Biography

Mark Oliver Everett's upbringing was 'ridiculous, sometimes tragic and always unsteady'. His father - a quantum mechanic who worked for the Pentagon - was a genius who had corresponded with Einstein aged 13. He rarely spoke, and following his own miserable childhood had eccentric ideas of how children should be brought up. Mark - known as 'E' - and his older sister Liz were raised in a house with no rules, with parents who had 'a kind of seventies swinging marriage'. Lacking any real sense of authority, E had to raise himself, not always with the greatest success. His love of music helped pull him through, and by his early 20s he was on the brink of stardom with his first album - Beautiful Freak. But then tragedy struck - having already lost his father to a heart attack, his sister and mother...