In "Rock Hard Times," from the Eels’ new Shootenanny! (DreamWorks), the band’s leader, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, E (a/k/a Mark Everett Oliver), complains that kids today just aren’t rebelling the way kids used to. Over acoustic guitars and a sharp rock backbeat, he bellows hoarsely, "Ask me if I care about their little minds and their little hurts."

That sentiment is an accurate reflection of the notoriously moody E’s latest cause for pain. "It’s all for sale now," he begins to explain over the phone from his publicist’s office in Lower Manhattan. "It’s all part of the pop-culture garage sale. PBS did a show on how MTV works, and it’s evil. It’s all about making money, nothing else. They have the male prototype, who is known as the ‘Mook’ — someone like Tom Green or the Jackass guy. Then they have his female counterpart, which they call the ‘Midrift.’ She’s the Britney or Christina Aguilera character. The show showed how depressing and evil MTV is. And I work with people in recording studios who are products of the ‘Mook.’ They have soaked up that personality, because so few people are willing to hammer out their own personality these days."

A consistent purveyor of quirky, doom-and-gloom-laden pop, E has never let his cheerless personality inhibit his prolific output. The June release of Shootenanny! more or less coincided with the appearance of two other projects involving him, the soundtrack to the film Levity (Pleximusic), which he had a big hand in composing, and the amusing I Am the Messiah (spinART) album by a shadowy character known as MC Honky that features E as producer and perhaps much more. The official story is that the fiftysomething MC Honky used to be a janitor at Capitol Records, and that his recordings were "discovered" by E, who made it his mission to get them released. The truth may be much less improbable.

"This is driving me crazy," E says with mock annoyance when I broach the possibility that MC Honky may indeed be an E solo vehicle. "Nothing could be farther from the truth. If anything, Shootenanny! is the E solo album. There is an MC Honky, he just wants nothing to do with the limelight. I cannot divulge who he is."

In fact, MC Honky’s humorous cut-and-paste mix of spoken-word dialogue, ramshackle beats, and snappy instrumental melodies couldn’t be farther from the Eels’ plaintive æsthetic: I Am the Messiah contradicts E’s miserable pop with what amounts to a rollicking good time. MC Honky even sounds like a self-help guru in "A Good Day To Be You," intoning in a baritone voice, "You are a strong person/You have pretty eyes/You are very well read, but you don’t make me feel stupid/Thank you. I love you," as harps pluck and orchestrated strings soar in the background.

But E seems to be having his own kind of fun keeping his Eels identity and that of MC Honky separate. At one point he almost breaks his silence before thinking better of it. "I don’t want to play his game anymore," he says of MC Honky. "I am ready to reveal his identity . . . then I am going to bury him with the Eels record."

Regardless of how the MC Honky drama plays out, the Eels — who’ll be at the Somerville Theatre August 1 — are E’s primary artistic outlet. From 1996’s Beautiful Freak (which earned them their first and, to date, only modest hit in "Susan’s House") to 2001’s Souljacker (all DreamWorks) and up through Shootenanny!, E has used the Eels as a platform for chronicling the lives of surly, sad-sack loners who have reached dead ends in their lives. That may be why he’s sought comic relief in the form of MC Honky. Of course, just as he denies any direct connection to MC Honky, he’s refused to acknowledge any connection between his own life and the lives he chronicles in Eels songs. "It is not always my story. I have a few different tricks up my sleeve. A lot of the time I am writing a character that is someone’s else’s story. Like the one where I rape all the nuns, that wasn’t really me."

In other words, even in his Eels persona, E isn’t without a sense of humor — it’s just a rather twisted one. And it comes to the fore on Shootenanny!, which is populated by confused cartoon characters ("Saturday Morning"), foul-mouthed females ("Dirty Girls"), cheerless losers ("Love of the Loveless"), and award-show winners ("Fashion Awards"). One character even swallows bugs, like a contestant on the reality-TV show Fear Factor.

Does E enjoy having the talent and the resources to test the waters in so many different areas of the music business? "It can be fun, but I write so many songs, I feel that I’ve become a slave to them. The other night, I made a fire in the fireplace, turned the TV on, then I realized, ‘Ah, shit. I got this idea for a song and I’ve got to fucking write it.’ It ruined my night. I get carried away and I can’t stop. I had to finish it. It turned out nice, though."

The Eels will appear at the Somerville Theatre August 1; call (617) 931-2000.