Alternative Rock Singers

"We're like a really nice drink. We help people get through the day--we make life a little sunnier. I don't think we have any profound effect. If anybody has had a profound effect, it's The Beatles, and their effect is still minimal. There are things in the world way more important than music. Family is 50 times more important than music."

"My mother came to a Smashing Pumpkins gig once, and I was wearing a dress. She was very upset. She said, 'Everyone's gonna think you're a fag.' I said,'Well, they already think I'm an asshole.'"

"Music is 99% of my life. But I know I need a break. Besides, if you give people too much, they start to not want it. We need to restrain ourselves."

"Actually, I was having dinner with Michael (Stipe, of R.E.M.) when our second album went platinum, which up until that point was the highest success we'd ever had. And he turned to me during dinner and said, 'Welcome to the deep waters, kid.' I'll never forget that."

"About six months ago, I listened to Siamese Dream. That was the first time I'd ever really heard my own album, because I had separated from the experience of making the record. And it really moved me. It made me cry, it's so beautiful."

"The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too."

"I'm Irish and I was born on St. Patrick's Day. I'm lucky sevens."

"There's a really a cold, cold side to my personality that I'm not really comfortable with. I'm constantly dealing with that side of my personality versus my overly sentimental side… There's just a side that's a real motherfucker side; it's nothing I want to admit or even look at. It's where a lot of my strength lies. It's been the part of me that's been able to steel my spine against situations that probably would have broken a lot of people, or caused them to jump off the loop."

"It's about the girlfriend who left me last year. I tried to put all my anger in those words, even though I'm just as much to blame for the break-up. 'Soma' is based on the idea that a love relationship is almost the same as opium: it slowly puts you to sleep, it soothes you, and gives you the illusion of sureness and security. Very deceivable."

"People always called The Cure gloomy, but listening to The Cure made me happy. There was something about the gloominess that gave me comfort, and I think we're the same way."

"...Instead of taking the 'I'm cool, I hope you adore me' path (with my music), I chose the path of how to connect. I think that's the reason a lot of people feel a deeper connection with our band than other bands, and I also feel that's why people polarize on us. If you don't get it, it seems preposterous; if you do get it, it's really heavy -- it has a weight to it."

"For a 6-foot-3 guy with no hair and a whiny voice, I've done all right."

"Life is everything and nothing all at once."

"I get more out of life just being myself, by just being a human being. Not by being a rock star, not by being whatever. Sometimes I act like a jerk, but I think people respect me for being myself. That's the ultimate thing about the Smashing Pumpkins."

"I’m trying to figure out how to take the instrument and have it still sound like a guitar, but put you in a different universe."

"There's an undercurrent to his music. There's something you can't pinpoint, like the best of films or the best of art, there's something going on underneath, and there's a truth there, and I find his stuff absolutely haunting. It's just...it's under my skin."

"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?"

"Yeah, I found him because, it was actually my wife had him ― had the disc, had him ― she wishes...had the disc, and it came on one night, and you hear that opening tune of Mojo Pin ― it's that real soft, that haunting thing off in the distance ― and I remember asking, "what is that?" She says, "that's Jeff Buckley." Where have I been? Do I know nothing? And since then it's just been a bit of an obsession, I guess."

"I just love his spirit, and his whole energy, and I also love when men use their voice so unselfconsciously, and just really...feminine, masculine, all over the place. And he just, um...he was, and is, my favourite."

"Never heard such a range, and such a purity. When he would place one note next to the other, you could actually see its kind of roundness."

"I saw my favorite bands, Rage Against the Machine, ten years ago also, Jeff Buckley, in '94, so as well I learned a lot about music through coming to this festival, so it means lot to me taking chance to headlining here."

"I'm here because I adore his spirit, and I adore him, and the place from which he creates."

"I don't hear that many current records that really change my life. I've found it in Jeff Buckley, and I find it in Björk, on occasion."

"He was just really spontaneous, and it was just exciting. I was having a hard time in the band I was in, and so to meet Jeffrey was just like being given a set of paints. Do you know what I mean? It was just like I had all this colour in my life again. I mean, he idolized me before he met me. It's kind of creepy and I, I was like that with him. This is embarrassing, but it's the truth. I just couldn't help falling in love with him. He was adorable. I read his diaries, he read mine, you know we'd just swap, we'd literally just hand over this very personal stuff, and I've never done that with anybody else. I don't know if he has. So in some ways it was very, there was a great deal of intimacy but then there'd be times when I'd just think "oh no, I'm just not penetrating this Jeff Buckley boy at all. I just felt like a groupie or something, sometimes. It wasn't like being his partner at all. He just had something you wanted, it didn't matter who you were."

