Les Inrockuptibles, June, 1995
By JD Beauvallet
Submitted by Ana
Translated by me
Between intimate wounds and dubious memories, Jeff Buckley can not be sorted, both authentically tourtured and annoyingly bold. At the time of the return in triumph-Olympia and gold record-visit a secret garden ignored by breaks and speech: the discs of a marvel child who would like to be his father, Miles Davis and Jim Morrison at the same time.
Miles Davis So What
Music forever associated with Los Angeles, my childhood, my discovery of Miles...I started around 1984 with his quintets, with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, whom I listened to 24 hours a day. fascinated by the sound, it was the first time a jazz musician spoke to me so much: I was certain that his trumpet was his voice. I immediately felt his sprawling love for music... I began to read, to listen, to look at everything that concerned him, dazzled by his elegance, his innocence, his anger. The funny thing is that I feel that he learned his art en route, that he began to record being a very approximate musician. On Koko, it's not even he who plays but Dizzy Gillespie, because Miles could not. But while the pros played in his place, he did not miss a beat, he was fiercely determined to find his own way. I am in love with this period of bop, by the legends surrounding 42nd Street. Even though he has never stated them himself, I have taken up many of his doctrines: seeking excellence in other musicians, pushing them to give their best and, above all, being pitilessly demanding with oneself. Without Miles, I would never have had my entry card into jazz, I would have stayed at the entrance. He invited me and then, while extinguishing, he killed the jazz, which remained only furniture music, without odor and without taste. A jazz without art and without danger, which has abandoned its physical side and the contact with the street. Keith Jarrett said that Miles was always trying to get past his music, that he let it go for fun. At my level on stage, I too like to be myself and someone else at the same time. My music has inherited its harmonies, its economy of means. Keith Jarrett also said that Miles had beginner ambitions, that he always remained a novice, sounding like a novice. I can not sing like a child. I sing like a woman.
Piaf I regret nothing
So romantic, so French that it could become disgusting. Yet, with her, we feel that nothing is simulated. Every emotion becomes epic because she saw the slums, death close up. There is such a weight in this voice, like a flower that would try to break under pavement. I have always had an attraction for these characters who invite the tragedy to their table, which come from troubled waters, forbid comfort and ease. For me, Edith Piaf is a junkie who has transformed the outside world into a syringe needle and injected it in large doses. When you discover it, like I did at 16, it's a shock. I, too, had a terrible need for fuel, but California had nothing left to offer me. For a little white Californian, such an intense passion for Piaf is not the best way to fit in...No one with who to share these emotions for hundreds of miles around. The first French people I met disappointed me a lot: rich kids who, like me, were taking music lessons in a very poor school in Los Angeles. They spent their lives talking about Coltrane and Bird and intellectualizing everything, smoking and playing too much for my taste. Fortunately, at Willows High School in Northern California, I met a French woman who had grown up in Algeria, who changed my image of France. We took guitar lessons together. Her voice and the rhythm of her broken English fascinated me. And then, whenever she made a mistake on the handle, she had a little way of sticking her tongue out that was irresistible. Me, it was more like "God damn shit!", but she was this delicate little piece of tongue. I fell in love with her and started to stick out my tongue too (smile)...I only discovered Paris last year, and here I am playing at the Olympia, like Piaf or the Velvet Underground (silence)...such an honor, just terrifying. How do I follow Piaf? I don't understand why I'm successful in France. Maybe because the French love the underlying stories and that's what I give them. There's a whole novel waiting to be told. They love the poetry and lyricism of a certain idea of America.
