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Now Magazine
Jeff Buckley
Eccentric stylist's gospel truth
27 Oct, 1994
Submitted by Steven
The moment Jeff Buckley opens his mouth and lets loose one of his dazzling, liquid, falsettos, you know singing is his destiny. The rumpled, chronically bed-haired kid was born to be on the stage just as surely as Wayne Gretzky belongs on the ice.
The confidence with which Buckley swings lyrically on his eclectic debut album Grace—from a delicate Van Morrison-style stream of-soulfulness to a Robert Plant strut—makes it seem as if he just fell from the sky and landed on his feet walking, talking and wringing the neck of a Fender Telecaster in the context of his own fully formed artistic vision.
"I approach everything I do as an experiment," assures Buckley from a stop in Asbury Park, New Jersey, en route to his Trinity-St. Paul's Centre gig Friday (October 28),
"There is a side of me that demands specific detail and a certain flavour—the wishes of a foolish child who wants something he has never heard before and will do anything to get it.
"At some point, you have to call upon your Charles Bronson instincts to get yourself through, it's that sort of bravado where you think 'What the hell, this'll work, I'm doin' it!'
"I'm trying to overcome all those horrible music trends of the past while searching for a new life in music. Punk rock was great in its time but now its corpse is stinking up my life."
Of course, there were a lot of bridges for Buckley to cross on the way to sculpting Grace with Nirvana mix-master Andy Wallace at the fabulous Bearsville Studios, deep in the fiery autumn forests of Woodstock.
The confidence with which Buckley swings lyrically on his eclectic debut album Grace—from a delicate Van Morrison-style stream of-soulfulness to a Robert Plant strut—makes it seem as if he just fell from the sky and landed on his feet walking, talking and wringing the neck of a Fender Telecaster in the context of his own fully formed artistic vision.
"I approach everything I do as an experiment," assures Buckley from a stop in Asbury Park, New Jersey, en route to his Trinity-St. Paul's Centre gig Friday (October 28),
"There is a side of me that demands specific detail and a certain flavour—the wishes of a foolish child who wants something he has never heard before and will do anything to get it.
"At some point, you have to call upon your Charles Bronson instincts to get yourself through, it's that sort of bravado where you think 'What the hell, this'll work, I'm doin' it!'
"I'm trying to overcome all those horrible music trends of the past while searching for a new life in music. Punk rock was great in its time but now its corpse is stinking up my life."
Of course, there were a lot of bridges for Buckley to cross on the way to sculpting Grace with Nirvana mix-master Andy Wallace at the fabulous Bearsville Studios, deep in the fiery autumn forests of Woodstock.
New York
Between the nights in suburban California bars unlearning the florid fret technique he picked up at Los Angeles' infamous Musicians Institute, taking odd jobs in hotels and hawking khaki at Banana Republic, it was a long and circuitous route that led Buckley to find his place leading two-hour hymnals at the always crammed Sin-é in New York's East Village.
Living ordeal
Some of those bridges, like the one that stretched between Buckley and the father he never really knew—psychedelic folk troubadour Tim Buckley, who died in 1975 of an accidental heroin overdose—had to be burned behind him.
It happened one night in 91, during a Tim Buckley tribute concert organized by genre kingpin Hal Willner, as the young Buckley
stood on the stage of Brooklyn's St. Ann's Church and began to sing a song his mother once played for him.
As if publicly moving through a dimension occupied by his father weren't enough of a mind-warping ordeal, midway into Once I Was. Buckley snapped a string but continued on, pushing out the last few lines a cappella.
"I got to do something there that I never had a chance to do before—I said goodbye. That was the only reason I did it. I fell that, out of everything that's in a stale of turmoil about that relationship, maybe I could put some small thing to rest.
"There, on the stage. I was emotionally stripped down—stripped of my ego. But I think I came through it alright, although I didn't sing as well as I can now. I could sing well enough, it was just a bit hard for me to get out the words without choking up.
