Eels get stringed

The Eels
The Music Mill
Thursday, June 23, 8:30 p.m.
$19 in advance, $20 day of show, 239-5151

For years, Mark Oliver Everett privately wrote and recorded music. When he went on tour with Tori Amos in 1992, he had never performed in front of an audience. To the surprise of everyone, including himself, he was a natural. A few years later, he created The Eels and began performing with a live band. They toured the U.S. and Europe performing the songs from the album, Beautiful Freak, which included the No. 1 hit “Novocaine For the Soul.” While The Eels have proven to be capable of mainstream success, they have remained true to music as art. The recently released Blinking Lights and Other Revelations weaves an intricate tapestry of emotion. NUVO spoke with Everett, who is also known as E., last week about the band and its current “Eels With Strings” tour, which hits the Music Mill Thursday.

NUVO: Tell me about “Eels With Strings.”

Everett: A lot of strings on stage — guitar strings, mandolin strings, violin strings, viola strings, cello strings, upright bass strings, piano strings. They’re all over the place. So we called it “Eels With Strings.” It just made sense.

NUVO: Do you prefer The Eels alone or Eels with strings?

Everett: Well, I like EELS, I like strings, you put the two together; it’s just undeniable. The only thing better than Eels is Eels with strings, in my book.

NUVO: Is it more challenging than before?

Everett: This kind of music is tough. There’s no margin for error like there is with rock music. With rock music, you make a mistake or something doesn’t go right, there’s always some distortion and the cymbals and all that noise to hide behind. We’re completely naked in the situation; and we’re not wearing clothes, so it’s really scary.

NUVO: Why is this show seated?

Everett: We’re doing like a little sit down, listen to the music thing this year. It’s very different than last time. It’s very much a concert for the grownup in all of us. We’re here to heal your inner adult as opposed to what we did last time, which was kind of the opposite.

NUVO: What would you tell people deciding whether or not to go to the show?

Everett: They’re gonna love it. Just come, they’ll love it. Come love it. Come love us, people. Damn, I wish I was all your lovers. And I will try to systematically make love to everyone there, musically speaking. I can only handle 10 to 20 actual acts of lovemaking. The rest will have to be musical.

NUVO: Was Eels With Strings based on a dream?

Everett: I was awake at the time. I was sitting out in the backyard smoking a cigar with my dog, Bobby Jr., and I didn’t think I was going to go on tour. And it just occurred to me that maybe, what if I did something that was really different than anything I had done on any tour before. And it didn’t even have drums and there was a string quartet and a saw and a bunch of old pump organs and what not. I just started to get excited about it creatively and I couldn’t stop myself from seeing it through. Remind me not to do it again, it’s really hard.