Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds‘ new album Wild God is out in just a couple weeks and Nick is currently in NYC for a little advance press hype and stopped by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night. Nick wasn’t there to perform, just talk, and while his segment on the show that aired on CBS was about nine minutes, Colbert has shared the full conversation.
Over the course of 22-minutes, Cave and Colbert talked about the new album, grief, the transcendent joyful nature of music, and lots more. When asked about some of the most powerful artistic experiences in his career, Nick talked about getting to work with the late Johnny Cash, dueting on “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” for 2002’s American IV: The Man Comes Around which would be the country legend’s final studio album before his death in September, 2003.
“When I got there quite early at the studio and when he arrived, he was not well at all,” Cave told Colbert. “He was a sort of terrifying apparition of a man. He sat down with me and he said, ‘Look, you know, I’ve had the flu, I’ve had laryngitis, I have no voice. I’ve never asked Jesus for anything, but I had to perform with you today. Last night I dropped down on my knees and I said, ‘Jesus, I got to sing with Nick. Give me back my voice.’ June Carter’s there as well, she’s going “Hallelujah, hallelujah!” He then says, ‘I woke up this morning and I’m singing like a bird.’ He transformed from this sort of suffering individual into something really extraordinary, literally before my eyes.”
You can watch the whole extended Colbert interview, and listen to Cash and Cave’s duet, below. Nick talks more about working with Cash on The Red Hand Files.
While Nick’s in town, he’ll be talking about Wild God and playing a few songs at National Sawdust on Thursday as part of the GRAMMY Museum’s “A New York Evening With…” series.