... in Words: Interviews

"A Few Thoughts on the Passing of Jeff Buckley," by Jonathan Alley

This interview was originally aired in August, 1995, by RRR Radio, and was later published on their web site in 1997

        There is no justice. Michael Bolton will live to be 85.

        No booze, drugs, shotguns, jealous relatives or crazed assassins, just a humble pair of boots - took a truly gifted soul from us. The superlatives on Jeff Buckley have all been paraded and the glowing eulogies and 'could have been, never will be' newspaper copy is already yellowing.

        Simply, he could sing. In these verse, chorus, verse, loud/soft/loud 90s, Jeff Buckley sang genuinely original and exciting melodies, around simple (but clever) song structures - with that voice. That voice so deeply echoing his father's, the father he had distanced himself from so emphatically; from the father that couldn't be a father who passed to his son, his voice.

        Cast your mind back to a RRR live-to-air in August, 1995 - a rainy Melbourne August; after Buckley curses the rain ("damn the precipitation") the band are lit from behind by large gas heaters that cast an eerie glow through the drizzle.

        It's brilliant, and inevitably romantic. And that's the worst thing - I abhor mythologising and romanticising anyone, musician or no - but a talent such as Jeff Buckley's, dashed so swiftly, we can do little else but sigh and listen to the music.

Jeff Buckley on RRR -- Interviewed by Stephen Walker (SJW)

        August 31, 1995 was a cold, windy and wet day in Melbourne, but for the fortunate few who braved these conditions above Triple R at The Roof Top Cafe to witness a stirring half hour live-to-air performance from Jeff Buckley it will remain a very warm memory. Before taking to stage under a leaky hastily erected tarpaulin Jeff Buckley popped down to the RRR studios for a chat on The Skull Cave with the Ghost, Stephen Walker. What follows is a precise transcript of that interview which sees Buckley, a man famous for agitatedly walking out on interviews, gradually open up and speak frankly about his life, his music and his inspirations. Contractual obligations forbid RRR from replaying the live-to-air performance, but at least in these words we can remember that moment and that beautiful man.

        SJW: Hello to Jeff Buckley.
        JB: Hi there.

        SJW: Welcome.
        JB: Thank-you.

        SJW: Fresh from the Rooftop?
        JB: Yeah.

        SJW: How was it up there?
        JB: Cold.

        SJW: Cold. Do you do many of those, shall we say, out of the normal gigs on your touring dates?
        JB: Um, yeah. I mean, they're classified in the 'in-store' category of gigs. You know, you go into a record store... It's weird, 'cause it's actually purely promotional, and it's kind of a dog and pony show.

        SJW: Although you do get closer to your fans, I imagine...
        JB: That's the whole thing. I mean, they're designed as a promotional thing, but really, what happens is, uh, you're basically in a small club, like, really, really small.

        SJW: Do you like it?
        JB: Yeah. we love doing those. We love doing them.

        SJW: So, do we find you as part of this sort of, 'Jeff Buckley Conquers The World Tour', is the beginning, the end, the middle - where do we find you in terms of your touring regime?
        JB: Um, this is the end, and the world is not about to be conquered by me, that's for sure.

        SJW: Maybe you put a dent in it. Maybe.
        JB: Took a bite out of it, grraw, grrrrraaw (biting noises)

        SJW: From what I know of your childhood, you had a very transient childhood where music was the constant factor...
        JB: That's the way my adulthood is now!

        SJW: ...That's what I was thinking, you're having a second childhood really! You must be used to this kind of moving around and having music as the touchstone.
        JB: Yeah...well, you know, you hang on to anything you can; people hang on to books sometimes, if you're in that kind of life, if you're an army brat, just moving all the time.

        SJW: So when did music happen for you? When did your sense of yourself as a musician develop?
        JB: Ohh, hmmm,.... probably... two years ago.

