Mark Oliver Everet (later to be known as 'E'-frontman of eels) left California and moved to Los Angeles to persue a musical career. There he was signed to Polydor records where he released two solo albums ( A man called E and Broken Toy Shop). These were underated and E was dropped. E and his smalltime touring drummer Jonathan 'Butch' Norton met Tommy Walter (a clasically trained multi-instrumentalist- who was to play bass guitar in eels). The three started playing around the Los Angeles circuit together. E was pleased with the new idea of being in a band. They played material that would have been on E's 3rd solo album. The band was called 'eels'(a name E chose as it would mean, that eels' music would be close to his solo material in music shops.)Dreamworks records, the new Speilberg recording company signed eels as their 1st and main project. The song'Novacane for the Soul' had an instant reaction worldwide, this shortly followed the comercially sucessfull and memorable 'susan's house' and a song used in the film Scream 2 'Your lucky day in hell'. (all eels songs were written by E and friends, none by the band members, though they had their influence and input)All these featured on the band's debut album 'Beautiful Freak', a big worldwide seller. Eels won a British music award, the promise was overwhelming for this band. However, meanwhile, many of E's close friends were dying out of pure coincidence, his sister who sufferd from mental illness at an early age commited suicide sucsesfully after several attempts. This was soon to be followed by the death of his mother due to terminal cancer. E's father (Dr Hugh Everet- who came up with the paralell universe theory) died of a heart attack when E was 5, E walked into the family living room to find him dead. After heavy touring from Beautiful Freak and a dispute between E and Tommy, Tommy left eels, basically, E had been pushing the band into the direction of E as a solo artist and Tommy and Butch as his 'dumb backing band'. Eels went into the studios as a 2 piece (though they were helped out by the likes of 'Grant Lee Philips' and others, they made a record personal to E, full of death. E descibed it as 'cancer rock'. The album was not a big seller, however it featured the single 'Cancer for the Cure' which is featured in the film American Beauty. The record company told E that this record would be 'Cancer for the Career' nonetheless, the album was released, titled 'electro-shock blues' A short tour followed with a replacement tourring bass player 'Adam' -lead man of a band called 'My Head'. Now E was feeling better. Straight after this, E and Butch (plus Grant Lee Philips and Peter Buck making appearances) went back into the studios and made a positive sequel to Electro-shock blues. 'Daisies of the Galaxy', it featured the hit singles 'Mr E's Beautiful Blues' and 'Flyswatter', this did better than the previous album. Not the 1st however. Eels toured with an expanded lineup, a brass section, different bass player, keyboardists, and multi instrumentalist Lisa, who made a few solo records before hand and was part of a semi sucesfull group beforehand. Eels will return with a 4th album full of load guitar based songs written by E and the electro-shock blues touring bassist/frontman of My Head- Adam. Adam will probably be the tourring bassist. The 4th album should hopefully promise the return of a band like sound from eels, unlike the previous 2 personal records that feaured little drumming inspiration for Butch. EELS ARE THE GREATEST! CHECK THEM OUT!
Bio written by: jay_can |
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