EELS (2009)
Interview Background
“I’m a weirdo… I’m not going to pretend I don’t know that.” Not many successful artists would admit such things, but Mark ‘E’ Everett isn’t your average rock star. My first interview with the EELS founder was for the perverse MC Honky album he created in the early 2000s, which was a strange amalgam of Beastie Boys, Beck and Four Tet sounds marketed under the premise it was the creation of an obscure old DJ. In the interviews since then he’s made me chuckle many times at his acerbic humour, often so bleak it already has a noose around its neck. As well as a remarkable back catalogue of songs finding joy beyond the darkness, E’s autobiography Things The Grandchildren Should Know is an incredible book from a gifted loner who’s suffered innumerable losses in his lifetime. In the last few years, E has become a father for the first time. It’s an interesting twist to his tale, so I look forward to one day speaking with this self-proclaimed weirdo again.
’The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, July 2009.
EELS - Lone Wolf
by Scott McLennan
From the Portishead-inspired sounds of EELS’ 1996 hit Novocaine For The Soul through to last year’s harrowing autobiography Things The Grandchildren Should Know, mainman Mark ‘E’ Everett has used dry humour and his unique take on blues to make it through his rock hard times. After spending the last few years detailing the troubling deaths of his parents and sister in his book, on the double-disc opus Blinking Lights And Other Revelations and in the documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, E has now swapped heavy duty recollections for a concept album based around his 2001 song Dog Faced Boy.
Hombre Lobo finds E appropriating the mindset of a loner werewolf looking for love. After the elaborate production and protracted sessions for Blinking Lights And Other Revelations, E returns to the raw rock stomp of 2003’s Shootenanny! on Hombre Lobo.
“I guess in terms of EELS albums it does have more in common with that album and the Souljacker album rather than Blinking Lights… or Daisies Of The Galaxy,” E says. “I think it’s partly a reaction to doing all that autobiographical stuff, yeah. For this I wanted to go in a different direction and somewhere more immediate. It’s a sequel to the first song on the Souljacker album, Dog Faced Boy.”
By the time Souljacker was released in September 2001, E had grown an impressively thick beard that matched the hirsute hero of Dog Faced Boy. So did the beard come first or was it grown in the wake of writing Dog Faced Boy?
“That’s a good question,” E ponders. “Let me think back. I grew a mighty beard because I was getting into the character of the song, but I may have started the beard before writing it. This is a tough chicken and egg question – let’s just say there was a baby beard and then the song came and the full-on beard came after that.”
E’s mention of his “crazy and out of control” family turns talk towards his autobiography – a humorous and tormented rock‘n’rollercoaster that intersperses E’s musical success with the deaths of his father, sister and mother. E admits it was hard recounting the personal losses that have influenced so much of his EELS canon.
“There were a couple of chapters that were very difficult to write because you don’t want to revisit certain parts of your life, but if you’re going to tell the whole story you have to. There were a couple of months when it was hard to get out of bed in the morning knowing that I would be in that world all day.”
The opening pages of Things The Grandchildren Should Know found E contemplating driving off a Virginian bridge, but he suggests that suicidal thoughts no longer haunt him.
“I don’t really get them any more, which is good news. I’m lucky that I found ways to deal with it all by doing things like writing that book and writing certain songs. That’s how I’ve been able to stay on top of it.”
Despite numerous amusing anecdotes about musician associates such as Neil Young and Tom Waits, E doesn’t feel any urge to put together another book.
“There are certain chapters in Things The Grandchildren Should Know that I could go back and revisit and make a whole book out of. I could expand upon some of these, but what’s the point?”
Surely people would love to hear about the time Hollywood director and former child actor Ron Howard visited E’s house while he was recording a song for The Grinch soundtrack?
“That was pretty awesome,” E agrees. “We had lunch and it was just great to have Opie [from The Andy Griffiths Show] and Richie Cunningham [from Happy Days] at the same time on my back porch. I was doing the song for one of his movies and he wanted to come over and watch us record it. I was like, ‘Great, as long as you’re happy to talk about Andy Griffiths!’, but he also sat in and watched us recording.”
A Hombre Lobo tour is not part of E’s current plans, with the Californian musician preferring to stay home and look after his doted-on dog, Bobby Jr. With no surviving family members and after splitting with ‘Mrs E’ a few years back, it’s concerning that the agoraphobic E is growing old in his Los Feliz home with nothing but a mutt for company.
