INTERVIEW: For Art Alexakis, playing music is like Christmas morning
Photo: Everclear, featuring Art Alexakis (center), will play a string of gigs in the upcoming weeks. Photo courtesy of Paul Brown / Provided with permission.
Everclear, the rock band that made a big mark in the 1990s, continue to bring their guitar-infused music to audiences around the country. A few weeks ago, they wrapped up their annual Summerland tour, which saw them hitting the road with Marcy Playground and Local H, and now they are heading out on a bunch of solo gigs, including Wednesday, Aug. 8 at the Empire State Plaza Food Festival in Albany, New York.
Audiences should expect to hear the hits, including “Santa Monica,” “Father of Mine,” “I Will Buy You a New Life,” and so many more. However, Art Alexakis, vocalist and guitarist for the band, also promised deeper tracks from each decade of Everclear’s history.
As he prepares for the Albany date, Alexakis is still reeling from a successful Summerland tour.
“This year Summerland 2018 was with Marcy Playground, who had been on the tour before,” Alexakis said in a recent phone interview. “They opened the first Summerland. They were the first band in 2012, but I had toured with them in ’98 — just a huge band and friend to all the guys in the band, and was just pleased as pie that they could play this year. But the first band is a band that we’ve all enjoyed and respected for years, but we had never played a tour with. We had done radio shows in there with them, Local H out of Chicago, and man they were such a pleasure to have on tour. Two guys, self-contained, no drama. They just go out and rock it every night and so much fun to be around and hang out with.”
Alexakis called Summerland 2018 one of the funnest and most drama-free tours he has ever done, and the audiences responded in kind. The singer’s memories from the gigs include many smiles.
“I just saw a lot of smiling people everywhere,” he said. “I said it before, if you’re not having fun either playing rock ‘n’ roll or listening to rock ‘n’ roll, you need to do something else. If you’re playing in a band, and you’re not having fun, you need to get a new job. Do something to make real money, like be a dentist or something. I love my job. I love going to work. I don’t love traveling as much as I used to. I’d rather be at home with my family, but meeting people, hanging out with bands, my friends, that’s always a blast. And playing the show is like Christmas morning everyday.”
Alexakis is quite prophetic in his projects. When Summerland began, nostalgia for the 1990s was still undeveloped, but his annual tour, in which he partnered with Sugar Ray and a host of other bands, sparked interest and created demand for many alt-rockers. But he’s also not content with a simple stroll down memory lane; his set lists are laced with new songs, deep tracks and challenging performances.
“A lot of people have thought about doing ’90s tours because ’60s, ’70s, ’80s tours had all been successful, but I wanted to do it,” he said. “I wanted it to be more guitar-based and more rock-based. I always felt there was a market for it. People recognize and talk to me everyday and are constantly asking what was going on with these other bands, and I knew those bands were out there touring. I always thought that it would just make more sense. We’re a sum bigger than our parts if we just got together and did it together, and that it would just bring out a bigger crowd and be a lot more fun. Some of it nostalgia for people back in the day, but I’d say 25-30 percent of the people who come to our shows are Millennials who didn’t grow up with the music. Some of them weren’t even born yet. They just are frustrated with contemporary music and just want rock ‘n’ roll. That’s what we are. There’s no tracks. There’s no computers. It’s just guitars, bass, drums and vocals. I think people appreciate that.”
Because this year’s Summerland tour only featured three bands, rather than the usual four, each of the groups had more time on stage. This allowed Everclear room to flex their creative muscles.
“We actually had a few days of rehearsal and went back and worked out a lot of the older songs that we haven’t played for a while, including songs off Black Is the New Black that we hadn’t played, like ‘Complacent’ and ‘American Monster’ and then songs off all of our records,” he said. “I don’t think there’s one record we didn’t play a song off on this tour.”
When he and the team look back at the old songs, the process of rehearsing is less about dusting the music off and more about learning it all over again.
“Some of the guys in the band never knew those songs,” he said. “Like we were doing songs like ‘You’re Genius Hands’ off World of Noise and ‘Nervous & Weird’ and, of course, ‘Fire Maple Song.’ We were getting kind of deep on the early stuff, and it was just a lot of fun. Fans loved it. The band loved it, and one of the things that we did differently this year is usually on Summerland we have a pretty controlled small set. So we have to play the same songs. We’ll mix up a song here and there, but pretty much the same set every night. This year the goal was to never play the same set twice, and we did. And it was a lot of fun.”
For the Albany shows and future concerts in Georgia, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Tennessee, Michigan, Colorado and so many more places, Alexakis said the show should be longer and deeper. He also welcomed suggestions, cementing his status as a fan-friendly rock act.
“If fans got any requests for any songs, hit me up on Twitter @artalesakis,” he said. “You can hit Freddy [Herrera] up on the Everclear Twitter @Everclearband. If we can get it in the set, we will. If we don’t know it, if we have time, we’ll learn it, if I want to play it. There are very few songs of mine that I don’t like. There’s one song people ask for that I don’t want to play at all. It’s called ‘Unemployed Boyfriend.’ It’s off our fourth record, and that’s just not one of my favorite songs. But you know what, we’ve already decided that we’re going to do, because we’ve had so many requests, the 20th anniversary of that album in 2020, so we’ll be playing the whole album for sure. I’m going to have play that damn song.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Everclear are currently touring the United States. Click here for more information and tickets. Click here for Hollywood Soapbox’s previous coverage of Everclear.
