May 25 2009 10:00 am, Mischa Pearlman
Mark Oliver Everett is E, the enigmatic force at the centre of Eels. His band's seventh album is titled 'Hombre Lobo', which is Spanish for 'werewolf', and was written almost exclusively as a result of his massive new beard. This Q&A represents a second interview with the great man, as our writer Mischa Pearlman lost the tape of the first interview in a drunken stupor. An incident that a jovial Mr. E remarked, "could be the single most unprofessional story I've ever heard". But who wants to be professional? Over to Mischa, mid-grovel...
[on doing the interview for a second time] Maybe you can pretend I’m somebody else?
Yeah, maybe. Are you going to write about what a nice guy I am that I did this all twice?
Absolutely!
Okay, good.
So in attempt to ask a few different questions – you’re really rocking the beard right now. Was it hard to grow such a long beard?
I’ve never had trouble growing a beard. It’s easier for me to grow a beard than to not grow a beard. It’s harder to shave it than it is to grow it. I’m, just so bursting with testosterone.
Which is why you’ve written an album about lust and desire, right? Because you can’t contain it within you.
Right. The beard is indicative of how much lust and desire I have bottled up in me.
So all those women out there should be very scared of you, I take it?
Well, I do take a perverse pleasure in seeing people cross the street to walk on the sidewalk on the other side of the street when they see me coming.
Why do you enjoy that?
There’s something about it that’s kind of fun.
And you are a bit of an enigma in terms of your public persona. Is that a fair assumption?
I guess I’m the wrong person to ask. I don’t know what people make of me.
Do you care what they make of you?
Umm...I thought about this, and it’s always nice for people to understand you, but I’m prepared for them not to.
Do you feel there’s a false idea of who Mark Oliver Everett really is?
Hmmm, sometimes. I guess anything the public sees or hears comes with the dinner, as they say. Some people are going to understand where you’re coming from and others aren’t.
So what inspired the idea of writing an album entirely based around the point of view of a werewolf?
Well, it all started with my beard. I told you the first time [laughs]. I looked in the mirror one morning and I felt that the beard wasn’t fitting the music I was working on at the time. So I was going to shave it off, and I thought, well, why not make an album that fits the beard?
Do you think you’ve discovered something about yourself by stepping away from yourself and writing an album in character, as you have with 'Hombre Lobo'?
I think that, based on history, that’s something that has happened to me years down the line. If I think I’m in some sort of character, look back and realise, ‘Oh, that’s what I was going through personally’, but I’m not aware of it now, so you’ll have to check back with me in a couple of years.
Some of the songs sound like they’re about someone close to you, while others seem to be a little... stalkerish.
[laughs] Yeah, there’s sort of this Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde thing going on with the songs on this album. Things get a little ugly when Mr Hyde comes out to play.
Since ‘Beautiful Freak’, how do you think you’ve changed? Because as a musician you’ve really moved away from the direction the industry at first tried to push you in...
Yeah, I mean after the first Eels album, which had a fair amount of commercial success, I didn’t really enjoy that experience and it really made me focus on how I wanted to do things from that point on. And that’s how it’s been ever since.
There’s a wonderful bluesy element that seems to be at the forefront of ‘Hombre Lobo’.
Yeah, to me the idea of desire equals electric guitar and something a bit more raw and immediate for the most part.
Is there one style of music that’s more true to who you are as a person? Because it’s varied a lot from album to album.
No, I don’t think there is. I mean, just whatever you’re feeling at that given time, whatever style of music that happens to be or whatever style of music tells your story the best.
Do you write songs mainly for yourself, or with an audience in mind?
I always write for myself first. I think it would be a terrible way to make anything, to think, ‘Oh, this kind of person will like this’. If people like it, that’s great, but I always write what I’d like to hear.
Yet that seems to be the opposite of how the music industry is run - it’s all about selling a product, rather than indulging the artist.
Yeah. Most of the music that sells these days is what they call music for people who don’t like music.
So do you feel lucky to be in the position that you are? You know, you were very successful to begin with, and you still are, but you burst onto the scene at a time when that was ripe, and now there’s a recession coming along and...
Yeah, I feel incredibly lucky because I’m in a rare position. Particularly in today’s climate. Everybody’s down on their luck, but I’m not. I feel very, very fortunate. And it’s nice, because after the first Eels album it appeared that I was going out of my way to whittle down our audience and make it smaller and smaller, but instead the opposite has happened and it’s slowly built and gotten bigger and bigger over the years in a nice, quiet, but built-to-last kind of way.
Well, I remember I went to see you in about 2001, at the London Forum, with a friend from home, and you pretty much played a set of entirely new songs that weren’t out yet that nobody knew. And I loved it, but my friend kept shouting for ‘Novocaine For The Soul’ and you didn’t play it. And I thought that was really brave, because there is a risk of putting people off by doing that.
