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    Concert Preview: Everclear

    The first 40 seconds of the opening and title track of Everclear’s 1997 landmark album, So Much For The Afterglow, is a Brian Wilson-esque chorale, an aqua-hued Malibu wave that descends into a crash of loud guitar riffs and frontman Art Alexakis’ incisive lead vocal. That melange of contemporary alt-rock bite and classic pop references were the driving forces behind the album’s appeal, and its principle singles “Everything to Everyone,” “I Will Buy You A New Life” and “Father of Mine,” were generously splashed across alternative and mainstream radio. Even more compelling were the caricatures Alexakis painted as the album’s songwriter, with each track candidly telling a distinctive story. Most of his subjects are at least a little bit broken; some are autobiographical. But twenty years later, they’re still fascinating to revisit, which is a testament to Alexakis’ skill as an honest, agile raconteur.

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    And so is the fact that Everclear’s latest venture — a 34-city 20th anniversary tour during which they play the album in its entirety at every stop — is selling out venues and drawing critical praise.

    “Yeah, [it’s going] extremely well,” Alexakis confirmed when we conversed on the phone last week. “We’ve had some technical problems here and there, but other than that the crowds have been phenomenal. Like, literally phenomenal. And everyone says that, but we’ve been selling out shows that we didn’t think we were going to sell out. We were in Des Moines last night…we usually do about a thousand people in Des Moines. And we did sixteen hundred. Yeah, on a Thursday night. Right?! We did about fourteen hundred sold out in Dallas on a Tuesday night. That doesn’t happen for heritage bands, or older bands.

    And I think it’s a lot of things. I think a lot of people are excited about this record. I think a lot of people just haven’t been aware that we’re still around, and a lot of these 90s bands are still around. And they’re excited, and they come out and they haven’t been out to see a band in years. But also there’s a lot of young people at these shows who are just kind of…they tell me — I have several meet-and-greets during the day and I meet a lot of people. And they tell me that new music just isn’t exciting to them, and they’re excited about rock and roll, about bands playing instruments and not playing computers.”

    The band will also intersperse some additional material from their other eight studio albums, six of which arrived post-…Afterglow (their most recent was 2015’s Black Is The New Black). Those who may want to dive more deeply into the halcyon days of alternative and grunge can find Alexakis on his own radio show (aptly titled “The Art Alexakis Show”) on SiriusXM’s Lithium (channel 34) on Sunday evenings.

    Just this week, however, you may wish to forego the radio and pick up a ticket for the band’s Sunday show at Express LIVE!, where they’ll be joined by Austin-based rockers Fastball.

    Well, I’m really glad you’re coming to Columbus, and I’m excited to see the show because the last time I saw you perform might have been at Bumbershoot in Seattle when I was living out there in maybe 2001 or 2002…

    “Yeah, man, I remember that. That was crazy. That was with Sonic Youth. And I remember, we had a new guitar player – you know, a hired gun guitar player at the time. And he was this guy from South America. We were in this trailer on the site and…it was funny – we didn’t know how many people were there. And Bumbershoot’s huge. And someone on the stage was like ‘are you guys ready for Everclear?!’ And the crowd just let out this deep, guttural…he just looked frightened, man. He looked like he just saw the monster that was chasing him (laughs) and it scared him even more than he thought it would.”

    It’s such a great festival, and you’re right, the crowds were just massive. People ate up live music out there with a fervor I haven’t seen in too many other places.

    “They’d tried to get us for Bumbershoot for a while. We were a Northwest band. We had a really big following in Seattle, and people from all over come out for Bumbershoot, so that was…that was a pretty enthusiastic crowd for us at that show. Yeah, it was great.”

