"He could have literally been doing anything, musically, that he wanted to do. And I would think of it like I would think of it like Jimi Hendrix, where theres no real way to predict it, because he could have done anything. He had a way of playing the most beautiful songs youve ever heard and singing them, and still with the way that he sang, create a bit of an uncomfortable edge to it if he felt like it. And he did that mostly with his voice."
Jeffrey Scott Buckley was an American musician. After a decade as a session guitarist in Los Angeles, he attracted a following in the early 1990s performing at venues in the East Village, Manhattan. He signed with Columbia and released his only studio album, Grace, in 1994. Buckley toured extensively to promote Grace, with concerts in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia.
"Everything I ever projected to be, it was—even the stinky, ratty, vomity part of it. Everybody has to do the subway. Everybody has to smell the same smells. And people get mad all the time. When people don’t like something, like ‘Get out of my way you blah, blah, blah.’ But [in L.A.] it’s like, ‘How ya doing? Let’s do lunch! I love you!’"
Jeff Buckley"RR: Whenever Ive seen you play here in New York at or Fez, people sit there mesmerized. JB: People werent into it at first. I had to fight to be heard. Then I had to stop fighting. Whole months would go by where people would just be talking. I even got a headache from a performance one time. RR: What changed? JB: I learned how to use everything in the room as the music. A tune has to resonate with whatever is happening around it. So if people are talking, I let them talk. That just means theyre part of the music. I even had to learn the noise the dishwasher makes at this little cafe; I had to play in B-flat, or it wouldnt sound right. RR: I want to talk about another Michael. I read a review that compared your recent EP, , with Michael Boltons new record. JB: Oh, my God! Oh, shit, thats really disgusting! RR: It gets worse. They said he has succeeded in taking from the tradition of African American soul and blues singers in a way that you have miserably failed. JB: Really? But the thing is, Im not taking from that tradition. I dont want to be black. Michael Bolton desperately wants to be black, black, black. He also sucks."
Jeff Buckley"Dr. Drew: What will you remember most about the 90s? Sebastian Bach: The album Grace by Jeff Buckley. Unless youve heard it, you wouldnt know why. Dr. Drew: Whats your favorite album for a night of steamy monkey love? Sebastian Bach: Jeff Buckleys Grace is the most romantic, sensual album Ive heard in my life."
Jeff Buckley"AV: You grew up in , what was that like? JB: From womb to tomb, its thug country. Im amazed that I had any friends at all. People grow up repressed from the spirit, day by day by day. Cable TV, its fucked. Its misogyny, its birth, death, work, its misery, its power. Its fuckin hicks. And thats what I grew up with. I was rootless trailer trash. Now I prefer the to any place on the planet. I can be who I am here. I couldnt do it anyplace I lived as a child. I never fit in , even though my roots are there."
Jeff Buckley"and and , all dark, all romantic. When I say "romantic," I mean a sensibility that sees everything, and has to express everything, and still doesnt know what the fuck it is, it hurts that bad. It just madly tries to speak whatever it feels, and that can mean vast things. That sort of mentality can turn a sun-kissed orange into a flaming meteorite, and make it sound like that in a song."
Jeff Buckley"He tapped into something...and he was the conduit...and it makes me think of this: where does art come from; where does a true genius come from?"
Jeff Buckley