Everclear singer Art Alexakis has lived two lives in one lifetime: one before and another after sobriety.
Before, he was a drug addict and drug dealer who was shot, stabbed, and overdosed on more than one occasion. After, he spent 30 years as the songwriter, vocalist, and front man of seminal American rock band Everclear – and he has no plans on slowing down any time soon.
“I didn’t start writing music until I was 20, almost 21,” he says. “I got clean when I was 22 and I think creatively I got better after the drugs – and even better than that after I got sober.”
After getting clean in the mid-1980s, then total sobriety five years later, Alexakis decided to channel his addictive behaviours into something creative – hence Everclear was born.
“I tried to get sober by taking that addictive behaviour from using hard drugs and put it into drinking, but then I was just ugly, angry, blackout drunk – which is not very attractive to anybody, in any way, shape or form,” he says. “My next band after getting clean and sober was Everclear, and I just threw my whole body and soul and spirit into it… and look what happened.”
The band has just celebrated its 30th anniversary, and this year is the 30th anniversary of debut album World of Noise. Alexakis reflects fondly on the band’s early success.
“I’d done a couple of records with different bands and each one had gotten bigger and more attention regionally where I was living,” he says. “I was living in San Francisco and then I moved to Portland (Oregon), started Everclear and made this record for literally $400 in a basement.”
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That album, released in December 1993, created a stir amongst local college radio, club promoters and the media before it was even released.
“I guess it changed my life because it was the first time I was in a band that was not just kinda popular, it was reeeally popular, like, selling out shows,” Alexakis says. “And then when we signed to Capitol and Sparkle and Fade came out, then it was a whole different world.”
The band’s second album, released two years later, is the band that really changed Alexakis’ life.
“I jokingly say Sparkle and Fade bought me a couple of houses and a couple of divorces,” he laughs. “I’m not totally joking, either. But that record was a good friend to me; it was a sea change from growing up poor, growing up in a housing project.”
Alexakis says the traumas of his youth were woven into the songs that changed his life.
“I think the scar tissue of that lived in a lot of those songs, and still does to this day – how could it not, right?” he says. “But it’s a case of taking something that was horrible and turning it into something that’s beautiful. That’s what good art does.”
Indeed, one of the band’s biggest hits – 1997’s ‘Father of Mine’ – spoke to the strained relationship with his father, who left the family when Alexakis was six years old. Ironically, his father is a critical player in one of his earliest memories, when Alexakis first discovered rock’n’roll.
Watch Everclear ‘Father of Mine’:
“We were in my dad’s car, my dad was driving – this was before car seats, so I’m standing up on the bench, totally dangerous,” he recalls with a laugh. “This is probably the summer of ’64 and this song called ‘Wipeout’ comes on… and I started just freaking out and dancing, and just going crazy hitting my dad’s arm, so he turned it off because he didn’t feel like it was safe.
“I freaked out and started yelling and hitting him and he pulled over, my mom turned the radio back on and I danced… Then when it was over I laid down in my mom’s lap and my dad started driving again. I had to hear the rock’n’roll; it goes deep with me. Still to this day there are certain songs that just set me on fire.”
The band recently released a new single, ‘Year of the Tiger’ and Alexakis is already working on the next single, which he says should be ready in May or June and won’t sound anything like their latest track.
“Like a lot of bands I grew up listening to – and I’m older; I’m 60, so I grew up with Zeppelin, The Beatles, Cheap Trick, Sex Pistols, LA punk like X, Pixies, stuff like that – my favourite bands sound different from song to song, but that all sound like that band,” Alexakis says. “And that’s what I’ve endeavoured to do, is for each song approach it differently… It starts differently, it has a different vibe to it, but it all sounds like Everclear.”
Although the band took a hiatus, during which time Alexakis released solo music under his own name, and has undergone several line-up changes, Everclear has never really changed.
“Everclear was not three guys who grew up together making music – I put an ad in the paper looking for specific things, and those guys joined my band – so Everclear has always been my musical outlet,” Alexakis explains. “It’s like Smashing Pumpkins – it’s not a band, it’s Billy Corgan. Nine Inch Nails – it’s not a band, it’s a project. Same thing with Everclear.”
The band is currently in Australia for a 17-date tour, and Alexakis says it is the busiest year Everclear has had since the late 1990s.
“People keep asking us to come to New Zealand and we’re like, we don’t have time, man,” he laughs. “Once we get back (to the US) we have two days off and then we have like 12 hours in March – if you have four shows in one month that’s great; if you have more than that it’s tremendous… but 12? Especially after 17 shows of flying around, it’s going to be a rough early spring, let’s just call it that.”
Last time the band toured Australia as part of the Hotter Than Hell festival line-up in early 2020, Alexakis – who is usually so busy soaking up precious time with his 15-year-old daughter before she leaves for college that he doesn’t have time to discover new music – fell in love with a local act.
“We did three shows with The Grates, and I didn’t know about The Grates until we played with them,” he says. “But then I started buying their records – I think they’re just phenomenal.”
After three decades in the music industry – the last of which has involved health challenges after he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis following a car accident in 2016 – Alexakis says he has learned “many, many, many, many things” about himself.
“I think the most important things are I’ve learned that I need to constantly keep myself present and focus on acceptance as opposed to expectations, and that gives me much more joy in life,” he says. “You know, that doesn’t mean that you just sit around and wait for the world to come to you, but you do what you want to do and accept where it goes, and adapt.”
That’s something, Alexakis says, that has come with age.
“Getting old sucks, man,” he laughs. “I lived pretty hard when I was younger, so it is what it is, and I accept it. I’m just like, I’m where I’m at because that’s where I’m supposed to be, and I let go of all the other resentments and stuff and just focus on all the good things I’ve got.”
Watch Everclear ‘Year of the Tiger’:
Everclear 30th Anniversary Australian Tour
Tickets available via Oztix
Thursday 16th February
Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung land/Mount Evelyn, York On Lilydale, VIC
Friday 17th February
Naarm/Melbourne, Croxton Bandroom, VIC
Saturday 18th February
Bunurong land/Chelsea Heights, Chelsea Heights Hotel, VIC
Sunday 19th February
Wadawurrung/Torquay, Torquay Hotel, VIC
Thursday 23rd February
Tarndanya/Adelaide, The Gov, SA
Friday 24th February
Walyalup/Fremantle, Freo Social, WA
Saturday 25th February
Boorloo/Duncraig, Carine Tavern, WA
Sunday 26th February
Quedjinup/Dunsborough, Dunsborough Tavern, WA
