It takes more than a few hard knocks to keep Art Alexakis down. Riveting frontman and driving force behind the multi-platinum powerhouse Everclear, Alexakis has built up a devoted following based on songs culled from his own thorny past. Issues of abandonment, early demons with drugs, sobriety and divorce are all chronicled through 17 years and eight albums.
Everclear’s latest debut from 429 Records, In A Different Light takes a look back at nine of their biggest hits including “Santa Monica” and “Summerland” from their top 30 album Sparkle and Fade and “Father Of Mine” from So Much For The Afterglow. Reshaped and re-tweaked, the songs like the band have evolved organically over time. The latest lineup includes Art Alexakis (lead guitar/lead vocals), Johnny Hawthorn (guitar, backing vocals) Freddy Herrera (bass), Sasha Smith (keyboards) and Jordan Plosky (drums/percussion). The karma seems perfect and their two newly penned tunes, “At the End of the Day” and “Here Comes The Darkness” prove it to be true.
Almost two decades after emerging from the Northwest to rock fans everywhere, Everclear is as relevant as ever and singer/songwriter Alexakis is still going strong. These days it’s all about redemption, re-invention and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Like the Energizer Bunny, Alexakis takes a licking and keeps on ticking, as he shares some of his personal war stories and a whole lot more with Glide. I have to say it was one of my most memorable interviews.
Am I catching you at a good time?
I’m on tour right now…breezing down the interstate, so if I lose you, hang in there and I’ll call right back.
With all you’ve been through in your life, conventional questions seem so mundane…
So throw it off your hip, that’s fine with me. I love when people come from a different perspective. If one more person asks me how I got the name Everclear…I’m like, “Really?” C’mon man, I’ve been around for 15 years; they should do the homework a little bit.
I can’t believe the name wasn’t already taken…
Me either. I think a couple of bands actually did have it, but we put out a record first so we won. That’s how it works. 
How is In a Different Light really in a different light?
Well, that’s a really good question. I was in a totally different place when I wrote a lot of these songs, but I connect to them everyday. I have to connect to them or I can’t really communicate them. They’re very emotional. For instance, “Father of Mine” isn’t a song you can just sing well unless you’re involved in it. I’m not that a good of a singer or guitar player to make it work …
I beg to differ…
Well, thank you very much. But I really have to translate that emotion to make the whole thing work and I understand that. Everybody has doubts about what they do. The prettiest girl in the room is always worried about how she looks, right? It’s just human nature. But back to your original question — I’ve wanted to do a record like this with different versions of these songs that have grown over the years. To make it interesting we’ve been slowly evolving the songs without consciously trying to make them different. It felt right to use acoustic guitars instead of big, bombastic guitars. It’s a much cleaner sound and it puts an emphasis on the vocals and the melody. They’re still the same songs and sung by me, so there’s a lot of continuity there. But they are in a different light or a different perspective, I should say.
I always go for the darker songs. What kinds of demons were haunting you when you wrote “Here Comes The Darkness”?
I wrote that song about five years ago when I was going through a divorce and within the same week my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer and my mentor, my therapist, who was the closest thing to a father to me and helped me find out who I am—as goofy as that sounds— also died. All this happened within a one-week span and I was literally kicked on my ass. I don’t know if you’ve ever suffered from depression, but it’s something that my whole family has fought with and I tried not to go on medication for the longest time, but this just kicked me to the floor. I was in such a dark place. Yet, I was lucid enough to still be writing and I created some really good emotional songs from that time and “Here Comes The Darkness” is one of them. It’s a lot more uplifting towards the end of the song because even though I was going through this dark time, I never thought this was the way it was going to end. I knew it would get better and there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, but sometimes the tunnel is really freakin’ long (laughs).
So that explains the lyrics, “the tunnel looks like it’s a million miles long” …
Exactly. It may take a long time, but you’ll find your way out. That’s why I’ve never gotten into these super gloomy bands because I don’t think life is like that – it’s not that simple where everything is dark and dismal. Art should reflect a true perspective of life, even if it’s yours. I listen to that song now and I think, “Oh, that poor son of a bitch”…it’s not even me anymore. 
