TLOBF Interview // Grinderman

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Eleven o’clock on Friday morning, in a lushly decorated member’s lounge on Soho’s Greek Street. A huge Gilbert and George work fills the entire back wall, but the figure in the chair in front of me is more imposing still: Jim Sclavunos, a man-mountain with a beard like an exploding atom bomb, and a drummer, whose kick, snare and cymbals have graced songs by Lydia Lunch, Sonic Youth, The Cramps and since 1994, the recorded oeuvre of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds.

Nick is stuck in traffic and will be here in a bit, but that’s OK, because today we’re here to talk about Grinderman, and hey, Grinderman is as much Jim’s band as it is anyone’s. A truly collaborative effort, Grinderman came to life in 2005, as Cave – backed by a band including Sclavunos and Bad Seeds Warren Ellis and Martyn Casey – played a handful of solo shows out in Europe. In the downtime between concerts, the group jammed with no particular aim in mind, but, as Sclavunos puts it, some “more raucous… a nasty thing” began to emerge. And once free, this monster refused to climb back in its cage.

“I remember these German dates, which were promoted as an intimate show of piano ballads with Nick Cave, with theatre seating,” explains Sclavunos, with sly amusement. “And there was us onstage, just ripping their heads off with this feedback squall. And at that point we had the realisation that we had something that would not fit within the confines of a Nick Cave solo show, or the Bad Seeds. Something that had to have its own time and space. So we just booked in five days in the studio, went in and started improvising. We didn’t have any songs written. And that’s basically what happened this time round.”

For anyone that might have found the 2004 Bad Seeds album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus something of a heavy load to bear, the debut Grinderman album – called, simply, Grinderman – doubtless felt like a shot in the arm. Raw, instant, and consumed by the basest human instincts, it feels typified by ‘No Pussy Blues’, a track in which Cave plays a frustrated Lothario driven to the edge of emasculation by the object of his affection, who refuses to, well, y’know. “I bought her a dozen snow white doves/I did her dishes in rubber gloves/I called her honey bee, I called her love/But she just still didn’t want to,” sobs Cave. “She just never wants to… DAMN!”

The second Grinderman album is a lot like its predecessor, but moreso. It is bluesy and heavy and totally rocking. But it is also surrealistic, silly, and packed with mischief. It has songs called things like ‘Worm Tamer’ and ‘Heathen Child’, and it’s populated by a strange bestiary of animals, from serpents and werewolves to the Loch Ness Monster and the Abominable Snowman. One minute Nick is trying to get his end away over chundering garage riffs, and the next he’s singing lines which envisage “The spinal cord of JFK/Wrapped in Marilyn Monroe’s negligee”.

The album is called Grinderman 2. But, says Jim, you shouldn’t think of it as a sequel, exactly. “There’s a lot of monsters on it again, but we’re not thinking, like, Freddy Krueger, Friday The 13th and that. We were thinking – and I think this gets a bit lost in translation – one and two implies a three and four, kind of like Led Zeppelin records. And we were tickled by the idea they might get to be known by their covers – you know, the monkey album, the wolf album…”

The armadillo…

“That’s a good one. But whether it comes off that way is another matter.”

It feels like there’s a lot of mischief in Grinderman, something which is made explicit in the video for ‘Heathen Child’…

“The thing I like about the videos is that they enhance the meaning in the songs. My objection to music videos, usually, is that they over-literalise the lyrics, or they glue some arbitrary scenario on top. You know, like, the band are in the dancehall, playing a song for a woman… you know, all that just seems a bit trite and reductive of the song’s meaning. It specifies the images that you’re going to forever associate with this song, but your imagination can be so much more lively. But the images in the Heathen Child video, I feel like they really enhance the meaning of the song. John Hillcoat did a great job.”

Who came up with the idea for the video?

“It was mainly between John and Nick. But you know, things happened on the set, unexpected things, that led to some fun stuff too. You get a bunch of guys wearing ridiculous costumes and a lot of props and… shit happens.”

All the Roman costumes, the dress-up – it looks like you raided a props department.

“Essentially, we did. There was one little miscommunication – we were supposed to be Olympian deities, and instead we all came across looking like Roman centurions. The Roman god Mars – he’s the one that dresses like a warrior – the others don’t. Well, Athena does too, but that’s beside the point. So in the end, we all came out looking like pathetic variations on the theme of Mars. There should have been a couple of us in togas, but I don’t know, maybe people would have thought of us as a fraternity.”

Nick dresses up as Krishna in it – but the song also mentions Allah, and I wondered if any of you thought about going there?

(Laughs) “Well, you know.”

It’s a hot topic these days.

“It’s a ridiculous topic. Basically, you’re not meant to show an image when Allah’s name is invoked. I think John compromised by putting a shot of the sky. Is that an image though? It’s as much of an image of Allah as a black screen. All of which poses an interesting question. But without getting too deep into that whole issue, there’s no real controversy there.”

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Nick: “Hello Jim, you alright?”

Jim: “Yeah, I’m good. Your tan is looking even richer.”

Nick: “It is. I’ve had oral surgery. I’ve had a wisdom tooth out. So if I’m looking a little…”

Jim: “Does it hurt? It must hurt.”

