You Could Do Worse

You Could Do Worse Zine, #3 by Kylie Buddin.

When I first walked up to Jeff Buckley, I didn't know what to expect. At this point the press on him has not been significant enough to know what to expect out of him, musically or personally. To top it off, before I could get to talk to him, three people involved with the show made him sound sort of uppity and fickle. But what I found a few minutes later was something quite different. To put it another way, most people I talked to that night said "he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet." He was, or at least he was the most entertaining.

        

YCDW: Kylie Buddin

JB: Jeff Buckley

YCDW: I noticed on Sin-é and Peyote Radio Theatre, you do quite a few cover songs, but you seem to make them your own. Like with "Kanga-Roo," it starts out similar to the original, but then transcends into something quite different.

JB: I did that one because after this album, no more covers. It's a personal growth issue I had with why I wanted to do things this way. And I suppose that people will want to request things in the future but I won't want to do them. But "Kanga-Roo" came about because Sony wanted two B-sides for some reason. So I produced two songs live in the studio with the band. On of them was "So Real" which is on the album actually, it was too good to be a B side - the other thing was "Kanga-Roo." Mickey and I bonded over "Kanga-Roo" a long time ago. We were just playing at rehearsal and I kept on playing that guitar motif. So we ended up doing it. And I wanted Sony to have a fourteen minute piece so they would be satisfied.

YCDW: How many songs that are on the Sin-é EP will be on Grace?

JB: Two: "Mojo Pin" and "Eternal."

YCDW: Is it all recorded with a full band or are there any solo performances?

JB: All but two songs are with the full band.

YCDW: Which do you like better? Or do you just find that it depends on the material you are working on?

JB: At this point I like being with the band much better. It's much more varied. The way that we play, it can be very empty with the way we go from minute to minute with the music. So it's not always bombast, it's sheer clouds.

YCDW: One of the things that impressed me when I first heard you was that you are not locked into doing any particular style. You could do a country and western song and it would still have a sense of Jeff Buckley's unique style.

JB: That's why I did things this way, so that no matter what I did I would always have a thread going through it, so that that would be my style. Not necessarily going through all the styles, but because I did want to forage through all the other songs I really respected, and all the experiences within them that I really admired, and identified with them. So I found out what I would sound like with them.

YCDW: I noticed that you did the art on the inside cover of Radio Peyote Theatre. Is that something you pursue often in your spare time, and do you plans on doing any other covers?

JB: If I found something that had that hotness to it, I would. Actually, I want to use some art from my friend Carla Abatobalie, who lives in San Francisco. Our sound man Paul is also a really good artist. Someone at Sony had suggested that I write a poem for the inside of the cover, and I thought better of it when I found a drawing I had done at Woodstock while recording Grace. I just thought I would use that. They didn't like it.

YCDW: What are some things that you do in your spare time that you enjoy doing?

JB: Beside reading and watching movies, finding out of the way places where misfits go. What I really like is night prowling. Sometimes around two in the morning, I will go walking no place at all and find some place to dance. I really like to just sit and watch people. I like to sit some place like the Jojo restaurant, on St. Marks Place, and watch people all night. That's a good question. I must lead a really boring life. [laughs]

YCDW: What are some of your favorite black and white movies?

JB: Lets see, On the Waterfront, Street of Crocodiles, Brothers Quay films, American Milan, and Notorious, which I absolutely adore.

YCDW: What kind of music are you listening to now when you get a chance?

JB: Well, today I did James Brown's Live In Paris and then I did Trompe Le Monde by the Pixies. It really depends on what I have with me. I carry Patti Smith with me. Anything with soul for the moment to it. We stopped at a truck stop and got Truck Stop Comedy and Judas Priest's Unleashed in the East.

YCDW: Do you have any favorite perfumes or scents?

JB: I like essential oils a lot. Tunisian sandalwood and myrrh are my current favorites.

YCDW: How would you describe the new album?

JB: I would say it's me and Mick and Matt becoming a band, and it's me laying a lot of old things to rest. And a lot of new things also like "So Real" and "Kanga-Roo" really point to the future.

YCDW: When I first heard of you, you were doing a lot of coffee houses and then you started to do venues like the Knitting Factory. Do you find much of a difference in your style or your performance?

JB: I wasn't divided between the two. To me they were just different performance spaces. I always played the same old boring shit. Ask anybody. I was just as boring then.

YCDW: What's your favorite road food, besides coffee?

JB: Besides coffee, that's easy: angel hair pasta. Because one, it's really easy to make and two, you can order marinara sauce and they can't mess up the meat. It fills you up, you drink a little wine and you go to sleep faster. But you usually can't get that at Burger King, can you?

YCDW: I usually go for the jumbo sized red hot burrito.

JB: I get the foot long size, I'm going straight to hell, you know it! You get those evil abandonment dreams where you get sucked through the floor.

YCDW: The thing I love abut shows is meeting the unearthly drunken freak that won't let you go. Have you met any recently?

JB: Oh yeah, I'm a freak magnet. They just come to me look in my eyes and say "yeah, you're the one." And they come right over to me. Last time I was in London there was the woman who was upstairs at the Garage she was so brown from smack that I thought she was an Indian but she had blonde hair. She had these yellow teeth and with the things she was saying and her breath, it just sucked the joy out of my skin. It just that when people get drunk they come out and say the most outlandish things. Sometimes I have to leave and sometimes they are terribly entertaining.

YCDW: What have been some memorable shows so far?

JB: Soundgarden and Tad were a pretty weird sight in Milwaukee when we opened up for them. All of them turned out to be absolute angels. I always knew that Chris, Matt, Brad, and Kim were great, but it was especially great that Tad was a honey. The crowd was surprisingly nice to me, and they adored Tad, and they worshiped Soundgarden. I'm sure they couldn't wait for me to get off, but they were very polite.

YCDW: Have you had a favorite show yet?

JB: The Green Mill in Chicago, which used to be owned by Al Capone, is a complete anachronism -- nothing's changed. It's just been preserved. Downstairs, there is still a bootleg basement. They never have rock and roll bands, never. You wouldn't believe the decor in this place, I mean Martin Scorcese would get a tremendous erection over this place. We went in there, standing where Tony Bennett probably stood 30 years ago. And nothing but jazz, jazz poetry, and big bands. We get there and the owner's really, really skeptical over how it's going to go, sitting there and he doesn't like us there. It sold out. He made $750 at the door, he's very happy and a little less of a goon to us. And it all went well in this place where music really belonged, and I guess we belonged, too. That's the thing about this tour. I'm trying to find places where people go to listen. Not like a gymnasium, but a place where people come and I can visit their space. If they like it they listen, if they don't they can talk to their friends. That's why I'm touring before the album, so people can hear it, instead of just being told it's something they should buy. Let them make their own decisions. We are meeting all kinds of great bands and great people on the road and that's the great thing about the road. We never meet a band yet that were assholes, maybe sick and cranky or something. It's usually more people who are in power, but not even then. It's a great hang. Eating, sleeping, and time to yourself are like gold. Oh, and health.