“It’s too late to be concerned – that’s already what I am. I’m a weirdo. I live in a house with a dog who has his own room and is fast becoming more popular than his master. It’s kind of weird, so I’m not going to pretend I don’t know that.”
Does anyone ever suggest your relationship with Bobby Jr is unhealthy?
“Well actually you’re the first person to suggest that, but I’ve been waiting for someone to…”
It might not be initially obvious for newcomers to his dark musings, but E has a fantastic, deadpan sense of humour. With $100,000 to spend on the promotion of B-sides collection Useless Trinkets, E unsuccessfully attempted to buy a one-second EELS ad during last year’s Superbowl.
“Oh yeah,” E chuckles. “I can’t take all the credit for that, since I think it came from brainstorming between me and the other people involved with the EELS. We were the pioneers, but we were told that we couldn’t do it since they didn’t sell commercials by the second during the Superbowl. Then this year they did it - this year somebody did a one-second beer commercial. We were just too soon.”
Yet another case of Mark Everett being ahead of his time.
“That’s right. Too soon for my own good.”
It seems that the publicity you got from the ad being rejected and put on YouTube still helped market the album though?
“Yeah, maybe it worked out better that way,” E states as he gives his dark laugh one last time. “Fuck ‘em.”
Hombre Lobo (Vagrant/Shock)
Unpublished Interview Material
It’s interesting Hombre Lobo focuses on what happens when Souljacker’s Dog Faced Boy grows up, since I asked you around the Souljacker era if you ever think about what happens to the Teenage Witch when she grows up…
“Really? Wow. You were close. I’ve never done it before, this is the only time I’ve ever done it. Maybe it will happen again now that you’ve reminded me – perhaps the Teenage Witch rock opera is going to be next.”
On the documentary Tremendous Dynamite you’re shown playing percussion on an old army trunk – is that a family heirloom?
“That’s my grandfather, Colonel E’s army trunk. I used to use it to hold up my stereo, but now it’s just a percussive device.”
Do you think you also lead a bit of a regimented, army-like existence?
“In a strange way yeah, because although my grandfather was in the army, my family was so crazy and out of control that I think it forces you to be somewhat regimented in your life in order to survive. You have to create structure in your life to stay afloat.”
Do you get through hardships simply through dry humour and creative outlets or do you require professional assistance as well?
“(chuckles grimly) I need all the help I can get. I’ll take the professional assistance, writing songs, writing a book, making a film – everything I can.”
You carefully sidestep the word depression in Things The Grandchildren Should Know in favour of desperation.
“Well they’re different things to me. Desperation is a very unique state, whereas depression is when you’re down and out and you feel like you don’t have any hope. Desperation has more drive involved in it, so it’s not the same.”
Blinking Lights… featured special guests such as Tom Waits and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, but this album is free of any external musicians. Was it your idea to keep this one stripped back and in the family?
“When the special guests thing happens it’s usually something that happens spontaneously one way or another. It just didn’t happen this time and none of our famous friends were floating through town when we were making this one, so maybe next time.”
Randy Newman left you a phone message once – but did you ever collaborate after he turned down performing strings on Useless Trinkets?
“I would love to, but there’s nothing I know of. Next time you interview him, perhaps you can put it to him.”
What about Tom Waits – he recorded on Blinking Lights… but it seems that you were never in the studio together?
“We have kept in touch and I would of course love to do anything with him that he might want to do. I hope that we will do something together again one of these days. He’s someone who I’ve always used in my mind as a model of how to do things. He’s a great example for us all.”
What was the Wim Wenders film he originally wanted you to appear in?
“It never got made. I think it was the love story between me and Robin Wright Penn driving across America and falling in love.”
Why did EELS drummer Butch have a lobotomy in the video for Souljacker?
“It’s because Butch did have a lobotomy. It’s the reason why he acts the way he acts. He had a lobotomy in 1999 or so, so I really only got a couple of good years out of him.”
How often do you dream about your late sister Elizabeth or your parents?
“I’ve trained myself over the years to wake up and immediately forgot what I dreamt because I think it’s usually traumatic. It’s a great trick to teach yourself, but occasionally I do remember what I’ve dreamt the night before. It’s a strange thing – and I’m sure other people who’ve lost love ones will have experienced this – but you wake up and it takes you a few minutes to realise that they’re not still around. They seem so alive in your dream that it’s a weird thing, but sometimes it can be comforting.”
Sorry to end on a downer, E.
"(sarcasm and feigning pain) Thanks. I’m going to take 10 minutes off to weep now. Thanks a lot, I appreciate it.”
