Getting Personal With The Eels’ Mark Everett (Interview)

Having reached his 50th year, Mark Everett, aka “E”, the guiding light behind the Eels, has just released one of his most personal albums to date, appropriate titled, The Cautionary Tales Of Mark Oliver Everett. The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to Mark Everett just as he and his fellow Eels were preparing to hit the road in support of the new album.

 

You can listen to the conversation with The Eels’ Mark Everett here:

Or…you can read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: According to my calculations you’re probably preparing to head out on the road at the moment, is that right?

ME: Yes we leave in a few days.

MD: And I’m guessing that your life on the road is quite a bit different than your lifestyle at home. Is there anything you kinda do to prepare yourself for the change from one thing to the other?

ME: Yeah, they’re very different lifestyles. Well you know, when you’ve been doing it for a while you start to figure out how to pack better. You learn lessons about packing each time you do it. You get out there and you’re stranded without something you really need and it becomes a big ordeal just to go get it somewhere so you start to figure out to pack wisely, instead of just a t-shirt.

MD: And who’s coming out with you on the tour as far as fellow musicians?

ME: I think it’s probably gonna be the same guys it’s been for the last several tours but I don’t it will resemble any of the last several tours in any way musically.

MD: Oh okay so…

ME: They’re a versatile group.

MD: alright that’s good. So how is it going to be different than what you’ve done in the past?

ME: Well, we’ve done a lot of rocking in the last few years and I think this will be more on the soft side.

MD: I guess that reflects the current album…the mood and tone.

ME: Yeah I suppose it makes sense.

MD: I was hoping to go through the different folks who you work with on the record…other musicians that contributed to The Eels…and maybe you could briefly describe what they do, who they are. There’s been a lot of focus on you obviously because I mean, it is all about you, but at the same time there are folks like Koool G Murder and The Chet that folks may not be that familiar with. So maybe you can start with The Chet.

ME: Yeah, I’ve certainly gotten, I’ve gotten my fair share of attention, let’s turn the spotlight on these guys.

MD: Alright. So The Chet, he plays guitar I believe, and he’s been with you for a while. When you get down to recording and you get em’ all in the studio. What is his main contribution?

ME: Well Chet’s my left hand man on stage. He’s always there at my side and he’s, I mean he’s an extremely good and versatile guitar player but he also, he’d played so many instruments with us over the years. He plays pedal steel, which is an enormously difficult instrument to play. Any instrument that involves your knees is too difficult for me to even consider playing.

MD: Right.

ME: Um, he plays the drums, he plays keyboards, the musical saw and…it’s probably hard for me to list all of the things he plays.

MD: And I know he also does certain…

ME: He did some of the string arrangements on this new album as well

MD: And he does some co-writing with you as well, is that right?

ME: Yeah, yeah.

MD: And how does that work?

ME: Well in case of this record…yeah we wrote some songs together on the last record, Wonderful, Glorious and it was a very different approach……this record’s marginal two guys and guitars sitting in a room which can be a very difficult way to write songs cause you have to sit there and kind of shoot each other’s ideas down until you can agree on something you both like.

MD: I see, alrighty. Who else who you like to talk about. I guess there’s Koool G.

ME: Well the other guitarist is P-Boo.

MD: P-Boo, okay.

ME: Hhe’s a new guy, but he’s been with us for three or four tours now so he’s not that new. He’s sort of like the Ron Wood of The Eels. Yeah so he’s already been around for quite some time. And um he is also, he’s very versatile as well. He plays guitar and he also plays trumpet and cornet and he sings and he also did some of the orchestral arrangements in the new album. And co-wrote some of the songs.

MD: Oh great okay, um I mean is it difficult..I mean since those songs are so personal for yourself…is it difficult to bring someone else in and ask them to kinda add to them?

ME: Well it is difficult, the hardest part for me was the first time I have to sing these songs in front of guys in the band in the studio and I just feel embarrassed. I just imagine them all chuckling at my expense on the other side of the glass.

MD: I see, I mean you’ve known them for a while, though there must be a certain amount of trust that’s been built up between the group of you.

ME: Yeah hopefully, but It’s always hard.

MD: And from what I understand, these songs for this album have been around a while… from before the previous album, is that right?

