eels sees them flying (note: i don't know what to do with that header)

the missery has been swallowed (verwerkt?), the eels are aloud to laugh
again. he even writes about birds. but 'it's not so easy to write cheerful
songs without making them sound stupid.'

e, de one lettered singer of eels, is cheerful. you wouldn't expect him to
be that way but that's because e allways tends to look like he's got a
(pruillip.. urm.. because he allways looks sad). furthermore he doesn't sit
up straight, but sits balled up like a freak on the couch, and his words
sound like something in between murmeling and whispering, while his fat
glasslenses (?) obscure the vieuw on possible lifejoy (?) in his eyes.maybe
there is none, you just don't know. it's like looking in a fishbowl. but e
is cheerful anyway. he's continuously making jokes. the pr girl of his
recordcompany has got an impressive bruised (or blue whatever) eye.
'that'll teach her' whispers e and he gigles. (intervieuwer:) she got that
in a karate championship. 'oh is that what she said? great, she kept our
agreement' says e as he gigles again.
something that's also cheerful: daisies of the galaxy, eels' third album.
especially when compared to it's precede(uhmmm how the hell do you write
that? precedessor or something but i might be totally wrong predecessor
whatever you can figure it out) electro shock blues. forget all about nick
cave, joy division and john cale: their darkest soulbendingthingies (i'm
sorry but this guy really likes to use weird words) are carnavalskrakers
(eg music for when you're from brabant) compared to the missery on esb. it
didn't have to go much further and a rope would've been provided with the
album (don't know if this is clear in my trans but remember that ropes are
convenient when you feel a bit down)
e had quite some shit to get rid of. his mother had cancer, and only had a
short time to live left. his sister comitted suicide after a life full of
heavy depressions. 'in fact it is a miracle that i got through that tunnel'
says e. 'writing that album has contributed a major  part to that. i don't
like to think about what might've happened to me if i wasn't able to write
songs.'
he wrote the grief away. but, and that's the irony of the music industry,
writing away feelings means experiencing those feelings again and again.
journalists ask for motivation and motives, the public asks for the songs
that used to be self-therapeutic. when the grief has been put into words,
the inevitable re-experience of it will follow.
' i never think about that when i write the songs. when the songs are
actually there i do think about it. then i think, oh i've written something
about it, now i'm probably supposed to tell something about it. and how the
fuck am i supposed to bring it to the stage?' he laugsh, as he does very
often. he's telling you about a serious thing, then he throws in a little
laugh. a bit of a nervous laugh, like he's trying to say 'i'm telling you
all this, but i'm not so sure about it all myself'
e: 'when i started working on esb, my manager thought i was crazy. it would
make me lose some fans, he told me. well it did make me loose my manager
anyway.
he's not afraid of getting bad revieuws. he has been a musicjournalist
himself. ' i would've known it for myself. the biggest shit that managed to
make it to the music stores since the eighties. from my days as a music
journalist i learned that the judgements from that group have got no vallue
at all. it doesn't mean anything to hear  pple who can't get any emotional
response from others talk about pple who do, or try to. i haven't got a
clue how much the album sold. i didn't get a gold record (damn how do you
call those again) so i geuss it didn't sell very well. maybe esb is
underated and will be judged on it's vallue in the far future, maybe not.
it doesn't make me less happy about having made that album.
for the new album, diary of the giants, e retracted himself in his
bassment. he wrote 28 songs. halfway throug e took a good look at his
songs. he realised that he was actually writing two different albums.
(note: i'm a bit suspicious that the interviewer took a look at the back of
daisies, saw 14 songs and multiplied it with two to get two albums with 28
songs. didn't e said once he wrote over 50 songs for daisies or
something??) ' one part of the songs were really loud, dark and scary. the
other half was sparkling, beaUtiful, positive and simple. the two parts
didn't form a unity, in my opinion. i decided to concentrate on the simple,
sweet part. at the same time i continued writing those dark songs. because
they had to get out of me, not because it had to get into the rest of the
world. i understand that those songs keep on coming- the grief is still
there- but this time i don't have to bother the rest of the world with it.
but there's no need for worying. in the future there'll be plenty of space
for misery.' he might use some of the songs he wrote one day 'that's the
hardest part for me with writing songs. deciding the destination of a song.
the garbagecan, the album or a b-side, or maybe something for a movie? you
try to avoid having regrets aftwerwards. to avoid thinking ' shit, that
song was just too good for that movie'
e still sees a difference between e and eels. actually that's all bullshit.
in the early nineties he made two records under the name 'e' (in fact his
name doesn't have one but seventeen letters (note: don't you just hate
journalists with their annoying 'creative' language! SHUT UP): mark oliver
everett) but since the tremendous groupsdebut, beaUtiful freak from 1996, e
is the 'singer' of the band eels, of wich drummer butch is the only other
member. the new album also featured grant lee phillips and beter buck. e:
'peter taught me that you can be a famous, rich rockstar and be a real
musician at the same time. he's a really nice fellow.'
electro shock blues ends with the words 'maybe it's time to live', the new
album starts with the sound of a new orleans style funeral. ' a funeral in
that style is a celebration of life. the last album was about the dying
side of life, this one is about the living side. writing about the things
that i had on my mind was the big chalange, this time the chalange was
writing songs that give me a good feeling about life. (levenslustige??
livelusty???) songs. and that's a big chalange. a bigger chalange then
writing a good sad song. it's hard to write cheerful songs without making
them sound stupid.'

