Few bands consistently dominated the alt-rock airwaves of the ’90s and early millennium like Everclear, who brought a hard-edged West Coast punk sensibility rooted in classic rock melody to a scene saturated with grunge derivatives. Now, 30 years later, Everclear is still here and as vital as ever, with a brand new deluxe reissue of World of Noise, the band’s debut LP, dropping earlier this month and a new 25-date 2022 North American summer tour underway (with special guests Fastball and the Nixons) celebrating their 30th anniversary as a band. Fortunately for 518 Capital Region fans, the tour stops at Frog Alley Brewing Company in Schenectady, on July 15.
I recently caught up with Everclear singer-guitarist Art Alexakis — who I’ve had both the honor and pleasure of working with before, on several occasions — to talk about the tour, his health, and all of the incredible memories he has of the time surrounding the band’s inception. He hinted that the sets this summer will run the gamut of Everclear’s career, all the way back to some very early material, including songs from their previously out-of-print, recently reissued full-length debut, 1993’s World of Noise.
BRENDAN MANLEY: It’s great to connect again, Art. I was so sorry to hear about your MS diagnosis. First and most importantly, how are you feeling?
ART ALEXAKIS: I’m doing pretty good…I’m feeling alright. I’ve got MS, so it’s always something, but I’m on a really good medication now; I was on a bad one. I had COVID last January and I was in bed for about a month, and it was rough. My MS progressed, so I had to go on a new medication. The first one I tried, I had a really bad reaction. This one I’ve been on for about four months and I feel great and keep feeling better every month. So that’s good. I’m in physical therapy a couple times a month and a couple times a week I’m working out, and swimming every day…. It’s a challenge; it is. But I’m blessed compared to so many people I know. Now we’ve got this tour and people are interested in what we’re doing, and it’s just good stuff, man. I’m just grateful.
BM: That’s awesome; however I’m doubly sorry about your COVID experience. Did Everclear need to cancel a lot of shows during the height of the pandemic?
AA: No, we didn’t cancel hardly anything. I think there were two or three shows we canceled in the fall, just because of the Delta surge. There were usually about 30 to 40 people on tour and no one caught COVID, because we had really strict protocols. Just as we finished the fall tour, that’s when Omicron started taking off, but I did some shows in the peak of it… It’s just something you deal with, man. It’s not going to go away; we’re not going to kill this thing, so people are learning to live with it.
BM: It definitely seems like things are opening back up again. There’s a pretty staggering amount of great shows happening this summer. It’s pretty cool to see it.
AA: I don’t think a lot of people were ready last year. There was a phenomenon that I’d never seen before in all my years of playing in rock bands, and I’ve been playing for more than 40 years: We sold more tickets [last year] than people showed up, and that was pretty much the same for everybody who toured, from the big, big mega-tours with Green Day, down to little indie bands doing 200-seaters. People were there, but there was more people that bought tickets than showed up, even for metal bands. They had probably the best attendance overall, but still, they were part of that phenomenon as well. So this year I don’t think that’s gonna happen, because we’ve already done about five one-offs, and all of them have been either close to capacity or oversold and over-attended, so I think that’s a sign that people are coming to grips with this. Most people I talk to are tired of this crap. They want to get out there; they want to live life, you know?
BM: I also think that during quarantine people realized how much they missed going to shows. It’s exciting to be back enjoying live music again.
AA: Absolutely. I think you’re right. It is exciting. I have been playing a lot of guitar in my studio and writing songs. I’m going to record a new song next week and maybe we’ll we put it out if it comes out good. We’ve got a bunch of stuff coming out along with the 30th Anniversary Tour, which is exciting.
BM: That brings me perfectly to my next question: What’s your personal perspective on this Everclear 30th Anniversary Tour? What does it mean to you, and what are your hopes for it?
AA: I started the band in April of ’92. My girlfriend had a baby due in late June. She was born on the 25th: my daughter Annabella. At the time I had moved to Portland [Ore.]; I had quit my band, Colorfinger, because I was trying to go back and forth and it was just physically and money-wise too hard on us. So I promised my girlfriend at the time—who became my second wife—that I would not do that band. That lasted about a month or two, and then I went to her and said, “I have to do one more band or I’m going to lose my mind. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll get a job in the industry, in L.A. We’ll move there and I’ll become a record label president someday. Whatever I’m gonna do, I’m gonna kill it.” That was my attitude. She’s like, “Okay, one more band.”
