Grace Under Pressure

The Herald-Sun, December 9, 1994

Story by Melanie Credle

  Listening to Jeff Buckley's debut album "Grace," certain words come to mind: emotional,  intense, moody, dreamy-talented.

  Speaking to Jeff Buckley, those same words come to mind.

  Buckley is riding a wave of critical Hosannas because of "Grace," and before that, a four-song EP that helped to contribute to an already hot as a New York City club and coffeehouse performer.

  Another common thread in any press clippings about Buckley is his heritage-his father is the late folk singer Tim Buckley, whose debut album was released in 1966 when he was 19. Tim Buckley's music drew early comparisons to Bob Dylan. Buckley died of a drug overdose in 1975. Jeff Buckley met his father only once when he was eight and that was shortly before he died.

  Not only does Jeff Buckley have his father's good looks, but if the music books are right and you're not old enough to remember Tim Buckley, Jeff possesses a similar, striking voice. Jeff Buckley's voice is like a rollercoaster, fiery and raging at at one turn, sensitive and aching at another. Sometimes you can't be sure if it's Buckley singing on the album because he doesn't sound like he did on the previous song.

  If the voice doesn't get you, the realization that you can't categorize this man's music will. It's too easy to lump Buckley into a rock grouping. On "Grace," you hear not only rock, but jazz, pop and folk. From "Grace," Buckley sounds like a choir boy singing an ancient hymn on "Corpus Christi Carol," then rocks with punk fury on "Eternal Life."

  "If a guy took like four minutes of pure thought and listening, he'd come up with quite a few other [influences]," Buckley said during a recent telephone interview.

  "I think we do kind of an emotional hard core. It's just American music really. If a true blues man came up to my stand  and said, 'you're playing the blues,' I'd say 'Thank you.' And the only reason he'd say that is because we speak of our life when we're on the stage, from the heart and the seat of the pants. We're just brewing this thing up as we go along."

  Buckley grew up in Southern California. His mother had a brief teen-age marriage to her high school sweetheart, Tim Buckley. Buckley credits his mother and stepfather for their musical influence, not his absent father.

  "I always pursued music. I didn't pursue the music business," Buckley said.

  He played in a series of bands, but he determined his future rested in New York City, not Southern California.

  "There's not the same reverence for originality in Southern California," he said. "It can be a very superficial place. It always has been and always will be."

  As Buckley developed a following at Manhattan clubs, specifically Café Sin-é in the East Village, he discovered a way to deal with noisy audiences who weren't always tuned into who's on stage.

  "If there are any disturbances, I learned not to resist it," he said. "I can't help it if two people who have not seen each other in five years are at my show."

   Despite his cynicism for the music business, when Buckley finally decided to sign with a record company it wasn't with an obscure label, but a major player-Columbia /Sony. He said there was one reason for his decision, A&R (artists and repertoire) representative Steve Berkowitz.

  "It was just who he was and what he was and the behavior he exhibited," Buckley saud. "There's not a book that tells you where to go."

  "Even if I had this crappy, disgusting deal that sucked the blood out of me, I'd still be happiest with the people at Sony. I only work with five people there."

  When Buckley headed into the studio to make "Grace," he had another major player behind the boards, producer Andy Wallace who has worked with Soul Asylum, Nirvana and Guns N' Roses.

  "I was probably spoiled by [Wallace] because he was so quick. He's tireless with amazing energy. He's intense, pure focus," he said.

  "For a person like me who is very stream-of-consciousness, I would have done things much differently. I'd originally hoped to record the whole thing live."

  Buckley viewed the making of "Grace" as an opportunity for his band to gel. Of  late, he'd been a solo performer, but he wanted to find "the ultimate band situation." Buckley hooked up with Mick Grondahl (bass), Matt Johnson (drums), and Michael Tighe (guitar).

  "'Grace' probably starts the basics of what our musical life will be. We brought ourselves through all the different material and painted it on magnetic tape," he said.

  Although Buckley write or co-wrote seven of the 10 tracks on "Grace," he'd like the next album to have more originals. He also chose for "Grace" Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and the jazz standard "Lilac Wine."

  "I felt the need to link myself to my work in the past. I'm an irrepressible amateur DJ. I thought the sequence would work," Buckley said about the songs on the album.

  Massive touring has been Buckley's modus operandi lately. Due to time constraints, he tries to write when he can and always carries a notepad and tape recorder with him.

  With such an intense, emotional album, Jeff Buckley fans might have an idea of how they think the singer is in person. If they do, it's out of his hands.

  "There's nothing you can do about it. People must think Tori Amos is [a certain] way because her music introspective and shameless. She's probably a pretty normal person," he said.

  And is Jeff Buckley pretty normal?

  "I'm all right. I wouldn't want to live with me."

  Jeff Buckley performs Saturday at The Brewery, 3009 Hillsborough St., Raleigh. $5 at the door. 834-7018