Les Inrockuptibles, October, 1994
By JD Beauvallet.
Contributed by Ana
Translation by me
Bastard father, that Tim Buckley: never there when it came to raising Jeff Buckley but an omnipresent ghost when it comes to poisoning the forgotten son's early career. A weight that Grace, the gifted first album, sends to hell with dazzling ease. A frightening maturity, a generous personality, a tormented and luxurious sound: if he resists family demons-bad living, drugs and excess-Jeff Buckley will forever distract the castrating father from his company. Art and the way to make a first name for yourself.
I don't feel like things are moving too fast. I even have the impression that they are evolving at a slower pace-at my own pace. I don't want to be overwhelmed by my reputation, but only to be judged by my songs. I want people to come to me by choice and not because it's fashionable. My place is not in magazines, but on stage, in front of the audience, man to man. The rest is just bullshit.
You have a serious image clinging to your skin: a very decent songwriter, playing for New York students and intellectuals in trendy cafés, like Fez or Sin-é.
People who see me like that don't know where I come from. I play for ordinary people every Monday night, people depressed by their work who join their few friends at Sin-é. And even intellectuals are made of flesh and blood. When they're tired of facts and knowledge, their soul needs sensations unguided by their intellect. They need to leave their value judgments, their opinions, to abandon themselves like the others at the Sin-é coat-check. I'm not the private property of the intelligentsia. My neighborhood is the Lower East Side of New York. I live right on the border. All the outcasts live there, so it is both a creative and down-to-earth place, where people have to struggle to make a living from their art. There, eccentricity is recognized, accepted, everyone can live it to the extreme and prove that they were right. Everywhere else in the United States, they would be pointed out, beaten, burned like witches-or made to understand that they are less than nothing, lost.
Do you look at them as a voyeur or do you see yourself as one of them?
I can play both roles, but I feel good in this neighborhood. This is the first time in my life that I have found a place where I feel good, where I don't feel like a freak of nature. It's my home, finally. In California, where I grew up, I was beginning to slowly exhaust myself, like a car with a leaky tank. And my mind consumes a lot of fuel (silence)....I was dying. California drained me for years, New York reinflated me, it's a generous city. I signed with a major (label), but in my neighbourhood, no one has changed towards me. I remain this poor guy with his guitar, who spends his life looking for musicians. No richer than before: rather than asking for millions of dollars, I preferred to secure my freedom for the long term. Success, to me, it's that: to last, to continue. I could play for centuries in Sin-é. As long as I live, I'll come back and visit these bars. I like their space, their authenticity. It's such a challenge to keep so few people on their feet for hours in a place the size of a room. What a difficult and wonderful task it is to be a good storyteller! One day, I want to be one, to take up the torch.
When did you realize that California wasn't for you?
Since I was a child, I've always hated comfort. I was a daredevil who refused stability, the surrounding lethargy. In California, everything was straight, clean-Americana in all its horror. Terrible suburban life, baking cookies, the horror...Yet, there was the desert, the mountains, the sea, incredible artists. But I was too young to understand it then. Fortunately, my mother spent her time moving, it spiced up my dull life. It was exciting, scary not having roots. But sometimes I was ashamed of it. For my friends, I represented failure, the lack of continuity. They never trusted me, they felt like I could disappear overnight. When I was 12, I decided that my future was in New York. For a kid like me, for an uncouragable dreamer, New York was an obsession. All you had to do was turn on the TV and New York would come to me: the soap operas, Bugs Bunny's accent, King Kong...I was bewitched by the image and the atmosphere that emerged from these images. And then there was Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Creem magazine...I still remember that picture on the cover: Lou Reed on stage with a syringe in his arm. When I met him, I told him about this picture, it made him mad.
On what occasion did you make the great journey from west to east?
