WARRACKNABEAL-born Nick Cave has been honoured on Australia Day by being named an Officer of the Order of Australia.
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The honour was bestowed upon Mr Cave for distinguished service to the performing arts as a musician, songwriter, author and actor, both nationally and internationally, and as a major contributor to Australian music culture and heritage.
Mr Cave spent the first years of his life in Warracknabeal, where his father was a teacher, before the family moved moved to Wangaratta.
Mr Cave built a cult following with his bands The Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party after dropping out of Caulfield Institute of Technology to pursue his music career in the mid-1970s.
But it was with the backing of The Bad Seeds, formed in 1984, that Mr Cave started to build an international following.
The band recently released its 16th studio album and continues to tour after more than 30 years together.
His collaborations with the like of Johnny Cash, Kylie Minogue, The Flaming Lips, PJ Harvey, Debbie Harry and Marianne Faithfull continued to expose him to new audiences.
As Mr Cave’s career developed, so have the mediums in which he has plied his artistic trade.
His two novels And the Ass Saw the Angel and The Death of Bunny Munrow have both become cult favourites.
Within the film industry, he has three screenwriting credits to his name. He has co-written nine soundtracks and his songs have been used in several other films.
In 2006, Mr Cave raised a few eyebrows in Warracknabeal after he told the Mail-Times he was serious about erecting a life-sized statue of himself riding a horse in the town he was born in.
Speaking at the time, he said a statue could significantly benefit the fortunes of Warracknabeal, a town he felt greatly indebted to.
“The best years of my life were passed in that humble town. I can still hear my father talking in hushed and reverential tones about Warracknabeal,” he said.
“My mother often gathers her children around and reminisces about those golden years spent there.’’
The University of Brighton in England, where he now resides, bestowed him with an honorary doctorate of letters in 2012.
He has also received honorary doctorates in law at the University of Dundee in Scotland and at Monash University.
He was inducted into the ARIA hall of fame in 2007 and has won seven ARIA awards.
In 2005, he won an Australian Film Industry award for best original movie score.
