Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian alternative rock band that was formed in London, United Kingdom in 1983 by frontman Nick Cave, multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and guitarist Blixa Bargeld. The band has featured international personnel throughout its career and presently consists of Cave, violinist and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, bassist Martyn P. Casey, keyboardist Conway Savage, and percussionists Thomas Wydler (Switzerland) and Jim Sclavunos (United States). The band has released fifteen studio albums and completed numerous international tours.
The band was founded after the demise of Cave and Harvey's former group The Birthday Party, the members of which met at a boarding school in Victoria, Australia. Deviating from the noise rock roots of their contemporaries, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have produced alternative rock that has been influenced by various genres, such as punk rock, gothic rock, no wave and blues. Their early material—From Her to Eternity (1984), The Firstborn Is Dead (1985), Your Funeral... My Trial (1986) and Tender Prey (1988)—primarily featured a post-punk sound. The band has progressively incorporated other songwriting elements; for example, the 2008 release Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! experimented with garage rock, also an influence of the side project Grinderman. Synthesizers and minimal guitar work feature prominently on their newest album, Push the Sky Away (2013), recorded after the departure of Harvey in 2009.
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