Jeff Buckley makes the song reflecting his soul

By PO TIDHOLM NOT FINISHED... IN PROGRESS. Jeff Buckley is little and restless. He taps beats on his knees and moves his eyes back and forth. When I ask him if he's the restless, rootless type he stops tapping and sadly looks at me. - It's a guest you can't get out of your body, he says. Jeff Buckley speaks with a poetic voice and enjoys the words he finds. Do you miss New York, Jeff? - No. . . New York is in my heart, always, he says. With emphasizes. He's 27 years old and the son of a dead rockstar, Tim Buckley, one of the 60's and the 70's most outstanding american folksingers. But you're not allowed to talk about him with Jeff Buckley, he doesn't think it matters who his father is. Jeff got to see Tim Buckley during the Easter holiday 1975, that's all. He wasn't even invited to his funeral. You easily come to speculate over the terms "heritage and environment" after listening to Jeff Buckley's debut, "Grace". He has inherited his father's incredible voice and his feeling for ???? and intonation. Lonely type of guy Music has always been close at hand for Jeff Buckley, who grew up in California in a family of hippies where the members of the family changed quite a lot. And his own rootlessness has roots. - Check out my family, huh, jews and catholics in a land without history, God meets Allah and there's nothing to lean against. And then comes the 60's and everybody starts to think the other way round and create their own religions. On top of that, we moved around all the time. - I'm a lonely type of guy, Jeff Buckley continues, somewhat calmer than earlier but nontheless pretentious. His bassplayer, Mick Grondahl, sits on the chair next to Jeff, from an angle facing me. He leans backwards and makes small subtle mines. Jeff doesn't notice. - It's stupid living by yourself but even more stupid dying on your own, he says. I love my friends so much but let them down all the time. I just disappear and show up and beg them on my bare knees to forgive me. If you were my friend I'd show up at your "soil" at five o'clock in the morning. That's me. Mick Grondahl sighs barely hearable from his chair, Jeff doesn't notice. I don't think I'm in a position to mention anything. What this is all about is a naive and undestroyed prodigy, an egocentrical artist that everybody lets "continue". Well, I was a little disappointed when I met Jeff Buckley, I had listened to "Grace" and felt that here, once and for all, we have an artist who's found focus, that radiates energy in a certain direction instead of letting it float out in every direction. Enjoys his position But, it turns out, as soon as he enters the scene at Gino a couple of hours later he reaches the truth in his own songs. His expression goes from jazz and folktradition to Led Zeppelin-rock. His good ideas has been taken care in the best way. Jeff Buckley twists and turns his songs until they become a mirror of his inner being. And a suffering and restless star is welcome to enter one's heart, but hardly the suffering and restless person. - I can be terribly mean to my friends, he says, I suspiciousless fool them around until, their eyes filled with tears, they beg me to stop. The New York humour can be so cold. Obviously, he enjoys his new position as the one everybody listens to. Jeff Buckley orders steemcooked vegetables during the interview and I ask him if he's a vegetarian and he says no but still he gives me a ten minute monologue to reply. As much as he loves his voice in the phone-d'athlee on stage he loves his spiritually verbal ???? at the dinertable. He's lucky he loves himself, that gives him his focus. Jeff Buckley does not have the distance. It gives him the possibility to draw his line as far as it is possible. Many offers Jeff Buckley left California 1991 to participate in a tribute concert for his late father. On his way to New York, he made up his mind, he thought he could as well move there. So he did, alone, without friends or contacts in the metropole. The tribute concert ironically became his way to musical success, and his musical carreer. He did a number of his father's, "I never asked to be your mountain", and of course there were lots of talk that Tim Buckley was back - in the shape of his son. Ironically because Jeff Buckley since then has refused to be connected with his father. But it was there all started, and he moved to live in the East Village, in downtown New York and began to perform at bars and cafés. After a year of ???? in front of a growing audience the limousines started rolling up in front of the bars and the scout of the record companies ???? by the ????. Jeff Buckley got lots of generous offers with money and fast carreers but turned them down for a long time. He eventually signed for Sony's label Columbia with the promise of a low profiled publicity and great freedom. Strong presence Det första steget togs i våras i form av en EP, inspelad på den irländska baren Sin-é. Den fångar Jeff Buckley med enbart en elektrisk gitarr, sjungandes på sitt stamställe inför femtio personer och var tänkt att ange klangen för hans artisteri. Jeff Buckley vill vara nära och del i en tradition och ett sammanhang. Nu har han ett band och spelar länge, länge med strak närvaro, vilket lockar fram närvaron även hos publiken. Lokalen krymper och Jeff sjunger a cappela med religiös övertygelse han hämtat hos idolen Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, den pakistanske folksångaren. - Jag älskar allt som har en själ, säger Jeff Buckley och räknar upp några namn. Bob Marley, Edith Piaf hinner jag uppfatta innan han går över i en hat-attack mot Roxette. - Religioner hatar jag också, men jag älskar fanatismen och närvaron hos utövarna. Religioner är så vackra i sig själva. Människan har lortat ned dem med sina uppfattningar. Om vi inte brydde oss så mycket skulle Gud kunna få köra sin bil och ha sex som han ville. Det är ju bara passion vi vill ha. Jeff Buckleys band är lyhört och sträcker ut musiken. Det är på samma gång lågmält och intensivt, de borde kunna göra filmmusik ihop. Dynamiken i Jeff Buckleys låtar skapar en episk stämning. Som extranummer kommer de ut och jammar, börjar med en reggae som blir något annat. Emellanåt håller Jeff små monologer. Han är en intellektuell amerikan. New national anthem - But I don't envy you europeans, like many others in my country. You are close to the art, the culture that I love but I don't feel at home here, he says. In the US there's everything, which includes a lot of shit. What's missing is unity. There's nothing that holds us together, that's why we have so much problems. I would like to write a new national anthem, throw the old one long way. It sounds like a fucking funeral marsch. - My national anthem would repeat the word "unity" over and over again and it would embody that word so that noone could sing it without meaning what came out. You would love it. Mick Grondahl laughs out loud from his chair and mimes the word "hybris" behind Jeff's back. But it doesn't ???? on him, he's got a vision. Mick is cool, he feels at home and tells me about his danish father. Jeff is a typical rootless 27 year old american. - The US will always be a young country. Like a child prodigy that doesn't understand its best, Jeff continues. - Like you then, Mick Grondahl says bearly hearable, but with great respect in his voice.