Nick Cave says that he has been asked by Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player Flea to contribute to a trumpet project he was working on.
Cave wrote on his theredhandfiles blog, “Last week, Flea sent me a song and asked if I’d like to add some vocals. It was for a “trumpet record” that he is making. It is not for me to divulge what the song was, only that it is a song I cherish more than most, with arguably the greatest lyric ever written, a song of such esteem that I would never have dared to sing it had Flea not asked me to. I went into the studio on Wednesday and recorded my vocals. The track emerged as a beautiful conversation between Flea’s trumpet and my voice, filled with yearning and love, the song transcending its individual parts and becoming a slowly evolving cosmic dance, in the form of a reconciliation and an apology”.
Michael Balzary (Flea) and Nick Cave where both born in the Australian state of Victoria, Cave in 1957 and Flea in 1962. (Flea’s family moved to the USA when he was four).
Cave said he first encountered Flea 25 years ago when he made a smart-arsed comment about the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Flea reached back out to him with a open-heart love letter. Cave said it was then he realised Flea was the bigger man.
Cave writes, “Over the years, I would run into Flea at music festivals where both our bands were performing and see him backstage when we played in Los Angeles. Although we didn’t become close friends, my encounters with him were always pleasant – there was a presence to Flea that felt genuine and oddly affecting. On the Push the Sky Away tour, we asked Flea if he could assemble a children’s choir, from the Silverlake Conservatory of Music he founded, to accompany the Bad Seeds at the Coachella Festival. When Warren and I were on the Carnage tour, we asked Flea to join us and play the song ‘We No Who U R’. Watching Warren and Flea perform together with such heart and mutual regard was a glorious sight”.
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