Throughout a career that began with high school upstarts The Boys Next Door in the late 1970s and continues in sold out stadiums in 2025 with The Bad Seeds, Nick Cave has never rested on laurels for long. From 2004 to 2011, Cave grew a questionable moustache and took some time out with bandmates Warren Ellis, Martyn P. Casey, and Jim Sclavunos, making some glorious new music that was even sleazier than his facial hair. Grinderman was more than just a side-hustle, though, tunes like No Pussy Blues, Get It On, and Evil were cathartic howls, while other, more tender songs sprung forth from the looping process now fully adopted by Cave and Ellis for The Bad Seeds’ material. Now, while we wait for the band to get back together and complete the trilogy, they’ve at least announced reissues of their small but perfectly formed catalogue - Grinderman, Grinderman 2, and Grinderman 2 RMX. Get it on! - FlyingOut
Grinderman came to be when Nick Cave was writing material in 2004 for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. Teaming up with band members Martyn Casey on bass, Warren Ellis on violin and guitar, and Jim Sclavunos on drums and working up songs as a group, the band went into a studio in London in 2006 and began a marathon session of writing and demoing material. Aiming to recreate the more raw, primal sound like that of Cave's celebrated post-punk project The Birthday Party, Grinderman's lyrical and musical content diverged significantly from Nick Cave's previous work with The Bad Seeds.
The following April, they took the cream of these new songs and recorded an album with the help of long-time friend and producer Nick Launay. Released on the 5th March 2007, their 11-song debut album Grinderman was universally acclaimed by critics and features the singles "No Pussy Blues“ and “Get It On”. The quartet reconvened in 2009 to record Grinderman 2, which was released in 2010. In December of 2011, Cave announced the band's breakup at a music festival in Australia.
