As I waited for my youngest brother to come scampering out of basketball camp on a June day in 1998, I listened intently as Everclear’s Art Alexakis talked about his band and its future. It was the first time I had heard Alexakis interviewed; I was struck immediately with how intelligent and genuine he seemed. He spoke of the sense of calm that had come to him with age, and talked unapologetically about his band’s move to a pop sensibility after years of being viewed as a punk act.
Near the end of the broadcast, Alexakis expressed what sounded like sincere gratitude to the radio station that was hosting the interview: 105.9, The Lazer, headquartered in Lawrence. Or, the only station any self-respecting alt-rock fan would admit to listening to in the nineties in northeast Kansas.
The Lazer had played Everclear’s songs since the band’s earliest days, doing so often enough that I had, at one point in high school, thought Everclear was a local band. Their first single, “Fire Maple Song”, had been a dividing point between my best friend and me. He thought the song was fantastic; it scared me. Not that I told him that. At fourteen, I was too happy to know that someone wanted to hang out with me to cop to my fear of songs that involved so much yelling. (Or what I perceived to be yelling. It should be noted that I was listening to a lot of Mariah Carey at the time.)
By the time my brother joined me in the car after his day at camp, my excitement for Everclear was at a fever pitch. Fitting, because I was to see the band live later that night.
I would be disappointed. Everclear was a disaster, and for one main reason: Art Alexakis can’t sing. Because my rebellious nature wasn’t so developed that I could embrace dissonant noise just for the sake of claiming I liked something unmelodious, I proclaimed the concert a failure.
If something similar were to happen now – if I went to see Yeasayer live and they sounded like a wolverine being mauled – I’d very likely give up on the band. But when I was twenty years old, I didn’t have the luxury of thousands of songs on a computer’s hard drive. I had fifteen CDs, and two of them were by Everclear. So I went back to listening to them. Everclear and I were in a small-town marriage. There might have been problems with our relationship, but the other options were the twice-divorced high school principal and the mechanic with one thumb.
Like many couples who’ve survived difficult stretches, I’m glad we stuck it out.
Over the years, my patience with Everclear has taught me that, sometimes, it’s more important to feel strongly about what you’re writing than it is to be able to perform it perfectly. Alexakis’ lack of singing prowess keeps his band from being a worldwide phenomenon, but that doesn’t make his music any less impactful. When I listen to Everclear, I am transported to Alexakis’ world. Not by the lyrics and melody that make up the songs, but by the feelings that went into creating them.
I was reminded of this on a recent Kansas City night. Everclear was in town performing a nearly-sold-out show in downtown’s Midland Theater. Sold-out took on a different connotation this time: tickets were $9, and the crowd looked like it had been dragged in from an afternoon spent at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
Nonetheless, I was excited. While most people had jumped off the Everclear bandwagon sometime around 1999, I’d hung on like an excited stowaway, cheering the band from afar through the more-obscure releases that followed their megaseller, So Much For The Afterglow.
For example, the band’s fourth album, Songs From An American Movie: Vol 1, helped me survive a turbulent final year of college. To this day, Alexakis’ cover of Brown-Eyed Girl can bring tears to my eyes if my hormones are lined up correctly.
Of course, my love for the SFAAMs (there was a Vol 2 as well) did not make me a complete outlier. Those records sold a combined 1.38 million copies. My renegade status came with the release of 2003’s Slow Motion Daydream, which can claim what I think to be one of the best two-song suites I’ve ever heard: the combination of “Sunshine (That Acid Summer)” and “A Beautiful Life”.
With my dogged devotion to Everclear in mind, I stood with a bunch of folks older than I am (and a few folks younger than I am) and watched Alexakis and a revamped version of his band as they tried to bring our favorite songs to life.
Alexakis still can’t sing. His lyrics haven’t suddenly become transcendent. And, just as many critics have long complained, it often seems that he’s been writing the same song since 1994.
But none of that mattered as I watched him. Regardless of Alexakis’ musical ability, it was clear that the man onstage had been through a lot, had written it down, and enjoyed being able to show his work to a crowd. As he did that showing, I was taken back to the stages of life during which his songs had been played. The lonely fourteen year-old. The helpful big brother. The scared college student.
Everclear is one of “my” bands. They’re mine because only I can understand completely why their music has meant so much to me. They’re not a band that I will be able to convince other people to like – they’re just not that accessible.
They’ll be the band about which, 20 years from now, someone will say, “Jeez [Dad, Uncle Paul, cellmate], how could you like these guys?” To be honest, in many circles, they’re a band about which that will be said now.
With that question will come my test. Will I be able to say, as I should, “You’d have to be me to understand”? Or will I get defensive? Will I try to convince someone else to like Everclear too?
I hope it’s the former. After listening to Alexakis talk so many years ago, after seeing his band(s) live, and after abusing my ears with his brand of poppy rock ‘n roll for over a decade, I’m confident that that’s what he would do.
Art Alexakis might not be right about everything. He may not be able to sing and he may never sell 100,000 records again. But he’s definitely right about one thing: When it comes to music, the only thing that really matters is what you think, what you like, what makes you happy – whether that’s singing pop songs when no one wants you to, or whether that’s liking those pop songs when no one else does.
I hope I’ll be able to remember his advice.
A sampling of the songs mentioned above, courtesy of lala.com:
The album that started it all for me – “Sparkle & Fade”.
The album that started it all for most people – “So Much For The Afterglow”.
I know, you were apprehensive when I wrote that the two songs hyperlinked below make up a fantastic two-song suite. You were probably frustrated that I used the term “suite” at all. But do me a favor and give a listen to songs 9 and 10 from “Slow Motion Daydream”. I think you’ll be glad you did.
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