Nick Cave answered one aspiring teenage singer who was looking for advice on the subject of self-confidence.

17-year-old Eugenio from Rome, Italy addressed his lack of confidence in his ability to sing for his band’s upcoming EP and asked the Bad Seeds frontman on his Red Hand Files blog if he should wait until he creates something for which he is 100% proud of or just record and release what he already has.

“I don’t know if I want to record and release an EP that I worked with a band with some friends of mine and I’m really proud of the instrumental part,” the fan wrote in his message. “But I know my song could be better and I could wait a little longer to create something I’m 100% proud of, but I still don’t want to wait any longer because we have the opportunity to record in a great studio and I don’t want to slow down the process. What should I do;” completed.

Nick Cave explained that he became a singer not because he was talented and revealed how he was often referred to as a “non-musician” in his group of friends, but because he had the “persistence to stand before people with carelessness and magic.”

“I sang and sang and sang some more because I knew that’s what singers did. TI finally found a voice I could call my own, and which could mainly have a melody. Through it I learned something valuable – a kind of defiant resistance to messages, mostly in my head, telling me that my singing could be better. I became tough and protective of my vision and learned that the ‘could be better’ element was actually the ever-vital energy that pushed me forward,” he added.

“If your intention is to become a singer, then you have to sing and sing and sing some more. Whether or not you go to the studio when you get the chance isn’t really up for debate. It is your duty to do so. If you don’t take these opportunities to sing, you may forever be that brooding boy looking out the window of a dream you never had the confidence to embody, and there’s nothing sadder in this world than the one who gives up on his dreams” he noted.

“It’s been 50 years since I was a boy your age – I doubted and wondered the same things you doubt now – but here I am, still singing. I’m writing to you from a studio in Western New York where I’m mixing my latest record, and as new and beautiful songs wash over me, I feel inspired to tell you that the privilege of having this most vulnerable of professions—being a singer—is immeasurable. And I’m sitting here thinking, and I think I can say – with no small amount of pride – that my voice has gotten pretty good now, but, you know, it could be even better,” he said.