Warren Ellis

Warren Ellis (born 14 February 1965) is an Australian-French musician and composer. He is a member of several groups: Dirty Three, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Grinderman. He has also composed film scores with Nick Cave. Ellis plays violin, piano, bouzouki, guitar, flute, mandolin, tenor guitar, and viola. Ellis has been a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds since 1994.

Ellis was born in Ballarat, Victoria. He has said that he came to music by accident: while playing at the local tip, he found an abandoned piano accordion. He took it to school and his teacher showed him how to play it. He later learned classical violin and flute at school in Ballarat.

After winning a scholarship to a private high school, Ellis went to university in Melbourne, where he studied classical violin. After that he then worked briefly as a schoolteacher in country Victoria. In January 1988 he travelled to Europe, where he busked in Greece, Hungary, Scotland and Ireland. A year later he returned to Australia. Ellis then wrote music for theatre groups and performed at art openings and plays in Melbourne, before he started playing in bands in the early nineties.

In 1992, Ellis formed The Dirty Three with guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White. As of 2018 the band has recorded nine studio albums, including several to appear on the ARIA charts in their native Australia.

In 1993, Ellis was invited to play with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds as part of a small string ensemble for several songs on Let Love In (released 1994). He soon joined the band as a full-time member, initially emphasising violin but gradually adding many other instruments. Ellis eventually co-wrote many of the band's songs and became a pivotal collaborator with singer Nick Cave in film scores and other projects. Ellis was also a member of Grinderman, a side-group from the Bad Seeds, who have released two albums.

In 2002, Ellis released a solo album on King Crab records called Three Pieces for Violin. Since 2005 he has played on several Marianne Faithfull albums. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis composed the award-winning score of the film The Proposition, and collaborated again on the scores of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Road, and Far from Men.

In 2009, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis released White Lunar – an album that includes other soundtrack scores.

Following the release of Carnage, Ellis and Nick Cave toured Europe in the autumn of 2021 and the United States in the spring of 2022. Ellis has lived in Paris since 1998 with his French wife and their two children.

In 2021, Ellis and his wife announced the purchase of a parcel of land in Sumatra, which they donated to the non-profit Jakarta Animal Aid Network. Ellis Park Wildlife Sanctuary is adjacent to the existing Sumatra Wildlife Centre, and specialises in animals who need lifetime care and cannot survive in the wild. (Wikipedia)