    Actually, I was going to ask you about your SiriusXM gig. You know, I really sort of miss listening to the radio and feeling engaged and invested. I remember being dialed into Seattle’s 107.7 FM almost constantly because there was just so much stuff I wanted to hear. I heard your songs all the time. And what you said is right. There was just something authentic and honest about alternative rock at the time, and I think even now there’s a resurgence of respect for the music of that era. What do you appreciate most about being a band that came of age during the 90s?

    “That was all really well said. I think you touched on a lot of points there. One of the things I think the 90s brought out was the fact that a lot of people making music and art and culture and films grew up in the 70s, you know? A lot of us guys and gals grew up in the 70s with AOR rock like Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, all that stuff. And then new wave and punk rock happened, which was huge for me. And then hip-hop happened, which was huge for me. And then all the bands in the 80s — both the underground bands, which I was really into…and I was still watching MTV so I had an idea of what was going on in the pop world even though I didn’t listen to pop radio.

    But the Pixies, Sonic Youth, the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, R.E.M., all those bands from the 80s…Violent Femmes…they were still making guitar-based music. The band X is one of my favorite bands of all time. Then I think all that helped contribute to what the 90s sounded like. And I think it was a golden era for music on the radio, especially guitar-based rock and roll.”

    What I’ve always really admired about your music is that you’re a storyteller. What’s most important to you as a songwriter, the things that are imperative to your process as you craft those stories?

    “That’s a really, really good question. I mean, I don’t know if you know this, but I taught songwriting for a couple of years at a small music college in L.A. And one of the things that I started off doing was really getting into the specifics of contemporary songs and how they tie into old songs. That was with the assumption that the kids I was working with knew about…had a firm grasp of where music had come from, especially popular music from the last twenty or thirty years. And I get into a class and I’m talking to all these kids that I had interviewed and auditioned, and they made the cut. There was about eight of them out of about a hundred-and-fifty.

    And all these kids…I’m like, ‘Okay well, first of all…first class, let’s meet each other and get to know each other. Let’s just go around the room and talk about your influences.’ And this one girl gets up and says ‘I’m a real fan of the songwriting of Katy Perry, and blah, blah, blah.’ And I’m like ‘Well, Katy Perry — she’s a great pop artist, but…’ And I’m being nice…my ten year-old loves Katy Perry. I get it. ‘But she doesn’t really write her own songs. She’s not really a singer-songwriter, per se. She helps write her songs, so there’s definitely some credibility there.’ I’m being nice. ‘Well, what about someone else?’And someone else says ‘I really like Bruno Mars.’ And I say ‘well, he’s more of a songwriter, so that’s cool.’ And no-one else is saying anything, so I go ‘Well, let’s go deeper. Who’s a fan of Stevie Wonder?’ And they all looked at me like I just came down from a spaceship. They had no idea who Stevie Wonder was. They didn’t even know who Prince was!

    I stopped the class. And I said ‘You know what? You guys show up here tomorrow. I”ll find a room…’ I called the dean of the school, and I said ‘I need a room tomorrow. I need to move my class tomorrow, and I’m changing the curriculum because these kids don’t know what they’re talking about. Before we can dissect contemporary songwriting, they’ve got to know where it’s coming from.’ So I went home — much to the chagrin of my wife — and spent six hours writing a brand new curriculum for the year. And it became ‘The History of Song.’

    That was kind of a long-winded way to answer your question. But I needed them to understand where the popular songs came from. In the course of getting the information for that, I learned a huge amount. You know that, when you start teaching someone something, you learn about stuff yourself. That’s the great trade-off. So basically I think, to answer your question, what I try to achieve in songwriting is that I just try to tell stories in my own voice that make it as unique as possible. Because let’s not kid ourselves or anybody else — when you’re working in a popular form like song, you’re never going to be a hundred percent original. Or even fifty percent original.

