ROCKWiRED iNTERViEWS EVERCLEAR

A NEW LiFE
ART ALEXAKiS OF EVERCLEAR
TALKS TO ROCKWiRED
ABOUT THEiR NEW CD iN A DiFFERENT LiGHT
THE NEW LiNE UP
AND GROWiNG WiSER AS A ROCKER

It seems like it was only yesterday when EVERCLEAR had established itself as America’s top post-grunge act. Twelve years ago, the band’s third album ‘SO MUCH FOR THE AFTERGLOW’ became the template for punk guitar rock with a pop sensibility. The images of the platinum cropped ART ALEXAKIS and his band mates jumping up and down to their electrifying punk pop indictments against absentee fathers (‘FATHER OF MINE’) and conformity (‘EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE’) were mainstays on MTV and that college music channel that my University subscribed to. While billed as ‘alternative’ it was not easy to find what the band’s melodic crunch was running contrary to. For all intents and purposes, EVERCLEAR were mainstream and ART ALEXAKIS was eager to use the fame as a pulpit for political activism – namely his support of the COMPASSION FOR CHILDREN AND CHILD SUPPORT ACT. Even when teen pop and rap-metal started oozing out of the woodwork, EVERCLEAR got into concept album mode with ‘SONGS FROM AN AMERICAN MOVIE VOL. I: LEARNING HOW TO SMILE’ which yielded their biggest hit ‘WONDERFUL’. By the time the band released ‘…VOL. II: GOOD TIME FOR A BAD ATTITUDE’, the momentum stopped and the glory days were over. The effervescent punk pop sound that defined the later half of the nineties disappeared and was replaced by the dirge of nu-metal – a fitting soundtrack to the instability of the aughties. (READ MORE)