I was asked to participate in a concert in tribute to my father. I sold everything I owned in Los Angeles, didn't tell anyone and left. I could no longer stand the ostriches from California who claim that everything is fine as the country is falling apart. In New York, at least, the violence is palpable, we don't hide our faces. There is no way to escape reality. For years, I lived in Harlem. Everyone called me by my first name, I was never robbed or attacked. It wasn't by choice: I had just been dumped by a girlfriend, I found myself there in despair, next to what is called Needle Park-where you can find the best heroin in New York. Yet I've never been disappointed by this city. I had just given up on the area where I had grown up, my friends, my family, everything I knew and understood, but everything I expected was there, within reach. Even if both my arms had to be cut off to be allowed to stay there, I would still choose this city. I was even afraid of being swallowed up by the city, but I survived.
Did you need such a change to find your balance?
California is huge, but I didn't have a square inch to grow there, and in a small space like New York, I found a great place to push (myself), to blossom. However, the competition is permanent: to get to the subway gates first, to take a taxi...but I'm zen: I have other ways to raise my blood pressure than fighting for first place in line for a hot dog (laughs)...I feel like I share my apartment with two million people. Nothing pleases me more than to help someone find their way. I had never had the impression of belonging to a community, of living in a village. I don't remember ever being interested in music: all my memories, even the oldest ones, are just music. It was my food, a real bulimia. I think I sang before I spoke. My grandmother taught me songs in Spanish, nursery rhymes that told me how to wash my hands properly. My mother was a classical musician. Every night, she would put me to sleep humming lullabies. These memories of nursery rhythms are linked to songs by Simon & Garfunkel, the Beatles, Barbra Streisand. The drum sound of Come Together disturbed me throughout my childhood...to me, it was the sound of a monstrous telephone dial. In the car, we listened to music all the time. I was fascinated by sounds, like the one of the wah-wah pedal. I imagined crazy solutions: to me, it could only come from a tortured animal. I had made it a point of honour to solve all these sound riddles. So much so that at the age of 5, music became a very personal business. There, for the first time, I was allowed to buy records, to use the chain. I was following in the footsteps of my mother's second husband-a mechanic who only agreed to repair Volkswagens. Very broad, with beautiful blue eyes. To me, he was Santa's look-alike, or his son. Every two weeks, he would come back with five new albums. It was a ritual, which filled the house with new sounds: the Moody Blues, Grand Funk Railroad, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Booker T...As soon as he got in the car, he played Led Zeppelin 2. I spent hours examining the covers. Some, like Pink Floyd's, scared me.
Have you kept this almost bulimic curiosity?
Never has there been so many good records as there are now: Stereolab, Codeine, Melvins, Cocteau Twins-an old love story-Pavement and Morissey of course. I fought for the Smiths, to defend the honor of the last great band. I'd give anything to work with Johnny Marr someday.
Do you feel a connection to anyone in particular?
I feel very lonely right now. They compare me to American Music Club, but I don't see the link. I'm also told that I belong to a kind of folk renewal. For me, folk died years ago, murdered on stage by Bob Dylan's electric guitar. Just because I'm alone with a guitar doesn't mean I do folk. One day, I know that Thurston Moore will leave Sonic Youth to release a solo guitar album: I can guarantee you it won't be folk. Liz Phair owes more to Violent Femmes than to folk and Beck is too crazy for this music. I don't like people saying anything about music, it's a much too serious subject. But not serious in the academic sense: I feel I come from the punk philosophy, from this contempt for technique. Yet, I need it more than anyone to express myself. I'm a hardworking person, I like to progress. But to keep a certain naivety, I keep buying new instruments. Especially harmoniums, which I'm passionately in love with, so I'll always stay an amateur, an innocent. I keep the innocence of the beginner. If I took driving lessons at my age, it would probably be dangerous. But I don't see how I could kill someone with a harmonica.
On your first single, you cover Piaf. Did you listen to this kind of record at home?
