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Everclear: “I just wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll, and I always wanted to do it on my terms and make a living from it”

In our Everclear Cover Story, frontman Art Alexakis talks about their 30-year career, his role models, lost Colorfinger tapes, politics, new music, and so much more!

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Led by vocalist, guitarist and founder Art Alexakis, Portland alternative rock band Everclear appeared on the scene back in 1992. Now, thirty years later, the band and Art are celebrating this huge milestone in their story by doing what they love most… heading out on the road. One of the hardest working bands on the map, the band has already clocked up a mammoth ninety shows this year and doesn’t look like stopping any time soon, with shows in the UK and further afield coming up.

We spoke to Everclear’s frontman recently about the band, their career, what keeps him motivated, and much more.

First of all, Art, congratulations on an incredible achievement. 30 years, studio albums, awards, a tonne of hits but, going back to the beginning, what did you want from the band?

Art Alexakis: “Man, I just wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll, and I always wanted to do it on my terms and make a living from it. Honestly, I didn’t care about being a rock star or being hugely rich; that didn’t really matter to me. I just wanted to pay my bills and not worry about it because I’d worried about money my whole life growing up poor. Taking that stress away and having a family and a nice house, that was it; that was all I wanted. Becoming middle-class was, you know, I was swinging out of my weight class for that.”

Who were your inspirations and role models growing up?

“Musically? I saw the Beatles when I was three years old. I snuck out of my bedroom and stood behind the sofa and watched the Beatles when I was three, three and a half, and I never wanted to do anything else as it was just magical. I think, musically, my influences have gone from everything from pop radio, and I mean the sixties and seventies pop radio which is not the same as it is today. Then, as I got older, Zeppelin, punk rock, new wave, then hip-hop, then early alternative bands. Just anything that excited me.

“I really got into singer-songwriters and, in the early eighties, I taught myself how to write songs, and I was a big Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty fan, rock ‘n’ roll songwriters. Elvis Costello was one of my all-time heroes. The first four or five records, after that, he turned into a jazz guy for a while… too many chords and got really fancy. The first four records were spot on, though.”

“I just wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll and I always wanted to do it on my terms and make a living from it.”

Everclear started after your previous band disbanded in what was a difficult period of your life. What made you want to jump back into “band life,” as you described it?

“Well, we never stopped. Guys left. It’s always been my band, despite what people said. From the beginning, I had the name of the band. I put the ads in the paper. I hired the guys. It’s always been my band, my vehicle. That’s what Everclear is. We’ve been putting out records pretty much for thirty years.”

V13 Cover Story 007 – Everclear – Oct 17, 2022

Like I said at the start, that’s an incredible achievement. What do you put that longevity down to?

“I’m just a pissy old man…”

That makes two of us…

“I’m honorary. I love doing this. Some people do things because they want to. Some people do things because they have to. I’m not really any good at anything else, this is what makes me feel more normal in my own skin when I do it.”

How difficult have the last two years been for you?

“You mean because of COVID? Oh, it’s been miserable. We had eighty shows cancelled. That’s what me and the band live on. It’s how we support ourselves. That aspect was hard. Not being able to perform after performing almost every week for a good part of my life, over half of my life, was hard. Getting COVID in 2021 and spending three weeks in hospital and three weeks in bed also aggravated and progressed my M.S., which was hard.

“From that aspect, it was hard on everyone. It was hard on my kid with his adolescence, anxiety and depression; a lot of that came out. My daughter also dealt with a lot of that, but she’s doing great now; she’s just started high school. I’m grateful we had a place to live, and I was able to make it with money with me and the guys. I helped them out, and we got through it, and now we’re all doing great. It was hard, man, but do you know anyone who it wasn’t hard on?”

You did some anniversary shows earlier in the year; how did they go?

“We’ve been doing shows all year, we’re almost at ninety shows so far…”

When you started playing live again, did the shows hold extra importance to you?

“Yeah, it did, absolutely. That would have been in April 2021. It was weird. It was in Florida, which is like the wild, wild West. People didn’t care about masks down there, they just didn’t care. As we started touring more and playing other shows, we saw that a lot of people would buy tickets but wouldn’t come.”

“I’m political but I don’t talk about that online, it’s not my place. My place to talk about that stuff is in my songs.”

Yeah, that was the same here in the UK…

“That happened everywhere, and that was a phenomenon that I hadn’t seen before. Usually, when you sell tickets for a show, you’ll sell more tickets, and more people will come than you thought you had sold tickets for because you have walk-up. It was going the other way, so if you sold twelve hundred tickets, you’re probably going to get about nine hundred people; it was that bad. This year in some places, it’s still a little like that, but it’s getting better.”

In terms of a set list for a show, you must have a lot of fun putting that together. Is there anything in there that you haven’t played for a while?

“Yeah, it depends on where we’re playing. We’re coming to the UK in November to do eight shows with Soul Asylum and some shows on our own. I’m going to do more songs than we normally would off our fourth record because it did really well there. ‘Learning How To Smile’ we’re going to put that in the setlist, maybe the Otis Redding song ‘Now That It’s Over’ – songs that weren’t necessarily hits, but are definitely fan favourites for people that like that record, and it did well.

