In March 1983 Nick Cave and Henry Rollins met one another for the first time at a gig by the Minutemen at Club Lingerie in Los Angeles: the two singers bonded over gig 'war wounds' - Cave remembers Rollins rolling up his trousers to show legs covered with cigarette burns caused by Black Flag fans stubbing out cigarettes on his shins - and their conversation that evening initiated a life-long friendship which endures 40 years on.
"We spent most time together when I was writing my novel in LA in 1984," Cave recalled in a 1997 interview with The Independent. "I was there for about four or five months. He used to come around the house and do push-ups on our living-room floor, much to our delight. I'd be banging up speedballs while he was doing press-ups in the same room.
"I can't really remember a lot of anecdotes," Cave admitted. "All sorts of shit was happening in LA, we were getting up to things, but fuck knows what happened. I was taking enormous amounts of drugs, and I don't remember a lot, to be perfectly frank. It was an insane period."
Fortunately, with Henry Rollins being scrupulous about keeping a diary at the time, not all of his pal's "insane" adventures in Los Angeles have been lost to history. In Get In The Van, the singer's fascinating memoir documenting his time in Black Flag, Rollins details a July 1984 night out with Cave at the Australian Consulate in LA which was hosting a refined, sophisticated soirée celebrating the art of Australian film-makers. Cave fooled the organisers into inviting them to attend, but it would not take terribly long for the pair to be escorted from the building.
