Nick Cave has shared the transcript of a recent text conversation he had with Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie. Cave also discusses the pair’s political disagreements in the latest Red Hand Files post.
Followers of Nick Cave’s AMA-style blog The Red Hand Files will know Cave’s been a persistently candid scribe over the last 18 months. He’s excavated his darkest emotions, reflected on years of drug abuse, and speculated about what derailed his relationship with PJ Harvey.
Cave goes further in the latest entry by sharing a text message exchange with long time pal Bobby Gillespie.
Watch: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away (ft. Bobby Gillespie)
The post responds to two separate questions – Evie from Birmingham asks, “I just met a guy who has completely the opposite political beliefs to me but I really like him. Are we doomed?” And Jone from Norway asks “The Sensational Alex Harvey Band are the uncrowned kings of 70s rock. Do you agree?”
Cave answers no to first question and yes to the second, but ties both to his friendship with Gillespie. “I am reminded of my long friendship with Bobby Gillespie,” Cave says to Evie. “Now, there is much we don’t agree on politically, however it has done nothing to affect our relationship, other than to energise it, I think.”
Gillespie was raised in a socialist household. He’s said that his dad, politician Bob Gillespie, was “an activist, he was a trade unionist and he was a Marxist.” Gillespie’s also a strong opponent of Brexit, telling The Guardian it’ll mean “Environmental and worker’s rights [get] thrown out the window.”
Cave’s politics aren’t so easily traced, but he’s a fierce supporter of freedom of speech, and recently rebuffed the merits of woke culture. He also defied the BDS movement to play a show in Israel in 2017.
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Watch: The Sensational Alex Harvey Band – Next
But Cave’s post underlines how political disagreement doesn’t have to get in the way of a good friendship. The text exchange concerns Cave and Gillespie’s love of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Harvey’s a Glaswegian, like Gillespie.
“As a kid in Australia I could never understand why Alex Harvey sang in such a bizarre way – the way he pronounced his words – I never knew about Scottishness,” Cave writes to Gillespie. “Then I met you and it all made sense!”
He goes on to say ,”Took me literally years to work out what you were saying!” “Thank God,” replies Gillespie. “I may have been a wee bit smashed.”
