Legendary Australian producer Tony Cohen has died at the age of 60.
Cohen was the producer for Nick Cave’s The Birthday Party and then Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds in the early 80s. He produced The Cruel Sea’s iconic album ‘The Honeymoon Is Over’ and was awarded Producer of the Year at the 1994 ARIA Awards for the album.
Cohen got his start as a producer working for Armstrong Studios in South Melbourne and getting involved with Supernaut via Molly Meldrum for their hit ‘I Like It Both Ways’.
Tony Cohen also worked on The Ferretts ‘Dreams Of A Love’ album featuring ‘Don’t Fall In Love’.
Nick Cave came to him through The Boys Next Door. Cave later changed the name of the band to The Birthday Party. Cohen produced their debut album ‘Door, Door’ (1979), the EP ‘Hee Haw’ (1979) and the second album ‘The Birthday Party’ (1980). He then spent the next 20 years working with Cave for The Bad Seeds from ‘From Her To Eternity’ (1984) to ‘Now More Shall We Part’ (2001).
Tex Perkins recruited Cohen for the first The Cruel Sea album ‘This Is Not The Way Home’ (1991). He also produced TISM’s ‘The Beasts of Suburban’ (1992), Dave Graney n The Coral Snakes ‘You Wanna Be There But You Don’t Want To Travel’ (1994) and Powderfinger’s debut ‘Parables for Wooden Ears’ (1994).
Cohen’s credits can be found on records by Hunters & Collectors, The Reels, Models, Paul Kelly and James Freud.
Tony Cohen died on Wednesday 2 August at Dandenong Hospital outside Melbourne. In a statement his brother Martin suggested the death was from “a hard life with drugs and alcohol”, adding “he “always knew that he would eventually pay for his sins”.