Nick: “I’m on heavy medication.”

Nick, I was wondering – after the first Grinderman album, did you feel invigorated? I wondered if some of Grinderman seeped back into the next Bad Seeds record.

Nick: “I’ve never felt not invigorated. I’ve always felt invigorated in the process of making every record I’ve made. But sometimes you don’t realise the state you’re in. Sometimes you look back and feel some times were less inspired than others. But in the moment, you’re always there. Even on the ‘lesser’ records that we’ve done, like Nocturama.”

Jim: “Ah, that’s got great songs on it. Rock Of Gibraltar, Babe I’m On Fire…”

Nick: “There are songs I love on that record.”

Back to Grinderman, there’s a real thread of earthy sexuality that goes through both records. That line on Kitchenette, “I stick my fingers in your biscuit jar…” – that sort of sex talk goes right back to old blues singers like Bessie Smith…

Nick: “Yeah, it’s got that feel for sure, that old blues feel. Those very direct metaphors, direct sexual metaphors that old blues records have. I’m the sort of the Kenneth Williams of rock’n’roll. Oooh! Biscuit jar. Have you seen Fabulosa, the Kenneth Williams story? Man, what a guy. Uh… but seriously – I do love all that stuff. Especially a lot of old female blues singers, they had to use these increasingly outlandish metaphors, very sexual metaphors. I have a real soft spot for that stuff. But that line “And I crush all your gingerbread men…” – that adds a kind of twisted aspect to it, one you don’t get in blues lyrics. That’s what I do – sex and violence.

Jim: “With a bit of God in there.”

The sex talk in Grinderman is often self-deprecating, or frustrated – you’ve got No Pussy Blues, or that line on Worm Tamer: “My baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster/Two great big humps and then I’m gone…”

Nick: “Yeah, that’s a good line that. Self-what?”

Self-deprecating… you know, calling a song Worm Tamer, which is presumably about… I hope I’m not reading something too deep into that one if I say it’s about the male genitalia.

Jim: (laughs)

Nick: “Yeah, well – you wait until you see the cover we’re dreaming up for Worm Tamer. That’ll be the second single, for the seven-inch record. Um, yeah. It’s going to be great.”

So it’ll continue with the theme of animals on the record sleeves?

Nick: “Yeah, in a way. Is a worm an animal?”

It’s definitely not a mineral. It might be a vegetable.

Jim: “It’s got a brain.”

And there’s Kitchenette, where you’re trying to get with a woman, but you’re distracted by the footsteps of kids going up and down the stairs…

Nick: “That song comes out of a very ad-libbed place. I don’t know if Jim’s explained how we go about making these, but they are basically five days of ad-libbing stuff, vocally. You end up going to places after a while that you wouldn’t usually go to. That song comes straight out of a kind of an ad-libbed scenario of a guy trying to seduce a married woman.”

So you’re coming right off the top of your head.

Nick: “Definitely. When I actually go about writing the lyrics up later on, trying to shape them into something workable and pleasing, I try to remain true to the theme of these early ad-libbing sessions. I think they tend to be about things I wouldn’t usually have the courage to write about. Maybe not the courage, maybe, but I’m not going to sit down in my office with a piece of blank paper and write down ‘Worm Tamer’ on it. After day three or day four in the studio – you know, we’re working very, very long days, and you sort of lose perspective on what you’re about – your history. You go to different areas. And I love it out there.”

Jim: “You get a bit delirious by the fourth day. You’ve tried all the tricks you might have in your little bag of tricks, you’re lost sense of time…”

Nick: “Of time, and decency.”

Jim: “…you get into a real groove, and things start happening at that point.”

Nick: “There is a sexual neurosis that runs through the record, and that seemed to really come to the fore at that point. And also, very dark music we were doing after a while. I remember saying to Warren, this sounds really evil, and he was like, I know. Musically and lyrically, I feel like it ended up somewhere that was darker, more subversive.”

On Heathen Child, you mix up religious stuff with a lot of things out of mythology, it sort of draws a grey line between them.

Nick: “Yeah. I’ll have to think… anyway, I really love that song.”

Jim: “Right, Buddha and Allah… but monsters and the wolfman.”

We were talking about Allah earlier, and I asked Jim if anyone dared attempt an Allah costume.

Nick: “Well, in respect to the religion, there was a certain part of that video that was edited.”

Jim: “The key word there is respect. ‘In respect of’, rather than ‘Respect’, shall we say.”

OK. Finally, I had to ask – I don’t know if either of you have iPhones, but are you familiar with the application Grindr?

Jim: “Is that the gay thing?”

Nick: “I actually have it, yeah.”

Jim: “It’s supposed to be very popular…”

I thought it was a particularly Grinderman-sounding idea – young men roaming the streets, desperate for sex…

Nick: “Here we go – ‘Would you like to use your current location?’”

Jim: “That’s a loaded question if ever I heard one.”

Nick: “Have you ever used iVibrate? Look, put your fingers on that. It’s like an iDildo.”

Jim: “It would never fit.”

Nick: “They’re wonderful things, iPhones. Uh, edit that out.”