As he launches a new fashion collaboration with Bella Freud, alt-rock godfather Nick Cave talks to Tom Ellen about lockdown creativity, flea markets and becoming a ‘bona fide ceramicist’
‘I think,’ says Nick Cave, ‘that I am the first musician to design and produce a child’s bunny bowl, pornographic wallpaper and an alpaca Chihuahua sweater with an obscene message on it. I take a certain pride in that.’
He is no doubt correct in this assumption. Thorough checking failed to uncover any evidence of Bono, Adele or Noel Gallagher ever turning their hands to X-rated interior design. But then, Nick Cave has always been something of an oddity.
Long before he branched out into ceramics and art for his superbly bizarre website, Cave Things (on which more in a moment), the glowering godfather of alternative rock had already spent a good four decades trampling boundaries in the worlds of music, books and film.
“Cave things is not artwork, but rather the residual outflow of songwriting”
[on lockdown] “There is a sort of desperate freedom from which unexpected things have emerged”
“In the very early days Bella tried to help me to stop taking drugs.
She was epically unsuccessful, but we remained friends”
The Cave Things x Bella Freud collection is available to buy now