“I can still enjoy different people, different foods, different regions, different points of view, and different perspectives. As you get older, you learn how to flow. Remember who you are, but at the same time, you adapt.”
Doing an anniversary tour is not selling out; it’s receiving a badge of honor. At least that’s what Art Alexakis of Everclear thinks.
Everclear originated from Portland, Oregon, in 1992; however, Alexakis is a California kid — something that you wouldn’t know from his demeanor. Born and raised in LA, but Alexakis is all business when it comes to music. People who meet him often assume he’s from New York City, based on how driven he is.
Everclear is currently celebrating the 30th anniversary of their debut album, Sparkle And Fade. An album that will forever be associated with the ‘90s and Alexakis’ roots, like on “Santa Monica,” named after Alexakis’ hometown. For a debut alternative album, Sparkle And Fade received a relatively good reception; it even peaked at #25 on the Billboard charts.
The lead singer entered the Sparkle And Fade vault to build a remastered 30th anniversary release; he didn’t regret any of his original decisions. For him, the anniversary ‘gimmick’ isn’t to sell tickets, it’s to challenge the band to play songs that haven’t been uncovered since the album was recorded.
For Alexakis, playing live is about giving the band and his fans an escape. He understands the frightening condition the world is in, so when he gets on stage, “It is a break, and for us, that is business as usual.”
Alexakis has a lot to say about the state of the world, which he hints we will hear on an upcoming Everclear LP. For now, Alexakis’ best description of America may be on their hit song “Santa Monica,” “We can live beside the ocean // Leave the fire behind // Swim out past the breakers // Watch the world die.”
I spoke to Alexakis about his family being displaced by the Los Angeles wildfires, finding inspiration for a new album, and the pleasure of anniversary tours.
What is it like to immerse yourself in Sparkle And Fade 30 years later and play all the songs?
It’s fun to play the songs on side two that we don’t play often. There are hardcore Everclear fans out there who are really enjoying hearing those. But it’s not that big of a deal to me. It’s fun to play. I don’t really get a weird sense of nostalgia or anything. I think some people do, but we tour all the time, and we sell out shows all the time.
There are a lot of people who keep coming back every year. Younger people are coming too, but they’re not coming out for the tour. They’re coming out for Everclear. It’s kind of a badge of honor, right? To be around that long and still be making new music. We’re still relevant to us and our fans, and I think that’s exciting.
With the tour is a remastered version of the record; what can fans expect from the remaster?
I was excited to do the 30th anniversary remaster because the original mastering is very ’90s and very shrill. Capital Records let me go through the vaults because this is a double album. It’s coming out in November, and that’s going to be fun for people to hear that. It has a bunch of outtakes, demos, and different versions.
When reviewing the vault, did you find material you regretted not including on the original record?
No, the additional songs are a good document of where we were, and they’re fun and interesting to listen to. Would they have made the record now, as opposed to then? No.
My calls were right at the time. I’m not a wishy-washy kind of guy. I know what I want to do, and I’ve always had that. That’s a blessing, because a lot of artists have a hard time making decisions. I know what sounds right to me, and it’s just my opinion. My opinion trumps all. Sorry, I used that word [laughs].
That leads to something I wanted to ask. With all the craziness in America and how awful everything is, when you get on stage, do you have this sense that you’re giving your fans a break from the noise, or is it business as usual?
It’s both. It is a break, and for us, that is business as usual. I’ve never been a fan of people going on stage and establishing their political opinions. That being said, if you’ve got political ideas and you’re a person who writes songs, please put them in your music, trust me.
I wouldn’t be doing our album, that’s coming out next year, if the awful things in our country weren’t going on. It makes me write. I’ve done writing, drawing, blogging, and all this other stuff, and it’s time to write a record. I’ve got about five or six rough songs ready to go, and I’ve got about 1,000 other ideas.
By the time we go to the studio in January, I’ll be ready. We’re going to do three or four songs at a time every month, and then mix them in May.
Hopefully, we’ll have a label by then. We don’t even have a label right now. I’m not even looking for a label right now. We have offers, but I’m looking for a cool indie label. I don’t want to be on a major label. I’m not saying we won’t be on a major label, but I would bet against it at the moment.
Right now, we’re just enjoying being out there. And, like you said, music and entertainment, and especially rock n’ roll, is an escape. You need to escape that stuff for an hour or two at a time. Getting your mind on something feels good because the news does not feel good.
Was the plan for this year to write a new year or did it happen naturally?
I wasn’t going to make a record, but a lot of things have been happening to me. My wife got cancer last year — she’s doing great, it’s all gone now — but there was that, and then the LA fire displaced us. It destroyed half of my family’s property.
Seven months later, it’s all back now. We were out of the house for about four months. We returned to the house in late April, but even then, there were still people working on the house and out in the yard every day for months.
There are a lot of things to write about, like how political issues affect people, and the sociological aspects of going through a significant change. I mean, there are federal troops in cities. It’s absurd. It’s absolutely absurd. But more than absurd, it’s frightening. It’s scary. It’s starting to feel like the 1930s in Germany. That’s exactly where we’re going.
To shift gears to something lighter. You’re playing The Asbury Lanes in Asbury Park, NJ on October 18. As a Los Angeles guy, what’s it like doing a show at the beach?
It’s interesting because I grew up in LA, but I’ve always had a certain personality that is pretty driven. I had a strong personality when I was a kid, and people would go, “You’re from New York, right?” As I grew older and met people from the East Coast, some of my best friends in the world are from Levittown, Pennsylvania, and I’ve also made friends from New Jersey. Matt Pinfield is one of my oldest friends.
Matt Pinfield, a Rutgers legend!
Yeah, and he’s doing really well, by the way. All that to say that I like East Coast people. They’re less bullshit than a lot of people on the West Coast; they’re less passive-aggressive. They’ll come up to you and go, “You’re dick, man, I don’t want to talk to you.” That was always my people. I finally found my people later in life, but I traveled so much, so I had to adapt.
When I go to Philly, I eat Philly food. I go to New York and I get pizza and bagels. Bagels are really good in Jersey, too. Maybe even better.
New Jersey is definitely the best.
Yeah, I think the water might be better.
Before you go, I wanted to hear your thoughts on the music industry and how it has changed since the ‘90s.
Well, the record industry is gone. We were one of the last bands to come up in the old school system when money was shooting out of the ground, and that’s gone. There are good things about that and not so good things about that. At the same time, it is what it is, right?
The difference in music today, as opposed to then, is that those of us who were making music in the ‘90s all grew up in the ‘70s with what is referred to as classic rock. We lived through punk rock, new wave, and hip-hop, as well as early alternative bands. We had REM, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, and then Jane’s Addiction, the Pixies, and all that.
There was so much good music. And there still is. It’s still there. But it seems like the bands nowadays are not going back and getting stuff from the archives and from our histories. They’re just looking at what the person next to them on either side is doing, and they’re trying to emulate that. That makes for a pretty shallow gene pool of influences to take, as far as influences go.
Thank you so much; that’s really interesting to hear. Thanks for taking the time, and go Dodgers!
Yeah, Dodgers!! We’ll see. We won game one. But, Ohtani, man. He has that hanging curve, which is like 91 miles an hour. It reminds me of Kershaw. Back in 2011, I would go to games, and see that curve, and the batter would be like, “How am I supposed to hit that?’
I’m so glad that Kershaw stayed in LA for his whole career. What a blessing.
I know he’s my favorite.
He’s our Sandy Koufax. Well, thanks, man, go Dodgers!
