Dear Frank and Michael,

We were between legs of the Push the Sky Away tour, when Barry Adamson, who we’d brought back into the Bad Seeds to play keyboards, rang me to say he’d had enough and didn’t want to carry on in the band. He didn’t give a real reason, he just wanted out.  I put down the phone and on a whim immediately called Thomas Wydler, our drummer, to see if he knew another keyboard player to replace Barry. As luck would have it, Tommy was in his studio in Berlin working with a guy called Larry Mullins, who Tommy said was a brilliant keyboard player. Tommy handed Larry the phone. I asked if he wanted to join The Bad Seeds. He said he did, and that was that. I googled Larry Mullins and he looked great, classically handsome, rockabilly hairstyle, all good. I rang Warren, told him Barry had left, but that I had hired a guy called Larry Mullins. I told him Tommy said he played great. “He looks good, too”, I said, and texted Warren a photo. “That’s Larry Mullen from U2, you fucking idiot,” said Warren. Warren went on to say that he knew our Larry Mullins and that he was a great choice.

Not long after, Tommy fell ill and couldn’t tour with us. But it turned out that Larry was actually a phenomenal drummer too (he plays with Iggy Pop and Swans, amongst others), so we moved him to drums, but this left us without a keyboard player again. I was getting tired of playing whack-a-mole with band members, so I asked my manager to look around, and a week later he sent a list of potential candidates, together with their photos, but you only needed to take one look at most of these guys to realise they wouldn’t last two minutes in The Bad Seeds. At the end of the list was a woman named Carly Paradis, but her résumé said she basically worked on TV scores. Not very promising, I thought, until I noticed she had written the theme music for the English cop show, Line of Duty, which is awesome. I rang her straight away and asked if she wanted to join The Bad Seeds. She did, and that was that.

Carly is, as you have pointed out, Michael, astonishingly talented. She walked into The Bad Seeds, this grizzled snake pit of unreconstructed masculinity, and blew everyone away, changing the very weather of the band almost overnight. She brought with her not just her immense ability, but also a kind of joy, a loveliness of manner, all laughter and delight, along with a long-overdue dose of female energy. We love her.

But, Michael, that’s not the end of it. Besides being an extraordinarily talented musician and composer, and an all-round beautiful human being, Carly possesses three other talents you might not be aware of. Firstly, she is a world-class whistler – she has won trophies, cups, medals, all sorts of stuff – and can imitate any North American bird perfectly. Secondly, she can perform a trick with a piece of fruit, tossing it in the air, bouncing it off her bicep, and catching it again. And thirdly, she has another trick where she cups her hands together in the swimming pool and makes water shoot straight up into the air. When we have competitions, she beats everyone in the band by a mile, even Jim Sclavunos, and his hands are twice as big as hers.

Michael, hopefully this will give you an idea of what you’re getting yourself into here. Carly is no ordinary woman. I showed her your question, and she asked if you could please send a recent photograph.
Love, Nick

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