I had been writing songs and I put ads in local papers up in Portland. I got two guys [bass player Craig Montoya and drummer Scott Cuthbert] and went into a studio to rehearse with them and it was horrible. Then two other guys the next day—talk about a door closing and a window opening—they called me from the ad in the paper, like, “We live in Seattle, but my drummer is from Portland and knows your girlfriend. I used to be in this band and I saw your band Colorfinger.” I’m like “Cool, man,” and I sent him a tape of me playing the songs on an acoustic. I went up about a week later and it was amazing…amazing. I went up one more time, and then they came down. We rented a rehearsal hall, but we were so poor—we couldn’t afford to do it—so it just didn’t happen. So I went back to the original two guys: Craig and Scott. We just started plowing, man. We sucked, but we got better and better and played shows and just grinded it. Then we went in and made a demo for 400 bucks. It became our first album, World of Noise.
AA: I just found the original tapes for it and as we speak they’re getting baked and we’re gonna go and listen to it. I gave this guy a huge 65-pound box of tapes with no names on them, so I don’t know what they are—multi-track mixes, all sorts of stuff—and they’re all getting baked and dropped down to digital. We’re gonna go listen to everything and see what we’ve got. But for sure, we’re putting out World of Noise—the original mix—and hopefully a new mix as well. It’ll be available on all the streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Amazon; it’s never been available before, because I own it and Capitol never put it out, because they couldn’t. So I’m gonna put that out and we’re gonna get vinyl pressed up—double vinyl—so it’s going to be cool. [Ed. Note: The 30th Anniversary Reissue of World of Noise just dropped on 6/10, since this interview.]
BM: Let’s talk a bit about that record, especially since it’s the first one. When you go back now and think about those early Everclear songs, what comes to mind that’s special for you?
AA: It’s angry. I was 30 years old, broke, my band I put four years of my life into just dissolved overnight, I’m living in a place that didn’t like me because I was from California, so people were constantly cutting me off and flipping me the finger—even old ladies driving—and there were guys in the scene who liked my girlfriend and were mad at me because I got her and they didn’t. I liked Portland; I wanted to fit in there, but man, people were just making it hard for me. And that’s okay; I deal with adversity. I want to play nice and fun, but if I’ve got to play hard, I’ll play hard. I just worked harder; I didn’t do anything bad. I just worked harder. So it was a rough time.
When we recorded that record, I was digging out a garden for a woman that worked with my girlfriend…. As I was doing that work I noticed that there were all these hipster-looking guys going in and out of this garage. I’m like, “Oh, that’s a drug deal right there.” The one guy that lived in the house [Karl Brummer] was walking and I looked over the fence and go, “Hey man.” He goes, “Hey, aren’t you that guy in that band Ever Clean or Ever Clear? I saw you guys down at the tavern. You guys are good.” So I go, “What are you doing in there, man? Why is everybody going in there?” And I’m smiling at him. He’s like, “I have a basement studio. You want to come see it?” I jumped right over the fence.
We went down there and saw that he had this cool little [setup]… He had some effects and stuff and I’m like, “You need some more effects, man? Because I’ve got a rack with a digital delay and stuff…” He goes, “I’ll trade you some time for it. I’ll give you $400 in trade, at $10 bucks an hour; that’s 48 hours.” We had 12 songs, so I could record all 12 songs, and that’s what we did. We went in one week after work and mixed on the weekend.
BM: Who knows what would’ve happened if you’d turned down that gardening gig! So what came next?
AA: We made the record, and sent cassettes to South by Southwest and every paper in Portland that wrote about music. Then we got accepted to South by Southwest, and just as we’re leaving town in the van, I put all these packages in a mailbox to go out to the local press. We played shows in San Francisco, L.A., Phoenix, San Diego… We just kind of worked our way over and made a little bit of money from old connections to get to Austin. Then we played in Austin, and as we were headed back, I remember stopping—this is before I had a pager or a cell phone; this is like March ’93—and I call my girlfriend. I go, “So what’s going on?” She goes, “Man, you better get home quick.”… She goes, “because of all those tapes you sent out. You have 47 messages on the answering machine and there were more, but I just deleted them, because they said they already called three times.” She goes, “You’re in every paper in town; they’re writing about your demo.” We became the new band in town. Everyone dug the tape. Clubs that wouldn’t even talk to us before were offering us gigs with big bands; like Sub-Pop bands and touring bands from out of town. So 1993 is when it really took off for us in Portland.
AA: We turned our demo into an album and signed to this local label, Tim/Kerr (T/K) Records, and they put it out in the fall. Then we worked it to college radio in early 1994, charted there and then just got a bunch of label attention. Finally they were all hovering; they jumped and they came and made offers. We got signed by Capitol in ’94…. I was 32—I’d been working in bands for 14 years—so it was fun…. I was just glad to be on a label that had the expertise and money to help us go farther and get to more people…. Someone in the band was like, “Well I’m just gonna go buy a Cadillac and kick back.” I go, “Why, because we made it? We haven’t made it. It’s just starting, man. We’re in the game now; we’re in the show.” If you were a baseball player, you’d be in the show. We’re on a major label and now is the time to not sit back. This is the time to grind, and we did.