        SJW: So were there other career options prior to that which were presented to you?
        JB: No, just, er..... no. (snorts) I was just scuffling.

        SJW: It was always going to be music, was it?
        JB: Yeah, just by default, really. I didn't really identify with anything else.

        SJW: Right. Now, the band you've got out here, is it the same band that played on the album?
        JB: Yep.

        SJW: And they were pretty last minute, I believe you actually had the studio booked for the first full-length album and you didn't actually have a band to do it with.
        JB: Yeah, I'm a flake.

        SJW: (laughs) Last minute stuff?
        JB: Yeah. But sometimes it comes in handy, 'cause flakes are good at letting things happen naturally, even if they're disasters, complete disasters.

        SJW: So how'd you come across these guys?
        JB: They came across me. That's what I was hoping to achieve by playing solo for that small period, and that was about maybe two years, two and a half years. And I just figured that, it's my standard answer to this question, it's like, above,... it, it works better if you just play out in places where people go to attract your band than to put ads in the paper, or to put it on the wire that you're looking for a band, 'cause then, I dunno, it just takes too long. You have to sort through people, and that's not really... it's time-consuming, time wasting.

        SJW: After the solo work, I imagine working with a band would be both liberating and constraining at the same time?
        JB: Mmmm,... it's only as constraining as your powers of communication. If the chemistry is there, then it's pretty much cool, and we've got really good chemistry.

        SJW: But instead of just playing, and playing the songs as you've heard them in your head, or you want to explore them on stage, instead you've got to communicate that to a bunch of other people, so I guess communication is the essential, isn't it?
        JB: Yeah, but you know, you just... yeah. It doesn't have to be verbal, though. like, we... if I go someplace, there's no choice but to follow, if they go someplace, there's no choice but me to fit in. It's a push and pull. But yeah, you know, like on the way to a gig in the van, or over a coffee table, maybe we'll just blurt on endlessly about it: "Whadda ya mean?", "Whadda ya want to do?" "What do you hear?"

        SJW: Mmm. Now you recorded that album at Bearsville, which is from my understanding a rural kind of situation for a recording, which has been the birthplace for some great records and has been the sort of gestation period for a lot of great performers. What attracted you to Bearsville?
        JB: I just took some advice from a friend, to go up there. I said, okay.

        SJW: What about the playoff between recording and live? I imagine that, from hearing your work, that the emotional freeing up that you try and put in to your material live, it would be very different having to do take after take of a particular song and try and achieve that moment, to try and reach into that place in yourself with that material, a very different situation from live. How do you find the comparison of the two, perhaps?
        JB: There's really no difference between... those processes, if you do it right in the studio. All the basic tracks are live. You know, the way we worked is, you do a take, and you make that, "This is it!", you know, you make that as deep as possible. And then you do the next one, do the next one, and then you pick. You just choose. So, when you're... making music, really, it's just a different process. I mean, even the overdubs can be spontaneous. I mean, we're talking onto a tape right now, we're sort of laying sounds on that plastic stuff there, but we won't be able to take it again, this is it. (laughs) That's totally lame. But you know what I'm trying to say.

        SJW: Yeah, that there's a magic in the moment.
        JB: Yeah, and that's what tape is for, that's what CDs are for, is to capture that moment, capture several moments and then squish 'em together, and you can play 'em over and over again.

        SJW: But it puts the pressure on you, doesn't it?
        JB: Yeah, well, I've got pressure in my head every time.

        SJW: I mean, to access that emotion, emotions can be very elusive, they can be there one minute and gone the next. To be able to get to that place in yourself, when you're singing those words, trying to get to that point time and time again is a little bit different to that one moment on a stage.
        JB: Yeah, but you also have many one moments on stages. Many one moments. It's not that different to... it's the same music-making mechanism, the same music-making person that's in the studio as opposed to the stage... you could be layering, you could be... it's basically, you're choosing the best moments out of an eight-week period and putting them on CD, so it's not that hard.

