The 'Mercy Seat' singer comes out with the details of the early 1980s meeting when asked this thoughts about tragic British singer Nick Drake by a fan on his Red Hand Files website.
- Jul 28, 2021
AceShowbiz - Rocker and poet Nick Cave has shared details of an eerie meeting with The Velvet Underground icon Nico in the early 1980s.
The singer/songwriter was asked this thoughts about tragic British singer Nick Drake by a fan on his Red Hand Files website, and that led to a story about how he met German singer Nico.
It began in London when the Australian singer was approached by a man who wanted to take his photograph, because Cave looked "interesting".
"He gave me his address and told me to come to his flat the next day," the "Mercy Seat" singer recalled, saying the atmosphere at the apartment was "unsettling... heavy and strange."
He was soon surprised by the blonde German star, "At that time in my young life, Nico was, by any measure, a hero, and she was there beside me, sitting very still."
She told him "very deliberately, in her thick German accent" that she knew someone just like Cave, adding, "He was a singer and his name was Nick."
After telling her he shared Drake's name, Cave was stunned when Nico explained she already knew who he was.
"Then she said nothing for a while and my mind rushed all over the place, and I'm thinking, 'F**k, I'm sitting next to Nico'," he recalled. "Eventually she said, 'He died... Killed by his own hand'."
She then left the room and the photographer began setting up his shot.
"The photographer's way of taking pictures was to have you look in a mirror, in this case, his bathroom mirror, and he would photograph your reflection," said Nick. "As I was arranging my face, there in the mirror, from the end of the hall behind me, Nico appeared, like an apparition, standing very still and looking into the mirror. The photographer took the photo and I said, 'I want that one'."
The "Henry Lee" singer said he's not even sure if he ever saw any of the shots, but he "sure would love [to have a copy of] that photograph".
Nico, real name Christa Paffgen, died in 1988.
