Nick Cave pays tribute to Mark Stewart after singer’s death

Nick Cave has remembered The Pop Group’s late frontman Mark Stewart in his newsletter.

In the latest edition of The Bad Seeds singer’s newsletter Red Hand Files, Nick wrote a tribute to the late musician, whose passing was announced on 21 April.

He recalled the impact The Pop Group had on his first band, The Birthday Party, after they moved from Australia to the U.K. in 1989.

“We truly loved them, were mystified by them, playing their strange, utterly unique music non-stop, barely able to comprehend what it was we were actually listening to,” he continued, before recalling seeing the band live.

“Without warning The Pop Group strode onto stage and ploughed into the opening song with such indomitable force and such sudden visceral rage that I could barely breathe,” he wrote. “It was the most exciting and ferocious concert of my young life – everything changed at that moment and we, as a fledgling band, knew then what we needed to do. I think The Birthday Party truly became The Birthday Party that night – more musically adventurous, more anarchic, more confronting, more dangerous.”

Although they were “ideologically opposed”, Nick and Mark became friends and “got wasted together many times”.

The singer concluded by calling Mark “a fearsome vocalist and unbelievably exciting frontman to whom I am deeply indebted”.

Mark died at the age of 62. No cause of death has been given.

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Written by Mr. Nimbus