Eels’ Mark E Everett on wanting to “bury the hatchet” with Colin Firth

nme.com:

Eels release new album ‘Extreme Witchcraft‘, frontman Mark ‘E’ Everett has spoken to NME about his desire to “bury the hatchet” with actor Colin Firth.It’s been nearly 20 years since Firth uttered the line “I can’t stand eels” in Love Actually back in 2003, which Everett took to heart and then immortalised in his recent single ‘Good Night On Earth’“I have reached out to his people, and got no response,” E told NME. “So I think it’s true.

He really can’t stand Eels. It particularly hurts because I also learned that he and I have both been awarded Freedom of London.

It’s like we’re British brothers practically.“I’m making this last plea. Colin, please, let’s bury the hatchet. The world is waiting for this.”E clearly wants no bad blood staining the largely bright-side vibe of ‘Extreme Witchcraft’, his 14th album, and second of the pandemic following 2020’s ‘Earth To Dora’.“I wasn’t even thinking about making another album because it hadn’t been that long since the last one,” he said, but when ‘Novocaine For The Soul’s video director Mark Romanek got in touch out of the blue to tell him he’d been playing Eels’ 2001 fourth album ‘Souljacker’ – co-written with PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish – during the pandemic, it inspired E to re-establish contact with Parish.“When we’re in the same town as John he’ll usually jump on stage and play with us,” E said. “But we hadn’t made anything in the studio since ‘Souljacker’, I realised.

I know that he’s a busy man but I just thought ‘you know, I’ll just check in with him and see if he’s interested in seeing what we might make now.