It would take a sick heart not to fall in love with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or Piaf...I discovered Piaf at school, during an educational program. She immediately held me spellbound, but strangely enough she was more and more necessary for me as I got older. At 22, I couldn't do without Piaf anymore. It was totally beyond reason. I hated some bands for years and one day I realized that I physically needed one of their songs. My mother was magnificently tolerant, we went from the joy of Sly & The Family Stone to Judy Garland without question. Eclecticism is a real quality of women: my girl friends buy Johnny Cash as well as Snoop Doggy Dogg, Les Meilleurs moments du piano and Metallica. Boys are so sectarian.
Your mother and father both lived on music. Many children would have been disgusted for life.
My mother dreamt of playing Mendelssohn instead of cleaning up. When her husband would come home from work unexpectedly, it drove him crazy to find her sitting at the piano."What the hell are you doing?" What's this pigsty?" The poor girl had to tell him that she was dusting the piano-even though she had been playing Chopin all afternoon. I loved this atmosphere, everything became music for me: the trains on the railway track next to the house, the planes flying over us at low altitude...
In school, you must've passed for a martian.
I had friends, but no one to talk to about music. I didn't want to share this with anyone, it was my secret. I spent whole days memorizing some albums. When my aunt came to watch me at home, she would bring her friends and make me recite these albums. At the age of 6, naturally, I started playing piano and guitar. My mother watched all the classical music shows on television, the kinds of piano competitions. As soon as I heard the slightest melody, I would run down to watch the TV, especially Elton John, who I loved. I knew I wanted to make a living from music-but without ever considering becoming a rock star. I hated having any power over anyone.
Were you a social child ?
I've always been a loner. I felt-I still feel-ackward, clumsy, ugly. So I didn't go out. Being alone was a way of not getting attached to a place or people: I could leave overnight without any regret. I was always a stranger who watches with disgust at guys his age talking like their fathers. I walked a lot, smoked a lot-all those things that took me away from my schoolwork. Suddenly, I decided to do nothing anymore at school. A teacher had explained to us the bell curve grading system, a kind of upward levelling. If I worked hard and got good grades on the exams, my success would benefit the dunces in my class, pull them up. It was inconceivable that I would do anything to help those fat bastards who were only thinking of beating me up at lunchtime. So I rested my arms, waiting for the first-class eggheads to kill themselves trying to raise the average. That didn't stop me from reading and learning at home. My great shame is that I was a class leader, that I represented these losers, that I compromised myself with the system. I had the longest hair in school, I was constantly called a faggot. One day, after a hockey game, I took the scissors and cut off my hair. My only regret is that I never told Ruth Wilcox-my European history teacher-how much she meant to me. They all hated me at my high school and I despised their ignorance. It was inconceivable to work with with these monsters, to live among them, to lead an existence identical to theirs. I only had one guy friend, Jason, with who I went to a teen club called Woodstock. On our good days, we were left to take care of the lights; we could even play, talk to girls. I wasn't very lucky with them. But it didn't bother me more than that: the girls there weren't very exciting.
Did you already write then ?
At the time, I didn't even realize how frustrated I was. When I wrote, I felt good, safe. It was by writing that I realized how inadequate I was. I grew up in Anaheim, the city of Disneyland, a well-off Judeo-Christian suburb...God, did I hate those motherfuckers...and they made me pay dearly for it. Writing was a real pain because, little by little, I discovered myself. And it wasn't a pretty sight. I was immature, I was very disappointed in myself. If I record under the name Jeff Buckey, it's a combination of circumstances: I played guitar alone to attract musicians with whom to form a group and to find my way. And I was signed like that. However, I would not be able to make this music without my drummer, without my bass player. It was them who allowed me to achieve what I was looking for in music. I've always played with bands since I was a kid. To me, there are no solo singers. Even Bob Dylan, what a great band...He was thrown off the stage with The Band, with Robbie Robertson and yet he'd never had such a good band with him. He was a lot better than that asshole Mick Jagger. On Ballad of A Thin Man, he goes crazy, dangerous. I never get tired of watching this video. I need others to support me. On stage, there is something happening that I can't control.
You're scary: you look like you're in a trance.
