What Everclear Says
Remember the Everclear songs, “Wonderful,” “Heroine Girl” or “Santa Monica?” Well, the multi-hit band keeps plugging along. I saw a press release a couple months ago about the band doing a fund-raiser for the Mars Hill Church and my Christian ears perked up. Seems someone in the band appreciated the church’s laid back style and respected what believers were called to do (help others). Therefore, it was with great pleasure that I was able to get on the phone with frontman Art Alexakis for the following interview.
I’m sure you’ve heard the Hunter S. Thompson quote about the music industry ... In the spirit of that famous quote what is the most wretched, ugly and foul thing that you’ve seen in the business world we call entertainment?
I’m in the process of trying to transition over into film and make movies. I went to film school 20-some years ago and I’ve been making short films and made a lot of our videos, so now I’m dealing with a whole new data shark. And it’s a shark that makes the shark in the, um, music business look like guppies.
Wow.
Because … well, it’s about the money – there’s much more money. An indie movie costs half a million dollars to a million dollars, an indie record costs ten to twenty thousand dollars to make. And you do the math. The size of carnivores that surround that money are, um, bigger and scarier. But in the record industry … I think, the most disgusting… See, I never take that stuff seriously. I had the president of the label call me a (bleep) once, ‘cause I wouldn’t do a show for him. He wanted me to get off the middle of my tour, Everclear, you know, blow off three shows that were gonna ... were already sold out – so, I’d have to disappoint all those bands, piss off the promoters, lose all that money – and fly in to a private gig for his friend. And I’m like, “No!” So he called me a bunch of names including a (bleep) and I always thought it was funny that I got called a (bleep) by the president at the label.
Well, on the contrary, what’s one of the absolutely coolest and most refreshing things you’ve ever seen in this biz?
Well, one of the coolest things that ever happened was when we were doing our video for a song called “A.M. Radio” – I don’t know if you ever saw it – but, uh, we morphed a lot of, like, old TV shows from the seventies and we had to get rights and pay for rights from all of these different shows from The Brady Bunch, um, Kojak...
I think I remember that.
Yeah, and … man, everybody was so ... whoever the holding companies were, they were so ... so expensive, just for like a ten second clip of The Brady Bunch, or a twenty second clip it was like, twenty five grand. And one of the coolest things was Marty Kroft – from Sid and Marty Kroft – let us use as much as he wanted from his old Saturday morning TV show and he didn’t charge us a dime, not a dime. And, uh, that’s just … he’s just an old school guy who wants to do fun things and figures if his stuff is out there it’s getting some attention, you know? Um, I don’t know, there’s been a few cases of that. I haven’t run into too much wonderfulness in people, in the entertainment business.
Well, what are some of the secrets of longevity in an artist or a band, but specifically in your case, as well as what you’d recommend to a young artist?
Huh. Well in my case I think it’s just that, I just don’t know when to quit. I still feel the fire in my belly; I think that’s the prerequisite – that you still have a passion for what you do. Um, that you can still stay current and connected with people. I really love the internet, because that’s a way of staying connected with people. For other people? For younger bands, I think if you really want to have a career as a musician or an entertainer or as an artist in some way, you’ve got to be driven, man; you’ve got to want it so bad. You can’t let defeats get in your way, you know? You put yourself out on the line and people are going to criticize you. And sometimes it’s going to be good criticism; sometimes it’s going to be horrific. You’ve got to be able to weather it. The people that are still here after all these years, myself included, are people that have taken off, done really well, had some defeats and some failures and come back from it. Just don’t let it get you down. I think that’s true in any business – not just in entertainment – or in any life. If you really want to have a successful life, you have to be able to pick yourself up when you get knocked down. Or when you knock yourself down, when you fall down... So, I was watching a TV show that kind of reminds me of that, I was speaking to my fiancée about that actually just a couple hours ago.
Well I got one more question about the music business. I wasn’t purposefully trying to come up with all these business questions, but they just kind of flowed when I was composing these. What’s one surprising thing about a career in music that no one warned you about?
