NASHVILLE |ART ALEXAKIS OF EVERCLEAR
Q&A 2008
Congrats on the release of the new album of covers, THE VEGAS YEARS. Cool title. Just wondering: what’s your fascination with the city?
I am old enough to remember Vegas in the ‘80s when I would drive there and play one-dollar blackjack, go to the creepy casinos downtown, and all these shady-looking guys would be walking around with their young trophy girlfriends. You’d drive out from LA, leave at like 10 AM and get there in the afternoon, play blackjack and then drive home drunk off your ass. Someone in the party who wasn’t drunk would drive home at 4 AM, and you’re all broke. You know, that was Vegas. And you’d go there and you’d just be debauched. And before that it was the Rat Pack and the Vegas of Elvis’ ‘Viva Las Vegas’– it IS mythic perception…but sometimes I wonder if it ever was really like that.
You have testified about deadbeat dads, you’ve been an elected delegate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, you’ve written political songs like “BlackJack,” you’ve had your own radio show…you've always been active in making a difference. Is there a particular event in your life that sparked you to be politically active?
I don’t know if this is the event that sparked me but it really solidified my feelings about being involved and politically active. In 1988–after eight years of Reagan–George H.W. Bush, the vice president, was running against Michael Dukakis and I really liked Michael Dukakis on many levels. But I hated the way that his campaign was run and I hated the way Democrats and liberals were afraid to be Democrats and liberals. They felt like they had to be more conservative and that’s where the term ‘fiscally conservative,’ ‘socially liberal’ first came out and I really hated it…and still do. I think it’s a contradiction. I don’t think you can be socially liberal AND fiscally conservative at the same time, because to be socially liberal you have to support systems and you have to put money out into the collective mainstream and into programs that help these ‘socially liberal’ agendas.. .I think it’s the lazy way of saying, ‘Oh yeah, I think those are nice things, those socially liberal things but ultimately, I don't like it enough to give you my tax money.’ You know, that’s the deal…you can't have one without the other. I remember the night that Dukakis lost, going to a club down in the Mission (in San Francisco) and there were men and women crying because Dukakis lost, and it just pissed me off. Where other people get sad, I get angry. I said to myself, never again will I sit by and watch that kind of crap happen without doing all I could. From then on I realized I had to participate. That started my involvement, and it ballooned from there. I have helped candidates; I went to Congress to talk about a deadbeat dad bill that basically died in bi-partisan waters because there are no bi-partisan waters anymore. It seems like under Clinton there was more of a bi-partisan attitude to get things done and under George W. Bush there’s been none of that–especially after 9/11, it just ended.
Where do you think we are as a people in America right now?
To be honest with you, I think we’re in a place where people are beginning to be hopeless. They are accepting the life built around them as just a matter of fact and not something that’s created by other people or powers–powers that are greater than them, i.e…that 1% with the majority of money and control. I think that people have gotten into this bitter desperation that they have just accepted. They are placated by drugs and sex and celebrity voyeurism…they are more interested in what’s going on in other people’s lives than they are in their own…because they feel helpless and un-empowered.
The incredible attention on consumerism is also alarming.
Oh, it’s an addiction. It’s a drug. We are putting all money back into the corporations. We get money–we get paid by the corporations–and we put money back in it. It’s the modern equivalent of the coal miner going to the company store. That's why this ‘stimulus’ is such a joke…it's going to look good on paper, for the election season. Typical ‘bottom line’ corporate thinking.
Switching gears, when you’re actually not on tour, what’s your favorite thing to do when no one else is around? Is there something about Art that people just don’t know that you like to do?
I’m not that complex. I love to read the news, I love to keep up on politics but I don’t think that would surprise anybody. I love to watch movies, I love to write. I think my favorite thing that might surprise people is that I just can’t get enough of hanging out with my kids. It just never fails to amaze me the things that my (16-year-old) daughter Anna will think of. And with my new daughter Arizona (6 months), I love watching her just grow everyday and exert just so much more personality. I’m kind of lame–I would just stay home all the time if I could.
Do you feel the experience of raising Arizona, at this time, is different than raising Anna was for you?
Oh it’s absolutely different. I think a large part of it is having a child at middle age. When you’re a younger person, you’re in the midst of defining your life or just thinking about what you think your life is going to be. I think a large part of it is this: I don’t have the fear of the unknown that I used to have that I think a younger person has. Now I have an excitement about the unknown. I’m not afraid to tackle anything or be tackled. So I think that makes me a better dad because it makes me less freaked out and more calm and more patient.