“I’m a weirdo… I’m not going to pretend I don’t know that.” Not many successful artists would admit such things, but Mark ‘E’ Everett isn’t your average rock star. My first interview with the EELS founder was for the perverse MC Honky album he created in the early 2000s, which was a strange amalgam of Beastie Boys, Beck and Four Tet sounds marketed under the premise it was the creation of an obscure old DJ. In the interviews since then he’s made me chuckle many times at his acerbic humour, often so bleak it already has a noose around its neck. As well as a remarkable back catalogue of songs finding joy beyond the darkness, E’s autobiography Things The Grandchildren Should Know is an incredible book from a gifted loner who’s suffered innumerable losses in his lifetime. In the last few years, E has become a father for the first time. It’s an interesting twist to his tale, so I look forward to one day speaking with this self-proclaimed weirdo again.
’The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, July 2009.
EELS - Lone Wolf
by Scott McLennan
From the Portishead-inspired sounds of EELS’ 1996 hit Novocaine For The Soul through to last year’s harrowing autobiography Things The Grandchildren Should Know, mainman Mark ‘E’ Everett has used dry humour and his unique take on blues to make it through his rock hard times. After spending the last few years detailing the troubling deaths of his parents and sister in his book, on the double-disc opus Blinking Lights And Other Revelations and in the documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, E has now swapped heavy duty recollections for a concept album based around his 2001 song Dog Faced Boy.
Hombre Lobo finds E appropriating the mindset of a loner werewolf looking for love. After the elaborate production and protracted sessions for Blinking Lights And Other Revelations, E returns to the raw rock stomp of 2003’s Shootenanny! on Hombre Lobo.
“I guess in terms of EELS albums it does have more in common with that album and the Souljacker album rather than Blinking Lights… or Daisies Of The Galaxy,” E says. “I think it’s partly a reaction to doing all that autobiographical stuff, yeah. For this I wanted to go in a different direction and somewhere more immediate. It’s a sequel to the first song on the Souljacker album, Dog Faced Boy.”
By the time Souljacker was released in September 2001, E had grown an impressively thick beard that matched the hirsute hero of Dog Faced Boy. So did the beard come first or was it grown in the wake of writing Dog Faced Boy?
“That’s a good question,” E ponders. “Let me think back. I grew a mighty beard because I was getting into the character of the song, but I may have started the beard before writing it. This is a tough chicken and egg question – let’s just say there was a baby beard and then the song came and the full-on beard came after that.”
E’s mention of his “crazy and out of control” family turns talk towards his autobiography – a humorous and tormented rock‘n’rollercoaster that intersperses E’s musical success with the deaths of his father, sister and mother. E admits it was hard recounting the personal losses that have influenced so much of his EELS canon.
“There were a couple of chapters that were very difficult to write because you don’t want to revisit certain parts of your life, but if you’re going to tell the whole story you have to. There were a couple of months when it was hard to get out of bed in the morning knowing that I would be in that world all day.”
The opening pages of Things The Grandchildren Should Know found E contemplating driving off a Virginian bridge, but he suggests that suicidal thoughts no longer haunt him.
“I don’t really get them any more, which is good news. I’m lucky that I found ways to deal with it all by doing things like writing that book and writing certain songs. That’s how I’ve been able to stay on top of it.”
Despite numerous amusing anecdotes about musician associates such as Neil Young and Tom Waits, E doesn’t feel any urge to put together another book.
“There are certain chapters in Things The Grandchildren Should Know that I could go back and revisit and make a whole book out of. I could expand upon some of these, but what’s the point?”
Surely people would love to hear about the time Hollywood director and former child actor Ron Howard visited E’s house while he was recording a song for The Grinch soundtrack?
“That was pretty awesome,” E agrees. “We had lunch and it was just great to have Opie [from The Andy Griffiths Show] and Richie Cunningham [from Happy Days] at the same time on my back porch. I was doing the song for one of his movies and he wanted to come over and watch us record it. I was like, ‘Great, as long as you’re happy to talk about Andy Griffiths!’, but he also sat in and watched us recording.”
A Hombre Lobo tour is not part of E’s current plans, with the Californian musician preferring to stay home and look after his doted-on dog, Bobby Jr. With no surviving family members and after splitting with ‘Mrs E’ a few years back, it’s concerning that the agoraphobic E is growing old in his Los Feliz home with nothing but a mutt for company.
