“I’m forever near a stereo saying, what the fuck is this garbage? And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.“
That was the infamous diss uttered by Australian music icon Nick Cave in the early 2000’s, but it seems a lot has changed since then….
“There was no malice intended, it was just the sort of obnoxious thing I would say back then to piss people off”
Not only are the Bad Seeds leader and the RHCP bassist now mates, they’ve also got an intriguing new collaboration in the works.
Cave revealed the news in the latest instalment of his Red Hand Files blog, calling his notorious Chili Peppers diss “uncharitable”.
“There was no malice intended, it was just the sort of obnoxious thing I would say back then to piss people off,” the artist lamented in the blog entry.
“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.”
Cave then went on to admit that the most “interesting” part of the whole saga was actually Flea’s response to his careless words.
“On Facebook, Flea expressed how hurt he felt by my remark, but went on to say, in great detail, that he loved my music regardless,” Cave explained. “He wrote a profoundly generous and open-hearted love letter to Nick Cave. I remember being genuinely moved by his words and thinking what a classy guy Flea was, and feeling on some subterranean level that I was unable to fully grasp at that point in my life, that Flea was a human being of an entirely different calibre, indeed, of a higher order.”
Cave then went on to recall his many pleasant encounters with Flea over the years, noting that “there was a presence to Flea that felt genuine and oddly affecting”.
He then revealed: “Last week, Flea sent me a song and asked if I’d like to add some vocals. It was for a ‘trumpet record’ that he is making. It is not for me to divulge what the song was, only that it is a song I cherish more than most, with arguably the greatest lyric ever written, a song of such esteem that I would never have dared to sing it had Flea not asked me to.”
He added: “I went into the studio on Wednesday and recorded my vocals. 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.”
No word yet on when this historic collab is due to arrive, but we’ll let you know when it does.
In the meantime, you can read Cave’s full post addressing the situation via his blog right here.
Further Reading
Nick Cave Opens Up About the Tragic Death Of Two Sons On ABC’s Australian Story
Nick Cave’s ‘The Death of Bunny Munro’ is Being Adapted for TV
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea Names His Three Favourite Australian Bands
