interview: PARTHENON HUXLEY

a friendly chat about music, touring and bathrobes

E's musical career really took off when he got his record contract with Polydor. But his songs gained a lot of appeal when he started collaborating with Parthenon Huxley, making the latter (almost) just as important for the sound and songs on the A Man Called (E) album as the man who's actually called E. Huxley has been a well known name in the music industry since the early eighties, fronts his own band P. Hux (check out the brilliant album Deluxe!) and has taken Jeff Lynne's place in Electric Light Orchestra Part II (now called Orchestra). In september 2007 Parthenon took the time to tell eels.nl about his collaboration with E in the early ninety-nineties. .

eels.nl: Somewhere in 1990 MCA's Betsy Anthony got E's demo tape and suggested him he should give you a call. What did you think of E's material when you first heard it?
Parthenon Huxley: "I think that's correct. Betsy worked at MCA Publishing then and I was the 'quirky pop guy' among the staff writers. I really liked E's stuff from the start. Lots of good songs, and a very consistent approach to the writing. I'm pretty sure Blue Hat and Kicked Around were on that first tape, as well as some songs that didn't come out until later like his Marilyn Monroe piece. I tend to write efficiently--get to the point, make it hooky and melodic, and wrap it up. That's how E's stuff was, too. No excess fat."

eels.nl: E said of your collaboration 'ours is a good check and balance - he's always giving me shit about me being depressed and trying to elevate my spirits'. Is that how you experienced working with him as well?
Parthenon Huxley: "Pretty much! I've always felt blessed by life and have made it my job to appreciate life's good things and never take them for granted. So, I suppose I was often looking on the bright side if E was sometimes in the grip of dark thoughts and so on. He's faced a lot of death in his family. Ironically, my wife died in 1997, after we'd quit working together, and I came face to face with the same demons that have long plagued my friend. Now I know how hard it can be to face life sometimes. Loss is very tough. It doesn't ever go away. But of course, relationships are never one dimensional. E's actually funny as hell, very witty and smart, and I'm sure I was a grumpy bastard plenty of times. But we usually had a pretty good time when we were working."

eels.nl: The A Man Called (E) cd was recorded in the summer of 1991 at Jim Lang's Knobworld. That was opposite your house, wasn't it?
Parthenon Huxley: "Right across the street. Our driveways faced each other on Baxter Street in Los Angeles, the steepest street in L.A. It's a 32% grade."

eels.nl: E described the sessions as 'sweaty and uncomfortable' with you being a 'grueling task master that sometimes showed up in the studio in a bathrobe, eating cereal.' How do you look back at the sessions?
Parthenon Huxley: "I hope I showed up in my bathrobe! I probably did on a few occasions. I think E was being facetious by calling me a 'grueling task master'. Jim, E and I all worked diligently to make the album the best it could be, just like any serious artist does. You do it over and over until it's right. E was kind of a rookie in the studio in those days, having gone from using a four-track cassette recorder in his closet to working at Knobworld, which isn't much bigger than a closet, actually, but the gear was top grade and Jim's a great engineer. But E knew exactly what he wanted in the studio."

eels.nl: What was exactly your input in writing process?
Parthenon Huxley: "The writing process usually worked like this. I'd doodle around on guitar, E would stop me and say, 'What's that you're playing?' I'd say, 'Nothing. Just messing around.' He'd say 'Do it some more' and come up with a melody and some working lyrics. We'd add new parts from there. The reason we worked well together is that I have a million parts in me and E's a finisher. He writes quickly and likes to finish songs off right in the moment. We were very productive."

eels.nl: We must say that the most memorable tracks on both of E's first albums, such as Hello Cruel World, The Only Thing I Care About, My Old Raincoat, Shine It All On and others, are the ones you co-wrote.
Parthenon Huxley: "Well, thank you. I think E might disagree with that opinion, but it's not the first time I've heard it said. I like what we wrote and I also loved E's stuff just as much. The writing process was as I described earlier. I'd normally start with a musical bit, E would get an inspiration and off we'd go. We worked fast. I'm sure we have fifteen or twenty songs that didn't get released."

eels.nl: Was Going To Your Funeral on the EELS' 1998 Electro-Shock Blues album one of those tracks? By that point you had stopped colleborating with E, hadn't you?
Parthenon Huxley: "I wrote the guitar riff for Funeral. It was a piece of guitar music that I'd recorded at Jim Jacobsen's while Jim and I were working on something else. Jim later told me he used it for an EELS track, so that was that. E and I haven't collaborated since then. He's his own man and likes to do things his way. He's good at what he does and he's very creative. He's made a nice career for himself. I'd like to collaborate again and I know we'd come up with cool stuff, but it's his call. I understand how he works. I'm the same way on my albums. I want everything to be under my control. In life, most things are NOT in your control, so maybe that's why I'm such a song pig on my own albums. It's a very personal thing."