The writing really pulled you through…
Yeah, it’s definitely part of my therapy and I’m blessed to be able to do that. “Here Comes The Darkness” also carries a little sense of humor. You’re laughing with tears in your eyes, ya know? That’s what it’s all about. Life is gonna beat us up…that’s just how it is. And a lot of times it’s because of our actions. We’ve made bad choices and we have to live with the consequences and hopefully we learn from it. I got my ass kicked that year and I weathered through it. Eight months after I wrote that song I met my wife and now we have a baby together. That’s life, man. And I’m not making the same mistakes I made before so I’m not going to get into that position again. This is the strongest relationship I’ve been in yet, so I see it lasting this time. However, if for some reason it doesn’t, it won’t be because I repeated what I did before – not being a good man – cuz I wasn’t a good husband or a good man. You gotta own up to it and so many men won’t. I don’t want to be a 60 or 70-year-old guy that’s all alone because I refused to learn from the lessons that life gave me. I’m not walking away untouched.
You’ve been to hell and back, but you’ve always hung in there. You speak about the pain of your dad deserting you in “Father of Mine”. When you wrote this song did you ever expect it to touch so many lives?
I’m not sure what I expected. When I wrote it I played about half of it for a couple of friends of mine. The women in the room were immediately bawling and the men were quiet and kinda misty-eyed. Everyone thought it was really powerful and I knew it had to be on the record. And I told them that I wasn’t sure if it was a single, but I knew it would either piss a lot of people off or they would really connect with it. As it turned out, people really connected with it.
Do you speak to your father now?
No. I wrote this song because after the success of Sparkle and Fade, my father was attempting to have a relationship with me and I resisted. I wasn’t interested in him having a relationship with my daughter then and I’m not interested now with my two daughters. My dad originally called me in ’04 and at the time, my mother was really sick and going through chemo, etc. He said, “Look, what do I have to do to be in your life?” I said, “Okay, tell you what. You call my mom and make peace with her. She’s dying…you have nothing to be afraid of” and he said he would. I didn’t need to know what they spoke about; I just wanted to hear from my mother that he called. Well, he never did. It’s like be careful what you wish for. So, he’s not in my life is the answer to your question.
What was it like performing in Portland during the height of the grunge scene?
To be honest with you Joanne back in ’92 nobody in Portland or even Seattle knew what ‘grunge’ was. That was something that was created by other people. Nirvana had taken off but a lot of the bands that had gotten juice from them were bands that didn’t have anything to do with Nirvana. Like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains…they didn’t sound anything like Nirvana, but they all got lumped in together because they were all from the same place with long hair and wore flannel shirts because that was the style. But a music called ‘grunge’ really had nothing to do with it. Actually in Portland (as compared to Seattle) the music was much more minimal, much more punk rock.
Gary Gersh, who’s responsible for signing Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Counting Crows takes credit for signing you to Capitol Records. Is that true?
No, the guy who brought me in there was actually Perry Watts-Russell who happened to work for Gary Gersh, who was the head honcho. Gary takes credit for it, but every president pats themselves on the back for all the good stuff and takes no blame for any faults. That’s just the record industry. Perry was a manager and this was his first gig as a label guy. He was a huge music fan and for some reason he was a fan of my songs and my voice and that’s why I went to Capitol.
How did you feel about the constant comparisons to Nirvana?
You mean when people would look at us and say, “Oh, three piece band, from the Northwest, blonde guy, angry, screaming…looks like Kurt, sounds like Nirvana”? Yeah, we got roped into that whole Nirvana thing. The critics did that all the time. I can name (but won’t) really, really big music critics who later admitted to me that they never listened to our first two records – they reviewed them, but never listened to them. It happens all the time. I have one guy – one of the biggest music writers in NY – who came back and said, “You know what? I was wrong about Everclear – I missed the bus. I didn’t get what you were doing then. I’ve gone back and it’s awesome.” There are good writers and bad writers and people with good intent and those with ill intent. That’s the world we live in.
Well, at least you got validation. And how did you get involved in politics?
