For 23 years Jim Sclavunos has been the backbone of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

However the band’s drummer never wants to get too settled – because keeping things fresh is what makes the group thrive.

“I’m still waiting to feel comfortable in the group,” he chuckles down the phone, speaking from his current home in London.

“It still feels very fresh with the Bad Seeds. My mantra is that every album we do is very different and every experience on tour is different because of that. Taking a studio album out live, we never try to re-produce it onstage.

“Some people probably go to a gig and want an album lovingly re-created. I guess when people go to see a classic album like Pet Sounds, they want a stage presentation that’s as true to the album as possible. But we’re still very much an active band and not a relic of the past.”

As evidence of that, see the group’s current tour, which stops at the SSE Hydro tomorrow. Instead of his usual drumming role, this time Jim will play much more vibraphone and percussion, helping to bring their latest record, Skeleton Tree, to life.

That album was one of the most sparse releases Cave and company have made, using ambient noise and electronica. It marked another change in direction from a music titan equally at home with romantic ballads or savage rock n’ roll, and Jim believes they have a few tricks up their sleeve to suit arenas like the Hydro.

“We’ve successfully scaled the nature of what you will see and hear to larger venues, and if they were elsewhere they wouldn’t come across as well,” says the sticksman, who’s originally from New York.

“It’s meant to be seen on a larger scale, the way it’s lit, the way we present ourselves and the epic scope of the music.”

Skeleton Tree was nearly finished when the tragic news emerged that Nick Cave’s son, Arthur, had passed away in an accidental cliff fall. Several months later Cave returned to the studio and re-wrote some of the lyrics ahead of the record’s completion, supported by his bandmates.

“The most difficult album we’ve ever made, personally, was the most recent one, where the circumstances surrounding the album were charged with emotion,” he says.

“We were prepared that Nick might not want to finish it, or continue, but part of it (being in the studio) was us just being there for him, in an environment that was familiar to him, and somewhere that he could have a creative outlet for the things that he was feeling.”

A towering presence at 6’7, the self-taught drummer also played with the likes of Sonic Youth, the Cramps and Lydia Lunch before finding a home amidst the Bad Seeds decadence. If Skeleton Tree was the toughest record to make on a personal level, then it was a much earlier album that presented a creative challenge.

“The Boatman’s Call was a tricky one,” he adds, referring to the 1997 piano-dominated classic.

“Nick was looking to do something quite different in the studio but he hadn’t formulated how it was going to work, and when you go in with a band it’s natural for them to want to just play. A lot of Boatman’s Call is so personal that it was mainly just Nick at the piano, so everyone had to find their way into the music and find a role, and know when to participate and when to hold back, in respect of the kind of album that was being written.”

If that was one sort of challenge then the live circuit can present other types of issues. Jim has visited Glasgow many times over the years, although he wasn’t present early in Cave’s career…

“It’s always a really good crowd, although Nick always talks about having urine thrown at him there once,” he laughs, referring to an incident that’s unsurprising given how crazy Cave’s early gigs with old band the Birthday Party could be.

“Glasgow seems a lot more cosmopolitan than it used to be, as a city. I guess the more time you spend in a city the more you learn about it.

“I was aware of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the university, but sometimes you don’t see that cultured side of things when you are touring with a band. Sometimes all you see is a dirty dressing room - or an even dirtier stage.”

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, SSE Hydro, tomorrow, £45, 6.30pm

JONATHAN GEDDES