Nick Cave on recruiting Carly Paradis to The Bad Seeds after discovering she wrote the theme of ‘Line Of Duty’

Responding to a recent fan question on his Q&A website The Red Hand Files, Cave discussed the Canadian-born British composer, songwriter and pianist joining the band on keyboards in 2022.

READ MORE: Nick Cave interview: “There’s no metric that says virtuousness makes good art”

Paradis’ work as a film and TV scorer has seen her compose the theme music to the BBC‘s hit police procedural Line Of Duty.

When the fan asked Cave to share more details about the “astonishingly talented woman”, the singer remembered how previous Bad Seeds member Barry Adamson had called him “to say he’d had enough and didn’t want to carry on in the band”.

He initially contacted keys player Larry Mullins, who drummer Thomas Wydler had recommended. However, the latter subsequently “fell ill and couldn’t tour with us”.

“But it turned out that Larry was actually a phenomenal drummer too (he plays with Iggy Pop and Swans, amongst others), so we moved him to drums, but this left us without a keyboard player again,” Cave went on.

“I was getting tired of playing whack-a-mole with band members, so I asked my manager to look around, and a week later he sent a list of potential candidates, together with their photos, but you only needed to take one look at most of these guys to realise they wouldn’t last two minutes in The Bad Seeds.”

He continued: “At the end of the list was a woman named Carly Paradis, but her résumé said she basically worked on TV scores.”

Cave said this was “not very promising”, before he “noticed she had written the theme music for the English cop show, Line of Duty, which is awesome”. He added: “I rang her straight away and asked if she wanted to join The Bad Seeds. She did, and that was that.”

The frontman agreed that Paradis was “astonishingly talented”, writing: “She walked into The Bad Seeds, this grizzled snake pit of unreconstructed masculinity, and blew everyone away, changing the very weather of the band almost overnight. She brought with her not just her immense ability, but also a kind of joy, a loveliness of manner, all laughter and delight, along with a long-overdue dose of female energy. We love her.”

Cave also shared Paradis’ “three other talents you might not be aware of”, saying: “Firstly, she is a world-class whistler – she has won trophies, cups, medals, all sorts of stuff – and can imitate any North American bird perfectly. Secondly, she can perform a trick with a piece of fruit, tossing it in the air, bouncing it off her bicep, and catching it again. And thirdly, she has another trick where she cups her hands together in the swimming pool and makes water shoot straight up into the air.

“When we have competitions, she beats everyone in the band by a mile, even Jim Sclavunos, and his hands are twice as big as hers.”

He concluded by saying that the keyboardist was “no ordinary woman”, joking about the fan admitting that he’d “developed a massive crush on” her. Cave said: “I showed her your question, and she asked if you could please send a recent photograph. Love, Nick.”

Meanwhile, Cave is set to appear on Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea’s debut solo album, ‘Honora’, alongside Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke. At the end of last year, Cave’s track ‘Train Dreams’ from the film of the same name was shortlisted for Best Original Song at the Oscars 2026.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds released a new concert album, ‘Live God’, last December. The record captures the band’s acclaimed tour in support of their 2024 LP ‘Wild God’. A virtual version of Cave‘s ‘Stranger Than Kindness’ exhibition launched online in late 2025, too.

Cave and co. will embark on a UK and European headline tour this year, including a huge homecoming gig at Brighton’s Preston Park. They’ve announced appearances at various festivals as well, such as Mad Cool, NOS Alive, Open’er and Øya.

In November, the BBC confirmed that Line Of Duty would be returning for a seventh season. A new TV adaptation of Cave’s 2009 novel The Death Of Bunny Munro was released that same month.