A self-confessed workaholic, Mark Everett is the driving force behind US
left-field rockers Eels, who are about to release their fourth album,
'Souljacker'. Luckily for us, it's their most guitar-heavy album to date

Mark Everett (aka E), the charismatic, and at present heavily
bearded, leader of the LA-based Eels, is holed up in the extremely plush
Royal Gardens Hotel in Kensington for a day of solid press. Unfortunately,
it's 5.30pm by the time we're ushered in to his small but nicely furnished
room and already the man looks rather weary. Add to this his
openly-expressed dislike of interviews and you'd be forgiven for expecting a
rather cool and monosyllabic reception. But no, thankfully it seems E's in
the mood to talk guitars. "Ah, I've been expecting you," he says with a sly
grin. "I'm rockin' some tasty licks on the new disc, so I guess the kids
want to know how to do it at home, right?" Well yes, actually. However, for
36-year-old E, it's been a long and turbulent journey to reach this point,
and as this is the first time he's spoken to Guitarist perhaps we'd better
start at the beginning. "I started as a drummer when I was six years old,
you'll have to check Modern Drummer magazine if you want to know about
that," deadpans E. "Then by the time I was nine or 10 I started noodling on
this upright piano that was in the house. It wasn't until I was 17 or 18
that I started making up little songs on my sister's acoustic guitar, and I
didn't become an electric guitarist until I started recording stuff for the
first Eels album in 1993."

Entitled 'Beautiful Freak', that album took over three years to see
the light of day, finally surfacing in 1996 to huge critical acclaim.
Preceding single 'Novocaine For The Soul' ensured its commercial success,
topping the US alternative charts and giving the band their first UK top 20
hit. A Brit Award for Best International Newcomer then followed, but the
band's success was soured by tragic events in E's personal life.
Having lost his father some years earlier, his only sister Elizabeth
committed suicide in 1996, while his mother was diagnosed with terminal lung
cancer the following year.
Unsurprisingly, E confronted the emotional traumas in the only way
he knew how - through his music. The resulting album, Electro-shock 'Blues',
was a deeply harrowing affair, short on tunes, lyrically blunt (for example,
'My name is Elizabeth/my life is shit and piss') and relatively guitar-less.
"It wasn't conscious," claims E. "I wasn't thinking I wanted to get
away from guitars. For the most part a lot of guitar stuff had become
boring. The only kind of rock guitar stuff I'm interested in is the stuff
I'm doing on the new record, what I call voodoo rock - with a lot of maracas
shaking and tom-toms banging. Anything else I'm pretty much tired of. And I
love feedback, it's music to my ears."
However there wasn't a lot of feedback to be heard on last year's
Daises For The Galaxy album. Apart from a couple of tracks, Eels' third
album was a largely acoustic piece of work. "I had already started a lot of
the stuff that was on 'Souljacker'," explains E, "but after Electro-shock
'Blues' I didn't want to put out an album of loud, dark, scary, funny stuff,
I wanted to put out something light, airy and life-affirming. Souljacker
just had to wait in line."
Until now, for Eels are about to unleash their most distorted,
upbeat and occasionally downright rocking release to date. So why did E feel
the need to let loose?
"It actually started with the track 'Souljacker Pt1'. While we were
rehearsing for the Electro-shock Blues tour it just came as a jam. We're not
big jammers, but that kind of happened. Then I met John Parish (best known
for his work with PJ Harvey and Sparklehorse) and we talked about doing some
more stuff in that vein. He started sending me stuff through the mail that
he was doing on his 8-track, I'd add stuff and it would keep going back and
forth."
Always one for witty anecdotes and sharp one-liners, E once remarked
that if Electro-shock Blues was the phone call in the middle of the night
that the world doesn't want to answer, then Daisies was the hotel wake-up
call that says your lovely breakfast is ready. So what is 'Souljacker'?
"Aah, I stopped doing the telephone analogies," E reveals. "I used
to do telephone analogies for all of them and then I read Radiohead doing it
on their new album, so I thought I'm done with that now. However," he
smiles, unable to resist the challenge, "if I was going to come up with one,
I reckon 'Souljacker' would be your telephone receptionist telling you that
your soul has been left with the concierge, and that you can pick it up any
time you want."
The album's opening track, 'Dog Faced Boy', seems to hark back,
lyrically at least, to themes explored on 'Beautiful Freak'. "Oddly enough
it's inspired by a woman I know," confesses E. "She's a really attractive
woman, but when she was younger she had this problem of being very hairy, to
the point where all the other school kids would tease her and call her
'gorilla girl'. So obviously I was going to write a song about this when she
told me," smiles E, "but I decided to change it to 'Dog Faced Boy', to make
it more convincing to sing in the first person."
Although 'Souljacker' is a predominantly electric record, E still
found room for some acoustic strumming, notably on Woman Driving Man
Sleeping. "That's actually two guitars in Nashville tuning," explains E.
[This tuning uses the six high strings from a 12-string set. Ed.] "It's
electric and acoustic playing with each other." It sounds a bit like
'Wonderwall'. "That's what I said to John," agrees E. "I said, Doesn't this
sound like that Oasis song? And he was like, No, no I don't think so. So
blame him, that's his part."
E has now played alongside a number of respected guitarists like
Peter Buck, Grant Lee Phillips and John Parish, which has proved to be a
great learning experience.
"You know a lot of the great artists are monsters and these people
were no exception to the rule. They were all very difficult and..." E stops,
smiles and lets go of the proverbial leg he's been pulling. "No, they're all
amazingly nice guys. Peter and I like to work the same way, very quickly.
Get to the point. Grant can play anything well, and he's a lot of fun. While
John is a true English gentleman who knows how to rock, and is not afraid to
do it in front of you, which is pretty rare these days. I learnt something
from all of them, just from the long-term experience of being around them."

