Survivor: Talking with Everclear’s Art Alexakis

Three decades have come and gone since the California band Everclear’s breakthrough album, the multi-platinum Sparkle and Fade, appeared in a flush of punk guitar riffs and power chords, alongside killer melodies and catchy choruses. Everclear arrived in the immediate wake of Nirvana, and then Green Day, guitar-bass-drums trios that took apart and re-assembled where rock ‘n’ roll was, and where it was going.

Yes, kids, this is what people who just had to put labels on things called “alternative rock.”

Then, as now, Everclear’s creative wellspring – and energizer bunny – was singer, songwriter and guitarist Art Alexakis. All of the band’s signature songs – “Santa Monica,” “Wonderful,” “Heroin Girl,” “Everything to Everyone” – came from him.

The band, now a quartet with Alexakis the sole original member, performs Wednesday at Clearwater’s Capitol Theatre.

He politely declines to own the designation (we asked), but Art Alexakis is a survivor. He survived awful domestic stuff as a kid, as well as the death of his younger brother from a heroin overdose. His high school girlfriend committed suicide.

Alexakis himself had just kicked heroin, meth and cocaine when Everclear started to hit, in the late 1980s. In this interview, he proudly admits he’s been sober for 36 years.

In 2019, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

“It is what it is,” Alexakis shrugs, preferring to focus on life’s positives, of which there are many. “I’m doing really good. I’m blessed.”

Tickets for Wednesday’s Everclear concert (with Sponge and Local H) are at this link.

St. Pete Catalyst: Do you ever think “Thirty years. How did I get here?”

Art Alexakis: I don’t dwell on it like that. People ask that question all the time. I’m just at a place in my life, with my sobriety, with my relationships, with my family, my higher powers, everything – hey, 30^th anniversary, people want to do that? Wow.

I’m really just like rolling, you know? There are things I want to do – I want to put out a new record next year. I’ve been writing a lot because of all the crap that’s going on in the world right now.

It is interesting to see so many young people coming to the shows. I’d say about 30 percent of our fan base now is these young kids, late teens, 20s. They weren’t even born when these songs came out on the radio.

That’s got to be a nice feeling, that something you created a while ago has lasted.

It’s awesome! Look, nostalgia, I think is healthy. People come back and re-live the ‘90s – their teens and their early college – and I love that. But these kids look like those people did 30 years ago. They’re got the fire in their eyes. Because the thing is, music, when you hear it, doesn’t matter if it came out 30 days ago or 30 years ago. It’s new to you, and if it connects with you and resonates with you, and you’re a teenager, you’re gonna be on fire.

These kids are coming to the shows, they know every word to every song. Because they have access to it. All they’ve got to do listen to it on whatever. Stream it. And they’re buying the vinyl of every record that we sell. It’s been such a great to tour, to see that juxtaposition between the old-school fans and the new-school fans. And they celebrate each other.

The very first line of “Santa Monica” sticks out with me – “I am still living with your ghost,” you wrote. Do you feel like you’re living now with the ghost of who you were then?

Well … yeah. But I let go and I’m moving on, man. I just don’t dwell on the past. I was 32, 33 when I made that record. And if you’d been in a relationship at that point, anyone who’s had their heart broken, who’s moved from a place they’d loved or had something that was great not be great any more, there’s gonna be a ghost of that with you forever.

We know now that you gotta get your butt kicked a little, in life, to really appreciate the good things.

That whole “ghost” thing … I was homesick for California. I was living in the Northwest; I loved Portland, but the weather was just killing me, man. I’m a California kid. And whenever I would go to the coast, even the Oregon coast, all my stress would go away.

In Portland I wrote that song late one night, and I just used that analogy.

What’s cool about being a songwriter is that the words about love, loss and memory will mean different things to different listeners.

When we finished that song, I knew we had a great song. I didn’t know if it was a single, or a hit song, or whatever. I felt like the album was going to be really strong, all the songs were good, but “Santa Monica” had that sheen to it that just popped out, you know?

Are you still doing solo shows?

Every now and then. I’m so busy with Everclear, and with home and keeping up my physical regimen, for the MS, and plus I life coach people as well … so I’m pretty busy.

Explain to me what a life coach does.

Well, in sports a coach is someone who helps you get to where you want to get. I deal with a lot of people in recovery, which I am, 36 years in recovery. So I’ve got a lot of skills that I’ve developed over the years. Outside of the program – I’m not their sponsor. I’m not their spiritual advisor. I’m a coach that works with them like … a lot of guys toured on drugs. They don’t know how to tour sober. So I help them do that. I help them with their priorities. I help them examine stuff, and learn how to call themselves on their own shit sometimes. As I do myself.

And I work with people who have writer’s block, or hit a plateau. Or are trying to take it from a hobby to a profession. I just coach them through it, through advice and my coaching skills that I learned, going to school. And it’s fun, man. It’s cool. But it’s not therapy. I tell them that from the beginning.

Dealing with the MS – how are things going while you’re on the road?

It’s good. Everything’s harder. I’ve got a limp, because lesions are on the left side of my brain. So it affects my right side. So when I’m home I’m doing physical therapy, working on strengthening all that stuff. And I swim every day. And I do weight training now, because I’m 63; one day of weights to keep my strength up.

I got my program, and I got my therapy, and I got my wife who kicks my ass in a good way.