Nick Cave and the Devil's Guitar: The Primal Roar That Saved His Soul

In 2006, something shifted inside Nick Cave. A primal urgency overtook him—he needed to write music with a guitar in his hands. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t exactly a virtuoso on the instrument. What mattered was the raw honesty, that primitive and spontaneous style he had tapped into, opening a completely new creative window.

Cave was at a crossroads. After years of refining the sophisticated sound of the Bad Seeds, he felt the pull toward something rougher, more direct. He craved a minimalist, brutal approach—one that forced him to strip his music of any unnecessary ornamentation. To achieve it, he had to conceive a project entirely separate from his main band. That’s how Grinderman was born.

The new band drank straight from the rawest sources of the blues, especially legends like Howlin’ Wolf. Cave’s rudimentary guitar playing led him down two fascinating paths: one veered toward the snarling, visceral sound of the Stooges; the other embraced the experimental cacophony of Suicide.

Critics quickly called it a “return” to the sound of The Birthday Party—Cave’s earlier band and true post-punk legends. But the truth was more complex. Grinderman only shared with those brutal pioneers the raw intensity and that volatile electricity that charged every performance.

To me, Grinderman is spiritually similar to David Bowie’s failed experiment, Tin Machine. Bowie wanted to distance himself from pop, reconnect with his hard rock roots, and build bridges toward experimental acts like Sonic Youth and the Pixies.

Tin Machine ended up being a bold album, but a resounding failure. Not even the Sales brothers—who had backed Iggy Pop on the legendary Lust for Life—nor the exceptional guitarist Reeves Gabrels could launch the project into the big leagues.

But this is where Cave proved his genius. Grinderman wasn’t about leaving the Bad Seeds behind—it was about recharging so he could return to them with renewed energy. The project became a savage reconnection with his primal influences: the soul-wrenching blues of Howlin’ Wolf, the experimental madness of early John Cale, the brutal wit and dark humor of Leonard Cohen’s lyrics, the compact garage savagery of the Stooges’ debut, and perhaps the delirious rhythmic drive of Bo Diddley.

Far from sinking like Tin Machine, Cave’s project soared.

The audience split into two camps. Some longed for the haunting ballads Cave had perfected; others craved the return of the dangerous, unhinged figure from his wild youth.

With Grinderman, Cave did something astonishing: he satisfied both camps without betraying either. He reclaimed the magnetic danger of his early years without sacrificing the emotional depth he had cultivated over time.