There’s a new Rolling Stones film out, Shine A Light, and they continue to be vital, despite what some detractors have said about the band “being too old to rock.”
You know, artists and everyone should be able to do whatever they want to do. I did an in-store last night here in Portland at Music Millennium. I didn’t pay any money for promotion. I went on MySpace, I went on some radio stations and called friends that I’ve made over the years–I just talked to people everywhere I went. And there were like 300 people in this place that could hold maybe 50 or 60 people. After the show, almost everybody that was in there got in line to meet the band and that just showed me that there are people who are still excited about what we do, and all ages. And I think that comes from our enthusiasm and excitement–it’s contagious. We go out and play, why wouldn’t we want to do that? Why, because we’re not 22-years-old? Why, because we’re not on major label? To hell with that, those days are over. Who has more to offer than someone who has lived some life? It just matters whether they still have the fire inside. If they still have fire in their belly, they’re going to give you something that excites you. I’ve never made any bones about it–we are a rock and roll band, and rock and roll is about passion and fire and it’s not being technically great, it’s not being overly theatrical–true rock and roll makes me excited. I could listen to Chuck Berry or Little Richard or the Pixies or some Beatles song and I can feel the fire of rock and roll. Or Led Zeppelin, or Everclear for that matter…sometimes I listen to some of our songs and they have that fire, they have that passion, they have that juice that is rock and roll. The hunger.
How do you want Everclear to be remembered in the history books?
If we are or if I am, I hope we’ll be remembered as people who really just embraced rock and roll. Today in rehearsal we were working out songs for this new record; we’re playing them fierce and we are just all smiles because it feels good to play rock and roll. I mean, what a great job! I said that after a take to my keyboard player who’s kind of stoic and reserved a lot of the time–he was just beaming from ear to ear. I go, ‘What a great job we have! We get to play rock and roll.’ And he’s just like, ‘absolutely man!’ When it all congeals, when everyone is firing at the same time, it’s just pure power and excitement.
Circling back to the new album, there are two TV show theme songs on the album (“Speed Racer,” “Land of the Lost”). What’s your fascination with TV?
We’re a generation that has been raised by TV. Depending on what TV you look at, it can be wonderful…like a lot of public television. Even kids television can be really great and intelligent–and especially a lot of the TV shows for adults that are on the paid channels are just phenomenal fiction. There is wonderful news too; I love ‘Meet the Press,’ every Sunday if I can get up–I watch it without any kind of hesitation. But then there’s awful TV, which I absolutely hate. Like reality TV because it’s not reality; it’s scripted and even the stuff that isn’t scripted–well, it’s just awkward and embarrassing to watch people in a lot of these ‘reality’ situations that really should be private situations. And I find it kind of shameful that they would allow these things to be filmed.
The more people aim low, the less opportunity they have to rise up and fight the power.
Absolutely, dumb them down. Keep them there; and keep them saturated in drugs, drama and cheap sex or at least the promise of some kind of diversion. Keep that carrot a little ahead of them. Give them sex on TV and in every image. Put subliminal messages in everything but then make it taboo.
It’s interesting–we’re a society that’s more connected than ever via email and cell phones, and we have the ability to quickly find out information on the Internet. And yet earlier, you said that people are feeling hopeless. How do you think that all translates?
I think people see things on TV and they see others living a certain life. Like that MTV show ‘Cribs.’ They tried to get me on that back in the day, and I’m like, ‘I have no urge or intention to ever go on this show.’ For one thing, for the majority of the ‘celebrities’ who’ve been on that show–that’s not their lives, they don’t live like that. And if they do live like that, they’re only going to live like that until they max out their manager’s credit card and their next single doesn’t go anywhere and they get dropped and then they are going to be living back on the East side and driving a busted ass car–that’s the reality of it, that’s what happens. People look at a show like that and think ‘that’s what I need to make my life better…I need to obtain stuff, I need to have a woman that looks like that, I need to have a body that looks like that, I need to have, I need to have, have, have, have. The haves win, the have-nots lose.’ I think the main answer to your question is that people are trying to live life to have things, not to have things as an end result of living life.
In relation to what you are saying, it seems the album title The Vegas Years has some dark undertones there.
The title actually came out of a dark undertone. It was kind of a dark joke on myself and on just about any musician. It was just like, ‘Look, eventually you’re going to end up fat and in Vegas singing cover songs; even if they are your own, they’re going to sound like cover songs! You’re going to be a caricature of yourself.’ And who the hell wants that? (laughing)
–From an interview conducted on April 15, 2008
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ART ALEXAKIS OF EVERCLEAR Q&A 2008
