Nick Cave remembers Johnny Cash as “a sort of terrifying apparition of a man”

nme.com:

Nick Cave has opened up about recording with Johnny Cash, recalling him as “a sort of terrifying apparition of a man”.While appearing as a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the ‘Red Right Hand’ singer sat down to discuss his forthcoming album ‘Wild God‘ and opened up about working with Cash on a duet cover of Hank Williams’ ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’.“Just to be clear – Johnny Cash was my hero.

I used to watch him as a child. They played The Johnny Cash Show on TV in Australia. I got to sit there as a child and see this man with a voice – there was something about this voice that just followed me all my life,” Cave began.In 2000, Cash recorded a cover of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds‘ 1988 track ‘The Mercy Seat’ for his album ‘American III: Solitary Man’, two years before the two recorded the Hank Williams duet.

Remembering the experience, Cave revealed that he was terrified of singing alongside Cash “because of the gravitas of his voice”.“When I got there quite early at the studio and when he arrived – this was close to when he actually died – and he was not well at all.

When I saw him, he was a sort of terrifying apparition of a man so different to the man I thought him to be,” Cave said.He continued: “He sat down with me and he said, ‘Look, you know, I’ve had the flu, I’ve had laryngitis, I have no voice.