Q: Are Eels more of a theatre band than say a trad rock band?
A: This is just what were doing this year and it just happens to be more of a broadway show than a rock concert. I never actually imagined it but Butch had a dream one night after eating a big pizza, he had a dream that we had a little orchestral overture before we started and they'd flick the lights in the lobby 5 minutes before we were due. The following morning we were like "yeah lets make this dream reality". We were looking around before and saw that Charlie Chaplin played here in 1891, but he was part of a variety and no one knew him then.

Were actually losing money on this tour because its such a big production but were doing it because we love doing it. This is actually a really hard thing to do for us and if we were having top 10 hits all the time we'd do things like this more often.
 

Q: Do you like the summer festival season?
A: We came over from doing these festivals in Europe which was a pretty miserable experience so we were happy to come over here and do our own concerts. What were doing isn't a very festival friendly thing and a couple of weeks ago in Austria we ended up playing between a really hardcore German rap band and NIN. It actually went over pretty well considering but there was one Austrian guy standing at the front shouting "INDUSTRIAL" all the way through our set, so I purposely played a few quieter songs just to wind him up.
 

Q: The album "Daises Of The Galaxy" showed a happier side to you. Is there still that moral in the band?
A: Yeah, there still that mood in the band but it starts to burn out after all the travel mishaps. Were getting a little crispy and were feeling like were on vacation. We always have a great time on stage.
 

Q: Have you been working on any new material while touring?
A: I've been working on four different records which have been very slow and I don't know which one's going to be the next one. One sounds shitty, one sounds shittier and then there's the shittiest one of all and the other one I can't find words to describe it.

I don't actually find it hard writing about subjects close to me, I wouldn't do it otherwise. I could see it as a possibility that we went really poppy for one album, but I wouldn't do it just to try and get a few hits I'd have to do it to do something musically. It would be nice just to have an accidental hit just as a calling card to let people know what else you're doing.
 

Q: What do you think of the rock bands that have a kind of depressive chic to them? (I.e.. Korn, Marilyn Manson)
A: I don't know I just think its kind of silly really. I'm not a big rock fan but I turned up a Rage Against The Machine track the other day because it was amazing. I didn't have a clue what they were talking about but it was rocking dude. The only reason the kids go to the concerts is to rock, not for any lyrical or musical merit.
 

Q: As you've said it in the past, do you think you've aspired to what the Beatles did?
A: That quote was taken out of context and looks like an extremely pretentious thing to say. What I was saying was differentiating between sounding like the Beatles sound and becoming a new version of what they thought like then. There are so many bands trying to sound like the Beatles and if they would have done that with their heroes they'd have just ended up like a Chuck Berry cover band. I'm not that familiar with Oasis, I don't really care about British acts.
 

Q: So what American acts do you like?
A: The only two I've heard that I've like have been Britney Spears and Eminem. There's nothing wrong with a good pop song and there's a couple of songs that are really good. "Oop's I did It Again" is a really good song and we had a problem where several of us had it stuck in our heads for about 10 days in a row. I saw the video with the red catsuit thing and thought I've got to get one, it would look really good on me.
 

Q: What's the future for Eels?
A: Well there's the new single "Flyswatter". Its about a time when I went down to my basement and I saw these mice that were starving and it just made me think how relentless life could be.

For the rest of the year there's going to me more songs about starving mice and the new album will be called "Oops, Eels did it again".