ME: Some of them. About half of them have been around since before the last album and half of them came after.

MD:Oh okay, and was there a reason it took so long for these things to kinda germinate.

ME: Well it’s something that’s actually not that uncommon for me. Sometimes I’ll finish an album and I’ll just decide to give it some air and leave it on the shelf and go to something else and then come back to it much later because then you have a fresh perspective on it and in this case it was very beneficial as it gave me ideas on how to make it better.

MD: So who else should we talk about, as far as contributions to the record?

ME: Well there’s Koool G Murder who is a, you know my secret weapon in the studio. His primary instrument is bass but he is another multi-instrumentalist. He plays everything and everything very well. He’s an enormously talented bass player and he’s a really great keyboardist and guitarist and he’s another, I mean pretty much everybody in the band does everything you know so. It’s a, sometimes it’s hard to decide who should play what.

MD: Right, and do you ever consider bringing in ringers to you know, Eric Clapton to play a solo or I mean that kind of thing? Have you ever been to the point in the studio where you go ‘oh geez I really wish I could get so-and so to play this part’ or do you prefer to keep it kinda of…

ME: No, no, not for technical purposes but you know, occasionally we’ve done stuff like that. We had Tom Waits sing on a song and stuff like that, but that’s different. You know, that wasn’t because someone, well that was because none of these guys could sing like Tom Waits.

MD: Right. And if you do, you usually get sued if I remember correctly.

ME: Yeah that might be true.

MD: Alright.

ME: Yeah so we were smart. We went for the real thing, so we wouldn’t get sued.

MD: Very good. And your drummer is, is it Knuckles?

ME: Knuckles, yeah. He’s a phenomenal drummer. Who’s also, you know he’s not just one of the drummers that just hits things. He plays what I call real instruments as well.

MD: Yeah.

ME: I can make that joke because I started out as a drummer, I’m a drummer too.

MD: Right.

ME: He plays um, you know, he’s written a couple of songs about himself that we’ve performed in the last couple of tours…songs in praise of himself.. were highlights for the audience every night and yeah so he does play other stuff too as well as the drums and he is a kick-ass drummer.

MD: Alright. I was wondering since you know, I think you’re what, 50 years old in this point in your life, do you feel that theres been a kind of steady evolution of your musical and song writing skills? Are you a different musician and artist now than you were when you started out in the mid-90s?

ME: You know I’m always so…I just pour myself into whatever it is this year and I’m not thinking much about last year. It’s been so many things since it started that’s it’s hard for me to go back to what it was when it started.

MD: And the tour itself that you’re heading out on, I know you’re going to the US and then you’re heading off to Europe, I think it’s been quite a while since you’ve been down to this part of the world, down to Australia and New Zealand. Is there any plans to get on down here?

ME: We’ve been to Australia several times, we haven’t been there the last two times I think, just because of scheduling conflicts, we couldn’t make it work. We’ve only actually been to New Zealand once.

MD: Right, I was there, I saw the show.

ME: On the 2005 tour. Oh yeah well that was really fun, but the best part about it was….. It was the last night of a long world tour and we all stayed there for a week afterwards and that’s still the only vacation I’ve ever had actually and it was in New Zealand.

MD: What were your impressions of the country?

ME: Loved it. Can’t wait to do it again.

MD: Oh okay so, do you think you can make it down for this one?

ME: We’re trying, I hope so, we always intend to.

MD: Now I read that in your interviews that you’ve mentioned that when you were growing up music is kinda the thing that saved you and one of the records that you cite is John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. I was wondering if there are any other albums, musicians, artists that were kind of instrumental in that part of your life that helped you get to where you are now.

ME: I mean there’s just so many, thousands. You know, I can cite Plastic Onew Band as one that I have an overt influence on why I write some songs like the ones that are on the new album but other than that, there’s just a thousand influences that don’t need any more than a thousand others to be melded together.

MD: You’ve been the subject of documentaries, you’ve written your own autobiography, endless interviews, and of course your records yourself are kind of autobiographical as well. Do you feel that, at some point, there is too much information out there about you or somewhat therapeutic to have all this stuff out there. How does it affect you?

