Nick Cave has spoken of losing two sons and how it made him realise the “folly” of his own self-indulgent “genius”.

The 66-year-old Australian rocker lost his son Arthur in 2015, when the 15-year-old fell from a cliff near the family’s UK home in Brighton.

He suffered further grief seven years later when son Jethro, 31, died in May 2022.

In an interview for ABC TV’s Australian Story, Cave told Leigh Sales he realised he had spent years wrapped up in his own ego.

The despair of losing his children made him see the “folly” of his ways and how he had been too wrapped up in his music.

“For most of my life I was just sort of in awe of my own genius,” he said.

“I had an office and I would sit there and write every day and whatever else happened in my life was peripheral. Even annoyances. Because I was involved in this great work.

“And this just collapsed completely and I just sort of saw the folly of that … disgraceful sort of self indulgence of the whole thing.”

Cave says he now gives priority to his role as a husband and father rather than being a musician.

“My priorities changed. You know, I still work all the time, I still go on tour, I still p*** everyone off because I’m making a new record or I’m depressed because I can’t write songs.

“The same things still apply but that idea that art trounces everything, it just doesn’t apply to me anymore.

“I’m a father and a husband and a … person of the world. These things are much more important to me than the concept of being an artist.”

The Bad Seeds star added of his grief: “We eventually absorb, or rearrange ourselves, so that we become creatures of loss as we get older; this is part of our fundamental fabric of what we are as human beings.

“This is not a tragic element to our lives but rather a deepening element and that brings incredible meaning into our life. I’ve found that personally, and I think a lot of other people have found that, provided you can remain open.”

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-with AAP