Nick Cave said that connecting with his audience after the death of his sons had “absolutely changed” his life.
The 66-year-old frontman of Bad Seeds, known for hits such as “Into My Arms” and “One More Time With Feeling,” lost two children within seven years.
His 15-year-old son Arthur died in a cliff jumping accident in 2015 and his eldest son Jethro died in Melbourne in 2022 at the age of 31.
Cave told The Sunday Times newspaper: “I am fully aware of what music means to people. But the energy of the audience has been very different over the last eight years… because my son died.”
He said his loss had affected many people, not only out of compassion but because it was “an indicator of the dangerousness of all of us.”
“Things like this isolate you. You feel like no one has experienced such pain,” he said.
“But you quickly realize that it is actually the link to humanity, because everyone goes through these things or will go through them.
“It completely changed my life. For the first time, I was connected to a world on whose fringes I had always proudly lived.”
He added: “When Arthur died, I realised I was part of something bigger.”
The singer said that making music was “good for the soul” and that his 2019 album Ghosteen was “so full of meaning”. However, he said he shouldn’t have recorded his 2016 album Skelton Tree shortly after the death of his son, as it was the only album that worsened his mental health.
He said his next album, “Wild God,” which comes out Friday, was originally supposed to be called “Joy.”
“For me, joy is not happiness as such, but those deeply felt explosions that lift us out of the baseline of humanity, which is loss,” he said.
“These moments help us truly understand the world and demonstrate our wonderful ability as human beings to overcome various losses.”
The singer said his mother’s advice to live with his head held high was “fundamental” to how he lived his life.
“I’m not sure what happens after death, but I was worried about how Arthur’s spirit would feel when he saw the misery his mother and father had to go through – because of his death,” he said.
“And we can tell him one thing now: everything is OK. I say that with caution. There is no closure.
“Things are not back to where they were before Arthur or Jethro died. But we are happy.”
Cave first came to public attention in the early 1980s as the lead singer of the influential noise rock band The Birthday Party before forming the Bad Seeds in 1984, with whom he released music for five decades.
The singer also founded the garage rock band Grinderman in 2006 and released two albums with them.
Cave has two other sons, actors Earl Cave and Luke Cave.