"I wanted to fuse together my favorite elements of rock and soul singers into something I could call my own. The inflections of Stevie Wonder with the soaring qualities of someone like Buckley. It was his emotional intensity that inspired me more than anything. Also, Jeff came along at a time most singers weren’t using their upper register. His approach helped me embrace the fact that I was a tenor. I owe that guy a lot."

"I’d love to sing with Jeff Buckley. He is currently making his first album, and if it’s anything like a radio session I heard by him, it should be amazing. He’s written this song called ‘Grace,' which literally makes the hair on my neck stand on end. I was sweating like a fucking June bride when I first heard him. Music has never done that to me before."

"His voice is an incredible instrument, angelic, and powerful, and mean, at the same time. Tortured. He has been a huge inspiration and influence to me over the last two years. This tune is just unreal."

"This beautiful-looking guy with a fur coat and mad, curly hair walked in. He went to the bar and got a pint of Guinness, then plugged in his Fender and began to sing. Everybody was completely blown away. Who was it? It was Jeff Buckley."

"Even if he didn't sell a huge amount of records in the U.S., he had a lot of impact...On writing "Grace": I just had faith that whatever he did would be good...I was stunned ― it was so beautiful and perfect...It surpassed anything that I thought he was going to do...I remember thinking, man, this music will shake the world. I was just scared by it."

"I just wanted to pay tribute to him and talk about the situation. When asked if it was a conscious thing to give an Eastern flavor to the song, Sheik says, "definitely... I know that he was, like, a big fan of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and he was listening to a lot of that kind of music. There's also just a really mournful quality to that kind of string playing. "I wanted to send him off and say a few things about how much his music moved me and other people."

"It was the kind of collaboration I dream about, actually. His voice sounded, you know, like an angel. Like a gift from God."

"There was a period when I couldn’t get through the day without hearing him sing 'Hallelujah' 3 or 4 times. He had a one in a billion voice and an emotionally piercing guitar style and...I know everyone is saying this, but it hurts so much to lose an artist who was capable of so much before he'd had a chance to do his best work. I guess I should be thankful for what there is: the album "Grace," his first EP, the bootleg live cassettes floating around, and whatever SONY will inevitably scrape together for release. It’s a fucking shame."

"Certain people compared us, I've been mourning the fact that it would have been great to sing a duet."

"The last few records that I bought that I really enjoyed...Jeff Buckley. It wailed me. I was like walking around in tears, just so grateful that I discovered this record."

"I think he had one of the best voices I've ever heard. Grace, I think, is the best album of the '90s."

"In September 2007, a poll of fifty songwriters conducted by the magazine Q listed "Hallelujah" among the all-time "Top 10 Greatest Tracks" with John Legend calling Buckley's version "as near perfect as you can get. The lyrics to 'Hallelujah' are just incredible and the melody's gorgeous and then there's Jeff's interpretation of it. It's one of the most beautiful pieces of recorded music I've ever heard.""

"My singing used to be awful, admits Folds. I don't have Jeff Buckley's voice. I don't write songs as an excuse to hear myself sing. It's the other way around: I sing so I can hear my songs. It can be kind of scary. You're on the radio next to ― well, on the shelf next to Jeff Buckley. We're in the Bs. People can flip through and pick up his record instead and hear a lot better singer. He has that knack. I've had to really work at it. Of course, he probably doesn't play piano as well as me. I'm not going to get all competitive with the guy because obviously he's not doing so well these days."

"I had this really interesting whispering vibrato. It sounded so intimate and spiritual and ethereal, and it reminded me of Jeff a bit. I think I can sing with just about anybody, but he's one of the few singers who truly intimidates me. He's one of the best I've ever heard."

"Jeff was a beautiful man. Grace is an album full of the most beautiful songs, and he possessed an equally gorgeous voice. When we lost him, we lost a fantastic talent."

"Jeff Buckley is one of the greatest vocalists that I’ve ever heard. Listening to him is inspiring, moving, spiritual. What a gift. He’s inspired many admirers and imitators but no one can duplicate him."

"Once again, this album doesn’t really need explanation. Jeff Buckley’s only album is one of the greatest, most complete albums ever made. Listen to the whole thing. It’s so emotional, it never fails to get under my skin. It can still give me goosebumps, choke me up and inspire me to go deeper as an artist. It’s also one of the loneliest records – it’s most powerful to listen to all alone with headphones. It’s not the kind of album that you think of cranking up in the car when you’re driving down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) with your buddies – it’s a solo experience. His vocal performance during “Lilac Wine…” God — that song! He sounds like he’s crying. You can feel his pain during that vocal performance. I can feel his pain just thinking about that song now. I often think about what he would have created if he’d stuck around a little longer."

