Interview: Art Alexakis Discusses Everclear's 20-Year History and New Album, 'Invisible Stars'

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I think that’s a good question. I think it’s mostly in the lyrics and the way I sing. Everclear, as you said, started in 1992. I started it with a couple of guys, and we worked on it for a couple of months. They lived in Seattle and I lived in Portland, so it was doable. I found these other guys in Portland and started working with the band during the summer, and it was just one of those things — by the time the guys started showing up in the videos in the '90s, that was like the third or fourth version of the band. I’ve got two guys now who have been in the band for almost 10 years.

How the band has evolved is how my lyrics have evolved. I think the music has kind of run the gamut from really loud and noisy punk rock to more produced pop, to where we are now, which is honed in production with big guitars and different textures we’ve brought in — a lot of vintage-sounding synthesizers from the old Devo days. That’s the stuff I grew up loving, and I love the way [the synthesizers] cut through big guitars.

Definitely. I’d say “Jackie Robinson” is political; I think “The Golden Rule” is political, “Aces” is political — I just don’t like reality TV, even though I get the addiction, right? I get when people sit down and it’s just a train wreck. It’s like drawing a line — I don’t pick up glasses of wine to taste them, because as of last week, I’ve been sober twenty-three years, and I just don’t go there. It’s the same thing with reality TV, and I’m always giving my wife crap about it, because I’ll come in from the kitchen and she’ll be watching The Kardashians [laughs]. I get it. I just intellectually hate it.

Are they political songs? I think they’re all kind of political — definitely “Tiger in a Burning Tree.” Especially in that song, I think there’s a prevalent attitude out there. It’s something more conservative, like it’s a doctrine without putting oneself in the other guy’s shoes — people are not putting themselves in the other guys’ shoes, and they’re not imagining worst case scenarios. They’re just going on the road, crashing and burning with a Paul Ryan mentality, and it’s easy to do when you’re an employed white guy.

I don’t know. I purposefully just didn’t feel like making a record for a few years. I was just doing shows and trying to get my eldest daughter through high school and into college. We went through a lot a few years ago — had a new daughter, my mom died, bankruptcy, divorce — things that seem like bad things on the surface, but it’s really just life. I learned to adapt to it and figure out what I was going to do next. I just didn’t feel like writing. I didn’t have that fire in my belly to just pick up the guitar and write.

About two years ago, I started coming up with lines in my head and started writing songs again. I was just like, “Hey boys, I think we should make a record.” I started getting excited about it again. I needed a break. Being a musician, especially at the major label where you work for so long, it becomes a cycle. Write a record, make a record, tour. It’s just this cycle, and I don’t think there’s any life built into it with time to assimilate what’s going on in front of you and what’s going on in your head. I think taking some time off was a really good thing for me. Now I have the fire in my belly again.

You know, I was. I think that’s a really good question, and I think I was for a bit. It wasn’t a conscious thing like, “I’m going to take time.” It was more habitual and more like, “I don’t feel like doing this.” I’m not going to try and make a record that I don’t want to make. I feel like I’ve done that before. It never comes out well, so I just do something else — work on a book, a screenplay, just do work.

In 2010 I started writing again, and last year, my wife and I moved to LA with our 4-year-old. I lived in Portland for almost 20 years, and that’s where my eldest daughter went to college. I missed the sunshine. I grew up in LA. We moved back to California, and you’d think that being in a place where I feel safe and warm and there’s lots of sunshine; you’d think I’d get complacent. It was actually the opposite of that. It was an extreme kick in the ass. That’s how I knew what I wanted to do for this record.

You mean those Cookie Monster vocal bands? I get where you’re going. I think that’s exciting. I didn’t know that. I was on Warped in 2010, and I saw a lot of these bands — the Asking Alexandrias and stuff like that. Some bands I really like, even though I don’t necessarily put their music on and rock out to it. It’s kind of like turning on madness. It scares my 4-year-old [laughs]. I think it’s more punk rock than any of the punk rock out there right now, but a lot of that music that I saw is cookie-cutter.

It’s like these kids grew up watching the Disney Channel and did all these choreographed moves and all of the sudden just, like [growls]. It’s like, where did that hit you as a good idea [laughs]? It’s funny because all these kids are rocking out, and I am standing there as an old man just laughing [laughs], but I like the idea of these kids getting back into rock and roll. It’s exciting, and it’s punk rock. Nothing is more punk rock than Little Richard. It’s overdriven — just this crazy gay black man from the South whose band is just smokin’, and you just can’t deny the power that comes out of the speakers when you put that on. It’s so punk rock.