Led Zeppelin Going to California
(He sings at the top of his lungs)...When I was a kid, this album totally blew my mind. All I had to do was listen to it and life was reborn in me. I loved the depth and ferocity of the sound, even more than the songs. But this one proudly defends its place in my heart...It was the perfect blues for a little white boy, moving music like never before. Even without drugs, their music has an unmatched aura and ambience. For guitars, for such a dense production, there's only the English, from Led Zeppelin to Johnny Marr. There is mystery, romanticism in every riff. My first joint when I was eight was listening to Led Zeppelin. For years, they were the soundtrack to every second of my life. When I was walking around with my half-brother Kieth, while I was skateboarding, when I got lost in the woods, it was with a song of them in mind. I remember the endless baseball games where I stood planted on my base while listening internally their fourth album. One of the layers of my epidermis is called Led Zeppelin. My mother's husband listened to their records all the time, he used to play them to me in the car on the way to my grandmother's house...At school, no one was allowed to listen to them, which made me even more of a curious beast...This music was too adult, too weird. I've learned so much from Led Zeppelin, the magic of group work for example: how ordinary guys become geniuses when they get in touch with each other. Exactly the case with Prince, whose talent is dwindling as he cuts himself off from the outside world, he refuses to share his art. Without my band, without the support, the breath, I'd be lost. I never thought of music as a dictatorship. No one is the sole owner of his talent. I'm only here as a smuggler: I get songs, I pass them on. That's all. I don't mean to interrupt, to disturb...It's not my fault if these songs that go through me have such an effect on me...On stage, there's nothing I can do about it: I'm carried away by the music. The first time I saw a video of me in concert, I was terribly disturbed. It's like filming my penis for two hours.
Hank Williams Lost Highway
The song that I dared to slaughter...For years, it had become my road song. A hymn for anyone who ran away, put everything down and got lost. There is in these words the very familiar feeling of waking up each morning in an unknown place, with people met drifting randomly. When one has depended, for their survival, on the troubled characters that haunt bars and saloons, we understand Lost Highway. The counter romances, the intrigues of drunkards...It's in bars that people are revealed. The Lost Highway characters, these drifting guys, I've met them all. I belong to this song. I understand perfectly when he warns neophytes against this lifestyle. I went there, I had bad meetings, I followed bad influences. You need a trunk if you want to depend on, for your survival, strangers, if we need them for certain things, certain substances...We must be ready to follow them into infamous streets to finally dig up what we need, to see them go away forever with your money (silence)...It's like living in wartime-but at the same time, it's a danger that imposes a little freedom. However, I can not help but live on this side of the fence: that's where I breathe, I like the human functioning of this underworld, the way people rise above the reality, refuse the comfort of an organized life, a safe bond, a job in the offices of a multinational corporation. I like the initiatory rites of this ambiance, I always felt at home there-more than at my mother's. I have never been afraid, because I have always been surrounded by people much older than me since I was a kid. I like to be left to myself, that there is nobody there to protect me. I do not even trust my own friends. I am perfectly alone, without witnesses, without safeguards and it suits me perfectly. When one is so alone, there is no question of feeling shame, modesty, inhibitions, complexes-all these ridiculous emotions. You can get married to sadness, make love to sadness, just like Hank Williams. From the age of 10, I was attracted to this dark and slow world, but I waited 13 years to start attending it. That's where I found that name: Jeff Buckley. For the civil status, I was Scott Moorehead. But that name belonged to the past: it was that of my stepfather, the name of a man with whom I had nothing to do with physiologically. And then that name, Scott, I was tired of hearing him complaing: "Scott do this, do not do that"...It was the name of a little boy who was constantly scolded. I needed a new identity to totally detach myself from this first life. I thought of all the names: Greg, Steve, Richard, Gunboy, Godzilla (laughs)...I needed a radical change, to become someone else, to simply become someone.
