Mojo, August, 1994
By Martin Aston
Submitted by Ana
Aware he could be unfairly accused of trading on the family name, Jeff Buckley, Tim Buckley's 27-year-old son, has spent the last three years honing his act in New York's folk clubs and cafes before unveiling his first recordings, The Live At Sin-e EP and his first album, Grace (out August 15), confirm an intensely mesmeric talent with a similarly wild, mercurial voice as his father's, but with his own blazing cache of wounded torch songs, restless rockers and wayward blues.
Did you always want to be a singer?
First there was my mother's breasts, then music. All my life, I sung to the radio. My mum, who was a classically-trained pianist and cellist, used to sing to me too. We'd drive to school with the radio on, playing mellow California stuff-Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash. I started singing at family gatherings-my stepfather would fall asleep and mum would get embarrassed, so I'd sing every Elton John song I knew. Singing onstage felt natural. It was like, "I'm going into the ocean, to the water!"
Has the subject of your father become a thorn in your side?
My dad left home when I was six months old and I only met him when I was eight, over Easter vacation, a total of nine days. Two months later he died. The people who knew him, they apparently have magic memories of him, but it's been a claustrophobic thing all my life. I guess my dad and I were born with the same parts, like some people have the same bone structure, but when I sing, it's me. Our expression is not the same. The thing is, I've got my own time, and if people expect me to get them off like he did they'll be disappointed. I'm just going to make the most intense, heartfelt statement I can.
You've amassed an amazing repertoire of covers, from The Smiths to Dylan, Billie Holiday to the Sex Pistols, with an Edith Piaf and Van Morrison track on the Sin-e EP.
I saw gifts dangling from those songs and I wanted to take them. Even though punk happened to me, and Robert Johnson too, I guess I wanted to be an archetypal entertainer, a bard, a minstrel, to be a really good storyteller, and those songs have great stories. Also I figured I wouldn't be able to meet these people so I learnt from them by hearing them sing.
I've read somewhere that Robert Plant was your greatest influence.
No, Led Zeppelin was just my favorite music when I was growing up. The thing about Led Zeppelin, and the Cocteaus too, is that they carried with them this unexplainable...thing, this spirit. They let their deepest eccentricities be the music itself. Everything I love and have heard about music-I want to leave it all behind and go someplace else. There's so much more, so many more ways of saying "I love you" or "where the hell do I fit in?" And it's nothing arty, nothing lofty, just fucking different
By Martin Aston
Submitted by Ana
Aware he could be unfairly accused of trading on the family name, Jeff Buckley, Tim Buckley's 27-year-old son, has spent the last three years honing his act in New York's folk clubs and cafes before unveiling his first recordings, The Live At Sin-e EP and his first album, Grace (out August 15), confirm an intensely mesmeric talent with a similarly wild, mercurial voice as his father's, but with his own blazing cache of wounded torch songs, restless rockers and wayward blues.
Did you always want to be a singer?
First there was my mother's breasts, then music. All my life, I sung to the radio. My mum, who was a classically-trained pianist and cellist, used to sing to me too. We'd drive to school with the radio on, playing mellow California stuff-Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash. I started singing at family gatherings-my stepfather would fall asleep and mum would get embarrassed, so I'd sing every Elton John song I knew. Singing onstage felt natural. It was like, "I'm going into the ocean, to the water!"
Has the subject of your father become a thorn in your side?
My dad left home when I was six months old and I only met him when I was eight, over Easter vacation, a total of nine days. Two months later he died. The people who knew him, they apparently have magic memories of him, but it's been a claustrophobic thing all my life. I guess my dad and I were born with the same parts, like some people have the same bone structure, but when I sing, it's me. Our expression is not the same. The thing is, I've got my own time, and if people expect me to get them off like he did they'll be disappointed. I'm just going to make the most intense, heartfelt statement I can.
You've amassed an amazing repertoire of covers, from The Smiths to Dylan, Billie Holiday to the Sex Pistols, with an Edith Piaf and Van Morrison track on the Sin-e EP.
I saw gifts dangling from those songs and I wanted to take them. Even though punk happened to me, and Robert Johnson too, I guess I wanted to be an archetypal entertainer, a bard, a minstrel, to be a really good storyteller, and those songs have great stories. Also I figured I wouldn't be able to meet these people so I learnt from them by hearing them sing.
I've read somewhere that Robert Plant was your greatest influence.
No, Led Zeppelin was just my favorite music when I was growing up. The thing about Led Zeppelin, and the Cocteaus too, is that they carried with them this unexplainable...thing, this spirit. They let their deepest eccentricities be the music itself. Everything I love and have heard about music-I want to leave it all behind and go someplace else. There's so much more, so many more ways of saying "I love you" or "where the hell do I fit in?" And it's nothing arty, nothing lofty, just fucking different
No comments:
Post a Comment