The Birthday Party

The Birthday Party are an Australian post-punk group that forms in Melbourne and is active from 1980 to 1983. The line-up includes Nick Cave, Rowland S. Howard, Mick Harvey, Tracy Pew, Phillip Calvert, Barry Adamson, Harry Howard, Chris Walsh, Jeffrey Wegener and Des Heffner. The group is also associated with alternative rock, gothic rock, noise rock, punk blues and punk.

Origins and early line-up

The band first exists under the name The Boys Next Door, with Nick Cave, Rowland S. Howard, Mick Harvey, bassist Tracy Pew and drummer Phill Calvert. Under that name, they release the Door Door album and the Hee Haw EP before moving to London and adopting the name The Birthday Party.

Sound and style

The Birthday Party develop a dark and confrontational style of post-punk built from punk, rockabilly, free jazz and blues. Their recordings feature bleak sound, heavy feedback and noise, and Nick Cave's vocals centre on stories of religion, violence and perversity. The band's songs move between dirges and aggressive sonic attacks, with Cave and Howard driving the material.

Recordings and line-up changes

The band's first international album, Prayers On Fire, appears in 1981 and receives critical praise in the UK and the US. While the group prepares a follow-up, Tracy Pew is jailed for drunk driving, so former Magazine member Barry Adamson, along with Harry Howard and Chris Walsh, fill in on Junkyard in 1982. After Junkyard, Phillip Calvert joins the Psychedelic Furs. The group then moves to Germany and works with experimental post-punk acts including Lydia Lunch and Einstürzende Neubauten. Mick Harvey leaves in summer 1983, and the band continues briefly with drummer Des Heffner before disbanding after a final concert in Melbourne.

After the group

Nick Cave goes on to a major solo career in the 1980s and 1990s. Mick Harvey later joins Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Rowland S. Howard joins Crime & The City Solution, which also includes his brother Harry Howard and Mick Harvey. Tracy Pew also tours with The Saints before dying of an epileptic seizure in 1986.