Ask E, also known as Mark Oliver Everett and the creative force behind the Eels, what a souljacker is and you're bound to get a variety of responses. The core, however, revolves around a term applied to a serial killer from the '90s who claimed to not only murder his victims but steal their souls as well. Interested in this idea, E wrote a series of songs that ultimately became Souljacker the album, a set of stories about the many characters that make up a sometimes-soulless world. This collection of "voodoo rock," as E likes to describe it, rocks harder than any of the Eels' last albums, especially the quiet and meditative previous effort Daisies of the Galaxy, but flirts with the same degree of trip-hop mentality.
Flanked by Kool G Murder on bass and keyboards and original Eels member Butch Norton on drums, E discovered early on in the recording process that producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Giant Sand) would be a vital component in illustrating the concepts in his head. Parish and E sent each other ideas through the mail and ultimately met in the studio. The resulting album was released in Europe last year with a successful tour; this month, America gets its chance to hear the new disc.
E has been called the spokesperson for beautiful freaks the world over. Losing both his parents and his sister in a short amount of time resulted in the depressing and therapeutic Electro-Shock Blues in 1998. E's been making music in various capacities and the release of Souljacker this month marks ten years in the business for him dating back to A Man Called (E), the first of two pre-Eels solo albums. With such an impressive body of work under his belt, it's a bit of a surprise to E that the Eels still exist just slightly under the radar where most people couldn't quite tell you if they've heard them before or not. Odds are you have, especially if you've seen Road Trip or Shrek. If not, odds are you will soon enough.
The album's first single, Souljacker pt. 1 rocks in that way that few songs on the radio do these days. In fact, longtime fans may be surprised to hear just how hard E manages to yell "Rock!" during the peak of the song. It's a moment of triumph for the Eels and E who has always worn his inner demons on his sleeve and no longer feels the need to wallow in self-pity. It's good, ol' fashioned rock 'n' roll and never before have the Eels sounded like they were having more fun. But E hasn't abandoned his soft side by any means. "Fresh Feeling" and "Woman Driving, Man Sleeping" offer the bittersweet that balances out a truly diverse record, and one that pleases and surprises with repeated listenings.
hear/say: You've described the process of recording Souljacker as easy and that you recorded a couple other albums at the same time. What were some of the factors that allowed this to happen?
E: Mental illness. Too much time on my hands. (Laughs.) No I guess really it was a matter of... it wasn't really made conventionally. People generally go into the studio for a month or two months, in some cases more. But this one was worked on piece by piece simultaneously while other records were being made. And I always had it in my mind, I was always working on it since I started working on the Electro-Shock Blues album in 1998, so it's been in the making for quite a while. So at one point some of the stuff that was gonna be on Souljacker was gonna be on Daises of The Galaxy and I was considering doing a double album. I talked myself out of it mainly because the two things were just so different. They just were probably uncomfortable together. I like having lots of light and lots of shade on a record to represent the different aspects of daily life. It seemed like [these albums] were just better served separate. Although it probably would have been my masterpiece if I had kept them together, oh well. (Laughs)
h/s: Do you really think that?
E: I don't know, who knows.
h/s: It seems like Souljacker is a little bit darker than Daisies of the Galaxy.
E: Yeah, Daisies of the Galaxy was intended to be like a nice walk in the park and Souljacker is more like when you get mugged.
h/s: Souljacker definitely seems to rock more, maybe the moment that sums up the album best is when you yell "Rock!" in Souljacker pt. 1.
E: I hope so. I thought that would be the quintessential moment for me. That rock is a pretty scary rock. I kind of scared myself when I heard it back. I think it came from somewhere else, I think I was channeling the devil.
h/s: Tell me a little bit about how you got involved with John Parish and what influence he had on making the record.
E: Someone had talked about us working together several years ago and at the time, whatever I was working on, it didn't seem like the right idea to me and I didn't think a lot about it. And I had already recorded "Souljacker pt. 1" and some of the other stuff before I had actually met him. We were doing "Souljacker pt. 1" on the Electro-Shock Blues tour. That one's been around for a while. And then around the time Electro-Shock Blues came out we met at Top of the Pops, of all places, which is a British TV show and in America we don't have anything really like it - it's a lot like Solid Gold. So then we met and he really liked Electro-Shock Blues and I'm always willing to talk to someone who's gonna be nice about one my records (laughs). So we just kind of hit it off and we'd meet each other in different towns and he was with PJ Harvey and we would sometimes be playing in the same places and a friendship developed and we started sending each other stuff in the mail... He'd work on stuff in his basement in Bristol and I'd add stuff to it in my basement here in LA. Eventually he came over and we did work most of the months of January and February a year ago.
h/s: The album had already been released in Europe with a successful tour. What are your hopes for it in the U.S. when it's released in March?
