Kid Congo Powers on Nick Cave, The Gun Club and his relationship with Australia

by Check Check | Monday Apr 08, 2024 | Features

Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds, Supplied

Kid Congo Powers has been coming to Australia since the early 1980s, first as a member of The Gun Club, then with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and more recently as the leader of Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds. The Arizona-based musician reflects on his long history of touring Australia and working with Australian musicians.

I came to Australia the first time with The Gun Club in the early 80s, and I came very spur of the moment. Jeffrey [Lee Pierce]’s band had quit on him at the airport and didn’t get on the plane to Australia, except for the bassist, Patricia Morrison. So I get a phone call, Jeffrey saying, “Well, the band quit. Can you come to Australia tomorrow and play?” And I had just quit The Cramps, so I was like, “Well, I’m not doing anything else.”

That was the first time I’d been to Australia and we worked with Australian musicians – Spencer P. Jones and Billy Pommer from The Johnnys – to augment the touring band. We got a very warm, great welcome in every kind of way.

It seemed so familiar to us. Although an incredibly different culture, still many similarities in culture, in terrain, in sense of humour – gallows humour, raw. And musically, it’s when we found out about a lot of great musicians. I think we met everyone at the time, ’83, who came to our shows.

I started playing with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in the mid-80s, and so I would come and tour with them and further work with Spencer and Tex Perkins and do little projects while I was there. Nick was definitely already a national treasure and a hero by then, but things weren’t what they are today. We weren’t at the Sydney Opera House. It was still clubs and small theatres.

But Nick works hard and Nick is very unique. That was always the thing – even in the messier days, there was always a lot of work getting done. How it got done, don’t ask me, but it got done and his focus and drive was almost frightening at times.

He’s definitely one of these magic people. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s an X factor, a je ne sais quoi, a force. This was the same for Jeffrey Lee Pierce who I played with in The Gun Club or Lux and Ivy from The Cramps – these people had the same scariness about them. But I’m very attracted to that.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “From Her To Eternity” (Live 1989)

After I wasn’t in the Bad Seeds anymore, I didn’t come to Australia for 20 years. I had started my own band, Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds, and I was corresponding with Harry Howard, of Harry Howard and The NDE and many other things. He said, “You should come to Australia.” And I said, “I haven’t been there for 20 years. No one knows my band. My records aren’t released there.” And he said, “Well, why don’t you talk to my booking agent?”

So I called up Sean Simmons at Press Play and I said, “Are you interested?” He said, “Yes, I’m interested,” and the next day he called up with a huge offer for a festival and I said, “I guess we’re going.” And I was very surprised by the welcome we got. People were familiar with my solo work and had been following it all along. It was almost like no time had passed.

So, it is a regular place for us because people want us. It’s a little bit second home-y. We have so many friends who are there, many of who were living in London the same time I was living in London and Berlin. They’ve moved back to Australia and are still making music that is vital today and not just relying on the past. So, in that way, I feel very kindred spirits with these people.