as far as his emotional life is concerned there is no difference between a
private and a public domain for e. ' i am one of those weird people who
feel more comortoble telling their secrets to a complete stranger then
telling them to someone they know really well. on the other hand, at the
end of a gig i don't feel like all the people in the crowd are complete
strangers to me anymore. i allways select a few people who i watch [during
a show]. i am curious how they are going to react. ( i don't know what this
sentence is supposed to mean exactly so it's hard to translate, basicly e
is fantasizing about an experience) i will watch a couple during a
sensative song and see that they want to break up now. ha.'
sensitive songs, diamonds of tender gold is full of them. while e used to
talk about the infinite possibilities of using samples and the inspiration
he got from portishead and tricky in intervieuws in the past, the amount of
samples on daisies has been brought back to a minimum. 'the samples are
starting to get boring to me now. i hear the same sounds in all the songs
nowadays.'
the almost childlike 'i like birds' is touching. it's a tribute to his
mother. she died of cancer during the american esb tour. 'not that she
talked of birds so much as the 'i' in the song. she wasn't that
misantropic. when she died i had to clean out my old house in virginia,
where i was raised by a family of wich i am the last member now. it really
struck me. that house is full of memories. my mom had all kinds of
birdhouses and other birdstuff. i didn't throw those away, but took them to
my house in california. in one way or another i thought i could keep in
contact with her that way. the birds showed up soon afterwards. i bought
some additional stuff myself and now i see birds flying around my house all
day. that's new to me. i never really payed attention to birds before. but
you know, those birds are really rawkin'. and in this way that song is
about my mum in an unclear way. 'cause when you think of a tribute, you'd
rather think about artists who can't do more then 'mommy, i miss you so
much'.
on stage e tends to be not so serious. during this conversation he threw
out a lot of laughs and (dutch people, i don't even know what the fuck
kwinkslagen is supposed to mean...) he ridles his lyrics with irony, and on
stage, he makes jokes all the time. sometimes he's just plain (melig???
urm... well... he can't stop being funny) and stretches his songs to
infinity. it's a weird sight, like he tries to overthrow the beaUty of his
own songs. while the crowd is still impressed by a song about his mum's
cancer, mr e tries to play clini clown (is this a known profession outside
this weird country?). 'i can understand your complaint. sometimes i do act
a little bit too, uhm, weird. and when a song has touched you, you want a
silence afterwards, not a joke. i know. but i often use those jokes to get
myself together after i played such a song, with the consequence of ruining
it for other people. i really try to keep my mouth shut but it depends on
my mood weather i can manage. that doesn't mean i don't think humor is an
essential part of music. i just can't take this all too seriously. i am no
nine inch nails, who takes itself so serious that it becomes a thing to
laugh at. i think that's a shame.
my new song for example, it's a motherfucker. a few weeks ago i felt like
playing a few new songs live. so i went to a small club in los angeles.
i've played there befor. unanounced, opening for someone else. it's really
good fun. then i'm more nervous than i normaly am. i sang that song, the
first line is 'it's a motherfucker'. people where laughing and clapping.
the next line is 'being here without you' and further in the song i sing
'it's a motherfucker getting through a sunday' when i arrived at the last
line of the song you could hear a needle falling (urrr... that's like the
dutch way to say that it was kinda quiet. yeah, we are weird pple) i could
feel that the people where touched. isn't that fantastic? you've walked
through the entire scala of human emotions in just three minutes.
a few jokes between two sad songs make it all more meaningfull. the jokes
get more meaning because the audience realises that they come from someone
who has also thought about the other side of the emotional experience of
humans, and the sad songs get more meaning because you know that the one
who sings them is able to relativate (urm) himself. and that's really
important, to relativate. that's what i think at least.'
e starts to gigle again. to relativate, without doubt.

kleinemans