Nick Cave Writes Novel Surrounded by 'Absolute Chaos' -- Exclusive Video

Posted on Oct 6th 2009 4:00PM by Mike Ayers
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Touring, as general rule, can be a pretty hectic affair. Between the travel, the shows and the afterparties, musicians have very little time to do anything else, which makes the fact that Nick Cave wrote his second novel on the road all the more impressive. "I wanted to see if it was possible to do something creative on tour," Cave tells Spinner about 'The Death of Bunny Munro' when he stopped by our New York City studio. "The general wisdom in bands is that you can't do anything on tour. You're just a kind of vegetable that sits there and waits to go on in the evening."

The life of a writer is often portrayed as one of solitude, where even the slightest bit of noise can provide a distraction. This wasn't so for Cave; he says he thrived in "absolute chaos" during the writing. "Once I got started with it, I just couldn't wait to get back to it," he says. "I'd finish a gig and be sort of scribbling away backstage, surrounded by beautiful women, saying 'Go away! I'm writing!'"

'The Death of Bunny Munro' follows the lead character Bunny, a traveling salesman who thrusts himself into a 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' kind of journey. Bunny's world was recently turned upside down because of his wife's suicide, leaving him and his young son, Bunny Jr., to fend for themselves. The novel, which originally started out as a screenplay, weaves a sordid relationship between father and son that fans of Cave's warped sensibilities will surely love. "I find Bunny Munro endearing in a lot of ways," Cave says. "I mean, he's obviously a monster, and he obviously gets up to some bad stuff, which I don't condone, but he certainly is driven. He's committed to his desires and that's something, in some strange way, that I find quite attractive about his personality."

Cave will be embarking on a two week reading tour starting Oct. 11 in London, where he'll mix up spoken word with some musical accompaniments from Bad Seeds players Warren Ellis and Martyn Casey.