I’ve always been involved in politics. I think it’s our responsibility and civic duty to be involved. We’re given the right to vote and we all need to exercise that right.
Are you happy with Obama?
Yes, I think he’s doing a great job. I think he’s got a hell of an uphill battle. He came in and things were a mess. The stimulus is starting to work, but he said this wasn’t going to happen overnight. We were in such a hole. If he hadn’t done what he did we’d have 25% unemployment – just like in the depression. Right now it’s brutal. Businesses that I’ve been going to for years have closed. Mom and pop businesses – they’re gone. He had to start from the ground up, and for one thing, he’s going to revamp healthcare. He’s doing it.
He’s getting a lot of resistance for some of his ideas, though. People forget what happened when Social Security was first introduced…
Yeah, exactly. Republicans were saying that the country would go down in ruins within five years. Guess what…it didn’t happen. Now every Republican and every older person depends on their social security check. How many retirees use Medicare? And they should! We need a single-payer system in this country. Are you familiar with how the film studios worked in the ‘60’s? How the studios had all the power and actors were powerless?
Yes, and people were blacklisted.
Exactly. Superstars were making like $2,000 a week and their movies were grossing millions of dollars and they were getting no piece of it. Well, of course the studios didn’t want to change and give over any power. It’s similar now with what we’re going through with healthcare and the pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies. Why would they want to change? They don’t give a shit if people die because they can’t afford healthcare. It’s ludicrous.
…And why find a cure when they can dispense drugs, right? What was your experience traveling in Iraq in Support of the Troops and the USO? That must have been intense.
I’ve spent more time doing that in the last year or two and it’s very interesting because I’m very pro-troop but I’m also vehemently anti-war. I’m not anti-war in every case. Some wars seem necessary, but to go into another country like we did when we should have gone into Afghanistan full-throttle and gotten that guy…that’s what we needed to do. And now Afghanistan stands a chance of being Obama’s Vietnam. I think he’s smart, industrious, charming and he’s a tough guy, too. But trying to appease the other side of the isle, that just isn’t working. It looks nice on paper, but it just doesn’t work. You’ve got a super-majority – just get it done. If they (Afghanistan) had a super-majority, they wouldn’t give a shit (laughs). Do you really think they’d come to us looking for bi-partisanship? No way. It doesn’t matter because we’re not going to agree, so why act like we’re going to agree? Just do what you’ve got to do. I think Obama’s realizing that and he needs to stay strong and not go too far to the left.
What’s up in the near future for you?
We’re fleshing out the details to go on the road for two weeks in November, and back out in December through January. I’m also doing solo dates with Leigh Nash (Sixpence None the Richer) and Ed Kowalczyk (Live). The tour is called “Open Wings and Broken Strings”. 
Do you think they’ll be more music coming from Everclear?
Absolutely I’
m writing songs right now. I’ve got about fifteen I’m working on. We’re gonna go in the studio in February or March and make a new record. Hopefully, it’ll be out by the summer.
What’s your favorite song to play live?
I love the response we get when we play the big hits. That’s fun. But there’s a song that we play called “Portland Rain” that’s off Welcome to the Drama Club, a record we put out in ’06. It’s not a well-known song, but people come away from it saying, “Wow, I didn’t know that song, but that was awesome.” That really makes me feel good.
“Here Comes The Darkness” sounds like it should have been on the Drama Club.
That’s a very astute observation. We recorded it and mixed it for that, but it just didn’t fit the record. That pissed off my label people, which I have a history of doing (laughs). We changed the drums out and remixed it and I think it sounds stunning on this album.
To think all these great hits are still relevant. That must make you feel amazing…
Absolutely. It feels good when people tell you you’re doing a good job. Everybody wants to hear that.
You played not that long ago with David Lowery. I could see you guys having a good musical chemistry.
Yeah, he’s just great. We did a tour last summer. He’s also on 429. I’ve always liked David and I was a huge fan of Camper and Cracker. It was a real treat to play with him, for sure.
Joanne Schenker lives in New York and is a contributing writer for Glide and AOL Music (Spinner.com) She can be reached at jogirl621@aol.com.
