Nick Cave responded to claims by an unknown Dundee-based musician that he plagiarised a song on the new Grinderman album at the band's Hammersmith Apollo gig last Friday.
The accusation was made by Frankie Duffy, who says that 'Palaces Of Montezuma' from the 'Grinderman 2' LP is actually 'Grey Man', a song he wrote for his former band Rising Signs in around 2005.
Duffy told Scottish newspaper The Courier in an interview published last Friday morning: "I couldn't believe it when I heard that track. It stood out a mile, it's exactly the same chords and the same hook as the intro to 'Grey Man'. I was never really a Nick Cave fan, but I really like Grinderman, that's a different kettle of fish. But when you hear that track you can totally spot the similarities".
He continued: "I sat down with my guitar and played along with it and it's exactly the same A, E and B chords, which to be fair anybody could use to write a song at any time. But it's the chord progression and when the vocal hook comes in with some ooohs, it's exactly the same, you can just hear it's the same thing".
As for how Cave came to hear and steal the song, Duffy postulated: "It's been up on our MySpace even after Rising Signs split, and I don't know, I can't help thinking that Nick Cave was sitting in his house one night and decided to surf some unsigned bands and saw our site, saw we were split up and thought, 'I'll have that track, nobody will ever know'".
He conceded that it could actually be "a really huge, amazing coincidence", though added: "It's really obvious they sound the same and on the Grinderman album you can hear the band talking and you can hear the words 'grey man' being said, so maybe it's not as much of a coincidence after all".
Duffy went on to say that he was going to get in touch with Cave's management "to see what they've got to say", adding that he wasn't quite sure how to proceed after that, but thought he "might have to sue [Cave] in court".
Certainly by Friday evening Cave had got the impression things were heading down the legal route. On stage at the Hammersmith Apollo, the singer introduced 'Palaces Of Montezuma' by saying: "You may have read that some seventeen year old kid in Dundee is trying to sue me and is claiming to have written this song. That's funny, because I wrote it for my wife".
In fact, Duffy is 29, but I'm not sure you can sue someone for accusing you of being a teenager. Whether the plagiarism case will go any further remains to be seen. With the utmost respect for both musicians, that guitar riff has been used at least twice by 78% of all bands that have ever written more than three songs. And as for where Grinderman can be heard whispering "grey man" on their track, I have no idea.
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