“You can ask me anything. There will be no moderator. This will be between you and me. Let’s see what happens. Much love, Nick.”

This was how Nick Cave introduced the Red Hand Files in September 2018. Cave had been taking his Conversations with Nick Cave tour around the US and Ireland – described as an “experiment in connection”, it combined musical performance with unmoderated audience Q&A.

The next step was to take the connection further by inviting his online subscribers to submit questions to him in writing, some of which he would answer on a new blog. A year on, Cave has answered over 60 fan questions, ranging from basic artist-fan admin such as “When can we expect a new album?” to the somewhat more challenging “How do you forgive somebody whom you love very much but has done something truly terrible?” And “How do you deal with evil? The casual, everyday evil, like throwing tobacco in the eyes of a beautiful animal in a zoo?”