“We play all the hits, all the fan favourites, and maybe a cover here and there. For the most part, it’s older Everclear stuff, we don’t play too much new stuff. We do have a new single that I’m just mixing, which should be online in mid-October called ‘The Year of the Tiger,’ and that’s coming out pretty good. I finished the lyrics about two weeks ago and sang the vocal last week, it’s sounding pretty good. It’s intense, man; it’s political.”

What inspired you on that one?

“COVID, MAGA, the whole last three years of bullshit and social unrest in the States. I’m political, but I don’t talk about that online; it’s not my place. My place to talk about that stuff is in my songs, so that’s what it is.”

Artwork for the album ‘World of Noise’ (30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) by Everclear

Is that going to be a theme going forward for new songs?

“I don’t know, we’ll see as we go. Maybe?”

“I went back to school and I’m a counsellor. I’m a life coach certified. I’m going to start doing that as well when I’m not out on the road or working.”

I also read that you spent lockdown looking through old memorabilia and tapes…

“No, you can’t see it, but I’m in my studio, and in the back of my studio, I have storage, some of it band storage, some of it personal storage. There was this huge trunk that we’d been moving around, and, for some reason, I thought it belonged to my mother-in-law. We’re going through stuff, me and Freddy, my bass player, in January, and we decided to look in the trunk and get it out of here. It was just full of tapes, 2″ tapes, 1″ tapes, ¼” tapes. It had all the original Everclear masters and all the Colorfinger tapes, which people have been trying to get me to release.

“So, I had all those tapes which had to be rehabbed, where they bake and clean them and put them on digital. I have all that stuff on digital now, which is great. That’s where the reissue of World of Noise came from, our first record from 1992. I wasn’t really going back through memory lane, I was kind of resisting that, but I was tired of this trunk. It was great that we found all that stuff, though.

I have all the old promos and freebies that were sent out from the ’90s in boxes and have been going through that, which has been a real trip down memory lane.

“It is, it really is…”

There were bands who sent out some really dreadful promo items back then, though…

“Oh yeah, I’ve got another trunk or two which is full of Everclear promo stuff that was put together in a couple of books with press clippings, posters, promo stuff that goes back, some of it, twenty-five to thirty years.”

“We haven’t gone anywhere. We’re still here. We’re coming back to see you. We’re rockin’ n’ rollin’”

Going back to what you said about the tapes, I have a friend who has a photography studio which has all the old film cameras for transcribing tapes for TV. Do you think those original recordings lost anything when transcribed to digital?

“Not really. Not anymore. The converters now, compared to twenty years ago or even thirty years ago, it used to be that digital sounded like CDs and it was horrible. Now, it doesn’t sound like that, it depends on what you play it through as well. I love working with tape but they don’t make oxide tape anymore like they used to. It’s hard to get, it’s very expensive. It’s hard to take care of. The old stuff sounded great on tape and I loved working on it but it’s a new day and, where I mixed and recorded ‘Year of the Tiger,’ he has all these analogue, old equipment which sounds great to go through and then when you turn it to digital, you cannot tell. Anyone who says they can is lying.”

Right at the start of Everclear, you were mailing out demo tapes. What are your thoughts on the music industry and the way music is digested by fans in 2022?

“I don’t have a problem with the way it’s digested or counted. People don’t sell records anymore, everything is based on spins. The whole fact of influencers and cottage industries which have sprung up. In itself, it’s not a bad thing, but the way it’s used; it depresses me that people are now becoming famous for nothing but being famous. It used to be that you became famous; you had fame because people outside your circle of friends and family knew who you were. It was because you did something really good or really bad, infamous.

“Now, people are famous because they’re pretty or funny; it’s just because they’re relentless; they won’t get out of your face. I just don’t pay attention to it online, but I have a fifteen-year-old who does, so me and their mum know about it. If you ask me about the state of the music industry now, it’s not a music industry, it’s a music business, and, unfortunately, it’s reverted back to the fifties and forties when label owners were buying singers’ Cadillacs because that’s all they ever paid them.”

Thirty years down the road, what keeps you motivated?

“I love what I do. I love playing music. I love playing shows. It’s how I make a living. I went back to school, and I’m a counsellor. I’m a life coach certified. I’m going to start doing that as well when I’m not out on the road or working. I like being of service to people, it’s part of my sobriety to be of service to people, so I’m finding the niches that surround me that make me feel like I’m being of service to people.”

Just to wrap up, then, have you got any messages for Everclear fans who’ve been with you throughout this journey?

“Yeah. We haven’t gone anywhere. We’re still here. We’re coming back to see you. We’re rockin’ n’ rollin’”

I have an unhealthy obsession with bad horror movies, the song Wanted Dead Or Alive and crap British game shows. I do this not because of the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle it affords me but more because it gives me an excuse to listen to bands that sound like hippos mating.

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