Mark Everett, a.k.a. E, is the man behind the Eels. If you know his music you know that his family has influenced him strongly by their absence, with albums like Electro-Shock Blues dealing frankly with his sister's suicide and his mother's death from cancer. Here's a song from that album with a cheerful video.
E: It wasn’t that musical a family. My mom sang in church and there was always music being played in the house, but the biggest musical influence on me was just the records that my sister was playing. My older sister used to play a lot of records and that’s what had an effect on me.
Did her tastes have a big influence on you? Do you listen to similar stuff?
E: Yeah, she was listening to really great stuff. Neil Young, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, all that. A lot of good influences.
One more quick question. I love it whenever you howl in a song; where does that come from?
E: I’ve always been a bit of a screamer. It pops up occasionally over the years. It’s something I’ve always been interested in. I remember being a teenager and listening to Sly Stone records in my car and I would roll up the windows, ‘I’ve got to learn how to scream like that,’ and I would roll up the windows while I was in a traffic jam and start screaming along. If you do that long enough you start get better apparently.
Tom Waits is a great howler too.
E: He is a fantastic howler. He recently complimented me on my howling, which was the greatest compliment ever because he is the master howler.
Showing posts with label blues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blues. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Patrick Carney, The Black Keys
Patrick Carney is the drummer for Ohio’s mid-fi blues rock guitar-and-drums minimalists The Black Keys.
PATRICK CARNEY: My dad, if he was more interested in playing he could be great. I think that my family ... I don’t think that there’s any natural family talent.
Ralph Carney, who plays with Marc Ribot, he’s your uncle though, right?
PC: Ralph’s my uncle. He lives in San Francisco. Every time we go there we play with him and we wanted him on the record [Attack & Release]. Marc Ribot is one of our favourite guitar players. Having him come up to the studio, get involved in the record was pretty crazy. Especially Marc Ribot because he’d never done it before. We’re such big fans.
His stuff with Tom Waits is great.
PC: Yeah, that was the first stuff because my uncle used to send home the records he was on. My dad would play me Rain Dogs and stuff. Of course I kept listening to that record, not realising how he got that sound. That was cool because he showed us how he got his guitar sound on that record. After 15 years of wondering how that worked he showed us, it was so simple.
Did your parents ever tell you to get a real job?
PC: My parents, well, no. That’s the biggest thing is when I dropped out of college, decided to try to do the band, we were getting maybe $60 a show. We had to pay to make the record ourselves. My dad was kind of sceptical. I was dropping out of school, but he told me that it was probably the best decision I ever made. I would have told my kid the same. But then again in Ohio even if you have a college degree you can’t always find a job.
PATRICK CARNEY: My dad, if he was more interested in playing he could be great. I think that my family ... I don’t think that there’s any natural family talent.
Ralph Carney, who plays with Marc Ribot, he’s your uncle though, right?
PC: Ralph’s my uncle. He lives in San Francisco. Every time we go there we play with him and we wanted him on the record [Attack & Release]. Marc Ribot is one of our favourite guitar players. Having him come up to the studio, get involved in the record was pretty crazy. Especially Marc Ribot because he’d never done it before. We’re such big fans.
His stuff with Tom Waits is great.
PC: Yeah, that was the first stuff because my uncle used to send home the records he was on. My dad would play me Rain Dogs and stuff. Of course I kept listening to that record, not realising how he got that sound. That was cool because he showed us how he got his guitar sound on that record. After 15 years of wondering how that worked he showed us, it was so simple.
Did your parents ever tell you to get a real job?
PC: My parents, well, no. That’s the biggest thing is when I dropped out of college, decided to try to do the band, we were getting maybe $60 a show. We had to pay to make the record ourselves. My dad was kind of sceptical. I was dropping out of school, but he told me that it was probably the best decision I ever made. I would have told my kid the same. But then again in Ohio even if you have a college degree you can’t always find a job.
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