Nick Cave has been performing music for more than forty years and is best known as the songwriter and lead singer of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, whose latest album Ghosteen was widely received as their best work ever. Cave's body of work also covers a wider range of media and modes of expression including film score composition and writing of novels. His recent Conversations events and Red Hand Files website have seen Cave exploring deeper and more direct relationships with his fans.

Sean O'Hagan grew up in Northern Ireland. In the 1980s he worked as a music journalist for NME and in the 1990s he began writing on culture for The Times. He has interviewed many major artists, writers and musicians, including Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Robert Frank, William Eggleston, Nan Goldin and Joan Didion. In 2003, he was named Interviewer of the Year in the British Press Awards. He currently works as a feature writer for the Observer and is photography critic for the Guardian.