About the Artist
GRINDERMAN SONG BY SONG
On the 5th of April 2006, Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos entered RAK studios, London, for a week with producer Nick Launay and recorded thirteen songs. Here GRINDERMAN discuss the songs from their self-titled debut album.
Get It On
"This song is sung across an excoriating mandolin loop based on an obscure lute melody from the 11th century," suggests Ellis, getting the ball rolling.
"It is a lament for the messianic rock n' roll hero," says the virile and youthful Cave, "and begins, of course, with a statement of intent."
"Mice, dogs, baboons, hyenas", says Marty, Zen-like in the corner.
"Yeah, well, for me all the enemies of inspiration assume animal shapes," explains Cave, "they are all around us...and of course, inside us."
"From all the loops I originally sent you, this was the first one that really cried out to be used," mumbles Ellis, from the black hole in his shovel-shaped beard.
No Pussy Blues
"While our dreams and desires are hung on the butcher's hook of rampant consumerism, and the mirage and the illusion and the Nike trainers are served up on the trembling quim of an impossibly nubile girl-thing, No Pussy Blues tells it like it is," suggests Cave. "It is the child standing goggle-eyed at the cake shop window, as the shop-owner, in his plastic sleeves, barricades the door and turns the sign to "CLOSED". It is the howl in the dark of the Everyman."
"Set over a throbbing pornographic bass line, the world holds its breath for the onslaught of the wah's shriek of frustration and dirty water," counters Casey. "No Pussy Blues continues in the blues tradition and its timeless fascination with getting laid...or not."
"It's `Back Door Man', it's `Crawling King Snake', it's `Tiger Man'," says Ellis.
"It's `Shake Rattle and Roll'," says Sclavunos.
Electric Alice
"Electric Alice shows Grinderman as a small tight unit playing a wholly improvised piece of music," someone mutters.
"I really love this song," says Cave. "I could listen to this song forever," blushing at his rare display of candor.
"What is this song about?" asks Ellis, slack-jawed, his beard like an inverted burka.
"It's an hallucination, it's a dream," explains Cave. "It's about memory and loss and silver rain."
"Of course, any journalist worth his salt will recognize instantly that Electric Alice is a reverential nod to Alice Coltrane," says Ellis.
"And of course, Larry Young. There was no coming back after I heard Lawrence of Newark," adds Cave.
"Whatever it is, it's a pile of glorious music," says Casey.
Grinderman
"The narrative of the album continues with the song Grinderman, Electric Alice's evil twin. I dig its predatory ape-like loop, the violent and impotent boast of the vocal and its primitive lead guitar," gushes Sclavunos.
"Well thank you, Jim. So do I," responds Cave.
"But it's vulnerable," says Ellis. "It feels kind of flayed."
"It is the Night Mare mounting the trembling dream," says Cave.
"It's the monster in the boiler-room," suggests Sclavunos.
"Grinderman is an evil haiku," adds Casey who has traveled extensively in the East.
Depth Charge Ethel
"This song is about a girl I used to know back when I was young. She was a drug addict and a prostitute and one of the happiest people I've ever met. It started life as a slow blues number, but I never thought it did Ethel justice. She was a force of nature and the song needed to burn, to blaze, to move forward and to never, ever look back," says Cave, beneath all of his hair.
Go Tell the Women
"I really like this song," enthuses Ellis, who has a lot of hair on the top of his head. "It's an old-time toe-tapper led by your intricate Clapton-esque fretwork, Nick."
"Well, thank you, Warren. Go Tell the Women sings a song of existential bondage, of our enslavement to progress and the pursuit of pleasure."
"It's science fiction," says Casey.
"Actually Marty, it's anything but that," says Cave. "It's a talking blues, with its feet set firmly in the present."
"Yeah, it's `Beware, brother, beware!'" says Sclavunos.
"An alert listener will see that the album's narrative continues," observes Ellis, "in its deference to the blues tradition."
"The album seems to tell a story," suggests Jim.
"Yes, in the very broadest sense," replies Cave.
"A la The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway?" asks Marty.
