If you ever want to get woolly rocker Warren Ellis more riled up than he can be with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, have him talk politics.
The Australian-born ambidextrous instrumentalist is no doubt relieved extremism didn’t prevail in his adopted hometown of Paris. “I am in the wilderness,” he told me on a transatlantic call earlier in May while fretting over the impending presidential election. “It does seem that we are seeing a rather alarming time; people need to unite and react, as it doesn’t feel like we’ll have other chance really.”
A jab was even thrown at our own “let-down” of a Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying he had “so much promise,” only to “turn around and do what he’s done” concerning the emissions targets he promised to reduce. In Mr. Ellis’ opinion, “we need leaders with vision, that are able to see the dark, to see a way out of there.” That’s not what we have at the moment, comparing Trump’s time in office so far as “the closing of a door that the world doesn’t need.”
The band that Ellis plies a great deal of his trade in, The Bad Seeds, have arguably been doing just so for thirty-plus years: finding light amidst the shadows. “A safer mode,” as he eloquently put it. His name may not be entirely familiar, although you’ve probably heard some of the prolific soundtrack work he’s done with longtime collaborator Cave, like in last year’s Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water and his new upcoming release Lovely Creatures receiving an honourable mention among Indie albums of 2017.
Mr. Ellis considers these outside projects as simply a continuation of his cooperative music’s singular direction, “and that one direction is forward.” Always looking to experiment and push himself outside the proverbial comfort zone, the bearded auteur was a little shocked how incredibly inclusive and open serving another purpose, having to listen to other people’s viewpoints actually led to a form of newfound freedom. “Something kind of extraordinary can happen.”
Mr. Ellis also helped compose the music for the new feature film starring Brad Pitt, streamable on Netflix as of May 26th. Ellis definitely won’t be binge watching it, as that’s the same night Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds start a North American tour that will see them perform twice at Toronto’s venerable and revered Massey Hall (May 31st and June 1st), and the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver on June 22nd. It is in support of the band’s sixteenth album since 1984, Skeleton Tree. A ‘Best of’ package entitled Lovely Creatures was also recently released and is available on Amazon. The Super Deluxe edition all members had a hand in putting together contains 44 greatest hits on 3 CDs, a 2-hour interview and performance DVD plus a hardcover book chock full of visual surprises. It is truly a celebration of Nick’s songwriting, Mr. Ellis summarized, not to mention this band that keeps reinventing itself, a group he has been honoured and privileged to play with “for a sizeable part of my life.”
