In the 1990s, the Portland, Oregon-born rock band Everclear had hits—”Father of Mine,” “I Will Buy You a New Life” “Santa Monica” and more. But the group also came about in that time in the Pacific Northwest when drugs and tragedy were almost as common as platinum records.
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Let’s dive in below.
The Band
The group came about in Portland in 1991 after lead singer Art Alexakis left San Francisco. He’d toured the Pacific Northwest and liked Portland. He’d also gotten together with a girl from there. So, starting a family (he’d learned she was pregnant), they landed in the City of Roses.
At the time, if Everclear didn’t work out, Alexakis was going to stop trying. Thankfully, for him, it worked.
The Addiction
Today, Alexakis acknowledges that he’s both an addict and an alcoholic. He’s been sober for 33 years. But as a teenager, life was almost impossible, he told American Songwriter. His father abandoned his family (as he sings about in one of Everclear’s hit songs). He was beaten and raped when he was eight years old, he says. His brother died from an overdose.
“I remember tasting beer for the first time when I was, like, three,” he says. “It tasted like fucking candy. When I tasted tequila when I was six, it tasted like candy. It burned but I liked the burn. The buzz made me feel normal. It was the only time I felt normal in my life.”
He began drinking and smoking marijuana at around eight years old. He began dealing drugs at 12. He was taking acid and shooting speed by 13 or 14, he says. He almost died from an overdose, himself, in 1984 when he was just 22. After that, he gave up hard drugs but kept drinking. But he also began writing songs of his own.
The Name
In 1991, Alexakis named what would be his next and final band Everclear, after very strong grain alcohol. In a way, it’s a poetic and ironic name. The name Everclear is lovely for an artist: visions are always defined. But it’s also ironic that someone who drinks can never have a clear head. And art is never clear, anyway.
With that in mind, plus a nod to his “candy” alcohol, Alexakis took on the moniker and pushed forward. He’s since called the alcohol, “pure, white evil.” The now 60-year-old artist who was 26 when Everclear started and 30 when it got rolling, laid down a dozen songs that he and his band had at the time for $400 in a basement studio on a little eight-track in Portland.
He said, “I wanted to see if it had anything to it. And it did.”
The Success
Alexakis sent the newly recorded Everclear LP to people at the SXSW music festival. They got back to him quickly and offered him a showcase. Then, as the band drove from Oregon to Texas, he sent out more albums and press information. Soon, lots of newspapers and music outlets were writing about the fledgling group. The band got bigger and bigger and kept touring. Eventually, Everclear signed with Capitol Records in June of 1994. Alexakis was a new dad and if Everclear hadn’t worked out, he was resigned to move to Los Angeles and work in the music business elsewhere, perhaps as a songwriter for other groups. Now, though, his dream had come to fruition.
“Every song we had [I put on the band’s debut, World of Noise],” he says. “I put them in order and it sounded like a record.”
Since then, Everclear has earned multiple platinum albums.
Photo by Ashley Osborn / Press Here Publicity
