Nick Cave may not believe in God, but he’s got no problem with a bit of idolatry. In a Q&A with Time’s Claire Suddath, Cave said his hopes to build a gold statue of himself in his hometown of Warracknabeal, Australia didn’t quite work out according to plan.
“Although I do have a small model of it that’s a foot high,” Cave said. “It’s gold. I’m naked on a rearing horse. I have a modest loincloth on. It’s this rather wonderful homoerotic work of art that I was hoping to put in the middle of this tiny little town where I was born. Unfortunately the fortunes of Warracknabeal are so grim at the moment with the recession and this chronic drought that’s going on that it feels a little in bad taste to erect a giant gold statue. But one day…”
Damn that economy for squashing Nick Cave’s decadent dreams. I propose that instead of a gold statue, we erect a Mt. Rushmore with the faces of Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and Iggy Pop. If these guys truly need to be memorialized in statue form, I think the most apt medium would be rock.