Eels frontman E has written the score for the upcoming Billy Bob Thornton movie Levity. Due in theaters next year, Levity follows the story of a parolee (Thornton) who seeks atonement for the killing of a teenage store clerk in a botched stick-up attempt two decades earlier. It was this drama that attracted the Hollywood-shy E -- who is listed in the credits as Mark Oliver Everett, his birth name -- to the writing table.

"I've been asked to [write scores] over the past several years," E says. "The requests come in fairly regularly and it's almost always something I'm not interested in doing because of the movie. But this one I felt like, 'Alright, I'm gonna give it a whack.'" In addition to the score, the soundtrack will feature two new Eels tunes, "Skywriting" and "Taking a Bath in Rust."

E is also working on a new Eels album for release next summer on Dreamworks. Souljacker collaborator John Parish (PJ Harvey) is back in the fold. Writing sessions will continue later this month in Southern California, though E says the group already has a handful of songs: "Tea With Hitler" and "Pigs Blood Ballet," to name two.

"The stuff we're working on now is really heavily polka influenced," he says. "There's a lot of clarinets and tubas. I think it's going to be a big hit on [Los Angeles modern rock station] KROQ . . . Having a big KROQ hit just means a bunch of assholes start coming back to your concerts. Maybe that sounds bad, but it's kind of true. I might be the only artist who has actively worked at paring down his audience over the years to keep out the jocks and the assholes."

E is also considering using some of the material he recorded two years ago with R.E.M. guitarist (and sometime Eels collaborator) Peter Buck on the album. "They sound more like R.E.M. songs with me singing instead of Michael Stipe," he says, laughing.

E has also been championing the publicity campaign for MC Honky, a reclusive Los Angeles musician whose record he produced after finding him through a fan. "We met when his daughter came to our concert at the El Rey Theater a few years ago and handed me a tape," he explains. "She recognized the genius and I did too right away. It was the one outside project I really wanted to work." MC Honky's record, I Am the Messiah, was released in Australia this month and will be released in England and the rest of Europe in February, but E is also committed to a U.S. release. "He's kind of an older, shy guy that doesn't really want anything to do with being famous, so I made it my pet project to get it out here."

JOLIE LASH
(November 21, 2002)