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Inside a room of the plush Royal Garden Hotel, Eels leader Mark Oliver Everett - the man also known simply as 'E' - is looking out the window. Six stories below him, Hyde Park spreads out, its colours positively glowing in the high afternoon sun of this summer day. Not that Everett is admiring the pleasant view. Decked out in black jeans, a denim jacket, trucker's cap and dark sunglasses - not to mention the impressive, dense beard that hides half his face and obscures his neck - he's instead philosophising over the fact that, on a break from doing interviews slightly earlier on, he'd been approached and accosted by police after some members of the public reported him - or, at least, someone matching his description - as acting suspiciously.

It's not the first time that the musician has been unwittingly involved in this kind of thing. Back in September 2001, Eels released their fourth album, Souljacker, which bore the image of a heavily bearded E holding a dog and wearing a hooded top, which made him look strikingly similar to the notorious Unabomber. That it was released just after 9/11 only made matters worse for the singer, increasing the controversy around the album - it wasn't released in the States until March the next year, supposedly because the record label didn't believe it had enough radio-friendly songs on it. Nearly ten years, an autobiography, a best of collection, a rarities compilation and five albums later, it seems that history is repeating itself, this time in Kensington. E is here to talk about Tomorrow Morning, his latest album - the third and final part of a trilogy that began some 15 months ago with the release of Hombre Lobo - but this recent incident is, understandably, at the forefront of his mind.

Q: Why on earth did the police stop you?
E: I don't really know. I mean, there was a guy on a bike ranting at people and a bunch of other just really nuts people, and they came up to me and someone really gave what sounds like my description. It sounds like it had to be me. They said something about an embassy. I think I'm on a terrorist watch list or something.

Q: Is this a hangover from the Souljacker days, do you think?
E: This is the first time this has happened since then! And it's weird. I don't understand...it's a bad feeling. I thought I was going to be doing the rest of my interviews from jail.

Q: Have you ever been to jail, just out of interest?
E: No. And I don't want to go!

Q: Me either. I wouldn't last a second.
E: No. I would not make it in jail.

Q: Well, anyway, welcome back to London.
E: You guys have got a funny way of saying 'welcome'. [laughs]

Q: Don't blame me! I'm not the police!
E: No, I'm blaming the whole country for this.

Q: So what time did that happen?
E: It was around lunchtime today.

Q: You'd think there would be better things for the police to do than...
E: ...than to stop random rock singers walking around the park next to their hotel. Exactly!

Q: Did you tell them who you were?
E: I had to! They took my ID and everything, they wrote everything down. When I showed them my hotel key, they were like, 'Oh, okay', because one of the things in the description was that the person was peering over the wall at this hotel. And I was like, 'I finally got out of the hotel. Why would I be staring at it longingly like I missed it?!'

Q: Did you play the 'Do you know who I am?' card, or were you just very polite?
E: No, but I had to say I was a rock singer and I had to say what band. And they gave me that stare, like, 'What? The Eagles?' No...

Q: It's funny. Because in the world I inhabit, the Eels to me and my friends is a band we all revere and respect very much, ["Thanks!" exclaims E] but I guess there are people outside of that frame of reference.
E: Well the one thing that made me feel better at the time...at first I laughed, but then it was kind of upsetting, because I realised my freedom was at stake, that I could possibly be mistakenly taken to prison or something. And then I remembered the story about Bob Dylan last year, getting picked up by the police, and that made me feel better. He was on tour last year and they were on the New Jersey shore and apparently Bob Dylan goes walking around by himself - like I do [laughs] - and he's got, like, the hooded sweatshirt so he looks like a derelict, I guess - like I do - and he was in the ghetto part of the New Jersey shoreline and even there he looked like a suspicious character and someone reported him and the police picked him up. This 21 year-old female police officer, who'd never heard of Bob Dylan. So he says 'I'm staying at this hotel' and she drives him back to this hotel and the tour manager is like, 'Yeah, I can vouch for him', and she goes back to the police station and everyone is giving her shit, like 'You've never heard of Bob Dylan?!' Now, I just wish the last part of that story would happen in my story, but I doubt it will.

Q: Well, I read yesterday about - you know this Justin Bieber character - there was some woman drinking in a bar who looked very much like him and the police arrested her for drinking underage in a bar, thinking it was him.
E: Where did that happen?!

Q: Somewhere in America. She was 27, but he's only 16 or whatever.
E: Now that is a strange story. [laughs]

Q: The perils of being a rock'n'roll or a pop star!
E: It's just weird, man. I still don't understand. Why me?! I know I look like a weirdo in that park, I guess, but that weird?! Terrorist weird?!

Q: You're not a terrorist. That's for sure. But it could be good inspiration for the next album. You could write a trilogy from jail.
E: Yeah. It's going to be called Fuck You, Kensington Snobs.

Part 2 - Tomorrow Morning.

Words: Mischa Pearlman
Suspected terrorist: Mr E

6:46 PM | 23/08/2010