Meeting Everclear's Art Alexakis
On being friendly but not being friends
Meeting my Heroes is an occasional essay series from Matt Carmichael.
One of the first “rock star” interviews I did was with the band, Everclear. While they’ve gone on to ride the success of a couple ‘90s albums into a lengthy career, they were just starting to break in 1995. I talked to them before a sold-out show at Metro. I was interviewing Everclear and, as a favor to their publicist I also sat down with the opener of the three-band bill, Ruth Ruth. In between those sets I caught a little bit of the other band on the bill and was quite impressed. I made a note to keep an eye on them and yeah, No Doubt did pretty well, too!
I was still in college, so this was a pretty cool day. I was even repurposing my reporting or a project called “A day in the life of the Internet” in which people from all over the world collaborated on documenting how the Internet was affecting their lives in different ways. Keep in mind this was 1995 or so. The Internet, or at least the Web, was still very young.
I liked their music, and the singer seemed like a guy who had faced a lot in his life and channeled it into, well, art.
Anyway, there’s a scene in every movie about rocknroll where they do a montage of a band’s first major tour and the managers keep bringing in copies of Billboard magazine. Billboard publishes charts of how well music is selling and the managers would show off how well their band was moving up the charts toward the goal of having a #1 best-selling hit song.
I was sitting on a tour bus, interviewing the band, when I got to witness this scene in action. The manager hopped on the bus with a Billboard in hand and showed then that they had hit the coveted Top 40 and were moving up.
It was an interesting interview. He told me I asked a dumb question (I might disagree), but then complimented the next one I asked. So I learned a bit about the craft of interviewing as I went.
Later, I’d interview singer Art Alexakis again at a solo show at The Fireside Bowl, a bowling alley in Chicago that hosted punk shows. And I ran into him backstage at a show at the United Center, as they continued to gain in popularity. He was the first “rock star” who knew me on sight, which was really exciting.
But that didn’t mean we were friends. It’s how I started to learn the “professional distance” that journalists have, and fundamentally need to have, with the people they write about. You can’t, or at least shouldn’t write about your friends. By extension, you can’t let yourself become friends with those you cover. Most bands know this already and aren’t really in any hurry to be friends with you either. Heh.
As Jon Hendricks said, you have to listen. And when you do that, more than talk, you learn what you need to from the people you’re talking to. That’s true in interviews and pretty much all of the rest of the time. The point isn’t to impress the people you’re interviewing with how smart/cool you are. It’s to make enough of a connection with them so that they’re comfortable telling you, and having you then tell your audience their story. But it’s Ok to let a bit of your story in too from time to time.
Here’s the story Art Alexakis told me.
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Some bands don't belong on the radio*. They belong in dusty smoky clubs, moving from city to city, slowly picking up an underground of rabid fans. Everclear is one such band. Their image doesn't really fit with Top 40 radio. They aren't Mariah Carey. They aren't Joan Osborne. They certainly aren't Hootie. They're a clean if not clean-cut, well-spoken, well-written rock band. And their album, "Sparkle and Fade," is climbing the charts anyway.
All this success has frontman Art Alexakis at wit's end. "Not that I have much wit," he quickly adds, proving himself wrong in doing, "but I'm definitely at the end of what I have."
Keanu Reeves** (a sometimes rocker himself) took some time out from shooting a new movie with Morgan Freeman to stop by their show. A writer from Details is touring with them for a few days. A fan came by to show them his Everclear tattoo, and several girls threw their bras on stage. The signs of rock stardom are everywhere, except in the band themselves.
It's all quite a change from their start in 1993 in Portland, Or. where they began as a true garage band. Their original demo (recorded before drummer Greg Eklund joined the band) was recorded for just $400.
The past few months, however, have seen Everclear headlining their own tour, watching their single, "Santa Monica," getting heavy airplay. Watching their own videos on MTV, and generally taking the rock world by storm. The sacred name "Nirvana" is mentioned in the same sentence. But the image of the troubled artist that followed Cobain doesn't work with Alexakis anymore.
But being a rock star isn't all it's cracked up to be. Alexakis contrasts this desire with Silverchair, a band so young that they are on tour with their moms, "They're living everyone's dream," he says. "When you're that age, you want to be a rock star. I don't want to be a rock star, I want to be a musician.” He describes himself rather simply as "a singer and songwriter in a rock band." Yet it's not a simple task to pull off these days.
Everclear's lyrics demonstrate a certain stark clarity that gets right to the heart of issues that have surrounded Alexakis' life as well as the lives of many others. We hear about drugs. About being stuck on them, and breaking free. We hear about discontent and escapism. Although the lyrics wind up presenting a clear anti-drug message, it's done through the telling of the story. "I hate preaching," says Alexakis, "I don't want anyone to push their point of view on me no matter how good it is. Who wants to be yelled at?"
Alexakis' addiction and more importantly, the fact that he's been clean for 12 years, is part of the bands foundation. A stepping stone that led the way to all the band has become. "I got tired of leading a sub life," says Alexakis on his decision to leave the drug scene behind him. He stays away from all forms of drugs, even caffeine, now, and stays away from those who would tempt him.
Sitting on the tour bus, he does indulge in his last remaining vice: junk food. Munching a hot dog in Chicago, a city famous for them, he comments that "good fast food really defines a city."
*ok, this line didn’t age well as their songs are still alt-rock radio faves almost 30 years later…
** I guess I didn’t quite meet Keanu Reeves twice!