We’ve learned a lot about Nick Cave recently thanks to the fan-sent questions he answers in his Red Hand Files newsletter. In its latest edition, the Bad Seeds musician responded to a batch of lumped-together submissions along the lines of: “Why the fuck are you going to the King’s coronation?”
Cave is a native of Australia, a Commonwealth nation, although he’s spent a good portion of his life in England. In his newsletter, Cave wrote: “I am not a monarchist, nor am I a royalist, nor am I an ardent republican for that matter; what I am also not is so spectacularly incurious about the world and the way it works, so ideologically captured, so damn grouchy, as to refuse an invitation to what will more than likely be the most important historical event in the UK of vour age. Not just the most important, but the strangest, the weirdest.”
Cave went on to recall the time he met Queen Elizabeth II, adding that he cried while watching her funeral. “I guess what I am trying to say is that, beyond the interminable but necessary debates about the abolition of the monarchy, I hold an inexplicable emotional attachment to the Royals — the strangeness of them, the deeply eccentric nature of the whole affair that so perfectly reflects the unique weirdness of Britain itself,” he said. “I’m just drawn to that kind of thing—the bizarre, the uncanny, the stupefyingly spectacular, the awe-inspiring.”
King Charles’ coronation takes place on Saturday, May 6th, at Westminster Abbey. Cave didn’t mention whether or not he’d be performing, but (Americans) Katy Perry and Lionel Richie have both been confirmed to headline. Adele, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles, and Elton John all reportedly declined to perform.
Other topics Cave’s covered in The Red Hand Files lately include mourning his sons, as well as his hatred of AI and Charles Bukowski. As for his music, he’ll be going on a North American tour later this year, with accompaniment from Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood on bass. Tickets are available here.
