Lust for Life (Netherlands), March 2026
Gary Lucas on working with Jeff Buckley
Gary Lucas, who made a splash in the early 1980s as the guitarist for Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, has long since realized just how exceptionally talented the young Buckley is. "In the lead-up to that concert for Tim, I was rehearsing at St. Ann's Church with another vocalist," Lucas recalls. "Without realizing it, Jeff was watching us. He was sitting there on a chair, and when we finished and I was packing up, the boy came up to me. He stared at me intently; he had a very energetic vibe. I thought: this must be Jeff Buckley, because he looks like his father. 'Gary Lucas, I love your guitar playing,' he began. 'I've read about you in Guitar Player Magazine and I know your work with Captain Beefheart.'"Buckley suggested they jam together. "The very next day, we met in my apartment in New York," Lucas recalls. "I shoved my microphone his way—my God, what a voice! I handed him my guitar, but he shoved it back in my hands: 'No, you play.' At that point, he only wanted to be a lead singer, even though he was a really good guitarist. That worked out well, because working with the singer in my band, Gods And Monsters, was proving difficult. We'd been offered a contract with the major label Columbia, but I'd been wanting to work with a male vocalist for a while. I wanted us to sound a bit heavier, like Led Zeppelin. And when I met Jeff, he told me his three favorite bands were The Smiths, The Doors, and Led Zeppelin! We soon wrote our first song together: "Bluebird Blues."
Lucas couldn't believe his luck: he'd found the ideal singer for Gods And Monsters. And not only that, the two men also had a perfect rapport as songwriters. During this period, they wrote the songs "Mojo Pin" and "Grace," which, much later, formed the opening tracks of the only studio album Buckley saw released during his lifetime. Grace, released in 1994, is now a staple on lists of the best albums of the nineties—and often even of all time. "It was almost telepathic," Lucas says of the writing sessions. "In all, I wrote about thirteen songs with Jeff, all of which started with my guitar instrumentals. I'd give him recordings of them, he'd work on them for short or sometimes longer periods, and he'd come back with a good song, complete with a beautiful melody and lyrics. I never had to give him any pointers, except that one time when we were in the studio recording a Mojo Pin demo. 'More Robert Plant!' I'd shout, because I knew how much he loved Led Zeppelin and I wanted to get even more of that out of him. But he could have sung the phone book, as they say, and it would still have sounded amazing." Lucas later called Buckley his "greatest collaborator," even though he also worked with illustrious names like Captain Beefheart and Peter Hammill (Van Der Graaf Generator) during his long career.
The explosion of creativity from the two musicians couldn't have come at a better time for Lucas. "So, with Gods and Monsters, I had a contract with Columbia, but the person who signed us left for Polydor Records, and then we were thrown to the wolves. I'd worked as a copywriter at Sony for thirteen years, and I knew how ruthless the music business could be—it was a bit like that Pink Floyd song, Welcome to the Machine. Gods and Monsters also didn't have a manager, and we knew nothing about the business side, so after a while, Columbia let us go. And right around that time, Jeff came into my life. He wanted to be our new singer, and I felt good again. I'd written some of the guitar parts we were working on before we met—then I'd get an idea in a dream and record it in the middle of the night with a cassette recorder. I'd give those tapes to Jeff, and at the next meeting, he'd say, 'Okay, this song is called Grace.' And he'd start singing, 'There's the moon asking to stay...' One afternoon, I made a demo with a bassist and a drummer; Jeff wouldn't be joining until later. After a few hours, he walked into the studio to record his vocals. The lights were dimmed, I was in the control room, and he started singing. "Was I any good?" he asked afterward. "Jeff," I replied, "you're a star!" I walked out with the recordings and thought: I have an atomic bomb in my pocket! This music will shake the earth. And that proved to be true: Mojo Pin and Grace have stood the test of time.
That Buckley himself didn't seem to realize his immense talent at the time is perhaps hard to grasp all these years later. Lucas, however, offers an explanation for this modesty, whether false or not. "I think he secretly knew, but maybe he was embarrassed to be proud. As far as I know, he was often put down by his friends before. He came from a scene where people would just tell him, 'The only reason people are nice to you is because of your dead father.' That must have hurt him terribly. So when he met me and other people in New York, it was like night and day. Here, people told him how amazing he really was." For Lucas, his younger writing partner was sometimes difficult to fathom. "He could be very open, but he also had a quiet side—at those moments, he just kept looking at you with those wide eyes of his. Sometimes I thought he was very sad. But I also had a lot of fun with him." The guitarist digs into his memory and shares an anecdote to illustrate: "I have a lot of books in my apartment; I'm an avid reader. One time, when Jeff came over, he noticed a book about Kabbalah [a form of Jewish mysticism, ed.]. When Jeff saw it, he said to me, 'You know Jimi Hendrix was the Voodoo Child, right? You're the Kabbalah Child!' He could be really funny."
