Eels
USA | Experimental Rock / Alternative Rock | 1995 - present
Eels is an American rock band formed by singer/songwriter Mark Oliver Everett, better known as a Man Called E, Mr. E, or simply E. Other members rotate frequently, both in the studio and on stage. Eels' live shows include new material, interpretations of older songs, and usually some well-known cover versions.
By the time he was 20, E was obsessed with writing songs and recording them on his secondhand 4 track cassette recorder. He wrote and recorded virtually every day of the next seven years. At the age of 24, feeling stifled by the lack of inspiration and creative community in his Virginia neighborhood, E packed up everything he owned into a car and drove 3,000 miles across the country to Los Angeles, where he knew not one person. He eventually moved into a tiny apartment above a garage in Atwater Village, on the East side of Los Angeles, and resumed his antisocial routine of waking up, writing and recording 4 track cassettes, going to one of many shitty jobs that he hated, coming home, writing and recording more, and going to sleep. As time went on, from the time he started his obsessive song writing, the quality of the songs and production of his tapes slowly improved. Eventually someone heard some of his songs and asked him to record for a record label.
In 1995 E decided to work under a different name. Having grown more adventurous musically and lyrically, and tired of the logistical nightmares of going by one letter, he added a few letters and formed EELS, an ever-changing project for his songs, with a live band to present them in concert.