Episode # 212 - Art Alexakis of Everclear - New Live Album, 2 New tracks, 30th Anniversary tour and more!
The band also has a new album coming out on September 8 on Sunset Blvd. Recordsentitled Live at the Whisky A Go Go. It’s a celebration of the band’s 30-plus year history and features live versions of the band’s signature songs including Santa Monica and Heroin Girl, amongst others, along with two new tracks. The first single, Sing Away, will also be released on September 8.
Everclear formed in Portland, Oregon, in 1991. The band was formed by Los Angeles native Alexakis, the band's lead songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist; and for most of the band's height of popularity, consisted of Craig Montoya on bass guitar and Greg Eklund on drums.
After the limited release of their independently released debut album, World of Noise, the band found success with their first three albums on Capitol Records: Sparkle and Fade, So Much for the Afterglow, and Songs from an American Movie Vol. One: Learning How to Smile, which were all certified platinum in sales.
However, the following two albums Songs from an American Movie Vol. Two: Good Time for a Bad Attitude and Slow Motion Daydream, were not as well received, and as sales suffered, Montoya and Eklund left the band shortly after in 2003.
After a brief stint of solo performances, Alexakis decided to push forward with the Everclear name, finding new musicians to perform with and releasing two more albums, Welcome to the Drama Club and Invisible Stars.
In 2012, Alexakis started a 1990s nostalgia tour, named the Summerland Tour, which occurs every summer with Everclear and other 1990s alternative rock bands. In April 2015, the band released a ninth studio album, entitled Black is the New Black.
Alexakis suffered through a troubled youth, beginning with his father walking out when Alexakis was a child. Financial hardships pushed his family into the slums of Los Angeles, where Alexakis became a heavy drug user. Eventually, Alexakis suffered a near-fatal cocaine overdose, which finally pushed him to clean up.
Seeking a change of location, Alexakis and his girlfriend moved to her hometown, Portland, Oregon. There, he placed an ad in local music weekly The Rocket, which earned two responses: bass player Craig Montoya and drummer Scott Cuthbert. The name Everclear was chosen as a reference to the infamous grain alcohol.
The new band began recording in a friend's basement. The sessions culminated in two releases: the Nervous & Weird EP and the band's first full-length release World of Noise, both released by Portland's Tim/Kerr Records in 1993.
The band signed with Capitol Records in 1994. Just before their signing, Everclear parted ways with drummer Cuthbert, citing personality conflicts, and brought in drummer Greg Eklund. In May 1995, the band released their first album for the label, Sparkle and Fade.
The album's first single, "Heroin Girl", received some modest airplay via MTV's 120 Minutes, but was generally missed by the mainstream. However, near the end of 1995, the second single "Santa Monica" found a strong audience via the burgeoning alternative radio format, which eventually carried over to mainstream success. The album subsequently was certified platinum.
The band’s second album, So Much for the Afterglow, was released in October 1997. The first two singles from the album, "Everything to Everyone" and "I Will Buy You a New Life", performed modestly, but helped to begin a slow build for the album, while "Local God" was featured in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet in 1996 as well as on the soundtrack.
Following an extensive tour of the United States with Marcy Playground and Fastball, the band released Afterglow's third single, "Father of Mine.” The song catapulted the album and the band to mainstream success.
So Much for the Afterglow provided the band their only Grammy Award nomination to date, a Best Rock Instrumental nod in 1998 for "El Distorto de Melodica.” Later that year, the band won Billboard's Modern Rock Band of the Year Award. Though Afterglown charted no higher than No. 33 on the Billboard album chart, the album reached double-platinum status at the end of the year.
A double-barreled concept effort appeared in 2000 with the poppy Songs from an American Movie, Vol. 1: Learning How to Smile surfacing in early fall and the harder-rocking Songs from an American Movie, Vol. 2: Good Time for a Bad Attitude appearing a few months later. Both records produced several charting singles, with the AM radio pop of "Wonderful" finding the most success. Everclear returned with the more straightforward Slow Motion Daydream in 2003 before the aptly titled greatest-hits compilation Ten Years Gone: The Best of Everclear 1994-2004 appeared in October 2004.
By then off the Capitol roster and back in the indie world, the newly minted Everclear, with Alexakis the only remaining original member, released Welcome to the Drama Club in September 2006.
Spearheaded by the single "Hater," Drama Club cracked the Billboard Top 200 and hit number 11 on the Top Independent Albums chart. Released in 2008, The Vegas Years was a set of covers; 2009's In a Different Light, an album of acoustic reinterpretations of the group's songs, turned the tables.
Two years later, Everclear continued to look backward, cutting a bunch of new versions of their hits -- along with a few covers -- on the album Return to Santa Monica. Their first album of new material in six years, Invisible Stars, arrived in in the summer of 2012; it peaked at 119 on the Billboard charts. Three years later, the group returned with the heavier Black Is the New Black, released on The End Records.
A live album was recorded at the Whisky a Go Go on December 1, 2022, commemorating the band's 30th anniversary, although no release has been announced.
Everclear’s music has been described under multiple genres, predominantly alternative rock, and power pop, but also post-grunge, grunge-punk, grunge, and pop rock.