        SJW: So your first EP was live in order to, was that a budgetary thing, or was that in order to sort of do that, to be able to actually just have that moment captured very raw?
        JB: Um... it was, er, I just love that place I've had a lot of nice evenings there, and I thought it'd be a nice love-note. And a good way to start it off, you know. Not too much, not too little, just an EP.

        SJW: Well, that EP contained a cover of a Van Morrison song and it interested me not so much because of any similarity between you and Van's voice, but Van seems to get in this reverie with his music very often, he seems to abandon himself to the material in an incredibly magical way, and I thought in a way you including that track on your EP was almost like a declaration that that was what you were trying to access, you were trying to reach those moments, those transcendent moments for you and create them for the audience as well, that Van seems to be able to do almost constantly.
        JB: Mmm.....thank you.

        SJW: Too out-there, that question?
        JB: No, no, it's just that... I don't really think about transcending anything. It's, it's...ask your usual, regular guy on the street, he probably won't think that's transcendent at all. But what I am trying to do is just sing what comes to my body in the context of the song. And if you go by the emotion of the song, you know, it's almost like stepping into a city. You know, cities have certain customs and rules and laws and laws you can break, and that's what I was doing.

        SJW: Has this always come naturally to you, or do you have a certain almost yoga, that you can put your head in that place where you're able to do that, or is it just been something that's happened for you?
        JB: No, I don't really have any practiced middle-eastern body-mind discipline,... but music carries its own discipline that sort of moulds you. It partly... it's just like The Force: (does bad Alec Guiness impression) it partly obeys your commands, but it partly controls you, Luke.

        SJW: Because even though with your voice you sort of soar and swoop with the material, very often what comes across though is, you having a very still point within that, even though the music might be churning and your voice is soaring, really, it's that still point in you, that you're reaching that moment.
        JB: That still point is the thing that rides,... that rides the rhythm throughout the whole song, so you don't lose the groove, you don't lose the feeling, you don't lose the rhythm. Then yeah, if you have a still centre, a steady centre, you can do any move you like, as long as it fits. Sometimes it doesn't fit. (laughs)

        SJW: Your voice is an instrument; I mean, Eric Clapton said that he learnt more from saxophone players than guitarists in terms of their freeing up and the way they could approach their material. Very often you seem to use your voice and abandon the literal meaning of the lyrics and just create, it's almost like a word-instrument that you're creating on your tracks.
        JB: Everybody's voice is, though. I mean, have you ever, I don't know, pick out,... just pick a word, like the word arm. Say it over and over again, arm, arm, arm. It's a really old children's trick, that you say this word over and over again. That means a part of your body, it means something, right? But after a while, it's just this phonetic gibberish, all language, you know; and after a while we've been raised with its meaning and raised with its purpose but... really, if you analyze it, or if you meditated on it long enough, it gets to be... it loses its meaning. It takes on other meanings. It's elastic. So, yeah, I'm aware of that.

        SJW: So what about the process of writing? Are you able, for instance, to write while you're on tour? Does the muse come to you?
        JB: Oh, I write very poorly on the road, but... because there's more of a uniform life and usually when I'm at home it's a lot more human, more wild, and so it's easier to write things that stick, or to write things that... you know, I need a clear head in order to put music down into a note book if I'm daydreaming.

        SJW: Is it easy?
        JB: (pause) It just is. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's always easy, 'cause it's always what I want to say. But it's not always great. It's not always even good. It's not always usable. But I... you know, it's mine.

        SJW: You've done a couple of cover versions on records, Alex Chilton, Leonard Cohen, although I guess really John Cale's version of that song, and Van Morrison. All those performers have a very reclusive, eccentric thing about them, don't they, I mean, they're not people that have done anything by the book.
        JB: Mmm,... no

        SJW: ...playing the rock 'n' roll star game at all?
        JB: I'm sure that they have, though - otherwise they wouldn't be so reclusive. Um, yeah. What about it?

