Last Tuesday, The Eels paid a visit to Pittsburgh. Before arriving, the band’s front man… Last Tuesday, The Eels paid a visit to Pittsburgh. Before arriving, the band’s front man and creator, Mark Everett – known to his legions of fans simply as “E” – found the time to discuss depression and the state of affairs in these rock-hard times.

A lot of your music is considered to be pretty depressing. Are you as depressed as you seem to be?

I think you have to pay closer attention to the music. It’s really not that depressing. I mean, there are occasional songs that could be thought of that way, but more often than not, there’s something going on in the music, in particular, that’s looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.

Do you have a favorite song that you’ve written?

I’ve got a few favorites. We played this song, “Climbing to the Moon,” from Electro-Shock Blues yesterday for the first time in a few years, and I realized that’s one of my favorites. I like a song called “F—er” and “It’s a Motherf—er.” I like all those songs with “f—” in the title. And “Daisies of the Galaxy,” that’s another one of my favorites.

How did you get involved in music?

Well, by the time I was 20, everybody was going off to college and I didn’t know what to do with my life. I wasn’t interested in anything that everyone else was interested in, it seemed. And the only thing it seemed I really had a passion for was writing songs, which I was doing all the time. I was really just consumed by it, and I didn’t know where I was heading with it, so it was really a scary and weird lost feeling. But I just kept doing it and kept doing it, and didn’t do anything else. I barely socialized or anything. All I ever did was write songs and work jobs that I hated, then go back and write more songs.

I wanted to ask you what inspired you to write some of the songs on Shootenanny! The one that I was really interested in was the song “Agony.” It’s a pretty downer song.

Well, the reason why it’s not a downer song to me is because I was not in a great frame of mind when I sat down to write it, but a few minutes later, I had written a song, and I felt much better.

How about “Love of the Loveless?”

“Love of the Loveless” is one of my favorites of all-time, actually. Add that to my all-time favorite list. I think it’s saying something I haven’t heard said in a song before. I was just thinking about how some people aren’t given the kind of love – or whatever they need when they’re young – that will nourish them into adulthood so they can survive and thrive in the world. Those people have to find it for themselves, somehow, and that’s no easy thing. But it’s a beautiful thing.

What about “Restraining Order Blues?”

That is a character study. I’m happy to say it’s not autobiographical. I get a lot of people who are really scared of me now, more so than usual, because of that song. But it’s not based on any real situation. I just wanted to write a song about someone in that situation. You’ve got to find the humanity, even in your villains, and it’s a more interesting way to find humanity, I think, to write about someone like that, rather than some more obvious situation.

Do you have any advice for aspiring musicians?

Stick to your guns. I don’t know; that’s such a cliche. I think it’s harder now more than ever to make something happen in the music business, and it’s a miracle that guys like me have gotten this far. I think it’s really important to really try not to lose your last shred of dignity in these rock-hard times. You’ve got to be prepared to not be everybody at the record company’s best friend and to be thought of as a difficult artist and that kind of thing because, really, that’s all a good thing and a compliment in the end.