"But I have no regrets about that performance because I got to meet a lot of beautiful people including Willner, Gary Lucas, Robert Quine and Richard Hell—who did the best thing of all at the tribute. Johnny Thunders had died the week before, so Hell did Chinese Rocks by the Heartbreakers. Nobody could fucking stand him doing that at a tribute for Tim Buckley, but I thought it was great."
stood on the stage of Brooklyn's St. Ann's Church and began to sing a song his mother once played for him.
As if publicly moving through a dimension occupied by his father weren't enough of a mind-warping ordeal, midway into Once I Was. Buckley snapped a string but continued on, pushing out the last few lines a cappella.
"I got to do something there that I never had a chance to do before—I said goodbye. That was the only reason I did it. I fell that, out of everything that's in a stale of turmoil about that relationship, maybe I could put some small thing to rest.
"There, on the stage. I was emotionally stripped down—stripped of my ego. But I think I came through it alright, although I didn't sing as well as I can now. I could sing well enough, it was just a bit hard for me to get out the words without choking up.
"But I have no regrets about that performance because I got to meet a lot of beautiful people including Willner, Gary Lucas, Robert Quine and Richard Hell—who did the best thing of all at the tribute. Johnny Thunders had died the week before, so Hell did Chinese Rocks by the Heartbreakers. Nobody could fucking stand him doing that at a tribute for Tim Buckley, but I thought it was great."
After interning as the vocal muse in Gods and Monsters—an ongoing New York scene collaborative project run by magical Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas—and then backing the Commitments at premiere parties, Buckley decided to get out of the "gigmaster loop" and commit to a full-on band of his own.
"If you're a musician and you're not careful you can become a gig-master," he warns. "You rot in your apartment until you get hired for a gig and then you go back and wait for the next gig. The danger is that you only work for other people and never get out anything of your own.
"If you're a musician and you're not careful you can become a gig-master," he warns. "You rot in your apartment until you get hired for a gig and then you go back and wait for the next gig. The danger is that you only work for other people and never get out anything of your own.
Grunge death
"Then one day you end up in running shoes, sweat pants and a Zildjian T-shirt, listening to Nirvana on headphones while practising your Cobain chops for a new grunge band gig. That would be worse than death for me.
"So I got out of the loop by putting myself in a situation where only musicians who came to my shows and saw me for what I was would approach me."
As eccentric as Buckley can be alone on stage—sliding from Edith Piaf torch songs into lurching thrash overtures as easily as summoning up spot-on impressions of Chris Cornell or Buckley's idol, Sufi devotional singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan—it's surprising that he was able to find three musicians who could keep pace, much less want to.
But Buckley lucked out by going with friends of friends—guitarist Michael Tighe. drummer Matt Johnson and bassist Micky Grondahl.
"Micky and I sat down at my place," he says. "It was late in the evening so we had to play quietly. But you could hear his bass playing style was very elegant, strong and melodic. Not literal—more dada-like.
'Together we went to play with Matt, who was recommended to me by another friend, and every guitar idea I put out they would just natually close in on as the music happened. We composed the song Dream Brother that very first day.
"We did a few shows as a trio until I got my friend Michael, who'd never been in a band before, to play guitar with us. It's taken a year, but now we're a band and growing constantly. The sound is more orchestral, yet the whole approach is still as immediate and wild as a fucking garage rock band.
"I know the next album will be a very different kind of work—even more direct than Grace, but bigger in scope. If people were confounded by the range of the first album, they'll probably run to it as a safe haven in light of what's to come.
"I can see it now—'The amazing, beautiful disaster pastiche of Grace is totally lost in Buckley's newest work.' We haven't started recording it yet and already I'm bored with the reviews."
'Together we went to play with Matt, who was recommended to me by another friend, and every guitar idea I put out they would just natually close in on as the music happened. We composed the song Dream Brother that very first day.
