Nick Cave says that when you are ‘broken apart’ by grief you ‘come back tougher’ as he opens up about the deaths of sons Arthur and Jethro

Nick Cave has spoken candidly about the deaths of his sons Arthur and Jethro, telling how grief can make you ‘stronger’.

The 66-year-old Australian musician and actor tragically lost two of his sons within a span of seven years.

In 2015, his 15-year-old son Arthur died after taking LSD for the first time and “panicked” before falling 60 feet from a cliff near his home in Brighton.

Seven years later, in 2022, Nick’s son Jethro, 31, who had schizophrenia and struggled with drug addiction, died in Melbourne, two days after being released from prison and two months after violently assaulting his own mother.

When asked about his grief, Nick told Mojo magazine on Tuesday: “There is a kind of resilience, I have clearly noticed that in my wife. If you’re broken apart, you come back stronger.

In 2015, his son Arthur, 15, died after taking LSD for the first time and ‘freaking out’ before falling 60ft from a cliff near his Brighton home (pictured is Nick with his twin sons Arthur [right] and count [left])

“When the worst happens, other things don’t feel so important anymore.”

The star of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, known for hits such as Into My Arms and One More Time With Feeling, moved to Los Angeles shortly after Arthur’s death, along with his wife Susie and Arthur’s twin brother Earl, because they were “too triggered” by living so close to where it happened.

The tragedy was widely reported in the news and Nick previously said it “forced him to grieve publicly”.

An inquest into Arthur’s death heard the teenager, who also had cannabis in his system, was “completely disorientated” when he fell from a cliff into the steep Ovingdean Gap near Brighton.

Police said the teen was tripping so hard that he “couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t” and in a final text to a friend he said, “Where am I? Where am I?”

In the minutes before the teenager died, he was spotted by motorists “zigzagging” across the grass at the edge of the cliff, before climbing over a safety fence and falling over, it was said.

Another of the pop star’s sons, Jethro Lazenby, died in Australia in May 2022, just days after being released from prison.

The 32-year-old man was in custody after kneeing his mother in the face during an argument over cigarettes, leaving her mother ‘bruised and bleeding’.

The Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds star moved to Los Angeles shortly after Arthur’s death, along with his wife Susie and Arthur’s twin brother Earl (Nick and Susie pictured in January 2023)

An inquest into Arthur’s death found the teenager, who also had cannabis in his system, was “completely disoriented” when he fell from a cliff (pictured Nick, Susie, Arthur and Earl in 2007)

According to police, Arthur (pictured) was tripping so badly that he ‘could no longer sense what was real and what wasn’t’

A few days before his death, Jethro’s lawyer told the court that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and that it had affected his judgment.

The troubled man, who spent years in and out of prison as his life spiralled out of control in a haze of illegal drugs, faced further criminal charges when he was found dead in a $100-a-night Melbourne motel.

In June, Nick responded to a woman whose daughter was murdered on his blog The Red Hand Files, where he answers questions from fans.

He wrote: ‘A parent should never have to bury their child, it makes no sense, it goes against the natural order of things.

Another of the pop star’s sons, Jethro Lazenby, died in Australia in May 2022, just days after being released from prison (Nick and Jethro pictured in 2017)

The 32-year-old (pictured in 2010) was jailed for kneeing his mother in the face during an argument over cigarettes, leaving her “bruised and bleeding”

‘And yet here we are, you and I, living in this horrible void left by those we lost.

‘I love how you honestly expose the anger we sometimes feel, as great as the Bible, towards a world that has the courage to keep going regardless of our suffering.

‘How dare the world be so beautiful, we think. These are the varied feelings of sadness.’