1975 Goldmine interview - Part Three

Goldmine: So how did the spacier direction of your music come about?

Tim Buckley: We were attempting to make, and did make, a contribution to the writing of a song. I did three albums in one month at that time; I did Blue Afternoon, Lorca and Starsailor. That was because of Jac selling the company; I had an obligation to him and also had to give an album to Warner Bros. at the same time. I liked it because in one way, I satisfied a desire to write songs for Blue Afternoon, varying types of songs, three of which I still do because they're some of my best songs.

When I went in to do Lorca, I decided right then it was time to break open something new because the voice with 5 1/2 octaves was certainly capable of coming up with something new. We were getting real tired of writing songs that adhered to the verse, verse, chorus things. It wasn't an intellectual exercise though; as a matter of fact, it was a thing that finally Miles did with In a Silent Way. It happened with the Fender Rhodes electric piano and using one bass line which kept the idea of key in mind. In Silent Way, Miles had a melody line that he played on a trumpet and I had a lyric and a melody that went through Lorca. To this day, you can't put it on at a party without stopping things; it doesn't fit it.

The real advance comes in Anonymous Proposition,"the song that comes after Lorca. It deals with a ballad in a totally personal, physical presentation, to cut away the nonsense, the superficial stuff. It has to be done slowly; it has take five or six minutes; it has to be a movement. It has to hold you there and make you aware that someone is telling you something about himself in the dark. That's what music is all about on record. It is very personal; there's no other way to deal with it. There are certain things that great singers have to deal with; it's their duty to.

Then with Starsailor, we decided that, now that we're good at this, we'll present a new way of writing a song. On the first side of the album, we do songs in the traditional sense. They are free but there are certain moments of rhythm, certain moments of letting it drift. It's all got lyrics and melody. I Woke Up is the one I remember a lot off that album; Song To The Siren was a terrific song, one that was more conventional.

But then there were the cuts Starsailor and Healing Festival. The intro to Healing Festival is about Harlem; I overdubbed all the voices. I overdubbed 16 voices on Starsailor. It's the first album that I overdubbed on or had anyone overdub on. I figured if we were going to do overdubs, I'd do 'em; that was a lot of fun. It's okay for musicians to do that but when a singer does that, he betrays a trust, the image of a vocalist. Its getting more away from that now because people are using their voices for different things but when those were done, it was almost sacrilegious.

"With all the pretext of freedom of speech in this country, we go through more shit to get heard, for the real world, to get out to people. Not the surface, not the facade, not the fake creativity, not the decadence that is constantly flaunted in our faces by the media, but the real thing..."

Goldmine: Was there much of a reaction from the jazz community?

Tim Buckley: No, 'cause I'm white. That's if there is a jazz community; it's become more continental and Miles Davis is the reason for that. Music is not as territorial as it used to be.

Goldmine: It was almost like a jazz quintet.

Tim Buckley: It was a lot of fun. I've got some tapes; it was fun to listen to, too. It was pretty adventurous because a singer hadn't done it. You'd hear trumpets and saxophones explore and it was okay, but never a voice. You have to come up with lyrics; you can't just babble on. Instantaneously writing a lyric and have it make sense with something is very hard. I can't do a chant because that's not part of where I'm from; for Leon Thomas it is. In a lot of ways, it really was folk music; I'll always define that as folk music if a voice is involved. You're still trying to relate something but to relate out of a more holocaustal environment.

Goldmine: What happened with the changing of bands after the Starsailor period?

Tim Buckley: I was stopped by Warner Bros. saying, "Please! No more!" (laughs). I didn't fight it much at the time because I had pretty much exhausted that syndrome. It kind of refreshed me to come back to writing more lyrical oriented songs. I bear no malice towards Warner Bros at all; they helped me get out of these contracts. But I can't be with such a metropolis; it's like a plastic factory. It takes a lot of impetus to break something new in one respect, the music, and old in another, the artist. But they got used to me changing; in fact, they looked forward to it.

Now since I've gone with Greetings From L.A. the response is almost greater than before. All the vocal things I do now are in a rhythm and a presentation that is immediately recognizable in a lot of ways and unique in others because music has grown. Jazz has merged with rock, with Latin, etc., and everything has come under the heading of rock. With Greetings From L.A., I brought in the technique of talking in tongues, which is very religious, out of the Holly Roller thing and very much American, a part of the country. Words lose their meanings after awhile and in a lot of ways, word are just preliminaries to the real thing in music.

Goldmine: Was the move to a new band an attempt to reach more people?

Tim Buckley: It wasn't a compromise, if that's what you mean; it wasn't a commercialization. As a matter of fact, the songs are probably more controversial because they are more sexual than the political ones. When I get on the radio stations across the United States and Get On Top Of Me, Woman or something like that is played, there is a huge furor.

Goldmine: I wondered how much airplay tunes like that get.

Tim Buckley: Some, on FM of course. AM can't sell soap with that.

Goldmine: May I assume that the style of what you are doing is not as important as the content?

