Nick Cave responded to a teenager from Rome who aspires to be a singer but struggles with self-confidence.
Responding to 17-year-old Eugene, o Nick Cave spoke to him about his lack of confidence in his own singing ability. The youngster asked the famous musician on his blog, Red Hand Files, if he should wait until he’s created something he’s 100% proud of, or if he and his band should just record and release what they already have.
The 17-year-old’s question and Nick Cave’s answer
“I don’t know if I want to record and release an EP that I worked with a band with some friends of mine and I’m really proud of the instrumental part,” the fan wrote in his message.
“But I know that my song it could be better and that I could wait a little longer to create something I’m 100% proud of, but I still don’t want to wait any longer because we have the opportunity to record in a great studio and I don’t want to slow down the process. What should I do?” added the young man.
THE Nick Cave explained that he became a singernot because he was talented and revealed that his friends often called him a “non-musician”, but he had the “insistence to stand in front of people with carelessness and magic”.
“I sang and sang and sang some more because I knew that’s what singers did. I finally found a voice that I could call my own, and that could mostly have a melody. Through this I learned something valuable. A kind of challenging message resilience, mainly in my head, telling me that my singing could be better. I became tough and protective of my vision and learned that the element that “could be better” actually was the ever vital energy that pushed me forward,” he added.
“If you want to be a singer”
Nick Cave was clear and supportive in his response. “If your intention is to you become a singer, then you have to sing and sing and sing some more. Whether or not you go to the studio when you get the chance isn’t really up for debate. It is your duty to do so. If you don’t take these opportunities to sing, you can forever be that brooding boy looking out the window of a dream that you never had the confidence to embody, and there is nothing sadder in this world than someone who gives up on their dreams,” he noted.
He then remembered the time when he was that age. “It’s been 50 years since I was a boy your age – I doubted and wondered the same things you doubt now – but here I am, still singing. I am writing to you from a studio in western New York where I do the mixing on my latest record and as the new and beautiful songs overwhelm me, I feel inspired to tell you that the privilege of having this most vulnerable profession – being a singer – is incalculable. And I sit here and think, and I think I can say—with no small amount of pride—that my voice has become quite good now, but, you know, it could be even better,” he emphasized.
With information from APE-MPE