For me, the trance is the perfect unity between this body and this spirit (he looks at himself with disgust)...There is no longer any separation between what I say and what I feel, a feeling that has always attracted me. It's like sex: there always comes a time when you can no longer intervene, when you have to loose yourself. For me, only sex can save this world. All combinations, all positions are possible but in the end, there is only this precise moment where I let myself go with the feeling of being eternal.
Are you looking for this state by other means?
Without a band, without the drums, I couldn't reach this state. Or you could use drugs. It also works with alcohol, but I'm less interested (in that). All the information is already in me, it just comes and opens the doors to free it. It's not the heroin that thinks for me, that drives my car, that raises my children. It's just a substance that circulates in the blood and stimulates a specific point in the body. It's a very old and natural practice. Heroin has never created endocrine glands in anyone, it simply awakens some of them. It's good to have this control over yourself. The danger is to blame everything on drugs, to no longer accept responsibility by blaming the heroin. Now you've become like a blind man who can't go out without his dog. The dog doesn't necessarily know where to cross the road, how to avoid being run over. In Pakistan, there's a word that means "a form of wisdom that can only be achieved by being intoxicated." The common man can't approach this wisdom. I like to take drugs. There's nothing wrong with that, it opens up new avenues. However, I wouldn't give it the keys to my car (smiles)...I don't mind losing myself, as long as I don't put anyone in danger. Usually, when I'm high, I reach a state of euphoria, which is similar to the one you feel when you first meet someone you've always loved. Then, when you tell them you love them, there's this explosion of blue sparks. You could do it without the drugs, but it makes the work easier. I could do without it, but between it and me, it's an old story that goes back to childhood.
Are you ever afraid?
I was never afraid of drugs but rather of the people who sell them. I know what I'm doing. It was even my mother who offered me my first drugs because she was afraid of what I was going to buy on the street.
Afraid you'll end up like your father?
I don't remember his example. He left the house before I was even born. His only influence is his absence. I was the man of the house, I didn't miss him. I only met him once, shortly before he died, and then I realized I missed him. It would've been nice to grow up with a real father and mother that got along well. But I've survived.
Do you understand that you're being compared to him?
He influenced my life, but not my music. I never really listened to his records for pleasure, I just observed them. Comparing myself to him is a facility I understand: the precision and accuracy of analysis don't weigh as heavily when compared to approximate shortcuts. I know they're not true. But I can't blame him for anything, he had nothing to do with it. I'm tired of seeing these old hippies coming to meet me and hoping to find my father. I'm going to dissappoint them. You can't ignore the voodoo. For thousands of years, it has been passed from generation to generation. There is a real link with the earth, with it's forces. It's not from tv, this white wizard's voodoo...I have to admit, I'm religious. But I can't believe in the earthly organizations made in the name of God. Priests, all these so-called representatives, they're stuff for the mentally ill. So, then, God would be there to punish, again and again, but never to reward? A father, but no mother. No woman in the Holy Trinity...What a huge mistake! It's appalling to see that the only woman without blame in the Bible is Mary, who has never fucked in her life. She made a baby with her ear. No, but frankly, what a load of crap! I will never in my life take any important advice from someone who has never had sex and who, moreover, is proud of it. The Pope, what an insult to sex, what an insult to women! All our religions are in favour of men, they disgust me. No wonder we treat the earth with the same contempt: we rape her, we destroy her, we ignore her opinion. This is all very disturbing. I'm a very disturbed boy (smile)...
Very pessimistic ?
I'm an optimist who refuses to wear pink glasses. My music is never pessimistic, it's melancholic. It's a feeling I'm comfortable with. I hate self-indulgence-it disgusts me. But I couldn't write without putting a little bit of myself, a little bit of my soul, outside my songs. That would really be behaving like a male. My words, in that sense, are rather feminine. All the music I like is like that: dark, melancholic. Except Duke Ellington, whose visceral joy often heals my wounds. The next album will probably be more joyful but this time, it was impossible...You can be cute, funny, generous, there's always the danger of a break-up in a love relationship. No one is safe. Grace, this is the album of a jealous, poor guy who just got dumped.