        SJW: I just thought that it's an interesting bunch of songwriters, to be attracted to their material, because you are a very prolific writer yourself...
        JB: I'm not, I'm not really.

        SJW: Aren't you?
        JB: No. I'm a horrible laze-about, terribly undisciplined.

        SJW: That surprises me, because I had the impression from your records and just the bits and pieces that I've read about you that music was the preeminent thing in your life.
        JB: It is, but that doesn't always mean that I come up with good songs. I'll come up with half a song, hate it... I'm also terribly self-critical, so it takes a long time. But ah, I've been touring for the past two years, so prolific wouldn't apply to me at all. Maybe if I have some time alone.

        SJW: What does this say about the next album? It'll be a while, or there's material there, or...?
        JB: Nah... I guess it'll be a while. I really don't feel it, but it will be. I have all kinds of things gathering round in my brain, but next year, definitely. These things are sort of issuing up in me. Just gotta get 'em out.

        SJW: So when you're off the road, what's Jeff Buckley Do? Where do you hang your hat and call it home?
        JB: New York.

        SJW: New York. And what, do you just goof off, do what everybody does, no death-defying kind of sports or whatever?
        JB: No, you mean like do I bungee-jump or whatever?

        SJW: Yeah, that sort of stuff.
        JB: No, I just do what you do.

        SJW: I guess that makes it real, doesn't it?
        JB: Yeah, I don't know, there's a tremendous amount of energy that goes in to living an ordinary life,...from which all other things about your life come. Just, relationships with people you care about, or your enemies, or, you know, strangers, or people who claim to be your friends and lie, or people who... you know, all kinds of things. So, that's enough.

        SJW: You're in Australia now - are you aware of many Australian musicians? Nick Cave, have you heard of him?
        JB: Oh sure, of course.

        SJW: Yeah, he comes from this town, this is home town. Any other performers that you're aware of here?
        JB: Well, in the States everybody's aware of... actually, nobody, hardly, in comparison... nobody really knows about Nick Cave. People know more about Nick and the Bad Seeds than the Birthday Party.

        SJW: Are you a fan of those works?
        JB: Yeah, and of the Bad Seeds. But people mostly know about AC/DC, Men At Work, Air Supply, Olivia Newton-John,...

        SJW: Please, please, please...
        JB: ...Rick Springfield,...

        SJW: Yes, Little River Band, Men At Work, yes, please, we love that shit...
        JB: We don't (laughs)

        SJW: Actually, Silverchair have been doing big things while you've been out of America, who are a young rock band, and they've been huge here and it looks as though they're doing the same thing over there.
        JB: Good... is that the band with the cute blonde-haired kid?

        SJW: Yeah. Not bad stuff?
        JB: Sounds like... what's happening.

        SJW: Yeah, sounds like, that's right. What about big festivals, have you done any big outdoor venues, any large stadium-rock things?
        JB: No.

        SJW: Have you been asked?
        JB: Yeah. Big Day Out, at the top of the year. But to date, I don't even know if anybody knows they're going or not, I don't know if I'm going, but I'd like to. I mean, I'd love to. But you know, nobody's really cinched up for the lineup, it's kind of in the air.

        SJW: It's a perhaps, then?
        JB: Yeah.

        SJW: What is definite though is that Jeff Buckley is about to take the stage at the Rooftop Cafe at 3RRR, and be live-to-air here at 102.7, so Jeff, thanks for coming in to have a chat with us.
        JB: Thank you.

Thanks	Links	In Words	JB A-to-Z	Site Changes

Copyright ©1998, 1999 Russ Fuller <kfak@attbi.com>. All rights reserved. Reproduction of all or any part of this site is prohibited except for personal, non-commercial use. Redistribution or publication, regardless of media, is prohibited without prior written authorization. Third party material copyrights are as indicated.

A Kingdom For A Kiss