Eels

The post-punk formation Eels was an idea developed and realized by Mark Oliver Everett, a Virginia-native musician who relocated to California. By the time of his moving, this young man had acquired a rich experience of performing as a singer, guitarist and keyboardist, and had released two good solo albums. At one of the LA clubs, he met the drummer Jonathan Norton (later Butch Norton). These two founded Eels and recruited the bassist Tommy Walter. Formed this way, Eels gave their first concert in 1995. The trio interested Michael Simpson, a manager of the major DreamWorks Records label, who did not hesitate to offer them a contract. The beginning outfit played the music based on the legacy of the then youth darlings like The Pixies or Nirvana. The Eels’ first single, released in 1996 as Novocaine For The Soul, became a big hit having a heavy airplay at college and alternative radio stations. Its follower, Susan's House, even managed to get spotted in the distant UK entering the local Top Ten. Despite the classic rock-act lineup and selection of instruments, Eels experimented a lot following the instructions provided by Simpson who had worked much with dance music and sampling. This made the beginning band’s songs contain the traces of the most various instruments which was the trademark of the group’s 1996 debut long player titled as Beautiful Freak.

Before the start of the making of Eels’ second studio effort, Walter quit the group. Around the same time, Everett went through two family tragedies. First, his sister committed suicide, which was shortly followed by his mother’s death of a lethal illness. Quite expectedly, the group’s 1998 sophomore album, Electro-Shock Blues, appeared much darker and heavier than its predecessor. Everett penned the largest part of the material and let out all his pain and bitterness through this work. The most emotional and touching songs featured on it were Last Stop: This Town, Cancer For The Cure, and My Descent Into Madness. Two years later, Eels issued their third full-length effort, Daisies Of The Galaxy. Once again, this work was the conductor of Everett’s ideas into masses and featured a couple of smashing hits, including Mr E's Beautiful Blues, and It's A Motherfucker. For the latter, Everett was rebuked by George Bush who stated that the abundance of obscene words in the song required the release of its edited version.

In 2001, Eels delivered their subsequent studio album under the title Souljacker. Compared to the earlier works, this one was much less tuneful and catching, which predetermined disappointing sells. To attach some attention to the dull record, Everett used to show up in the stage in the terrorist’s clothing. In 2003, Everett continued his plays with the music of his band that resulted in the Eels’ next album, Shootenanny! This release helped the band to somehow recover from the recent commercial failure. With each new record released, it was getting more and more obvious that Eels were turning into Everett’s solo project. Another proof to this surfaced after he exiled Norton and undertook to change the label. The same year, another album by Eels arrived, Blinking Lights And Other Revelations. That was a large-scale project elaborated and materialized by Everett during eight years. To promote this release, the band arranged a massive tour to be documented as the concert album With Strings: Live At Town Hall (2007). Afterwards, Eels went into making compilations, released in 2008. First they presented a collection of rare and unreleased songs, Useless Trinkets: B-sides, Soundtracks, Rarities and Unreleased 1996-2007, and later, a selection of the group’s top compositions, Meet The Eels: Essential Eels 1996-2006 Vol. 1. Finally, in the summer of 2009, Eels came back to their listeners with a brand new album called Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire. In 2010 the record titled End Times appeared, and it turned out to be intelligent and original, in spite of such a short period of time after release of the previous album. The band’s another album titled Tomorrow Morning was released in 2010 as well. The conceptual long play, as the third element of trilogy, became the wonderful development of ideas of Hombre Lobo (2009) and End Times (2010), which is proved by the excellent reviews from the experts and music lovers.