Trivia / Eels

• Black Sheep Hit: Mr E's Beautiful Blues only appears on Daisies of the Galaxy because it was popular, E only agreed to add it if it was placed last and there was a gap to distinguish it from the rest of the album as he didn't think it really fitted in.
• Creator Backlash: Apparently the case with Bad Dude In Love, E's independently released 1985 debut (credited to Mark Everett). Not a lot is known about E's attitude towards the album, but all signs point to this: his autobiography Things The Grandchildren Should Know makes absolutely no reference to the album's existence (despite alluding to some of his earliest efforts in musicianship and songwriting in general), a copy of the album appeared for sale on Ebay and the auction was mysteriously withdrawn before any sale went through, and musician Chris Sneidern, a former acquaintance of Everett, has said that the album is "one of those things that if you were to show it to him he’d flip, he’s apparently not comfortable with it". Interestingly though, it contains a song called "Everybody's Trying To Bum Me Out", which would later be used as a recycled lyric in "Flower" from Beautiful Freak, and some listeners have pointed out musical similarities between the title track and the later song "Peach Blossom".
• Creator Breakdown: Which has, ironically, led E to produce some of his best work.
• Enforced Method Acting/Throw It In!: During a live performance of "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues," E got a bit too close to The Chet's girlfriend, who was onstage with them. The Chet responded with a Southern cock-rock guitar solo, which E has described as "some of The Chet's finest work." This can be heard on the Useless Trinkets collection.
• Executive Meddling: The label forced the band into both licensing "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues" for Road Trip and making a Video Full of Film Clips / Movie Tie-In Video, threatening to shelve Daisies Of The Galaxy otherwise - E didn't like the idea of his music being associated with what he thought as "a frat movie". Furthermore, "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues" itself was only added to Daisies Of The Galaxy when the label insisted - the song had been recorded after the rest of the album was finished, and E felt it didn't fit in with the surrounding material. As a compromise, it was placed at the end of the album as a Hidden Track.
• One-Hit Wonder: Their one major single in America was "Novocaine for the Soul". It made it to #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks (now Alternative Songs) chart, and managed to scrape the bottom of the pop airplay charts. Since then, they haven't really troubled any singles charts there again. Even on the Modern Rock chart, they only managed one more chart appearance when "Last Stop: This Town" charted at #40 for a week^note Although before the Eels formed, "Hello Cruel World" from E's solo album A Man Called E made it to #8 on the Modern Rock Chart in 1992.
  • In the UK, its a different story: the band have six Top 40 hits, two of them making the top ten ("Susan's House" and "Novocaine for the Soul").