Unfortunately, the friendship between the two musicians was tested to the limit when Buckley decided to leave Gods and Monsters before the band even records. And not only that: it turns out he's signed with Columbia Records of all places to pursue a solo career. Lucas felt betrayed. "On Friday the 13th, 1992, we gave another concert at St. Ann's Church, a showcase for the Imago record label where we had a development deal. We played all our new songs, plus covers of Van Morrison's "Sweet Thing" and Bob Dylan's "Dink's Song," after which we received a three-minute standing ovation. The next day, my wife and I listened to the recordings: we thought they sounded fantastic. Jeff sang beautifully that day. But the phone rang, and Jeff told me, 'I don't want to continue with it.' That was, of course, a huge blow. Even after that call, we continued to perform together—or he'd join me for one of my solo shows as a special guest. But at some point, he stopped calling me. I heard through the grapevine that he had a contract with Columbia, which, of course, also made me sad. But I don't want to dwell on that too much. He just did what he had to do".
A year later, completely out of the blue, Lucas received another call from his former bandmate. "At that point, I could have yelled, "You bastard," and hung up the phone. But I remained friendly, and he told me he wanted to record two of the songs we'd written together for his solo album. "And I want you to play on it," he added. I was naturally thrilled to hear that, and at the Bearsville recording session, it was all very friendly. Jeff sent me some early mixes of his album. I have to admit, I liked those early versions better than the final mixes on Grace. But it was a beautiful album nonetheless, and I thought the strings on the title track were a great addition".
While the EP Live At Sin-é a year earlier already showcased Buckley's immense appeal in an intimate solo setting, Grace truly reveals Columbia's multifaceted talent. From Zeppelin-esque rock and the popular Leonard Cohen cover "Hallelujah" to a jazz standard (Lilac Wine) and a stunningly sung hymn (Corpus Christi Carol): rarely has a debuting musician gained such artistic freedom with a major label, and rarely has a pop artist transitioned so seemingly effortlessly between widely divergent genres. Lucas is duly credited as co-writer of the title song and the opening track, "Mojo Pin." And Buckley thanks him for "magicalguitarness." "A few years ago, Rolling Stone included Grace among the 500 best songs ever made, which was quite an honor," Lucas says proudly. "If you listen to the album, you'll notice that the first two songs sound completely different from the rest. That's because I wrote that music, in a style that's characteristic of me."
In the period after Grace, Buckley once again turned to his old writing partner for material to record for the follow-up album that never materialized. Lucas: "Grace was what we call a 'slow burner.' The album only really became popular after Jeff's death, sad as it was. Grace had already achieved gold status in France and Australia, but that didn't matter much. The label was hoping for a hit. When Jeff was preparing his next album, he asked me for more music. I think I sent him four instrumentals, but I don't know if he actually worked on them or if any of them survived. It's something I deeply regretted after Jeff's death: what great songs could have been written."
"The last time I saw him was at a private party," Lucas continues. "He asked me on stage, we played Grace, and the reaction was euphoric. At that moment, I thought: I really still love this man, despite our ups and downs. And I was convinced we would work together again. That was a really good feeling. That's why I was so sad when I heard he was gone. I just couldn't believe it."
What remains of the collaboration between Buckley and Lucas, besides those first two songs on Grace, are their recordings from the early nineties. Some were released in 2002 on the compilation Songs To No One 1991-1992. "But there are still five songs we wrote together that still haven't been released officially," Lucas adds. "They're really good. Of the thirteen songs we composed together, some are even as good as Grace. Unfortunately, we never got the chance to record studio versions of them. The only thing we have are demos and that concert at St. Ann's Church I mentioned earlier. Those recordings were supposed to be released, but the estate canceled it at the last minute".
Since Buckley's passing, Lucas has regularly paid tribute to his much-missed friend, for example, during solo performances. "Even when he was alive, I was already putting in a good word for him," nods the now 73-year-old guitarist. "There probably wasn't a show that went by where I didn't talk about Jeff. After all, I'm proud of my friend. Early in my career, I often joked that my tombstone would probably say 'Gary Lucas, ex-Captain Beefheart.' After working with Jeff, that changed to 'Gary Lucas, ex-Captain Beefheart/Jeff Buckley.' It's quite possible."
Lucas says he's always a little anxious looking back on his time with Buckley, because it's a sad story with, as mentioned, many ups and downs in his relationship with the singer. He described the negative aspects in detail in his book Touched By Grace: My Time With Jeff Buckley (2013). "Now I just want to remember the good times," Lucas says lovingly. "He was amazing. A talent like Jeff Buckley doesn't come around very often—at most once every 25 years."
For It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley, Lucas—to his disappointment—wasn't interviewed, and his role in the now-legendary singer's story remains underexposed in the documentary. "But I'm glad this new documentary about him has come out, even though I wasn't asked to be in it," he adds immediately. "All the attention for Jeff is a beautiful thing in my opinion. His story and his romantic aspects appeal to young people, because he was such a great singer and a beautiful boy. The fact that he suffered that tragic accident has frozen him in time, in a sense, and his legend has only grown over the years. Every day I still get fan mail from people I don't know, thanking me for writing a particular song. For them, it's a living oeuvre, a legacy that any writer or artist can only dream of.”