    But you’re going to borrow, steal, and take things from other places and make it your own. And put it out through your own voice. And when I say your own voice, it’s not just the voice with which you’re singing. But the sound, the feel, the way the words run together — hopefully you can develop our own voice. And that’s what I try to impart on people I work with as far as songwriters go. It’s finding your own voice. When you’re reading a book…can you hear the writer’s voice on the page? Whether it’s autobiographical, fiction, or non-fiction, I want to hear the cadence of someone who’s writing that. Stephen King — everyone will want to run him down as a pop writer, but his voice is so strong. You know Stephen King. And I’m not a huge…it’s not like I read all his books, but when I do I get his voice and his perspective and his quirks and his strengths and his weaknesses. That’s why I think a good writer is someone who’s learned their craft over the years. There’s the creative thing, which you can’t teach somebody — they either have it, or they don’t. And then there’s the craft, which you can teach.”

    Absolutely. And going even further about your songwriting, in particular, there is a tangible affection you seem to have for nuance and melody. If I think of a song of yours like “AM Radio,” it doesn’t just give a nod to classic soul and R&B — it reflects it. The sample of the riff you included from “Mr. Big Stuff” — I mean, that’s classic Stax stable stuff. It weaved together this edgier alternative rock sensibility with this jubilant, soulful sound. I don’t feel like I hear that as much anymore in mainstream music.

    “It’s missing. It’s definitely missing. You said ‘jubilant,’ and the word I’d use…the same word…is ‘joy.’ There’s just not a celebration of joy in making music. In rock and roll there’s just not that sense of it. And thank you for what you said about melody — melody and nuance is very important to me. But a part of melody and nuance, for me…a part of rock and roll is the addition of dissonance. To just take the whole thing and fuck it up a little bit and make it this imperfect beast of perfection, you know what I mean? (laughs) It’s perfect when it’s not perfect. And that’s kind of what Everclear’s always been — a singer-songwriter with a hard rock/punk rock band. Because…and when I say all of that, it’s a pop band in the sense that the Beatles were a pop band and the Stones were a pop band because they were making popular music. But they were deciding…a good band creates its own cliché — a good writer creates his own cliché and doesn’t rely on what the band that came before them was doing.

    One of the great things about listening to alternative radio was you had bands like us, and bands that sounded like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. And there were similarities. But then you had Cake and Toadies, and those bands were getting airplay, and Butthole Surfers rose to prominence even though they had been so strong in the 80s and had been such an influence on me and other people. And the Meat Puppets — bands that had a little bit of success. But it wouldn’t have happened without those bands because they all brought something to the table. And it was really exciting to be a part of that because every song didn’t sound the same on the radio. Big radio stations had radio shows, which incidentally I patterned the 90s tour I do, Summerland, after those radio shows. Bands would come up and play their hits and a couple of fan favorites, and then another band would come up. And you’d have, like, ten bands playing all this great music. And they were all different.

    And now you listen to contemporary radio, whether it’s alternative or rock or pop, and you can tell they’re listening to each other — they’re not listening to what happened before or trying to make what’s going to happen tomorrow. They all sound the same. There are very few acts right now that are being brave and stretching out — and even fewer rock bands. I just got turned onto a newer rock band that’s put out a couple of records that I was unaware of. It’s funny how it happened — three different people over a period of three days said ‘hey, man – have you ever heard of a band called Highly Suspect?’ I’m like ‘no…’ And I went and bought their records after three people I respect told me about them. And I’m excited — bands like them and Royal Blood…young people making rock and roll and trying to create their own blueprints and their own clichés. It’s very cool.”

    And now you’ve mounted this new tour where you’re playing So Much For The Afterglow in its entirety, and I love that concept because I don’t know if we really embrace albums the way we used to. When a new record was released, it was an event. You know, that novelty of finally being able to get your hands on it in the store, and wishing you could get home quicker so you could crack open the wrapper and play it for the first time. The fact that people are out there with you twenty years later celebrating that record in its entirety is really cool because I think the concept of what an album is as a musical entity has changed a lot.

