still beautiful — “a place like no other and one that I love.” No empty flattery, just that honest, complicated affection Cave seems to feel for every broken thing worth saving.

And then came the question of God. Peter asked if God is energy. Cave responded like only Cave could: “God is a reason for being and a reason for not being… He is in both the roar and the stillness of the crowd.” Not an answer so much as a surrender.

No one’s doing what the Bad Seeds are doing — not with that intensity, that devotion, that willingness to get ripped apart night after night and come back for more. Nick Cave bows his head to it. And we should too to be fair.