NASHVILLE |DATE: JUNE 29, 2006
FROM: TODD BRODGINSKI/MITCH SCHNEIDER/LATHUM NELSON
EVERCLEAR
TO RELEASE “WELCOME TO THE DRAMA CLUB”
SEPTEMBER 12 ON ELEVEN SEVEN MUSIC;
FIRST SINGLE IS THE BRUTALLY HONEST “HATER” – THE “BREAK-UP” SONG OF 2006
“A lot of living went into this album,” reveals ART ALEXAKIS about the forthcoming EVERCLEAR album WELCOME TO THE DRAMA CLUB, due out September 12 on Eleven Seven Music, in association with ADA, a Warner Music Group company. The album is undeniably EVERCLEAR–searing autobiographical songs matched with music born from both the punk and classic rock eras–and opens up an exciting new chapter for the group who earned a four-star album review in Rolling Stone for 2004’s 20-track career retrospective Ten Years Gone: The Best of Everclear 1994-2004.
Produced by singer/songwriter/guitarist ALEXAKIS, WELCOME TO THE DRAMA CLUB will be unveiled July 24th at radio with the first single “Hater,” the ultimate romantic bust-up song. Says Alexakis: “Some people write love songs, some people write happy songs but I’ve written what I think is the ultimate ‘break up’ song.” For the “Hater” video, the song’s theme was broadened, as it rails against those who justify violence in the name of religion–in this case, the fictional “Hater Jesus” character who in fact has his own Myspace page already up (http://myspace.com/haterjesus). The video was featured on iFilm and is currently the #3 Top Pop/Rock video on the popular site (http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2746525).
The new record marks EVERCLEAR’s return to the indie label world with Eleven Seven Music, after having released their debut album World of Noise in 1994 on the Tim/Kerr label, followed by five albums and the greatest-hits collection on Capitol.
“All the heartache and hell I’ve been through has made me a better, more spiritual person,” says ALEXAKIS about the experiences that led to the songs on WELCOME TO THE DRAMA CLUB. The music–cut live in the studio for the most part with the entire band playing together in one room–is an organic homage to some of Art’s own early influences, “like late ‘60s-early ‘70s Stones, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, Humble Pie, Dylan, Tom Petty, the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen…Guys who can sing their asses off, and lyrically, I’m telling stories again, even though a lot of them are about me.”
“It’s a cycle,” he says of the album’s sequencing. “Like a roller coaster. All my ideas about relationships are embedded in the record’s ebb and flow. It’s important to me to make a whole album, not just a series of songs. That’s what I’ve always done and that’s what I continue to do.”
After a 2003 solo acoustic tour, ALEXAKIS chose to re-design the EVERCLEAR line-up, bringing in bassist SAM HUDSON, guitarist DAVE FRENCH, drummer BRETT SNYDER and keyboardist JOSH CRAWLEY for recording sessions in his longtime Portland, OR home base. The group hit the road in 2004, as ALEXAKIS continued to write the material that would become WELCOME TO THE DRAMA CLUB. Along the way though, ALEXAKIS got hit with his third divorce and bankruptcy proceedings. “I can’t tell you how many changes I’ve been through,” ART confesses. “Sometimes getting your ass kicked emotionally will do that to you, especially when it was needed.”
EVERCLEAR’s body of work is marked by multi-million sales, critical praise, a Grammy nomination and awards including the 1998 Billboard “Modern Rock Artist of the Year” honor. "…Alexakis makes it all vivid through accumulation of detail, and he spits it out with a Lennon-like candor and an unruly, unstoppable energy," wrote the Los Angeles Times’ Richard Cromelin about 1997’s double platinum So Much For The Afterglow. After two years of heavy touring in support of Afterglow, the group took the unorthodox route of releasing two different and acclaimed albums in the same year, 2000’s Songs From An American Movie, Volumes 1 & 2. Everclear followed 2003’s Slow Motion Daydream with 2004’s 20-track career retrospective Ten Years Gone: The Best of Everclear 1994-2004.
WELCOME TO THE DRAMA CLUB will be released in Canada on Interscope through a license deal with Universal Music Canada.
For more information go to http://www.myspace.com/everclear or http://newmedia.10thst.com/115/.
About Eleven Seven:
Founded by Allen Kovac, CEO of 10th Street Entertainment, a leading music marketing and management company, Eleven Seven Music was developed in association with ADA, a Warner Music Group company, as an incubator label to develop bands for potential “upstreaming” to the WMG family. Its artists also include Buckcherry, Everclear, The New Cars, Marion Raven, The Exies and JonnyLives! The label’s inaugural release (Buckcherry’s new album 15) was picked up by Atlantic Records after the first week in stores and has become one of the top selling rock albums for 2006.
###
http://