Leonard Cohen Hallelujah
(He pouts)...His instrumentations are sometimes crazy. All the songs he recorded after Songs From A Room remind me of these little girls dressed by their mom: very cute and perfectly ridiculous. Leonard's arrangements have that ridiculous side. And yet, I know people who, without him, would not have friends, would not survive. The real fans have always amazed me by their sect: I have always felt they despise me, the fan of the last minute, who has never masturbated naked in the sun while listening to such songs of the Master-Teachers or The Stranger Song...he must be the best lover in the galaxy, which makes me crazy with jealousy...A gifted, dirty lover, probably diplomatic and attentive. Cohen is Marlene Dietrich, while Dylan is Little Richard. Even when he sings, he can not help but use his appalling power of seduction, his magnetism. He has a unique talent for making poetic and surreal everyday life-the most difficult way of writing. Yet, on Hallelujah, I much prefer the lyrics rewritten by John Cale for the compilation I'm Your Fan. This is the version I picked up, not Cohen's. I would like so much to write a song that could move him. It was at this price that I would agree to meet him: so that I feel less inferior. "Oh yes, hello, Jeff, thank you for picking up one of my songs." But it's impossible to compete because he comes from a time when we still had time. The time to experiment, the time to live, the time to have a real sex life, the time to have a confrontation with pleasure...Today, we are too overwhelmed with distractions, amusements, fears...We came back to 1961, in ignorance and conservatism, we wait for the Beatles to finally start a sexual revolution. We have been so hurt in our flesh that we consume the culture frantically. When Leonard was 30, he did not check his watch all the time. His detachment and his tranquility were still possible. I did not meet people as viscerally a music fan as I was: I saw all kinds of bands, listened to millions of songs, and yet I've seen only one Leonard Cohen. He has a unique and sexual way to penetrate me with his songs. It's his goal: to fuck again and again.
The Doors Roadhouse Blues
At 16, I was sure the Doors were a common band for bikers. The Brechtian and poetic dimension escaped me completely: I saw only a band of old rockstars of the sixties. Then suddenly, I stopped seeing them as a trademark, a multinational American memory, I fell in love. It's Break On Through that made me give in, that made me tolerate, then love Jim Morrison, that irresistible brat, that too charming bastard, that bunch of muscles that imagined himself Rimbaud. At once perfect and grotesque, solid and pathetic. It was the excess that made him so sexy, so sensual. I'm so enclosed within myself, so I admire his extrovert side. He made it acceptable for American hicks perversion, darkness, sadness, the fall of inhibitions, debauchery, ridicule...We should not treat the Morrison myth lightly. We should immerse ourselves in it, see it as a model of life, venerate it, loot it. So much bullshit is told about these legendary rock deaths-and I'm in a good position to talk about it. So many cowards need artists to live, by proxy, danger, death, darkness...Jim Morrison attracted such feelings, he was the perfect emissary. People around me push me to excesses and they have the impression of living through me. It's so romantic and so comfortable to send others to war in your place.
Dead Kennedys Holiday In Cambodia
Good old Jello Biaffra...I would have loved to see them on stage at the time, but I lived too far from Los Angeles. I was stuck in my neighborhood, condemned to listen to my own records of Sex Pistols, Social Distortion, Black Flag, Minor Threat...I lived near Anaheim, California, in the middle of nowhere, when I saw a TV show warning American parents of this new threat: the punks. I thought "Finally a threat, finally the forces of evil!" Despite my passion for the music, I quickly decided to keep only the groups that knew how to write-I can not help but look for this quality. The Germs fascinated me. But I was not a punk: I was so opposed to everyone, so reclusive that I refused to share anything with anyone. I refused to participate in anything collective. I was worse than a pariah: a non-person. A zero, nonexistent. All these punks at school, I already knew them: they were, before that big, dirty dicks and their new image did not fundamentally change anything. It was not a new generation but a recycling of the same mediocrity. Yet, I loved the songs, the din, the ethics. Punk rock taught me to refuse bullshit, uselessness. The ethics of these stupid hardcore groups-especially not learning to play-is a very narrow vision of punk. All these new punk bands that have a hit in America are appallingly conservative, dogmatic, and chain-produced. How can a movement born to kick the ass of the establishment dare to become a new establishment? The real punks are Sonic Youth and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Not The Offspring or Green Day. I will certainly not receive ethical lessons from brats who grew up listening to Billy Joel. Me, I want to progress, learn while keeping in mind that none of my solos, none of my sounds can be useless. That's the lesson of punk. That and the death of the gurus, the death of the myths. Jesus Christ could enter this room, I'm sure he would smell sweaty. Jim Morrison could enter this room, begin to talk and I would say "Jim, big pile of shit, stop your bullshit for a bit, you make us tired." This is the legacy of the punks: there are no more heroes but just human beings.
