Myles chosen By Kennedy

I

“’ve read enough by way of books and discovered most of what I feel like

I can discover about Jeff Buckley, but I’d love to hear more about how he left LA, moved to New York and basically started over. Y’know, how he felt like New York resonated with him more and he found his artistic home. He hooked up with Gary Lucas, and that was the genesis of the whole thing.

“Jeff was so important to my evolution as an artist. To me he was like Robert Plant and Jimmy Page rolled into one. And even though he only had a brief period on this planet and what he left behind wasn’t to the degree of Led Zeppelin,

Grace had a profound impact. It was a unique record for what was going on in the nineties.

“I had a chance to see him live, in 1995, and it was probably the most almost spiritual experience I’ve ever had with music in a live context. It was at a little place called the King Cat Theater in Seattle. I remember I had got

Grace in December of 1994, and then a friend of mine called me up and she’s like: ‘Jeff is coming to Seattle in May.’ And I was like: ‘Well get me a ticket.’ I drove five hours to see that show. And it was well worth the drive, let’s put it that way. Jeff had this incredible ability to be very visceral, and he had this ethereal thing… but then at the drop of a dime there would be this intense fire, not just evoked from his instrument but from his voice. It was very special, very compelling.

“I never had the chance to meet him. And here’s what’s really interesting. The Mayfield Four [an early Kennedy band] were supposed to sign to Epic Records. And on the day we were meant to go in and sign that, they discovered that he was missing. So it was kinda eerie, and very strange circumstances, because in a lot of ways I really feel like the reason I got to that point was ultimately because of Jeff. He was such an inspiration. It was such a shock that he was taken from us. It broke my heart.”