eels.nl: So two control freaks in one room... How did that affect the recording process?
Parthenon Huxley: "As far as my input on the recording, I'm very opinionated, so I probably expressed my thoughts on everything all day long. As a producer, though, you have to recognize what the artist is going after. You have to make the artist's record, not your own. I think I knew when to back off and when to exert myself. The backwards guitar solo on Kicked Around is probably the most 'me' thing on the record. Luckily, E liked it."

eels.nl: In early interviews E mentioned several times he really did not want to perform his songs. Yet only a few months later he went on tour, opening for Tori Amos. You were one of his bandmembers. How did the tour come about? Who's idea was it?
Parthenon Huxley: "Probably (John) Carter's idea. Carter was his manager at the time, the guy who got E going in the music business, the one who loved his tape and believed in E from the very start. He's still a huge fan of E even though they haven't worked together in years. But, we kind of HAD to tour. We had a record coming out and you have to support it. I think E was afraid touring would wipe him out. He had some health issues."

eels.nl: Over the years E's performances with EELS have been pretty well documented. What always stands out is the way he transforms his songs into completely different beings on stage. Next to nothing is known about the 1992 shows. Were the songs also performed differently back then? All we know is there wasn't a drummer...
Parthenon Huxley: "I think we didn't use a drummer because we couldn't afford one. Also, with just E on keyboard and me on guitar (and eventually Jen Condos or Chris Solberg on bass) we could focus on doing simple versions of the songs without trying to re-create the album. With a stripped down band the performances became more intimate, and, those early songs hold up well in that style. Our show was a little odd, because we'd do E's serious, somewhat sad songs, and then in between songs our patter was like a talk show comedy sketch. We'd make the audience laugh at our jokes and then stab them in the heart with E's songs. It worked really well. I think E did some songs on a little pump organ, too, so that was different from the record."

eels.nl: A concert review in the Sacramento Bee learns that the performance opening for Tori went on for about 55 minutes. That's quite long for an opening act. Especially with just one album under the belt. What exactely was played during these shows? Did you get to play any of your own songs as well?
Parthenon Huxley: "I'm sure we didn't do any of my material. We did a few covers. I think we did Sophie B. Hawkins' Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover, O-o-h Child and a few others. I remember in Santa Barbara we did Freebird for an encore. The audience loved it, so we came out for a second encore and did Freebird again in its entirety. They didn't love it so much the second time. E was always interested in those kinds of Andy Kaufman moments."

eels.nl: Were those dates with Tori the only shows you guys did? Or were there more shows?
Parthenon Huxley: "I can't recall exactly which shows were Tori shows and which ones weren't. We did a festival in Seattle sponsored by a radio station called The End. We played with Jackson Browne in Denver..."

eels.nl: Was there a show that is most memorable to you?
Parthenon Huxley: "Lots of shows stick in my mind. We played a beautiful theater in Sacramento and got a standing ovation at the end of our set that went on forever. Pretty unusual for a warm-up act. We couldn't believe how much they loved it. In San Francisco I noticed the lights guy wasn't doing his job and I made a crack that maybe he'd been knocked out by 'Tori's henchmen'. E was sure we were gonna get kicked off the tour for that. In L.A. we did three nights at the Henry Fonda Theater and that was great since it was our home town. The place was packed and all our friends got to see us play in a cool venue. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, I think maybe our gear fucked up and we had to improvise quickly. Whatever it was we did--I wish I could remember--the audience ate it up. I just remember E laughing a lot at that show."

eels.nl: In 1993 E recorded his second album, and again you were involved co-writing and producing songs. Were those sessions different from the A Man Called (E) sessions?
Parthenon Huxley: "Yes, very different. E hired a different producer and only used me on a few songs. He moved on without me."

eels.nl: Soon after the release of Broken Toy Shop a new tour was planned (and cancelled). This time with a drummer (Jonathan Norton). Were you part of that live band as well?
Parthenon Huxley: "I can't really remember. I think so. I know we rehearsed a few times with Butch in my back yard studio in Echo Park, but we didn't get very far with it. I may've been ready to do other stuff myself, and maybe E wanted to move on, too. I guess the tour was cancelled because his label, Polydor, folded."

eels.nl: Looking back on your collaboration with E, what is your personal favorite track from those albums? Parthenon Huxley: "My sentimental favorite might be My Old Raincoat. It wasn't a single or anything, but it captures a feeling of loss really well without being typical. But probably the coolest song we wrote was Shine It All On. I love that one."

eels.nl: Great choice! One of our favourites as well. If not, our absolute favourite. Thank you very much Parthenon Huxley for taking the time to answer our questions.

For more information on what Parthenon Huxley is up to these days, samples of his music and an extended biography - visit his website: P-Hux.com