Tim Buckley: Right. The style is merely a vehicle for my popular type of music writing. I haven't turned my back on my Starsailor period; I still write things that have been spawned out of that period but I just realized that it's more classically avant-garde. Ultimately, I would love to secure a record deal that could give me a classical contract and also a commercial contract; that's basically what I'm seeking. I really need the outlet for my classical music. It involves choirs and different stories, just a better platform for my voice and my writing. I would love to be able to merge them monetarily successfully but it's a little bleak in '75 because the big phenomenon is paranoia.

I remember when I took my Starsailor band to New York City. Leontyne Price came to see me. She came up and said, "Boy, I wish they were writing things like that for us opera singers." And I said, "Well, do what I did; get your own band." It was a little off-the-cuff comment but really, it's hard to teach classical people how to relate to each other, in the sense of somebody playing a lick and somebody catching it and playing it back. Now there are a lot of people who respect that they can read and play terrifically and depend on the composer but that way of doing things is becoming more and more obsolete because the composer is dead and he's not there to argue with the orchestra or the conductor.

So I'm telling opera singers that they're really lazy because they are not using their voices to the fullest extent. They haven't played the road like I have or Leon Thomas has; they haven't related to the common people. They've been playing basically for cocktail parties, so they don't know what the hell music is about in America.

They are constantly being told what to do and you don't learn that way; you learn by messing yourself up. The little successes here and there that you pick up, that's how you learn. I take my hat off to Cathy Berberian for sticking her neck out because you get no encouragement whatsoever. As long as she sticks with Luciano Berio, sooner or later, they'll know what to do. Carla Bley is a perfect example. Now she's getting together with Jack Bruce. It may fall apart (it did) but what the hell, go to it; it has my applause.

... and the ... taken by the artist, not by the record company because it will not move from what it's making its money on. And so the artist faces the proposition of becoming another renegade, running on the outskirts of what society loves and how he knows he can make his living. It takes the very best to do this, to take a new voyage, a new exploration. I mean, that's all there is. We've been to the moon; we've traveled across the deserts. We've come to California, rubbed up against each other and been bored shitless for the past 20 years. California: where a sucker is born every minute and can live forever (laughs). And these new explorations have to be done through personal contacts with people.

Goldmine: Speaking of people, are you still doing any work with Emmett Chapman, the inventor of the Stick?

Tim Buckley: That's in limbo for the time being, until I get a classical contract. Chapman is an amazing force. He's a musician that invented an instrument that works and that's pretty rare. We worked together for about eight months and it was terrific to a point. He fits into a segment of the classical things I've written, along with a choir of my own voice. These things are just different innovations that aren't displeasing to the ear, they're just odd. Anything that doesn't have a four-four bass line and a backbeat, fatback, is odd. That's why it's classical; it doesn't have a beat (laughs).

Goldmine: Are these classical things written out in manuscript or on tape or in your head or what?

Tim Buckley: All three, in fact. The ones that are in my head are obviously the choral things. Beckett and I have one thing written based on Joseph Conrad's book Outcast of the Islands. We wrote different songs for each of the eight characters and by the end of the eight songs, you understand the whole story. So it's not like a song cycle; it's quite an ambitious endeavor on Beckett's part. That would be one of the things I'd love to work on before the decade's out. These are not things that are going to be done by anybody else; I've reached that point in music where I don't fear that.

Goldmine: I don't recall that ever being a problem (laughs).

Tim Buckley: It used to bother me. I would write something and say, "I've got to get it into the studio, to get it out."

Goldmine: Somehow, I can't see hordes of bands waiting to try to beat Tim Buckley to the punch.

Tim Buckley: No, it's not commercially profitable. There are things though, that they lift and that's cool. I saw a guy in Texas try to yodel and it was great.

Goldmine: Did it work?

Tim Buckley: To Proud Mary? (cracking up). No, it didn't work. Obviously, he didn't understand the concept or the theory.

Goldmine: What do you think about the European system of subsidies for artists?

Tim Buckley: I would love to have the menial things taken care of but there is something about the fight, the American spirit. I just know that I couldn't create in any other country 'cause this is for the connoisseur to figure out. It makes for a more vital expression when it finally comes out. Our credentials in America hold up against anybody's in the world.

Because with all the pretext of freedom of speech in this country, we go through more shit to get heard, for the real world, to get out to people. Not the surface, not the facade, not the fake creativity, not the decadence that is constantly flaunted in our faces by the media, but the real thing. When an artist finally comes through all this mess, you hear a pure voice and it's American. And Europe can't touch it.

Goldmine: Do most Americans hear those voices though?

Tim Buckley: We're in the habit of emulating those pure voices when they're dead, reading about 'em in history books. The classic example is Lenny Bruce. It's at a safe distance; he doesn't have to be interviewed so you don't have to take his scorn. You don't have to come into contact with him so you don't have to be made a jerk in front of him or anything like that because you're running a big risk coming in front of people like that. Anybody is. It's hard for people to come backstage to meet somebody, Oh, there are pros at it but when somebody comes back that truly wants to meet you and has really been touched by what you're doing, it's real hard for 'em.

Goldmine: If you're touched by someone's art, you tend to place them above you somehow.

Tim Buckley: The funny thing is, the more someone has touched you, the more basic and day-to-day the guy is. I've never seen it fail. He's usually a pretty average cat because that's where he got it from the people.