One surprising thing? Well, one’s gonna… I mean, no one can really warn you. Because unless you hang out with famous people no one can really know what it’s going to be like and I’ve never really talked to anyone famous. I mean, most people have an idea what fame and success as an entertainer is gonna be. You know, you have these pictures in your mind of what it’s going to be like. And I don’t think anything in this world is ever how we picture it. You can get close to it, but I don’t think that you ever nail it. I think the biggest surprise for me was how much I was going to miss my lack of privacy. I really have always been a really private person, never really wanted to be famous. I wanted to be good and successful, make a decent living. But the whole fame thing of being recognized – I get recognized a lot – is, uh, you know … it depends upon your mood. If you’re in a good mood, it’s great. If you’re not in a good mood, it’s not. But it doesn’t matter, because you still have to be there for … you know, you still have to deal with it. And you have to deal with it in a good way and a compassionate way. Sometimes it’s easier than other times. It’s a good problem to have, you know, don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m a poor little rich boy (bleep) about what a bummer it is that people like what I do. It’s just there’s times when I’m trying to change a diaper and people are, um, just really rude at the airport trying to, you know, push my wife out of the way so they can get up and talk to me while I’m trying to change a diaper. That’s a bit, um, a bit of a nuisance. Other than that, it’s pretty cool.
How often do you buy new music and how much? What are some of your most recent purchases and what do you think of them?
New music? Define new music. Do you mean contemporary new music?
Well, uh, you know. I guess, uh…
Cause I buy music almost every day…
Yeah, new releases.
Um, I listen to new releases probably every week. Me and my teenage daughter will buy a lot off of iTunes and I like to go to record stores at least once a week and whenever I’m in a new town, which is usually once or twice a week I tend to go to record stores or bookstores. So, I’ve been checking stuff out. I just haven’t been liking what I’m hearing or buying it. I think the last album I liked, um … somewhat, was the new Kings of Leon record, when that came out. I liked a couple songs off of it, and I’ve listened to it a few times. But I actually bought the hard copy of that. I’m trying to think of what else I bought lately. Oh! I bought the new Jack Johnson. The great thing about buying stuff off iTunes or Rhapsody is that, man, you can find any song you’ve ever heard just about, you know, and you can buy it – just that song. And I tend to spend a couple hundred bucks a week – between me and my daughter, I will justify that, between me and my daughter – and my girlfriend. We all buy stuff online. And, you know, my daughter will call me after school saying she wants to go to the record store with her friend and, you know, can she spend her lunch money for the next day? I’ll give it back to her, you know, we’re an entertainment buying family. I don’t wait for the record label. I don’t ask people for free records like a lot of people do from the industry – never have, even when I didn’t have money. Too much pride and not enough wallet.
Why did you donate proceeds from your April concert to New Horizon Industries over the Mars Hill Church?
Well, because, um… why? I mean, that’s… I don’t get the question. I mean, why wouldn’t you?
What was the reason? What was the inspiration?
Huh?
What was the inspiration or reason you, uh…
Well, we were playing a church. Um, a friend of mine goes to this church and they’re basically, um, almost “new-thought” Christianity. I consider myself a Christian, I always have, I just don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with a large majority of people who call themselves Christians. Especially evangelical Christians. Um … fundamentalists. We just don’t see eye-to-eye. Mars Hill is church that’s … instead of being very conservative, politically, they’re a lot more liberal politically, and tend to stay out of the whole political arena, which I think a church should do. And when they asked me to do a show, I said, “That’d be great. Do you want me to do this as a benefit for you guys?” They said, “No, let’s do it as a benefit for someone else.” They came up with two or three different options, and I know about New Horizon, because I, you know, I’ve been out on the street before, and that’s a marvel that’s worked for, like, almost thirty years I think. Up in Seattle.
Wow.
Yeah, they’re pretty amazing. It was a good thing all the way around. It was fun.
That’s cool. What do you think of Jesus Christ?
Well I’m writing a song called … it’s going to be a first single for download. It’s going to be called “Jesus was a democrat.”
What Everclear Says - Finish this feature by Doug Van Pelt in the new HM Magazine. Available now, Issue 134 can be found at select stores or for a reduced subscription rate.
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