I asked E to describe each member of his band "The Eels", in one sentence.
"Okay. Butch... animal. I'll make it one word. Tommy... proffessor."
Why is he a proffessor?
"He's very trained musically. He knows what he's doing and can solve all our technical problems."

E was a solo artist with two albums ("A man called E" and "Toy shop" - both on Polydor) before he met Butch and Tommy in a nightclub. They got up and played together and had some sort of chemistry as a group. At the time, E was working on songs to be on his third solo album and I believe some of this is now "Eels" music.

The album "Beautiful Freak" was recorded in E's basement along with some recordings in his friends' garages. It was produced by E and co-produced by Mike Simpson of the Dust Brothers. A few other friends of E's also helped out with the producing. There weren't any major hiccups apart from tapes being eaten by the machine. "That's always very heartbreaking."

Seventy songs were recorded over a two year period, and twelve out of the seventy were put on the album. He told me that it was very hard to choose out of the seventy songs, but hopefully some of them will be released as b-sides or on soundtracks.

When speaking of 'Novacain for the soul', the first single, E said "it's the opposite of what the rest of the record is about. The records about getting to the bottom of what's going on... getting to what's underneath. This song's about running away from what's underneath."

Recently, 'The Eels' have toured with 'Blush' and 'Porno for Pyros'. When E was a solo artist, he toured with Tori Amos.

The three of them are friends with Amii Mann, the guys from Grant Lee Buffalo and "we live near Beck, we live in the same neighbourhood". I think that I will be moving there soon too! *dream*

E added, near the end of our conversation, that they are really looking forward to coming to Australia. Unfortunately they have no definate dates yet because of tours in the United States and Europe, but it hopefully will be "soon". E hopes to spend a good amount of time here and hopes to take a few days off to have a look around.

By the way, when asked if they liked any Australian Music he said "well, we all like AC/DC" which I suppose is cool in it's own little way.

They've been having good responses at their concerts so I hope we can give them a huge welcome when they eventually tour. (I have already told them NOT to bypass Adelaide!)

"Everyone needs to love themselves then the world will be a better place!"

I'd have to agree with that strongly. Thanks E!