Nell and the Flaming Lips performed their cover of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand” this past Tuesday night on The Late Show With Steven Colbert. Their unique spin on the track was conceived during the creation of their new album Where The Viaduct Looms, a project comprised entirely of Nick Cage covers.
Nell initially met Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne when she was 12 while attending a 2018 Flaming Lips show in Canada. Since then, Coyne has become a mentor for Smith, who is now 14 and made the leap from fan to collaborator. Her debut on Colbert is mesmerizingly evocative, and much like on the album, Smith, takes charge to front the Flaming Lips, primarily on lead vocals.
“It’s always great to meet excited, young creative people,” Coyne shared in a statement. “With Nell we could see she is on a journey and thought it would be fun to join her for a while and see if we could get things going. It was a great way to connect with her and help harness her cool attitude to making music.”
Smith also offered her perspective, “I still can’t really believe it. It was a really steep learning curve but Wayne was so encouraging when I was struggling with a few of the songs that I kept going. I hadn’t heard of Nick Cave but Wayne suggested that we should start with an album of his cover versions, and then look at recording some of my own songs later. It was cool to listen and learn about Nick Cave and pick the songs we wanted to record.”
On his website, Nick Cave himself recently chimed in to state that he is “a fan” of the nine re-visitations of his songs on Where The Viaduct Looms.
Check out the video of Nell & The Flaming Lips on Colbert below:
