Eels
Flower Power

"You know how the Beach Boys kind of got to the point where Brian Wilson didn't even need to go
on stage so he just stayed home? Well, that's my goal. All I need to do now is find a Glen
Campbell to replace me..."

Words by Ian Moffat

Welcome back, E. Lovely to have you in such good spirits. Remember the Eels? Maybe you saw them
being all disturbing playing 'Novocaine for the soul' on tiny toy instruments on Top Of the
Pops some years back while everyone who'd heard it was raving about their Beautiful Freak album
as some sort of bastard offspring of Beck's Odelay. And maybe you were impressed enough to
stick around to be rewarded by their second album Electro-Shock Blues, a conceptual masterpiece
revolving around frontman Mark 'E' Everett's loss of his sister and mother to mental ilness and
cancer, and a record as eerily gorgeous as it was groundbreakingly harrowing. Well, to all
appearances that's been put behind them - E even comments at one point today that "1999 was
tremembedous" - and consequently , their latest offering DaisiesOf The Galaxy boils up a third
different ketttle of fish for your entertainment. Awkward old sods, aren't they?
"Some musicians are just one-trick ponies, though, making the same record over and over again,"
notes E, "whereas I'm just not interested in doing that." So you've actually set out to
confound us all again, then? "No, I wouldn't think about it from the outside like that. I did
this for my own sanity, almost. I needed to look forward; I really needed to focus on what I
liked about living again, and go back to basics. And I had to do that for myself."

Moving On
It's certainly a lot more welcoming than the last bunch of songs we got out of you. Was it
difficult to start writing like that again? "Well, it's a big challenge. It's much harder to
write so-called happy songs than it is to write sad ones. You can just stick something in a
minor key and have it be affecting, but to write a happy song or a song with a positive
message... that's pretty difficult to do without it getting cheesy. It was a lot of fun,
though. I mean, I got back into it as soon as we got off the road the last time. I just kept
going down to my basement every day and making songs that I actually wanted to play, which is
what I always used to do anyway. I really had to put everything behind me. You can never
completely, of course, but I had to move on." In the case of the Eels, moving on has meant
expanding to a six-piece (including celebrated chanteuse Lisa Germano), which is bound to make
their forthcoming shows a little different to their 1990s gigs. What've you got in mind, E?
"Oh, I think it's going to be a real crowd-pleasing set this year. We get a lot of people
calling out for stuff now, but they might not always recognise it when they hear it. That's the
only way to keep it interesting for us, though. It's hard to keep playing 'Novocaine...' all
the time unless you've got five different ways of doing it and you can just pick the one that
feels right that night." Well, yes, but you still like the early ones, right? "No, not really.
I do when I can reinterpret them, though, 'cos that's when you you can see what's really there,
and I can start giving respect to the songs." Maybe it'd be easier to get that kind of
perspective if things hadn't exploded so quickly around you over here. "But we're not in
England that often, so we didn't really get caught up in any explosions! I've never been in a
situation where I was living the famous life. My day-to-day life is still exactly what it
always was." What, even at home? "It's very rare that anyone ever approaches me here, except
maybe at a record store or a concert. Why would they? I don't appear on our album sleeves, our
last video was only on TV, what, seven times... it's a pretty anonymous life." Nonetheless,
Eels are still regarded as one of those bands that it seems incredibly easy to become somewhat
devotional about. Surely E must have noticed this in their following? "Yeah, but I'm really
proud of our fans, I really like them. All the ones I've met seem really smart. They don't want
to be part of the mainstream because they really don't like it." Do you think they'll take to
Daisies OK? "I have absolutely no idea. The scary thing when I put a record out is that I never
think how people are going to find it until it's nearly out, and then I get my moment of
anxiety."

Split Personality
Maybe if you were a bit younger (E's in his mid-thirties) you might be more aware of commercial
concerns. "But lots of guys my age still want a hit record! All it means to me is that it shuts
people up so I can get on with what I want to do. Take Electro-Shock Blues. I never cared how
much that sold, I don't even know..." It did alright over here, if memory serves. "All I know
is that I don't remember getting sent any gold records or anything. I don't mind, I just had to
get it out. It's only by doing that that Daisies could have made any sense." So would this have
been a lot darker without it then? "Well, we ended up making another record at the same time as
this. I didn't set out to make two albums but I realised there was a kind of split personality
thing going on with the material. Half of it was nice and pretty and tinkly, and the other half
was all dark and loud. I could have stuck the two together y'know, for balance, but I didn't
feel I had to." It might've made more sense to everybody else, though. "But it's not like I
took all that emotional shit and expected the world to enjoy it. I think you can get something
out of it but I totally understand if anyone doesn't want to delve into it. These are times
when I've said that to myself.." Haven't we all? "I don't know... I think part of the reason
we're popular in England is that people are dying to hear someone talking about how they feel.
It's just a theory..." Fair point, but where does that leave everyone who buys Daisies
expecting someone to understand their suffering only to be told that life's not too bad really?
"I just hope that people feel they can get something out of that too, that things can work out
alright. I'm not interested in being one-sided about anything. There's more to life."