"Well, yes, though it differs in two ways: our record has a more forceful dramatic arc and, of course, a more pleasing and humane denouement," confirms Cave.
"It seems that phrases and words call back and forth throughout the songs," notes Ellis.
"Indeed," avers Cave.
(I Don't Need You To) Set Me Free
"I was trying to find a way into what I wanted the lyrics to be concerned with," says Cave. "I was listening to John Lee Hooker and I heard these lines buried deep in one of his songs: I went down to my baby's house/And I sat down on the step
"And in that instant, I knew I'd found a way in, you know, to the album. That's all you need, a way in. Lyrically, the whole album rests on those two lines," says Cave.
"How does that relate to Set Me Free?" asks Sclavunos.
"Well, the protagonist in Set Me Free is disconnected from things whilst his `other' has left him in order to engage in the world," explains Cave. "The protagonist no longer has a "witness", he is alone, and left to metaphorically "sit down on the step".
"Oh," says Jim.
"The drums and bass are copasetic," says Warren. "That applies to the whole record. The rhythm section is really solid and provides a lot of freedom for the other instruments to roam.
"If I remember rightly, attention was paid to keep the songs short and direct as possible; most of them come in under three and a half minutes", says Casey.
"One needed to get to the nub of things... fast," says Cave.
Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)
"This is Joseph and Mary's Flight into Egypt, but you know, re-worked," says Cave.
"A sonically overloaded, blistering rocket ride," says Sclavunos.
"Well, exactly," affirms Cave. "The narrator is literally repulsed into orbit by the banal horror of the world: the cynical deployment of fear as social control (first verse), the slaughter of the innocents (second verse)... "
"This song's shot from a cannon," interrupts Ellis.
"And there is vigorous blood-and-guts backing vocal action," notes Casey, rolling out his yoga mat.
Man In the Moon
"Man in the Moon attaches itself to Honey Bee like a lamprey, don't you think?" suggests Ellis.
"What's a lamprey?" asks Cave.
"A lamprey is an eel-like fish that attaches itself to other fishes by sucking with its mouth and clamping with its teeth. It feeds on its victims' blood and other body fluids," explains Sclavunos.
"Well, actually, Man in the Moon attaches itself to Honey Bee with great tenderness, by the tips of its fingers," says Cave. "It feels like it could fall away at any moment, tumble off the face of the world and float forever in deep space."
"Like a lost astronaut," says Sclavunos.
"Exactly, Jim. It's a song of abandonment and loss," continues Cave.
"Familiar territory then," says Marty assuming "The Corpse" pose.
"Although less histrionic, more redemptive" offers Cave. "It is simply a moment, not the whole enchilada."
When My Love Comes Down
"When My Love Comes Down is a densely layered grind. Built around a mind-warping loop, relentless rhythms and floating wigged-out vocals: this is Grinderman," states Sclavunos.
"Has anyone experienced that wonderful feeling when you're surrounded by people, and noise and chaos, yet you feel you're a million miles away?" asks Cave.
"What?" responds Ellis.
"When My Love Comes Down seems to embody that sense of displacement. It is, on the one hand, turbulent and frenetic and full of sonic remonstrations; but on the other hand, it sounds like it comes at you from a great distance."
"It's like a maelstrom...faraway..." says Jim, dreamily.
Love Bomb
"Nifty guitar work, Mr. Cave", suggests Ellis. "Thank you, Warren, and not a small nod to electric Miles Davis with its zombie drum and bass thing", says Cave. "Well, everything comes from something", says Sclavunos. "Absolutely. The lyric itself is a modern-day take on Bosch's depictions of Hell, where each figure is consumed by the fires of his own private anguish. Bosch's Hell is the inability of the individual to recognise the suffering of others", says Cave.
"That a silent and unresponsive God is his only witness", says Casey. "In the video we made for the song Grinderman, the ape, trapped by the lurid porno lights, flails ineffectually, while off-screen, the organ-grinder, God, the Grinderman, cranks the handle that makes him dance. This would seem to be some kind of clue", says Cave.
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