Off the Charts: Everclear

Art for Art's sake

By Newt Briggs

You've probably never heard of Art Alexakis. Don't hate yourself; he's a pretty forgettable dude--kind of like punk's version of the man who wasn't there. Part of the problem is that Alexakis, the 41-year-old frontman for Portland grunge-punks Everclear, is a baby boomer preaching to Generation Y--an age gap not easily bridged by a tube of hair gel and a sloppy bleach job. The other problem is that Alexakis is not a conventional rock star, at least not in terms of his musical development. He is, rather, the classic rock 'n' roll story in reverse.

The classic rock 'n' roll story begins as an uplifting tale of against-the-odds success and gradually degrades into a sordid saga of dirty narcotics and even dirtier women. It's the story of Sid Vicious, Keith Richards, Rick James, Brian Wilson, Iggy Pop, David Crosby and Shaun Ryder, among many, many others.

Alexakis, on the other hand, did things backward. As a youngster, he blissfully sank into one of L.A.'s numerous tar-heroin pits only to rise, like a 12-step phoenix, out of the ashes of a resin-caked crack pipe in his late 20s. His is a tale not often told by the mainstream media, which tends to fixate on self-destruction over self-improvement. It's a story about poverty, a deadbeat dad, an attempted suicide and scads of overdoses--only one of which involves Alexakis himself. Although he frequently protests that his songs are not autobiographical, it's hard to miss the narrative bent that flows through songs such as "Heroin Girl," "Father of Mine" and "Wonderful"--all of which are included on the band's 2004 anthology, Ten Years Gone. It's a veritable catalog of misery and redemption--one that leaves room for debate as to whether Art imitates life or life imitates Art.

"Heroin Girl": After taking up drinking at 9 and drugs at 11, Alexakis lost both his older brother and his girlfriend to drug overdoses before he turned 20. When police investigators responded to the scene of his brother's death, Alexakis overheard one conclude that it was "just another overdose"--a line repeated verbatim in "Heroin Girl." The song also closely parallels the subsequent death of his girlfriend, who was discovered face down in a sewage drainage ditch in 1970. "They found her out in the fields/ About a mile from home/ Her face was warm from the sun/ But her body was cold." Alexakis spoke of his own drug abuse to the London Sun in 1998: "I usually couldn't afford cocaine," he said. "I mostly shot crank...or whatever I could steal from someone's house, melt down and put in a needle."

"Father of Mine": Arguably the most personal song ever written by Alexakis, "Father of Mine" documents the indiscretions of a deadbeat dad and their effect on the song's adolescent narrator--presumably, Alexakis himself: "I will never be safe/ I will never be sane/ I will always be weird inside/ I will always be lame." While Alexakis' detractors would likely concur with his final sentiment, he was obviously traumatized by his father's unexpected departure, attempting suicide at least once in his early teens. "I got stoned and jumped off the Santa Monica pier," he told Rolling Stone in 1995. "I had boots and my army coat on, and I had filled the pockets with sand. But I didn't drown." In 2000, Alexakis testified at a congessional hearing in support of legislation that would allow the IRS to collect child support payments from delinquent fathers.

"Wonderful": Like Blink-182's "Stay Together for the Kids" and Papa Roach's "Broken Home," Everclear's "Wonderful" tells the story of a divorce through the muddled worldview of a child. "I don't want to hear you say/ That I will understand someday/ I don't wanna hear you say/ You both have grown in a different way." Despite his clear understanding of the devastating nature of divorce on children, Alexakis, who has a young daughter, was recently divorced for the third time. Earlier this month, he told Detroit's Metro Times, "I've never been honest with the women in my life."

Many other Everclear songs document Alexakis' love-hate relationship with the world. "You Make Me Feel Like a Whore," for instance, details his emotional response to a record label executive who asked him to change a song, and "Heartspark Dollarsign" tells the story of the first time he brought home an African-American girlfriend. It's impossible to say how much of this is fact and how much is fiction, but as Alexakis told the Edmonton Sun in 2001, "I think anyone's life resembles a movie. It's like a story. Some chapters in your life will make you laugh, cry and so on. You think about the things you've done you wish you hadn't done. I tried to capture all of that in these records."