Nick Cave Reveals How Chris Martin's "Challenging Suggestions" Made Him Completely Change a Song

The Coldplay singer is "disarmingly forthright. He tells his truth, as he sees it, as a matter of principle. He's tough and isn't afraid to speak his mind."

Photo: Matt Forsythe

BY Alex HudsonPublished Oct 4, 2022

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' 2019 album Ghosteen was sprawling, heartbreaking and… directly influenced by Coldplay? Cave has revealed that Coldplay frontman Chris Martin swung by the studio when they were working on the album, and his advice resulted in them completely changing the song "Waiting for You."

This tidbit comes from the new book Faith, Hope and Carnage. "He'd just bound into the studio full of that manic, ecstatic, life-loving spirit of his, and he'd be flying around the studio like a fucking pinball," Cave said of Martin's studio visit during the making of Ghosteen [via NME]. "When he'd calm down enough, we'd play him the song we were working on. He would listen, but listen hard you know, with his deep understanding of the nuts and bolts of songwriting and pop music, and hit-making."

Cave continued, "Chris is a very funny guy with a perverse sense of humour, but he's also disarmingly forthright. He tells his truth, as he sees it, as a matter of principle. He's tough and isn't afraid to speak his mind."

This included some "quite challenging suggestions." In the case of "Waiting for You," this meant taking out the harsh electronic beat that ran through the entire song. Cave called it a "very loud, super aggressive industrial loop that played completely out of time of the song — you can hear it at the very beginning of the song."

Cave quoted Martin as saying, "I love you guys very much, but is there any chance I could hear the song again without the fucking canning factory?" Cave and Bad Seeds member Warren Ellis weren't happy, but collaborator Andrew Dominik apparently said, "Thank god someone suggested that."

Cave eventually complied: "We took away the industrial loop and what was left was a very beautiful, vulnerable song shimmering there on its own — a classic, old-school ballad, raw and fragile and unimpeded. So thank god for that!"

The singer called Martin "a sweet guy and a dear friend of mine." Maybe he could return the favour and swing by Coldplay's studio to add some cryptic poetry or gothic art rock to their next album?

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