#8 Mark Oliver Everett, Eels

Hello Mark. We’ve got some stupid questions for you. Are you ready to indulge us?
OK. I’ll try.

What is your favourite sandwich filling?
Pesto.

Red or green?
It’s gotta be green. I think a mistake that a lot of people make is this: you can’t have a red meat with green pesto. They just don’t go together. Chicken is good with it. Or cheese, but you have to make sure that it’s a white cheese rather than a yellow cheese.

Definitely. The pitfalls of pesto are myriad. How did you discover that this was your favourite sandwich?
I do not remember being introduced to it. My love affair with pesto has been going on for so long that I don’t remember how it started.

That’s lovely. What a nice relationship you have with pesto.
Yes. We’re very happy together.

The Fly. Would you swat us or leave us be?
It would depend how pesky The Fly was being at the time. If The Fly was minding its own business, I would leave The Fly be.

And supposing it wasn’t?
Then I might have to swat The Fly.

Would you go with a rolled-up newspaper?
That is a favourite.

Or you could even thwack it with a copy of The Fly?
That would just be too ironic.

How would you describe your music to our Mum?
[clears throat] Mrs. Fly, our music is what the kids call a “mash-up” these days of “rock” and also “roll”. We were the innovators to put these two together. There’s a lot of people that rock and a few people that roll. We do both.

Who would be in your dream band?
If dead people are allowed then this is easy. You just take a little trip up to rock‘n’roll heaven. I mean, I’m probably going to rock‘n’roll hell which means I’ll be jamming with Dimebag Darrell or something. But if I go to rock‘n’roll heaven, you gotta have Ray Charles, you gotta have John Lennon, you gotta have Elvis Presley… how many do I get?

It’s a conventional line-up, but ultimately you can do what you like, it’s your band.
I’d put a couple of living guys in there too, so I could mix it up. Maybe Tom Waits could join us for a couple of numbers. That’s a good four piece right there.

What do you think it would sound like?
It would probably be terrible. They’d all be reaching for the lead singer microphone at the same time. I guess I should’ve thought about not making them all frontmen.

Which song do you wish had been written about you?
I’m trying to think of some songs that are about the guy who’s the most amazing lover in the world. What are those songs called?

Are you talking about disco here?
I dunno. Maybe.

Sister Sledge – ‘He’s The Greatest Dancer’?
No. I don’t wanna be the greatest dancer.

OK, well it’s probably a metaphor though, meaning that if you can dance, you can also handle yourself in the bedroom area.
[laughs] One likes to thinks so. I can’t think of any of the song titles I had in mind though…

Shabba Ranks – ‘Mister Loverman’?
Yes!

That’s quite low down on the list of things we would have expected you to say. So, thanks.
You’re welcome.

Which song do you wish that you’d written?
Hmm… so many. I’m gonna go with ‘Like A Rolling Stone’. It’s an amazing song and an amazing record that, honestly, I think if it came out today it’d still be ahead of its time. It’s got everything you want.

What do you think of Bob Dylan these days? Does it put you off when he does the craggy old git thing?
No, I love that about him. But then I love that about me too.

Is that where you’re going?
I think so. I wanna thank him for giving aging, cranky guys a role model.

Do you have any pre-gig rituals?
Yeah, we sacrifice a virgin about a half-hour before each show.

Mm-hmm. With what?
Well the methods vary. I’m not sure what we have planned for tonight, but seeing as it’s Amsterdam and it’s one of our favourite theatres, we might go with the big pot of lava.

What kind of people really annoy you?
I’m gonna sound like the back of a Playboy centrefold here, ‘Boring, vapid people…’ [tails off…]

World Peace?
Yeah, World Peace annoys me [laughs]. I’d say know-it-alls. Everybody has a friend who knows everything. Just shut the fuck up.

What kind of people do you think you annoy?
I think I probably annoy most people.

Come now, that’s not a fair answer.
I think that it’s a good way to go through the world, assuming you’re annoying people. So that when you find out you actually are, it’s not too surprising.

Or crushing. Just to recap you said Dimebag would be in hell. It wasn’t his fault that he got shot on stage.
I’m not even sure who he is. I just thought the name was funny. I probably shouldn’t have said that.