ME: Well you know about half the time it’s actually not autobiographical. A lot of times I’m singing in a character’s voice or you know, it’s not about me. But I often like to tell the story in first person so it’s easy to mistake that it could be about me. When I look at this album, it is very autobiographical and, it’s an uncomfortable feeling you know, to you know, when I wrote my book it was a very uncomfortable feeling and this album in particular is very uncomfortable feeling for me and I almost regret doing it, honestly, but I do feel like it was a worthwhile endeavour to kinda throw myself under the bus or throw my dignity under the bus…cause you know, there are lessons to be learned.

MD: Right, and do you feel that it’s been worth it? I mean, how has the reaction been from people who have listened to it. Have you got any feedback as far as that they appreciate that you’ve done this for them or?

ME: I think it’s kinda, I think maybe it’s kinda polarizing you know, it’s a tall order in this day and age to expect people to pay enough time and attention to a record like this. You know it’s not the kind of record that you’re necessarily gonna understand or get the first time you hear it. It’s one of those things that you need to spend time with repeatedly and then it becomes, it reveals itself. So I think people that just give it a cursory glance or listen might not get the full effect.

MD: Right.

ME: But I think the people that do get it understand…you know, I worked really hard for it to mean what I intended it to mean…but I also understand that a lot of people aren’t gonna get to the understanding of the meaning.

MD: Right. And when you were making the record, were you concerned or aware of the fact of making it…balancing the optimism with the down beat side of things to make sure that…..

ME: Yeah for sure. I mean if you take so many songs out of context and just listen to them out of the sequence of the record, some of them are very dark…. Everything I’ve ever done is always in the name of trying to get to a brighter…the only way you can really do that is by dealing with the dark stuff and so there is a very deliberate order to the sequence of these songs and it gets really dark towards the end. Like a rock bottom you might say.

MD: Right.

ME: And that’s what lead to some revelations. I start to figure stuff out by the second to last song and I’m starting to figure out what the whole problem is and that makes me able to get to a place where I’m at in the last song, where I can be in a more hopeful place in the future.

MD: Right, so you’ve obviously taken these lessons to heart yourself I’m assuming and are you finding that it’s changing the way you’re living your day to day life?

ME: Well what happened was I went through the experience in my life….. and yeah it changed me a lot as a person and then I made the musical version of it.

MD: Right.

ME: I didn’t figure it out by doing the music but it sort of helped, you know. It helps as a good reminder.

MD: And I imagine that the process of going out and singing these songs now in front of people is also going to be somewhat interesting process for you.

ME: Yeah it’s terrifying. It’s a little terrifying. It’s gonna be very uncomfortable at least the first few times if not more and hopefully it will get more comfortable as it goes along if I’m lucky.

MD: I guess the album is kind of put together as kind of a, almost a concept album with a beginning, middle and end and the way you’ve kind of bookended the songs. Did you give quite a bit of thought to the, into the way the album was assembled?

ME: Yeah, it was all very deliberate.

MD: And when you’re doing that how much…

ME: if you shuffle most of these songs around and it’s not gonna make any sense.

MD: Right, okay. So getting back to my, I guess my original thoughts. How much did the rest of the band have to do with that kind of process or at that point do they kind of realise that you’re the one steering the ship and they’re kind there to serve the….

ME: Yeah, they pretty much aren’t, they’re not involved in that part of the process, they’re involved in some of the writing and some of the orchestrating and some of the recording and all that. But the rest of it is all up to me.

MD: Now, one last question. Thinking about future projects, up till now you’ve seemed kind of somewhat insular far as your musical endeavours you kind of work with the same guys. Have you ever considered collaborating on a more major way with other song writers or artists?

ME: Yeah I’m open to all sorts of possibilities. I do enjoy collaborating, it’s fun to get stuff out of someone that you can’t get out of yourself, you know. So it’s a very worthy thing to do I think and you know, I’m open to it.

MD: Anybody in particular?

ME: I really like um, Kanye West’s new record. I think he should work with me.

MD: Ah okay. That certainly would be interesting, I suppose somebody has to make the first move in that direction so maybe he’ll catch you out on tour or something.

ME: Yeah it’s probably got to be him.

 Click here to read The 13th Floor review of The Cautionary Tales Of Mark Oliver Everett.