Nick Cave lost two sons in 10 years. This is what he learned about grief.

Nick Cave is an award-winning musician, writer and actor who has consistently transcended genres and industry norms over the course of his 40 year career. He's toured the world, starred in films, released poetry and chart-topping albums, and launched his own website called The Red Hand Files.

But in the last 10 years he experienced personal heartbreak that fundamentally changed his worldview. 

In 2015, the singer lost his son Arthur when he fell from a cliff near his home in Brighton after taking LSD for the first time. He was 15 years old. 

Seven years later in 2022, his 31-year-old son Jethro died of undisclosed causes.

On grief, Cave believes it ultimately brings meaning to life. But it doesn't make his unfathomable loss any easier to accept. 

"There is the initial cataclysmic event that we eventually absorb, or rearrange ourselves, so that we become creatures of loss as we get older; this is part of our fundamental fabric of what we are as human beings," the singer told Leigh Sales in a new interview for Australian Story. 

"This is not a tragic element to our lives but rather a deepening element and that brings incredible meaning into our life. I've found that personally, and I think a lot of other people have found that, provided you can remain open."

Nick Cave with Leigh Sales on Australian Story. Image: ABC.

In the interview, Cave said he had lived life "in awe of his own genius" before the death of his son Arthur.

"Whatever else happened in my life was peripheral," he revealed in the candid interview, of his commitment to his art. Following the tragedy, he says his previous way of thinking "collapsed completely."

"I just saw the folly of that disgraceful sort of self-indulgence," he told Sales.

"My priorities changed. You know, I still work all the time, I still go on tour. I still p**s everyone off because I'm making a new record, the same things still apply. But that idea that art trounces everything just doesn't apply to me anymore.

"I'm a father and I’m a husband and a grandfather and a kind of person of the world. These things are much more important to me than the concept of being an artist."

Earlier this year, Cave spoke of "a man’s culpability in the loss of his child" while he was being interviewed by The Guardian. Sales asked about the comment on Australian Story.

"I think it's something that people who lose children feel regardless of the situation, simply because the one thing you’re supposed to do is not let your children die," Cave said.

"Forget that. The one thing you're supposed to do is protect your children."

Nick Cave speaks candidly on grief. Image: ABC.

Cave previously spoke of grief in 2018, in a response to one of his fans on his website The Red Hand Files.

"It seems to me that if we love, we grieve. That's the deal. That's the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and like love, grief is non-negotiable," he wrote.

"We are tiny, trembling clusters of atoms subsumed within grief's awesome presence. It occupies the core of our being."

He continued on to speak of his son, Arthur.

"I feel the presence of my son, all around, but he may not be there. I hear him talk to me, parent me, guide me, though he may not be there," he continued. "He visits Susie in her sleep regularly, speaks to her, comforts her, but he may not be there. Dread grief trails bright phantoms in its wake."

Nick Cave's letter to a reader, Cynthia, on grief. Image: The Red Right Hand.

Feature Image: ABC