Mick Harvey Explains Why He Quit Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Mick Harvey has revealed why he left Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds after spending 25 years with the band. Speaking to Spinner, multi-instrumentalist Harvey says that a mixture of spending too much time on management issues and musical differences contributed to his surprise departure in 2009.

"It was a combination of an awful lot of things. I think that some things have changed inside the band and my role in the band had changed gradually and things that I was doing outside the band had changed gradually," says Harvey. "The balance between how much time I was spending on the creative side and the management side of things had changed and the balance wasn't right anymore."

Harvey began to feel estranged from the Bad Seeds around the time of 1997's 'The Boatman's Call,' which marked a noticeable shift in direction for the ensemble. More recently, Harvey said began to feel sidelined in the creative process and felt that his opinions weren't being paid sufficient attention.

"There were a few key things that kind of pushed it over the edge, I guess," he continues. "That was mostly to do with the fact that I got to the point where I felt that I couldn't really say what I felt anymore with what was going on about the way certain things were being done because I'd said what I thought about them but was ignored.

"It's also about the way some the material was being approached. I thought some of the stuff was being dumbed down but that's just my opinion. But it wasn't a good situation."

Having quit the band for a solo career -- his new album, 'Sketches From the Book of the Dead' is out now -- as well as playing with PJ Harvey on her current tour, Harvey says he doesn't feel as if much has changed for him.

"I don't really feel as if I'm master of my own destiny; I'm just bumbling along like I always do, really," he laughs. "I don't know what's happening next and it's always been like that!"

Watch the video for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' 'There She Goes, My Beautiful World'