Tim Noble
Sue Webster
We're interested in your collaboration with Tim and Sue. One image that stands out for me is Sue outside the Hammersmith Apollo [London] just before one of your concerts. You guys are good friends by now?
We are actually, although I haven't seen them for a little bit. I've just been on the road and stuff like that, but we became good friends, yeah.
Do you recall this night at all? It was the last gig we [Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds] did at the Apollo I suppose. I always find it difficult to remember that kind of thing, but it was a great night.
Do you hang out with them socially?
Yeah, I do. I go around to their place, especially when we're working on a project. Were you very involved in the design of the album cover?
I did a gig in Iceland about two years ago and Tim bought Sue a ticket to Iceland for her birthday - she wanted to go and see one of my shows as a birthday present. For some reason or another we both got invited to the President of Iceland's house for lunch. I'd never heard of them at that point. They gave me one of their books, and in that book I saw these rather wonderful light sculptures that they did. I loved the shadow stuff as well, but the light sculptures, I just thought that they could come in handy one day. I just filed it away. Then they came and saw the gig [in Iceland] and we went out and all that sort of stuff. A couple of years later I was doing the Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! record and I wanted that name, "Dig, Lazarus, Dig" to be a command, to be shouted out from the record cover with all of the apostrophes and stuff after it. I just remembered the sign [with the lights] so I called them [Sue and Tim] and they were happy to work on it. So, basically I did a drawing on an old envelope and gave that to them, then they went around taking the tiniest little idea that I had and turning it into the genuine cultural icon. It was just amazing what they did, they did the whole thing with such generosity and enthusiasm. It was very exciting to be involved in.
I read that you credited Tim and Sue with bringing the Sunshine [image] to the sign, the bright orange colours.
You can have it any colour you like because it's just a matter of screwing in different coloured bulbs. They initially did a red and white one, and it looked like it was bleeding, that there was blood down the bottom, it was beautiful. The next one, the one we used, was a sort of tropical sunset.
I've seen images of Tim and Sue's house and there are Nick Cave CDs everywhere and a large signed 'Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!' poster...
They're great music fans - they collect vinyl. They have an incredible record collection and consummate taste, of course. I think that music is hugely important to them and I think a lot of the imagery of their work comes out of it.
You've mentioned before that you're not that knowledgeable on British art...
I do collect, I have a collection of paintings, but they're not modern British art. I have a significant collection of Louis Wain paintings [late 19 th -century English artist best know for depictions of large-eyed cats and kittens]. I have a lot of those.
Do you paint?
I doodle. I'm an insane doodler.
The bronze statue of you proposed for Warracknabeal [in country Victoria, Australia], your former home-town, is that going ahead?
I would like it to.
Do you have a sculptor lined up?
I've wanted to do this for some years now and there is a sculptor. He made the maquette [small model for a sculpture] but he's waiting to do the big thing.
So he's standing by?
[Laughs] The world's standing by!
So tell me, how do you get invited to a President's house?
It's kind of strange, I don't normally get invited to Presidents' houses. This man [the President of Iceland] is just very interested in art and culture. I think he was trying to get Tim, Sue and I together. Sue will know - she has an incredibly convoluted answer to that!