30 years ago today: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released Murder Ballads

Nick Cave

On the amoral stance of Murder Ballads – which, at times, 'almost gleefully describing wanton acts of carnage', and 'has the air of a child playing wargames with no sense of the consequences of the violence being play-acted out':

"Yeah, violence is fun," Cave deadpans. "That's the beautiful thing about art really, for me anyway. I don't really believe we really have a responsibility with what we do artistically. I think we all have our own personal sense of what is right and what is wrong, but that differs from person to person, so I don't think there can be a uniform morality imposed over what is said within songs or paintings or novels or whatever.

"So, for me, with the Murder Ballads thing, because I didn't feel that there needed to be any statement or message about violence put at the end of that record, I could allow the songs to go any way they liked; where violence was pointless, or seductive, or abusive, or cruel.

"That record is really much more about storytelling and the love of words, and there is, yeah, a kind of child-like playfulness about the use of words that go on there. A lot of it was just sort of . . . funny, I thought.

"I mean, violent words really excite me, I get a real kick out of writing about the details of violence in a kind of poetic way, there's something about it where the content doesn't sit quite right with the form, and there's a kind of tension that exists within that I find really exciting. And I love playing around with words. You can't imagine my excitement when I find out that 'confetti' rhymes with 'machete', or whatever. Perhaps I'm just, deep down, really immature..."

(1998)

Revisit Murder Ballads below: