The Inspirational Transcendence of Everclear Frontman Art Alexakis

Never mind the cliché — Art Alexakis is a true rock ’n’ roll survivor. The Everclear frontman weathered several childhood traumas and drug addiction and eventually went on to front the multiplatinum-selling ’90s alternative rock band. While the spotlight may have dimmed over the years, he’s still at it, coping with multiple sclerosis and battling through a recent two-month bout with COVID-19. This summer and fall, he’s back onstage with Everclear on his “Summerland” tour, with fellow ’90s alt-rock survivors Living Colour, Hoobastank and Wheatus.

We caught up with Alexakis, 59, between tour dates and asked him what gives him the strength to battle through reoccurring adversity. “My mother,” he explains. “I got tenacity from my mother, and my mother instilled in me a sense of the golden rule, which is to just try and treat people better, regardless of how they treat you.”

Still, Alexakis admits he continues to battle demons. “I’m still fighting against this triggered damaged kid who was raped, beat up and abandoned. His brother died of an overdose, his girlfriend died by suicide — all these things. So I still have those triggers and my trigger is — you look at me wrong, I’m gonna f---ing kill you, because I came from the projects. And that’s still there. I’m going to therapy to change those triggers because that’s just not a great way to be in life.”

Those triggers, however, served as fuel for some of Everclear’s best-known songs, including the top 5 alternative hits “Father of Mine” and “Wonderful,” but Alexakis cautions that’s not always the case. “A lot of people have a mistaken view about where all my songs are coming from,” he says. “I’d say about a third of the songs are autobiographical, and about a third of the songs are an amalgam of different things I take from my life or my experience, things I’ve heard about or people I know, and the other third is just me writing, just creating.”

Founded as a trio in Portland, Oregon, in the early ’90s, with  Craig Montoya on bass and eventually Greg Eklund on drums, Everclear leaped into the crowded alternative-rock scene with hits that also included “Everything to Everyone,” “I Will Buy You A New Life” and “Heartspark Dollarsign.”

“Father of Mine,” in which Alexakis writes about the pain of his father leaving his family when he was just 5, is autobiographical. Though Alexakis’ father tried to reestablish the relationship over the years, ultimately it didn’t end well.

When Alexakis had a run-in with the police as a teen, his mother was faced with the choice of sending him to juvenile hall or out of state to live with his father, he says. “She put me on a plane to Houston,” he says. “I had a friendship with my father, but not really.” In later years, his father expressed interest in reconnecting and wanted Alexakis to fly out for a visit with his young daughter. Alexakis said he would, if his father called his mother, who was dying of cancer, and made amends. “I said, ‘You call her up, don’t deny anything’ ” Alexakis recalls. “ ‘You tell her the truth, be a mensch and listen to her, let her say whatever she wants to say and take it like a man. You do that, and I’ll fly out with my daughter next week.’ He said, ‘I’m going do it right now,’ but he never did it.”

After living through such repeated disappointments, when his father died, Alexakis had an interesting reaction — or maybe lack of one. “He died three days before David Bowie and I was way more racked up about David Bowie dying than my dad,” he says, “because I knew David Bowie. I met him once, but he gave me more in life through his music, his persona and his artwork than my dad ever did.”

Alexakis, who is the father of two daughters, ages 29 and 13, is trying to not make the same mistakes as his father made. “I never thought I was going to have a kid at the age of 45, but I did,” he says of his youngest daughter. “It’s great. It’s wonderful. That wasn’t really in the brochure, but I met a younger woman and there you go.”

While his current family life is going well — he even recently had his young daughter come out and visit him on tour — Alexakis continues to battle health problems. He says he’s doing pretty well in his ongoing struggle with MS, but COVID-19 put him in the hospital for more than a week. “I feel like I’m doing really good, but it’s a lot of work,” he says. “I had pneumonia for two months, so I did the whole pulmonary test and I’ve got about 89 percent, so I got about 10 percent damage from scar tissue, which isn’t bad. I just have to do breathing exercises and warm up, like I do anyway. It’s just like anything though. When you get older, s--- just gets harder.”

Still, Alexakis is feeling good about the state of his band. “As far as I’m concerned this is the best [version of] Everclear that’s ever existed,” he says of the lineup that today includes guitarist Davey French, bassist Freddy Herrera and drummer Brian Nolan. He has no plans to reunite with Montoya and Eklund, with whom he recorded the band’s biggest hits, and who left the group in 2003, with Alexakis going solo for a while.

“Craig and I have become Facebook friends lately and I hope that grows, because Craig was like a little brother to me,” he says. “We did have a falling out and I’ve always felt bad about that and hope that it would resolve, but it’s never going to resolve into me getting rid of the guys I got in my band now.”

Besides the band, Alexakis has also been pursuing education with the goal of becoming a certified life coach and counselor. “I’m about a year-and-half from getting my bachelor’s in psychology,” he says. “At the same time, I’m finishing up my year course to become a master life coach. I want to get my master’s in a couple of years in psychology. I want to specifically work with creative people — call it ‘Coaching for Creatives.’ Because that’s what I know. I know how it feels to be addicted. I know what it feels like to be abused and I know how it feels to be abusive.”

“I think I can connect with a lot of creative people at every level,” Alexakis adds. “That sounds exciting to me, especially as I’m getting older. But I’m not going to ever stop playing in the band until they actually take my guitar away from me.”

Paul Brown

Everclear’s Art Alexakis with today’s band members guitarist Davey French and bassist Freddy Herrera (drummer Brian Nolan is not pictured). The band plans to tour into 2022.

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