Cocteau Twins Sugar Hiccup
Together they have achieved something very rare and precious: creating music without origins, opening a new breach. Unbelievable songs for a guy who plays guitar with only one finger...Liz has invented her own language, which I don't understand any more than Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn's. And yet, I worship both of them. I've never met anyone as hard and ruthless on herself as she is. That's why we get along so well. For me, the Cocteau Twins are as important in the history of music as the Doors. Except that, for once, a group is important without any of its members having an overflowing ego. I've never heard such innocence, such humane music. It's the melodies that separate the men from the boys, the artists from the clowns. And for that, she really has a charm of her own. I told her, but she refuses to acknowledge any talent. I call her mentally retarded when she tells me that (smile)...She'd want me to write songs for her, but I'd never be up to it. I love the way Liz lets her strangeness speak, never restrains herself, never listens to reason. Even if they don't belong to the general public yet, these records will remain. I distinctly remember stumbling upon it in a Tower Records store that had Carolyn's Fingers playing in the background. A shock. That's how I find out what's new: by leaving it to chance, which places on my path wonders such as Stereolab, the Palace Brothers, Beck or Shudder to Think, amazing melodists...Shudder To Think are the Orson Welles of new rock-and I'm the Ed Wood.
Nirvana Come As You Are
Kurt Cobain was so funny, I miss him a lot. I never met him, I was only touched from far away by the Nirvana tornado and yet I admired him. Because we had in common a passion for the Melvins. They had such good taste...Since then I met Dave Grohl and Chris Novoselic and I was stunned by their gentleness, their kindness, their availability, their simplicity. Just good guys who loved to have fun playing rock. Apart from punk rock, everything bored them to death. Except for potatoes: Chris can talk about them with passion, he has plenty in his garden. He explained everything to me. Kurt Cobain's problem is that he never supported himself, he grew up in hatred of himself-both on his part and that of his mother. He was conditioned for his suicide. Even though I also lived in the streets, I always had a house where I could come back, people to confide in. He was born so naive, so much in need of love that his parents should have been his best friends. But parents are too often just mom and dad, give lessons and do not understand this terrible need for affection and understanding. I have always tried to have adult relationships with my parents: I did not want this ridiculous link between the child and the mother's breast, but quickly move on to the next step...I had already admitted that my father no longer existed, he had gone: he was already a possible confidant for less. When I see what happened to Kurt Cobain, I have a feeling of unfairness: there was not the slightest difference between what he said, what his music represented, and what he was everyday . Perfect match. And the pain of being used, of being a junkie, of hating himself and being a public figure has misplaced him: he did not even know that he had succeeded, that he was the truth itself. It would have been easier to hide behind lies. I feel that adults would screw up my life if I let them into my secrets.
Jeff Buckley Last Goodbye
Since last year, I haven't been able to write a song. Always on tour, no way to take the slightest break. My muscles have tightened and the frustration is becoming physical...It's hard to tour in such a heterosexual country when you're just a group of little fags...I feel cheap and useless. I have to start writing again (silence)...When I see myself, I'm ashamed, I'm just a puppet dragged from room to room. But these endless tours were my decision. I can't even stay at home anymore, my system craves these sleepless nights, these adrenaline rushes...I am an employee of a multinational company that I owe hours of work for a salary. These tours are my long-term investment.
I'm too proud to be sold on the strength of a TV ad. So I go on tour, everywhere, nonstop. It represents me better, it sells me better than a magazine insert. Besides, it's a physical need. Revenge? No, not yet. The people who put obstacles in my way still don't know that I make records. I can kill myself tomorrow in a plane crash or by following the wrong people down the street without having been successful enough to exact my revenge. So I keep on working, as if I were an employee in a garage, in order to buy my independence, my own business. My job is song trafficking. I receive them, I sell them. With the inevitable drawbacks that go with it: I never asked to become a sex symbol, but it's part of the job. That doesn't make me particularly sexy. I still don't like myself.