“It’s too late to be concerned – that’s already what I am. I’m a weirdo. I live in a house with a dog who has his own room and is fast becoming more popular than his master. It’s kind of weird, so I’m not going to pretend I don’t know that.”
Does anyone ever suggest your relationship with Bobby Jr is unhealthy?
“Well actually you’re the first person to suggest that, but I’ve been waiting for someone to…”
It might not be initially obvious for newcomers to his dark musings, but E has a fantastic, deadpan sense of humour. With $100,000 to spend on the promotion of B-sides collection Useless Trinkets, E unsuccessfully attempted to buy a one-second EELS ad during last year’s Superbowl.
“Oh yeah,” E chuckles. “I can’t take all the credit for that, since I think it came from brainstorming between me and the other people involved with the EELS. We were the pioneers, but we were told that we couldn’t do it since they didn’t sell commercials by the second during the Superbowl. Then this year they did it - this year somebody did a one-second beer commercial. We were just too soon.”
Yet another case of Mark Everett being ahead of his time.
“That’s right. Too soon for my own good.”
It seems that the publicity you got from the ad being rejected and put on YouTube still helped market the album though?
“Yeah, maybe it worked out better that way,” E states as he gives his dark laugh one last time. “Fuck ‘em.”
Hombre Lobo (Vagrant/Shock)
Unpublished Interview Material
It’s interesting Hombre Lobo focuses on what happens when Souljacker’s Dog Faced Boy grows up, since I asked you around the Souljacker era if you ever think about what happens to the Teenage Witch when she grows up…
“Really? Wow. You were close. I’ve never done it before, this is the only time I’ve ever done it. Maybe it will happen again now that you’ve reminded me – perhaps the Teenage Witch rock opera is going to be next.”
On the documentary Tremendous Dynamite you’re shown playing percussion on an old army trunk – is that a family heirloom?
“That’s my grandfather, Colonel E’s army trunk. I used to use it to hold up my stereo, but now it’s just a percussive device.”
Do you think you also lead a bit of a regimented, army-like existence?
“In a strange way yeah, because although my grandfather was in the army, my family was so crazy and out of control that I think it forces you to be somewhat regimented in your life in order to survive. You have to create structure in your life to stay afloat.”
Do you get through hardships simply through dry humour and creative outlets or do you require professional assistance as well?
“(chuckles grimly) I need all the help I can get. I’ll take the professional assistance, writing songs, writing a book, making a film – everything I can.”
You carefully sidestep the word depression in Things The Grandchildren Should Know in favour of desperation.
“Well they’re different things to me. Desperation is a very unique state, whereas depression is when you’re down and out and you feel like you don’t have any hope. Desperation has more drive involved in it, so it’s not the same.”
Blinking Lights… featured special guests such as Tom Waits and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, but this album is free of any external musicians. Was it your idea to keep this one stripped back and in the family?
“When the special guests thing happens it’s usually something that happens spontaneously one way or another. It just didn’t happen this time and none of our famous friends were floating through town when we were making this one, so maybe next time.”
Randy Newman left you a phone message once – but did you ever collaborate after he turned down performing strings on Useless Trinkets?
“I would love to, but there’s nothing I know of. Next time you interview him, perhaps you can put it to him.”
What about Tom Waits – he recorded on Blinking Lights… but it seems that you were never in the studio together?
“We have kept in touch and I would of course love to do anything with him that he might want to do. I hope that we will do something together again one of these days. He’s someone who I’ve always used in my mind as a model of how to do things. He’s a great example for us all.”
What was the Wim Wenders film he originally wanted you to appear in?
“It never got made. I think it was the love story between me and Robin Wright Penn driving across America and falling in love.”
Why did EELS drummer Butch have a lobotomy in the video for Souljacker?
“It’s because Butch did have a lobotomy. It’s the reason why he acts the way he acts. He had a lobotomy in 1999 or so, so I really only got a couple of good years out of him.”
How often do you dream about your late sister Elizabeth or your parents?
“I’ve trained myself over the years to wake up and immediately forgot what I dreamt because I think it’s usually traumatic. It’s a great trick to teach yourself, but occasionally I do remember what I’ve dreamt the night before. It’s a strange thing – and I’m sure other people who’ve lost love ones will have experienced this – but you wake up and it takes you a few minutes to realise that they’re not still around. They seem so alive in your dream that it’s a weird thing, but sometimes it can be comforting.”
Sorry to end on a downer, E.
"(sarcasm and feigning pain) Thanks. I’m going to take 10 minutes off to weep now. Thanks a lot, I appreciate it.”
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