    “That’s absolutely true. That anticipation of waiting for a song on the radio, and then buying that record and having to wait to go home to play it, or get it in your car. You’d sit there in your car with the plastic flying, and you’d put it in and you wouldn’t leave until you listened to that first song. And I remember sometimes it’d be so powerful, I’d pull over and listen to it. I knew I had to get home, or had to go to class, or something, but I didn’t care. You know, that was the brattiness of music — that celebration, that joy. And also, having something in your hands like you were talking about — that visceral thing of just…even going back to albums where I’d get [one]. And I didn’t have a lot of money…I’d save up all my money to buy an album, and if it sucked I’d be mad, you know?

    But I was going to buy the new Cheap Trick record, man. I was going to buy the new Zeppelin. I was going to buy the new record that came out from these bands I’d been reading out in magazines and fanzines, you know, the Sex Pistols and the Clash, or Elvis Costello. I would just read every note on the whole album — every liner note…everything about it. Every picture. And I would think ‘What is that picture trying to represent?’ There was so much depth there that you just got into it. Now, it’s just…you tell your phone to play contemporary music, or play the new alternative station, and it’s faceless…I don’t want to say soulless, but sometimes it kind of feels that way. It’s just voices coming at you without any definition sometimes.

    Yeah, I miss that. And you said it was a novelty of a new record. It wasn’t a novelty at the time — it was the reality. Now, looking back, there’s kind of a novelty. It’s funny because on this tour, we’re selling a vinyl remaster of So Much For The Afterglow, and it sounds great. The remaster sounds great. It’s on 180-gram vinyl…really heavy vinyl. If you have a turntable, it just sounds so warm and you can just crank it up and it just sounds better the louder it gets, you know? That’s not true with digital.”

    I mean, digital recordings really afford a lot of flexibility, and I do appreciate being able to go to Spotify or iTunes from an instant gratification standpoint and just have an entire planet of music at my fingertips. But you’re right, it’s that visceral thing.

    “Contemporary music is indicative of our culture, that instant gratification. Forget the 24-hour news cycle…it’s a four-hour news cycle, you know? What are those dummies in Washington doing now?  It’s almost shocking how not shocking it is now. It’s the same thing with music. I love being able to get into my app and hold it up and say ‘What song’s playing in the restaurant?’ and it’ll tell me who it is! The technology is phenomenal, but like anything it’s a blessing and a curse. That’s life and that’s the human experience in a nutshell. It depends on how you use it. Are you going to use it for good, or are you going to use it for evil, you know? (laughs) And that’s a question and dilemma we face every day.

    I think when it comes to music, especially with the bands on this tour and the music we’re playing, it’s just really great to see people who are just celebrating a band that gets up there without computers or space bars, as well call them. I even love seeing the old school DJ who’s mixing two or three turntables. It’s like ‘Man, this guy’s working! He’s got a craft.’ But it’s, like, now you’re seeing these people who are making five-hundred thousand dollars a performance — and I say performance with my quotation marks up in the air — and they’re basically pushing on a space bar and shaking their hands in the air, and these little millennial kids are just freaking out. And it’s just like ‘Wow!’ And I’m still trying to figure out what that’s all about. Maybe it’s this everyman thing of ‘Well, I can push a space bar, too, so they’re just like me!’ I don’t know.’

    The first song I ever heard by Everclear was “Local God,” which was included on the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack in 1996. I think that was probably one of the last of those big, epic soundtrack albums where almost everyone I knew was listening to it and there was a lot of excitement around the film because of it. And I remember your track because the sound was a pretty stark contrast to almost everything else that was on there. How did that song develop?