That’s one of the difficult things about what we do, that that happens all the time. The experience your friend had will happen all the time. Like, the year before we’ll do a nice, soft acoustic thing and then they’ll come the next year and we’re very loud and noisy and they don’t recognise any of the songs, and they’re like, ‘What the fuck is that?’ And the opposite can happen – someone could have come the first time to that show and liked it and then the next time it’s quiet and different and they’re like, ‘What the hell is that?’ But I’ve never understood that kind of fan. Again, I’m just trying to impress... I just think, ‘What would I like as a concert goer?’ And I was always interested in the act that was always trying different things. Not just for the sake of trying different things, but because you have all these things in you.
Do you find it difficult to have to teach other musicians how to play your songs?
Sometimes. In the case of [former drummer] Butch, for example, it was very difficult to mould him into what we needed, but in the end he delivered ten-fold. Sometimes it can be hard to get someone to fit into your vision if they’re not naturally made for it.
Going back to the new album, a lot of the earlier Eels songs seem to deal with a very personal loneliness, which seems to have disappeared a bit from this album.
Oh really? Because I think there’s quite a bit of personal loneliness in this. It’s very much about, on one level, what it’s like to be an isolated, lonely werewolf full of desire, and at the same time it can be about just some guy who feels isolated and weird in society and isn’t fully understood.
I think what I meant was, in terms of the loneliness, to begin with, it was people by themselves, shut away from the world in rooms or at home and left to grieve or whatever, whereas with this album the character seems to be surrounded by other people yet still excluded.
Well, in this case the loneliness is thrust upon him, whereas in the other cases it’s maybe more of a choice.
Was it harder writing songs from a character’s point of view than it was drawing on actual experiences you’ve gone through?
Right now, I would say... I can’t say it’s harder or easier, but it’s a great relief to be doing something like that after four years of autobiography.
Is the past more of a help or a hindrance to you?
It’s like picking the stitches to keep from bleeding to death. It’s difficult to do that stuff, but it was absolutely worth it in the end.
You got popular in music quite late. Do you think that’s been a blessing in disguise?
Yeah, I mean, whatever it takes. I was a late bloomer as an artist. Back in the old days, everything moved faster, people were at their peak often when they were 24, 25. I didn’t really get going till I was 27, I didn’t get started till then, so it’s just how it worked for me.
Have you sacrificed a lot for your art? You’ve mentioned in an interview we did before – not the one I lost but one before that – that you’re just a lonely rock star...
Well, that’s just where I am at the moment. It doesn’t mean that’s how I’m going to end up.
Are you worried about ending up alone?
Well, it’s all by my own design, you know. It’s where I want to be right now.
But is it because of the art? Have you sacrificed a lot for it?
I think that’s definitely a big part of it. My life is definitely not a balanced life and it’s very lop-sided and very much about music and what I’m working on.
Had you not gone through all those personal tragedies, like the suicide of your sister and the death of your mother, do you think you’d be making music now? I presume not to the same extent or in the same way...
Yeah, I mean, if anybody wants me to make another album like ‘Electroshock Blues', I’ll be sure to go have my family all die again. Because that’s what happened, you know. And I think I would have done something else that would have been its own version of something. I obviously wouldn’t have been dealing with that subject matter.
Do you go back and listen to those albums? Do you ever listen to your own music?
No. The only time I’ve listened to the old music is when I was putting together the retrospective, or when you’re getting ready to go on tour and you need to learn an old song that you can’t remember anymore that you feel you might like to play again.
You often re-work songs for your live shows. Does it take a long time to do that?
That’s the funnest part, is taking an old song from years ago and playing it in concert today as if you’d written it today, in the way you’d do it now. That’s what makes it fun and exciting and it doesn’t matter how long it takes because you’re having fun with it.
Someone said I should ask this, but I’m not so sure. But I’ll ask it anyway. Obviously I lost the interview we did the other day. What’s the most important thing you’ve ever lost, perhaps aside from your family...
Isn’t that enough, man? [laughs]
I knew that was a bad question.
Losing your car keys can be pretty devastating that day, but losing your family is a little bit worse.
It must be exceedingly tough. I suppose you learn to live with it? Is it possible to forget it though, put it all behind you? Would you even want to?
You never forget it, no. But I’m just so incredibly lucky that I have a way to deal with it that keeps me busy.
Do you know what you’d have done otherwise?
I can’t imagine how I would have dealt with all that stuff without being able to make music.
Finally, what’s the best and the worst thing about being Mark Oliver Everett?
That kind of answers itself. The best part is being Mark Oliver Everett and the worst part is being Mark Oliver Everett.
Well, thank you – again – for your time.
Sure. Try not to lose this one!
I’m putting straight on my computer.
Well, then lock your computer in a safe!
That’s not actually a bad idea...
'Hombre Lobo' is released on E Works/Vagrant on June 2nd.