E: I don't have a lot of hopes to be honest with you. I don't... I just realized right now it was... ten years ago almost exactly to the day that my first record came out. I mean I just like to make records. I really like to make records a lot. But everything else I don't really care for. I just try not to have big expectations and I'm always going on to the next thing as quickly as I can.
h/s: I remember that, I was twelve then and one of my friends bought your first record... E: Wow, that's amazing.
h/s: Well, he had gone into one of our local record stores here in Chicago and the guy that worked there was like, "Here, buy this" and he gave him you record. And he bought it.
E: God bless that guy. That always happens, it's always like some guy at a record store that happens to like it says, "Hey, have you heard this?" It seems like that's the only way that anything ever happens for us is when a few nice people out there decide to push it on someone. Yeah, so that was ten yours ago almost exactly to today that my first record came out. I mean, I just like to make records. I really like to make records a lot. But everything else I don't really care for. I just try not to have big expectations and I'm always going on to the next thing as quickly as I can.
h/s: So making records for you is just a necessary part of living?
E: Apparently because I haven't taken a vacation in at least the last ten years if not more. Every time I think I'm gonna take a break... I mean I'm almost finished with the next Eels album right now and there's three others that haven't come out that are all ready to go.
h/s: Do you ever experience writer's block or do you always have an abundance of ideas?
E: The only time I have writer's block is on tour when I rarely feel like I want to write a song. It's just such a different frame of mind and it's so removed from real life it's hard to feel inspired and it's also hard to find the energy. But that's not really writer's block because I'm not really trying to write.
h/s: Is touring fun for you?
E: The older I get the more fun it is in some ways. I don't enjoy playing the same songs every night and that kind of stuff. Oddly the fun part is just hanging out on the bus with the guys and everything.
h/s: And then you have the occasional Afroman incident [One night on tour, the band met Afroman and invited him to come onstage with them and sing his hit song "Because I Got High" which was filmed and can be viewed at their web site at www.eelstheband.com].
E: Yeah (Laughs.) That's the problem, it's like you start to look for ways to amuse yourself because it's sort of like that movie Groundhog Day where every day it's like the same thing over and over again and you start to come up with these crazy ways to amuse yourself.
h/s: You've denied numerous requests to have your songs used in commercials, is there any chance we'll hear "Fresh Feeling" in a commercial for feminine products?
E: Yeah, well, the funny thing is that I'm always trying to get inspiration from unlikely sources and I was inspired by feminine hygiene products (laughs.) I remember the day I wrote "Fresh Feeling" I was really sick, I was in my pajamas and I felt really shitty, and I was like, "I want to write something really fresh." And I started thinking, well, isn't there a saying for those not so fresh feelings, and I just thought, "Well, what about those fresh feelings?" And, you know, I'm happy to try and get something nice out of something like that. I'm sure they'll come calling for it because it's unbelievable how many large corporations come calling for my songs. Which is sort of ironic seeing as how the record company sees me as so uncommercial. But I know that someone's gonna ask to use "Fresh Feeling" in a douche commercial.
h/s: But that's not something you would ever do, not necessarily with "Fresh Feeling" but any song?
E: If I was ever gonna do one that would be the one, only because I feel like I'd owe it to them.
h/s: The song sounds great, it actually stands out a lot in the movie, most people remember it.
E: Hmmm... I did like Shrek. I was happy to have a song in that. I thought that was a really good movie. But the thing about films is you never know. I really like films so I like to be involved, it's somebody's idea of art and sometimes it's more artistic and sometimes it's just funny. But you never know until the day it's in the theater how it's gonna turn out, that's the problem. You can get involved in something and then it just comes out terrible. You're putting yourself at the mercy of a lot of other people.
h/s: So working with Wim Wenders on the video for Souljacker pt. 1 must have been pretty exciting for you?
E: Yeah, it's great to work with somebody that... the thing that I admire most about him is that he keeps doing exactly what he wants to do which is almost impossible in the film business.
h/s: How important is ambiguity in your songs and do you feel it's important for the listener to make up their mind as to what the song is really about?
E: Sometimes, I mean that's exactly what a song like "Woman Driving, Man Sleeping" is about. It's about being in between two things, they've left something behind and they're heading towards something else. We're not telling you exactly what either of those things are. But overall I'm not writing things and thinking, "Let's be ambiguous," it's really more of a case-by-case situation. Some songs you need your imagination to be involved more than others.
h/s: How do you want the Eels to be viewed among all the popular music you hear on the radio today?
E: Outside of it is a pretty comfortable place to be. Because, you know, who wants to be a part of all that shit? It's getting out of hand. People say that it's always bad times, but these really are bad times as far as what people are exposed to... I don't know, don't get me started on that. I'm always getting punished by the record companies because they think I could be really commercial and that I should be, so they always hold that against me and get mad at me when I don't meet their commercial expectations.
March 2002