However, there's only one guitarist whom E would cite as a direct
influence. "Neil Young is the only person I can think of that's inspired me,
that I could say I've consciously thought of and applied. He can do more
with one note than most people can manage with 50. The rest of it's my own
retarded style. A drummer fumbling on the fretboard trying to produce
something musical."
So what does E make of the new breed of US acts currently invading
these shores, most notably The Strokes and The White Stripes? "I'd never
heard of them until a few days ago," he admits. "I only know The Strokes
because they took our slot at the Reading Festival! Well, they didn't take
our slot they took a piece of everyone's slot. But I have heard what people
have been saying about them. The NME said that their album was the most
important debut in 20 years or something, which makes me feel really sorry
for them. Everybody's gonna put that CD in the player after they read that
and say, Alright, show me the best debut in 20 years, let's hear it. Who
wants to have that on their shoulders?"
Who indeed? Although surely E must feel some pressure himself with
each new release.
"Yeah, I'm at that point. It's like, Oh shit, here it comes. I'm
always expecting the worst, by nature. When I'm making it I'm just excited
that I'm making something and it's fun. But last night, when I had to sing
the song 'World Of Shit' in front of 2,000 strangers, there were certain
parts where I was thinking, This is really personal, why am I doing this,
y'know? Anything after making the record is not that enjoyable. It's the
making part I really enjoy."

Unfortunately, E's obsession with making music is not proving too
good for his health.
"I find it really difficult to relax," he admits. "My only real
hobby is my work, and my wife was pointing out to me recently that I'm kind
of screwed because I can't get away from it. I've tried to take a vacation
for so many years now.
I was going to get one at the end of the Daisies tour, which was
exactly a year ago now, but I've made three records since then, and now I'm
back on tour. The day I got back home I was making a record."
And if E has anything to do with it, they'll be plenty more music to
come. "Making records keeps me going," he explains. "I mean the music
business side of things is killing me. It's just getting uglier and uglier
and you get exhausted from the daily battles of trying to do something of
some artistic merit.
"It's so hard, y'know? Luckily I'm able to make records almost
independently in my basement, but the record company doesn't want to put
them out that fast and isn't always that happy with what I'm doing, y'know?
It gets depressing. I'll probably just keep making them and storing them up
in the locker. Then I'll die and they'll release a big box set."
Phil Ascot