Formats Unpacked: Nick Cave's The Red Hand Files

Hey,

When Joel Stein got in touch with me on LinkedIn to ask if he could unpack The Red Hand Files my response was “Hell yeah!” It’s one of my favourite formats and this unpacking is wonderful. It’s so good I’m not going to waste your time with my usual appeals to hire us (hire us). We’re gonna jump right in.

Joel Stein is a writer and creative consultant. His newsletter, Weirdness Wins, explores the fuzzy edges of culture, communication, and consciousness. Subscribe now to ensure your creative process always has the right amount of weirdness in the mix.

Over to Joel… 

What’s it called?

The Red Hand Files (newsletter)

What’s the format?

Nick Cave answers questions submitted by members of the public via a form on his website. The questions can be about anything. Sometimes he answers a single question. Sometimes he groups two or more questions together. Sometimes the questions aren’t really questions at all, like this gut-wrenching example.

Each edition feels like a letter, beginning “Dear [name(s)]” and ending “Love, Nick”. He sends these responses to subscribers as an email newsletter around once a week, and archives them all at theredhandfiles.com. 

The name is a nod to his track ‘Red Right Hand’, most famous as the Peaky Blinders title music. 

What’s the magic that makes it special?

Email has always felt to me like a uniquely intimate online medium. So the fact that most people encounter the Red Hand Files in their inbox is important, I think. But that doesn’t tell you much about what makes it special. Let me give you a bit more context…

Nick started answering people’s questions as a form of self-help in 2018, three years after his 15-year-old son Arthur died. The Red Hand Files was born following a series of concerts that had included Q&A sessions with audiences.  In the opening issue, he said “I have found a way to write beyond the trauma, authentically, that deals with all manner of issues but does not turn its back on the issue of the death of my child.”

Whilst questions often relate to his music and creative process, themes of loss and suffering run through The Red Hand Files like frayed stitching on an old pair of jeans. That might sound like a bit of a buzz-kill, but Nick’s answers are routinely suffused with perfectly-worded reminders of the beauty and joy that make life worth living. And sometimes he’s just funny. 

A big part of the magic comes from the seeming incongruity between the danger and nihilism that Nick Cave once stood for, and the compassion and sensitivity he now channels each week. As Lucy Harbon writes for Far Out Magazine: “No one would have guessed that the man who was once part of a group deemed the ‘most violent band in the world’ would become a kind of agony aunt to the masses.” In her interview with Nick, he told her that “this doesn’t actually come naturally to me, so it’s become this mad project that’s sort of weirdly taken over my life.” Indeed, he reads every question he receives (which is often 100 a day). 

In another recent interview with Gregg LaGambina for Flaunt, Nick admits “Sometimes I read a submission and it’s someone talking about how they’re suffering in some way. Part of me is just like, “Hey, just fucking get your shit together and get on with life.” But this is an unhelpful response. Then, I read it again and find myself arriving at a more compassionate position.”

Favourite Edition?

In issue #267 (December 2023), Nick answered two questions at once: “Could you point out three single words that you like the most and explain why?” and, simply, “A New Year’s resolution?”. I loved his answer; here’s an abridged version:

“Three of my favourite words, and ones I find myself using more and more these days, are ‘Having said that’...

“As the world divides into its various factions, these are words that are increasingly important. Difficult as it can be, I try my best to apply them by questioning my own thoughts – what actually is the argument from the other side? In doing so I have found that there are very few disputes, conflicts, disagreements and ideas that these three unassuming words can’t help to mediate by broadening and strengthening the conversation… These three small words give conviction its sense of humanity and prevent it hardening into a blinkered and uncharitable stringency. ‘Having said that’ is the precondition of empathy, it is the capacity to see and understand the other side, to show that we have the necessary willingness to hold two contrasting ideas in our hand at the same time.”

I’d also highly recommend reading issue #286 (May 2024), where Nick answers a question about meeting your heroes with a brilliant, poignant story involving Brian Ferry and a swimming pool. And I much enjoyed his response to a question about ChatGPT — you can watch Stephen Fry reading out Nick’s answer to this one here. 

The very recent 300th issue deserves a mention too. For #300, Nick turned the tables and posed a question to readers: “Where or how do you find your joy?” You can see all the answers here — an absolute goldmine of human insight.

Similar Formats?

The Red Hand Files clearly owes a debt to advice columns in newspapers and magazines, although most questions Nick answers aren’t really straightforward requests for advice. The Guardian’s Ask Philippa is a better contemporary example of the classic advice column form. 

AMA (ask me anything) threads have been a popular format on Reddit for years; these are also a close cousin to what Nick’s doing.

Fun fact: In 1690, a chap called John Dunton did something totally novel. He started inviting readers to submit questions to his publication, The Athenian Mercury. People were encouraged to seek guidance on everything from science to literature to personal matters. Here’s a burning question that was on one readers mind back then: “One asserts, that the rational Faculty is but Handmaid, or subservient to the Intellect, no part at all of the Essence of the Soul, nor obliged to it by the Inseparability of Union or Identity: Your Opinion of it?” You can attempt to read the response here. I actually imagine Nick would do a deft job of answering this one today.

Thanks Joel.

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Thanks for reading. See y’all next time,

Hugh

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