"Dr. Drew: What will you remember most about the '90s? Sebastian Bach: The album Grace by Jeff Buckley. Unless you've heard it, you wouldn't know why. Dr. Drew: What's your favorite album for a night of steamy monkey love? Sebastian Bach: Jeff Buckley's Grace is the most romantic, sensual album I've heard in my life."

"Q: What are you listening to on your Walkman? Sebastian Bach: I listen to Jeff Buckley. He's my favorite singer. We actually cover a Jeff Buckley tune called "Eternal Life" in our set. When he died it really hit me, because he was an incredible singer who only did one album, Grace, and his voice was so beautiful that I couldn't believe it when he died. Since he's not around to sing songs anymore, we decided we'd give it a shot."

"The record I would like to talk about today is Grace by Jeff Buckley. There are only a handful of albums that I've ever listened to that have captured me in the way that this album was able to capture me, and actually still holds up so many years after having first heard it. You know, most albums were able to date and over-contextualize and they kind of lose their importance to us over the years, as we grow up and stuff, and there are certain records that aren't able to do that at all and Jeff Buckley's, Grace, is one of them. His voice is...he's the best male singer I have ever heard in my life and he even rivals some female singers; so, check it out."

"[On recording Jeff Buckley's, Grace] I really wanted to share this because I felt Anthony Snape did such a great job of this seemingly impossible song to cover: Jeff Buckley's 'Grace.' Jeff was like a comet passing through, and he left his mark forever. He is 'gone too soon,' but through his songs, he lives on."

"You ever heard of a guy named Jeff Buckley? He's one of the best singers I've ever heard."

"GAP: Who is your favorite musical artist? Brandon Boyd: Jeff Buckley. When he came out everyone was a little afraid to commit. Well not everybody, but a lot of popular artists were afraid to commit completely to what they were doing. They kind of used irony as a sheet around them, kind of protecting them from having to own up to what they said. Not only did he have one of the best voices I have ever heard, he was one hundred percent committed to what he was doing. He was unabashedly romantic in his lyrics, and the way he sang. He got some flak for it while he was alive, and it sucks because when someone dies people start to say maybe he was awesome, and they begin to analyze it differently. For those reasons, and I can go on forever about the guy. His voice has been influential to a lot of current artists, to people who might not even admit it, really. Just his range and where he would even try to go with his voice. The guts to go from one octave to two above. Not a lot of people are doing that...so also his falsetto influence has influenced me as well."

"The reason why I think that record is a great album is just the uniqueness of hearing a man sing so beautifully, and the record, to me, spills with emotion, the whole time."

"Jeff is one of my favorite musicians and singers of all time. Never have I seen such infinite musical potential in anyone. It's just gone. It's chilling how much it hurts."

"I hope that people who liked him resist the temptation to turn his life and death into some dumb romantic fantasy; he was so much better than that. Not everyone can get up and sing something they take a liking to and make it their own, sing true to their heart, and be curious about all different strains of music. Corpus Christi Carol was a completely conceived interpretation. I'd never heard the piece before, and when I heard the original, I realised what Jeff had done was even more amazing. He'd taken it into his own world. That's something my favorite classical musicians can do, be themselves but use all that expertise to make the music more beautiful. Jeff did that naturally. Only a handful of people are capable of that. I was amazed when he did Meltdown. I asked him what he wanted to sing and he said he'd like to do one of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder in the original German! Absolutely fucking fearless. He was convinced he could sing it without rehearsal, just because he liked it. In the end he did a Purcell song, Dido's Lament, which is in danger of sounding incredibly poignant in retrospect: 'Remember me but forget my fate'. But he also sang Boy With the Thorn In His Side because he liked it, and Grace to show something of himself. When he started singing Dido's Lament at the rehearsal, there were all these classical musicians who could not believe it. Here's a guy, shuffling up on-stage, and singing a piece of music normally thought to be the property of certain types of specifically developed voice, and he's just singing, not doing it like a party piece, but doing something with it. My last memory of him was at the little party in the green room afterwards. There were all these people sitting round Jeff who'd never met before - Fretwork, the viol group, a classical pianist, and some jazz player ― all talking and laughing about music. He'd charmed everybody. I'd much rather remember that than anything."