"We did a few shows as a trio until I got my friend Michael, who'd never been in a band before, to play guitar with us. It's taken a year, but now we're a band and growing constantly. The sound is more orchestral, yet the whole approach is still as immediate and wild as a fucking garage rock band.
"I know the next album will be a very different kind of work—even more direct than Grace, but bigger in scope. If people were confounded by the range of the first album, they'll probably run to it as a safe haven in light of what's to come.
"I can see it now—'The amazing, beautiful disaster pastiche of Grace is totally lost in Buckley's newest work.' We haven't started recording it yet and already I'm bored with the reviews."
Effusive acclaim
For all the money that Sony sank into making Buckley's Grace album, and for all the effusive critical acclaim it has received since coming out two months ago, it hasn't exactly been tearing up the charts.
In fact, Grace hasn't yet registered on Billboard's Top 200. The album's obvious diversity and longish songs would never make it a radio staple even for adventurous stations. Maybe it's time to reevaluate the low-profile marketing strategy, at least where videos are concerned.
"There are no rules anymore." counters Buckley. "Pearl Jam has proven that you can sell millions of albums without doing a single video. I've done some research and I've seen video treatments of my songs, and directors can contrive to make an artist seem like anything at all.
"In spite of the music I've made, they could easily position me as the next Boyz I I Men or New Kids on the Block. Most of the treatments involve scenarios set 'in and around the streets of New York' and about seven out of 10 call for 'an ethereal young woman.' Not a lot has changed since the early Duran Duran videos.
"I'd like lo make videos that would encourage people to experience live shows instead of sitting at home getting sucked into their television. TV is a pretend world and videos are fiction. Music, for me at least, is not about fiction.
"But there is a revolution going on here and I can't ignore it. I wanted to but I can't. Still, my main focus will always be things that you go to see, feel and taste."
Talking with Buckley over the last few months, it's apparent that superstardom was never part of his plan. One step followed the next without any real plans beyond finding a place to sleep after the next gig. And for the time being, at least, that's fine by Buckley.
"I'm 27 years old. My youth is almost gone and I have no idea how the rest of my life is going to turn out. Anything could happen. Who knows. I might fall in love with a drug addict tomorrow and spend the rest of my life holding her up.
"So I'm not making any rash decisions about the future. I don't need to take over the world—I don't even need a car."
In fact, Grace hasn't yet registered on Billboard's Top 200. The album's obvious diversity and longish songs would never make it a radio staple even for adventurous stations. Maybe it's time to reevaluate the low-profile marketing strategy, at least where videos are concerned.
"There are no rules anymore." counters Buckley. "Pearl Jam has proven that you can sell millions of albums without doing a single video. I've done some research and I've seen video treatments of my songs, and directors can contrive to make an artist seem like anything at all.
"In spite of the music I've made, they could easily position me as the next Boyz I I Men or New Kids on the Block. Most of the treatments involve scenarios set 'in and around the streets of New York' and about seven out of 10 call for 'an ethereal young woman.' Not a lot has changed since the early Duran Duran videos.
"I'd like lo make videos that would encourage people to experience live shows instead of sitting at home getting sucked into their television. TV is a pretend world and videos are fiction. Music, for me at least, is not about fiction.
"But there is a revolution going on here and I can't ignore it. I wanted to but I can't. Still, my main focus will always be things that you go to see, feel and taste."
Talking with Buckley over the last few months, it's apparent that superstardom was never part of his plan. One step followed the next without any real plans beyond finding a place to sleep after the next gig. And for the time being, at least, that's fine by Buckley.
"I'm 27 years old. My youth is almost gone and I have no idea how the rest of my life is going to turn out. Anything could happen. Who knows. I might fall in love with a drug addict tomorrow and spend the rest of my life holding her up.
"So I'm not making any rash decisions about the future. I don't need to take over the world—I don't even need a car."
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