Nick Cave has regarded again on the 10 years since his son Arthur died, and shared what he has discovered from his expertise of grief.
The feedback relate to the tragic and surprising loss of life of his 15-year-old son in July 2015. He was one of many twin sons Cave shares along with his spouse, Susie Bick, and he sadly died following a fall from a cliff close to Brighton.
In 2022, Cave confirmed that his eldest son, Jethro Lazenby, had died on the age of 31. His passing got here after he had been recognized with schizophrenia.
On his Pink Hand Information web site, two followers reached out to Cave to ask how he’s dealing with the grief, 10 years on from Arthur’s loss of life. One fan named Carlos requested what he and his companion have “discovered” within the time since, whereas one other fan known as Emma wrote in asking if the ache they felt then “lasts without end”.
In his touching response, Cave mentioned that whereas the “ache stays” fixed, he has seen it “evolve over time.
“Grief blossoms with age, turning into much less a private affront, much less a cosmic betrayal, and extra a poetic high quality of being as we study to give up to it,” he shared. “What appears insufferable finally seems to not be insufferable in any respect. Sorrow grows richer, deeper, and extra textured. It feels extra fascinating, inventive, and wonderful.”
He added that the tragic expertise led to him beginning “to recognise the immense worth and potential of our humanness whereas concurrently acknowledging, at my core, our terrifyingly perilous scenario.”
“I realised that though every of us is particular and distinctive, our ache and brokenness will not be,” he shared, saying that each he and Susie have come to “perceive that the world will not be detached or merciless, however treasured and loving”.
Additionally in his response, Cave mentioned that the lack of Arthur in 2015 gave him a deeper understanding of “God” – not as a “religion or perception” however as “a approach of seeing”.
“I got here to know that God was a type of notion, a method of being alert to the poetic resonance of being. I discovered God to be woven into all issues, even the best evils and our deepest despair,” he wrote.
Nick Cave on Arthur, Susie, grief. ‘She mentioned Arthur nonetheless visits her each week. He’s at all times the identical age, round ten years previous. Nothing a lot occurs, he merely sits together with her.’ https://t.co/i9e7ElCfo1 pic.twitter.com/YDFA3Gg2OY
— Nick Spence (@Nickfromupnorth) July 19, 2025
“Typically I really feel the world pulsating with a wealthy, lyrical vitality; at different occasions it feels flat, void, and malevolent. I got here to understand that God was current and lively in each experiences.”
The ‘Into My Arms’ singer added that he and his companion have gone on to undertake a extra optimistic outlook within the years since Arthur’s loss of life. “Today, I’m neither distrustful nor suspicious of the world, though my coronary heart breaks for it, and I’m not despairing, depressed or embittered,” Cave shared.
“Sorrow turns into a lifestyle, half laughter, half tears, with little or no area between. It’s a approach of conducting oneself on the earth, of loving it, of worshipping it.”
After sharing how Susie has frequent desires the place Arthur comes to go to her, Cave concluded: “I’m unsure what else I’ve discovered, Carlos, besides that right here we nonetheless are, a decade later, residing inside the radiant coronary heart of the trauma, the place the place all ideas and desires converge and the place all hope and sorrow reside, the intense and teary eye of the storm – this whirling boy who’s God, like each different factor.”
This isn’t the primary time that Cave has opened as much as followers about his expertise of grief. Final 12 months, the Dangerous Seeds frontman spoke about how the experiences formed him in each his private {and professional} life, and led to him inserting his artwork on much less of a pedestal.
“That concept that artwork trounces every part, it simply doesn’t apply to me anymore,” he mentioned on the time. “Slightly than making me bitter, it did the other indirectly. It made me far more linked to individuals usually.”
He then shared earlier this 12 months that he had turn into considerably “repelled” by work after the loss, and got here to understand that his musical output was not the “be-all and end-all of every part”.
Earlier than then, he admitted that he regretted recording his 2016 album ‘Skeleton Tree’, so quickly after Arthur’s loss of life, and in 2020, he advised followers that “there isn’t a different facet” to grief, and that he and his companion have needed to modify to residing with the loss.
The transferring replace shared by Cave on Pink Hand Information comes across the identical time that the singer-songwriter bought followers flocking to a charity retailer in Hove after donating 2,000 books.
Earlier than then, the ‘Pink Proper Hand’ singer spoke to NME in 2023, and opened up about whether or not he’s attempting to pour a sense of affection into his music. “I don’t know concerning the music, however as of late I really feel a extra pressing want to attach with individuals,” he mentioned.
“That there’s a sort of responsibility in that, that possibly I didn’t really feel earlier than. That I’ve at my disposal one thing that’s very helpful: to make music, and I don’t need to squander that chance in phoning in gigs or doing half-hearted makes an attempt. Each one is as necessary as one another.” Take a look at that full interview right here.