Nick Cave calls crowdfunding campaign to buy him a piano "entirely unnecessary"

A tongue in cheek blog post has sparked an overly enthusiastic response from Nick Cave’s fanbase. After Cave bemoaned his failure to score a free Fazioli piano, fans set up a crowdfunding campaign to get him one.

Earlier this week, Nick Cave responded to a question on The Red Hand Files, which asked about the piano used for his Idiot Prayer online streaming event. He explained that the instrument – a Fazioli, from Sacile, Italy – didn’t belong to him, but that it spoke to him “like no piano had spoken to me before.”

Cave then described how he was so moved by the piano that he asked his manager to get in touch with Fazioli and ask for a free one. “One of the things you may or may not know about being a famous musician is that companies give you shit for free,” he wrote. What proceeded was an embellished account of his manager’s inability to convince Fazioli that Cave deserved a complimentary £200,000 piano.

Ultimately, the company showed no inclination to throw Cave a freebie, and he conceded that his 30 year old Chinese upright would have to suffice. The following day, however, Cave was back on The Red Hand Files to make something of a public service announcement.

“It seems that some of my fans have reacted a little enthusiastically to my last Red Hand File and have contacted Fazioli ‘encouraging’ them to gift me a piano,” he wrote. “The tsunami of mail has left our friends at Fazioli a little shaken, so while I love you all – no more mails to Fazioli please! They are wonderful people.”

Cave has now posted another update in what he’s calling “Fazioligate”. This time, he’s urging fans to put an end to various crowdfunding campaigns organised to get him a Fazioli.

“I really appreciate the lengths people are going to to secure me this lovely instrument, it is entirely unnecessary,” he writes. “As Mike from Birmingham says, ‘Why don’t you just buy your own fucking piano, you cheap c**t.’ Mike is right, God bless him, I really should just buy my own piano.”