EELS TIME!, the 15th album by Los Angeles-based Eels, is out today (June 7) and it features the band's frontman working with an unlikely collaborator on three of the album's 12 songs. (Everett's longtime collaborators Koool G Murder and The Chet are also featured on the album.)
Eels are known for their slightly down beat, sometimes orchestrated pop, while the All-American Rejects are an emo pop-punk band from Stillwater, Okla. Coincidentally, the bands were labelmates at DreamWorks during the early aughts, but Eels' frontman Mark Everett and AAR singer-guitarist Tyson Ritter never met until years later.
"He got in touch with me through managers that he wanted me to collaborate with him on a song that he was doing for that movie, Prisoner's Daughter, for the end title. And I got the song, and I really liked it. It was really cool. So, I was on that with him and that's when we met," Everett explained during a recent phone interview with Music Times. "And then we realized we were neighbors. And then that led to me getting beat up by him in the movie -- because I'm always up for something new."
As Everett mentioned, he was cast in a small role in the 2022 film as Kate Beckinsale's boss at a Mexican restaurant where he's manhandled by her ex-husband, played by Ritter. Everett managed to crack a rib in the process.
The collaboration for the film also led to more songs. "We started writing another song for the movie, and like halfway through that I just said, 'You know, I really like this, can we hijack this for the next Eels album?' And he said, 'Sure.' And then we wrote four more, so it just kind of flowed."
One of those songs is titled "Goldie," which began as Ritter's idea. "Tyson came up with the idea of 'All you need is a goldfish in the bowl,' which I believe was the original concept behind the Beatles 'All You Need is Love,'" Everett jokes. "I named it 'Goldie,' and then I just realized while I was singing it, since I don't currently have a goldfish -- I have had goldfish in the past, but I don't currently have one. And I realized I was picturing my dog, so I could really, you know, sink my teeth into it."
While Everett experienced a minor injury in his movie cameo, he recently dealt with a serious health problem. He had open-heart surgery to repair an aorta aneurysm in December. Because his father, noted physicist Hugh Everett III, died of a heart attack at the age of 51, Everett was aware of his condition and his doctors had been monitoring his health, so a potentially lethal emergency was avoided.
In the album's opening track, "Time," Everett seems to address his own mortality, although the album was recorded prior to his surgery. "I think in general, even without knowing you've got open heart surgery coming up, as we all get older, the concept of time gets more and more to the forefront of your mind every day because you become acutely aware that there's less of it available to you in the future," he says.
Everett admits that he wasn't 100% sure he was going to survive the surgery, so he made some plans. "I told my managers just make sure this album comes out," he reveals. "Whatever happens, you know, I had finished it and I felt good about it, and I just wanted to make sure I didn't leave this on the shelf."
During his recovery at a Los Angeles area hospital, Everett experienced a strange coincidence after having a particularly difficult and painful night. "I was really having a rough night. I kept buzzing this new nurse. It was her first night on duty with me. And I just kept buzzing her like every hour like, 'Oh please give me something, I can't sleep.' Or, you know, 'Give me something for pain.' All night and first thing in the morning she comes in and she goes, 'So I heard you were a singer and I looked you up and I saw that your biggest song on Spotify is called "I Need Some Sleep."' And I said, 'Yep, that's him.'"
That track is featured on the 2004 soundtrack for Shrek 2, prompting us to wonder if that's his equivalent to the boon Nick Lowe experienced when a cover of his song "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" was included on the multi-million selling soundtrack to The Bodyguard, resulting in a windfall of royalties for the veteran songwriter.
"It hasn't been Bodyguard good. That's the gold standard we all wish for," Everett jokes. "But, certainly having like five songs in Shrek vehicles-- cause there's one Christmas special they play every year on TV. So yeah, Shrek has been good to me."
The synergy between the DreamWorks record label and the film company helped make that happen and allowed Eels to continue to survive in an increasingly difficult music business. "Miraculously, I'm doing OK, but yeah, it gets harder and harder and I'm one of the lucky ones who was involved in the music business right at the end of the days when it had money," Everett says.
The reason Everett signed with DreamWorks was because the label was run by the former Warner Bros. Records team of Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker, known for nurturing artists, such as Prince, Neil Young and others. "They were artist friendly guys who signed Prince. And Prince's first few records didn't do well commercially, but they were like, that's OK. They remained calm. They were like, artists take a while to develop sometimes. And that's how they approached it with me. And amazingly, it turned out to be true in my case, too, but it took a long time. It was after I did five albums with them."
Unfortunately, it didn't last, as the DreamWorks record label eventually was absorbed by Universal in early 2004. (Eels now record for E Works/Play It Again Sam).
Everett's first record deal was prior to the formation of Eels, when he recorded as a solo artist known as E. That was with Polydor, which released two albums before he was dropped after the executive who signed him was fired.
There is a throughline from that period to EELS TIME! with one of Everett's earliest collaborators, his childhood friend Sean Coleman, making a reprise appearance. Their first released collaboration, "Mass," appeared on E's 1993 album Broken Toy Shop. "We've been friends since I was a little kid," Everett says. "His older sister used to babysit me."
Coleman now lives in Dublin, Ireland and makes a living repairing instruments. "I've known him so long; he has a bunch of my teenage demos. I was always making these four-track demos. They're all quite terrible in my opinion and occasionally he'll send me one. Sometimes I wonder if he's just trying to razz me, so I can notice how bad it was. That's what I thought was the case when he sent me this one called 'And You Run.' It was just awful. The production was so bad because it was the early '80s, but he was like, 'No, I think there's something here. I think this would be a good song.' And I was like, 'Whatever.'
"And then, unsolicited, he made this beautiful version of it and sent it to me. And I was like, 'God damn. You're right. This is really nice.' I never would have thought it could be turned into this.' So I finished it off with him and put it on the album...He really polished the turd."