    “Well, that’s a great question. Incidentally, we’re playing that song every night. Every night it’s on the set list, and it gets a huge response when I play it. It’s usually the first or second song in the encore…we play about three or four songs in the encore. A lot of people really, really glommed onto that song. That song kind of was the prototype for a lot of the songs on …Afterglow. It was kind of transitional. That summer we got asked to do that song…Nellee [Hooper] was producing that record, and this sort of staggered rhythm idea grew in my head. And then when I got back to Portland with [drummer] Greg [Eklund], I picked up the bass and we worked it out. My bass player was sick. We worked out that whole thing on bass and drums. When we went in to record it, I hired a bass player and had also worked it out on guitar as well.

    Lyrically, it was storytelling as well. It was basically…I had been through the ringer a bit and had experienced the beast, as it were, of the music business. And the success and watching all the people — people who had, like, totally rejected us before. You know, I had a phone book of rejection letters before Everclear got signed, and it’s just funny in, like, a not funny way how many of these people who had said ‘No, you’ve got no talent and no star power…no songwriting ability…’ and all this stuff they’d say. And then they’d say to my face after our success — they’d pull me aside and say ‘Dude, I always knew you had it. I knew you were gonna be great.’ And me, if I was being a nice guy, I would have said ‘Oh, thanks man!’ But I would be, like ‘Really?! You know that’s funny, because I’ve got a letter right here that you wrote three years ago that says that I had no talent…blah, blah, blah…’ And they’d say ‘No! I never wrote that!’ And I’d say ‘Man, I can send it to you — it’s got your signature on it!’ (laughs).

    So that made me a lot of friends, I’m sure. But I was looking at this hypocrisy, and it’s not just in the business, but everyone knows someone who always knows, you know, what the hottest songs are…always knows everything. And it’s these people who are really insecure, but they try to act like they’re everything to everyone. Writing that song, I realized we all have that need and desire for acceptance and to be considered special and unique – but we go about it in a different way. Some of it can be organic and real…it comes from somewhere that’s original and unique and honest. And some people, more than others, can be kind of fake. So that’s where that song came from.

    But ‘Local God’ was celebrating that feel of that swagger. I wanted it to rock, but I wanted it to groove on the off beat, and behind the beat. So there are a lot of influences there — me growing up with Motown and funk and hip-hop and hard rock and rock and roll all at the same time. I think that song really has that, because it has a really hard rock bounce to it, but it also had kind of a hip-hop swing. I’m glad you asked about it, because it’s one of my favorite songs and I really enjoy playing it every night.”

    So once this tour comes to a close, what’s next on your agenda?

    “When I get off this tour, I’m going to make a solo record, my very first solo record where it’s just going to be me and my partner who’s going to record it and co-produce it with me. It’s just going to be the two of us in a room. Originally, I wanted to do like a Bruce Springsteen Nebraska thing where it was just songs very starkly recorded on acoustic guitar. I think there’s going to be some of that, but there’s also going to be some instrumentation. I just want to take my creative self and just put it into playing keyboards, and this and that, and drums and stuff. It won’t be great, but it’ll be me. And that’s what I want to do. It’ll be different than Everclear. I mean, Everclear’s been my band from the beginning, and if I just get a bunch of guys to record my songs it’s going to be too much like [that]. It’s gonna be the same thing. But this is going to be decidedly not hard rock. I just want to do something different and be able to express different musical stuff and lyrical stuff that I don’t normally do. And it’ll be fun to do.”

    Everclear (with Fastball) brings their So Much For The Afterglow 20th Anniversary Tour to Express LIVE! (405 Neil Avenue) on Sunday, June 4. General admission tickets (note: this is an outdoor show) are $26 (plus taxes and fees) and available through Ticketmaster. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. 

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    Grant Walters
    Grant Waltershttps://columbusunderground.com
    Grant is a freelance writer for Columbus Underground who primarily focuses on music and comedy. He's a Canadian transplant, born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and schooled in Vancouver, British Columbia. Grant is also the co-author of two internationally acclaimed books: "Decades: The Bee Gees in the 1960s" and "Decades: The Bee Gees in the 1970s." He has also penned numerous articles and artist interviews for the nationally recognized site, Albumism.
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