Conway Savage: keyboard player whom Nick Cave called the ‘anarchic thread’ of the Bad Seeds

Savage contributed piano, organ and backing vocals to a brace of Seeds albums over nearly three decades

An independent spirit within the group framework, Savage released a number of well-reviewed solo and side-project albums (Getty)

Little did Conway Savage know at the age of 13, when he first sat at the piano in his parents’ pub in the Australian state of Victoria, that it would lead to a career with the cult rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and three decades of critically acclaimed solo albums and collaborations.

Savage once responded to a reporter who asked what age he was by saying, “As old as the hills, as blue as the ocean.” He was 58 at the time of his death from the effects of a brain tumour.

Cave paid tribute to Savage as “the anarchic thread that ran through the band’s live performances”. The Bad Seeds’ piano and organ player (who also provided backing vocals) was, he said, “irascible, funny, terrifying, sentimental, warm-hearted, gentle, acerbic, honest and genuine”, and was blessed with “the gift of a golden voice, high and sweet and drenched in soul”.

Born in Melbourne, Savage spent much of his early life in rural Victoria but never looked back after tickling the bar-room ivories. Playing the piano, he said in a 2005 interview, gave his teenage self a feeling of “beautiful relaxation”. Even though Cave also played the instrument, he contributed piano to seven Bad Seeds studio albums and countless tour shows.

During the 1980s Savage was a member of Australian groups such as Happy Orphans, Scrap Museum, The Feral Dinosaurs, Dust On the Bible and Dave Last & The Legendary Boy King. Cave, who was looking for a keyboard specialist to succeed Roland Wolf and allow Mick Harvey and himself to focus on other duties, invited him to join the Bad Seeds in 1990.

Savage onstage with the band in Los Angeles, 2013 (Getty)

Savage’s initiation came on the tour to promote the album The Good Son, released earlier that year. He stayed for 27 years, contributing richly to a succession of bestselling albums, from Henry’s Dream (1992) to Push the Sky Away (2013). The B-side of 1996’s UK No 11 single “Where the Wild Roses Grow” (on which Cave duetted with Kylie Minogue) featured Savage singing “The Willow Garden”. He also played a prominent role on the dark, portentous “Red Right Hand”, which began life on Let Love In (1994) and went on to became the theme to the BBC drama series Peaky Blinders.

An independent spirit within the group framework, Savage released an eponymous EP in 1992 and put out the solo albums Nothing Broken (2000) and Wrong Man’s Hands (2004), garnering positive reviews if not significant sales, on his own Beheaded Communications label. He later made two albums and an EP with Amanda Fox and Robert Tickner, touring with them as support to Cave’s side project Grinderman.

His chemistry with Cave was palpable, live and on record, and survived an interview Savage gave in 2005 when he criticised the former’s leadership of the Bad Seeds. “It’s not a dictatorship, but it’s a caste system ... it can annoy the fuck out of you,” he replied, going on to stress it was an “honour” to play with Cave. The day the comments appeared the band played in Melbourne. Savage recalled that Cave said: “Hmm. Very good article, Conway, though I don’t what you meant by caste system.”

When Savage began to miss live shows in 2016 and 2017 – soon after the death of Cave’s 15-year-old son Arthur – a statement from the band revealed the tumour diagnosis. The surgery was “largely a success”, it added, but he was never able to resume his place at the piano.

Conway Victor Savage, musician and singer, born 27 July 1960, died 2 September 2018