NICK Cave has spoken for the first time about the "catastrophic" loss of his son which he said had left him a "different person."

Fifteen-year-old Arthur Cave plunged to his death from the cliffs at Ovingdean after taking the drug LSD last year.

His musician father has spoken about the tragedy and the impact on his life in a new documentary about the making of his latest album.

Speaking in a trailer for the film the Australian-born rocker, said: “What happens when an event occurs that is so catastrophic that you just change?

"You change from the known person to an unknown person. So that when you look at yourself in the mirror, you recognize the person that you were, but the person inside the skin is a different person.”

Arthur - who was a twin - took the hallucinogenic drug and became disorientated before falling to his death from the cliff in Ovingdean last July.

Cave had been busy recording his 16th studio album Skeleton Tree with his band The Bad Seeds at a studio just a few hundred metres from where his son died.

Director Andrew Dominik had begun filming the "performance based" film but it "evolved into something much more significant" as the filmmaker "delved into the tragic backdrop".

Cave, his wife Susie Blick and Arthur's twin brother Earl live just a few minutes from the cliff top.

The trailer for the film One More Time With Reason shows footage of waves lapping at the the beach near where Arthur was found by a cyclist.

It also includes footage of the rock star being driven along Marine Parade and of a woman who looks strikingly like Ms Blick staring out to sea near Brighton's West Pier.

Fans are being prepared to expect a “stark, fragile and raw” sound to the album Skeleton Tree, which will be released on September 9.

The film will be in cinemas on the day before the album hits the shops.

Cave has used the small Brighton studio for a number of years to record soundtracks for the French film Far From Men, American TV series Black Sails and his own biographical film 20,000 Days on Earth.