BM: Obviously the rest is history, including all the classic records that followed. With this tour, will you be playing some of that original early material?
AA: We’re gonna do a couple of songs off [World of Noise] for sure, and maybe even some hidden gems from back in the day that were B-sides. When we put the record out there’s going to be a B-side element to it as well, from old demos and stuff. It’ll be fun for the fans. They’re going to dig it.
BM: Do you typically play material from World of Noise these days?
AA: One song from the record—“Fire Maple Song,” which was the first single from the record—we still play that probably half the shows, especially if people ask for it, and we’ve been getting a lot of requests for that. But we play a couple other songs from it, too. This tour, we’ll probably play at least two songs from World of Noise, if not more. And we’ll still play all the hits everyone wants to hear, as well. It’s gonna be fun. We’re also booking a tour for the UK in the fall in November and we’re working on going back to Australia in January and February of next year, so we’ve got a busy year ahead of us.
BM: That’s awesome. Speaking of this Everclear 30th Anniversary Tour, do you see it as more of a celebration of your entire 30-year career, or do you see it more as hearkening back to that first record and those early days? Or is it a mix of both?
AA: It’s celebrating the whole career. We released a teaser video of us playing “Santa Monica” over the period since 1995 when it came out. The video starts with us playing in a record store that’s really small, where someone filmed it with their mom’s video recorder, and then it shows us playing it at Woodstock and places in front of hundreds of thousands of people.
AA: We’re also gonna release a video that’s a short retrospective on the band and its whole history. My friend Matt Pinfield’s gonna narrate it for me, so that’s really cool. He’s been a fan and a friend since around ’94…. We’re both sober and working and having a good time in life, so it’s good stuff.
BM: You mentioned working on a new Everclear song. Is there a new LP in the works?
AA: No, not right now. Maybe later, but right now I just want to put out a song.
BM: Anything on the solo horizon?
AA: I’ve got a couple got a couple shows here and there, but not really. I’m really happy doing Everclear right now. I was happy doing everything before; it just was good to do something different. Now I just want to rock and roll with my buddies.
BM: Right, and speaking of which, does Everclear have the same lineup as recent years?
AA: Yeah Davey [French] has been with me since 2003. Freddy [Herrera]’s been with me since 2009. Brian [Nolan]’s been with us since 2012. The “new” guys have been in the band way longer than the guys who are in the old videos, but you know, they’re still the “new” guys.
BM: You’ve also picked some great opening acts for the tour.
AA: Yeah, our friends in Fastball. They’re one of my favorite bands; they’re so good. And the Nixons from Oklahoma, who are another great band. So yeah, it’s going to be a rocker, man.
BM: In terms of the sets, are you going to be mixing it up every night, or do you think it’s going to be one consistent setlist?
AA: I mix it up a little bit. There’s usually a skeleton, where out of the 18 or 19 songs we play, there’s probably 13 or 14 songs for sure, and there’s about five songs that can move around. If people hit me up and request them, I’ll play them, if we know them. I’ve got over 120 songs as Everclear; we can’t play everything. But if you ask for it ahead of time, we can learn it at sound check and do it some justice. So we’re going to mix it up every night, but it is going to be pretty close to the same set, except for four or five songs.
BM: Are you doing any kind of VIP or meet and greet stuff like that?
AA: Yeah we’re doing a VIP meet and greet. There’s gonna be different levels. One, you get a bag full of goodies, another you get to meet the band, another have the band sing a song, then one that there’s only 10 of them, where we bring you on the bus and backstage. Last year it was hard, because I didn’t want to bring people backstage or on the bus, because of COVID, but this year we’ll see. We’re not sure.
BM: So let’s get philosophical for a moment. What does the Everclear 30-Year Anniversary Tour mean to you? Personally, what does 30 years of being in Everclear signify? Is it a heavy thing to even think about that?
AA: To me, it’s just a reason for the celebration. I’m almost 60 years old. I’ve got MS. I’ve been through the ringer—a lot of it, I put myself through the ringer—but I’m still here. The music’s still here. Everclear is still here. Everclear is my band and it always has been. Its faces have changed, but the music stays the same. We’ve got a great band, we’re tight as hell, we all love and respect each other and we just go out and put on the best show we can every night. I’m just blessed that I get to do this for a living. I’m very grateful for my life.
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Everclear will be appearing with Fastball and the Nixons at Frog Alley Brewing Company in Schenectady on July 15.
