Eels
by Steve Lamacq
Broadcast on the Evening Session 10 Sep 2001

To mark the release of their new single 'Souljacker Part 1', Eels played a live set in Lamacq Live. Frontman E talked to Steve Lamacq and answered some of the questions listeners had been e-mailing in.

Welcome to the show...
"Whoo!"

Mr E. How are ya?
"It's good to see you. You're looking good."

Through the miracles of modern technology we can obviously look down the line at you...
"Great haircut."

It's not as good as your beard...
"Aw thanks man."

There's an interesting concept behind this new record...the idea that somebody can steal your soul...
"Yeah, through the radio waves. You can lose your soul just by listening to the radio. So please, everybody pull your cars over to the side of the road and either turn your radio off or submit and surrender to the rock."

This new record is also introducing John Parish. On Guitar. Do we not get a drum roll?
"We don't let him speak."

Alan D has emailed in to say 'I'm from Glasgow and the two previous Eels shows I've been to have been sit down affairs. However, this year's gigs are at the Barrowlands will be all standing. Is this a sign that the album is more upbeat?'
"Well we're going to actually have wheelchairs throughout the entire audience and everyone has to sit in the wheelchair. It's an artpiece."

No it's not. That's a lie. It's a rock gig this time round...
"Well you never know 'til you get there."

Back to the record. Its got a slightly rockier edge. There's new stuff on this...
"There's something different. We've been working on this for a while simultaneously while working on some of the other ones."

'Friendly Ghost' is one of my favourite tracks on this...
"There was another track called 'Friendly Ghost' that was going to be on our 'Electro Shock Blues' album but I took it off at the last minute and then wrote another one during the sessions. Sometimes I like to see how many perspectives I can get out of one title."

No, what we're saying is that you're running out of titles. There's an international shortage of song titles in Eels World...
"I'm thinking about the next album having twelve songs all with the same title."

One more question from Ben in Southampton who says 'How do you get that weird trainer squeaking noise on 'Cancer For The Cure'...
"Which squeaky noise? There are a few of them on there."

Trainer it says. I suppose it means training shoe...
"Hm. I'm not sure which one it is but most likely it's just my voice."

Didn't you go away for a while to some sort of retreat where you didn't speak or write for two weeks or something...
"I'm not some kind of new age fruitcake or anything don't get me wrong. I just needed a little break. Susan from our song 'Susan's House' went to this thing before me and talked me into going and it turned out to be a good thing. It was pretty hard though."