Eels’ Everett excited to be back from break
NEW YORK — Since he has written movingly about his family dying around him, Mark Oliver Everett understands why his band, Eels, is often described as a purveyor of depressing indie rock ’n’ roll. Yet that would be missing the point of his work.
His music is ultimately openhearted and life-affirming, a celebration of perseverance.
“Calling it a depressing band is like reviewing a movie that has a very heavy beginning but also has a happy ending — and you’re only reviewing half of the movie,” said Everett, who is coming off the first extended break of his career. He has had some awful experiences, “but I’m a genuinely happy person now,” he said. “I love my life and I’m so glad that I get to be an example for people.”
With preoccupied parents, Everett and his beloved older sister largely raised themselves. At 19, he found the body of his father, a quantum physicist, who had died from a heart attack. Everett’s sister committed suicide. Just as his music career began, he nursed his mother as she died of lung cancer. Add a cousin who died on a hijacked plane on Sept. 11, 2001, and it’s a mythic tale of misfortune.
Everett dealt with it through his art, most notably on the late1990s album Electro-Shock Blues and in the autobiography Things the Grandchildren Should Know. Eels music has been featured in films including American Beauty, the three Shrek movies and HBO’s The Jinx.
It would be easy to succumb to bitterness, but Everett doesn’t. His band’s album The Deconstruction is the latest evidence, where on the song Premonition, he sings that “it’s not the weight that you carry, it’s how you carry it.” He embraces change in Today is the Day and togetherness on Sweet Scorched Earth.
He’s not whistling a happy tune, his attitude is hard won. He feels the time is right for compassion and kindness. “It’s something the world needs so badly right now,” he said. “It’s also a note to self.”
Everett stepped off a music career treadmill four years ago, unsure when or if he would be back. He did some acting, he got married, and divorced, and became the father of a now oneyear-old son.
He returned to making music when he had enough new material for an album.
“It’s so fun and exciting to be back at it now after a big palatecleanser, if you will,” he said.