Everclear: Art Alexakis on Rock Stars and Flextone Amps for Guitars

This is an interview with Art- It's kind of short but it talks about GTFABA and touring so it's interesting to read:)

From Studio2Stage, Winter 2001

Art Alexakis, frontman and wordsmith for Everclear, spent years in a number of different L.A. bands, before moving to Portland, Oregon, and eventually forming Everclear. The band's first indie album created a big stir and led to their Capitol debut, World of Noise. Then came Sparkle and Fade, with its breakthrough singles "Santa Monica" and "Heroin Girl," and another hit CD in So Much for the Afterglow. What next started as an Alexakis solo album became the band's fourth release, Songs from an American Movie, Volume 1: Learning How to Smile. Quick on the heels of that pop gem was the followup, Volume 2: Good Time for a Bad Attitude.

S2S:Tell me about your new album. It's much more guitar-oriented than Volume 1.

ART:It's different from the first record in a lot of ways. The first record was recorded in my basement, straight to Pro Tools, and it took over a year of recording. It started as a solo project, then we recorded some new songs and added production. I've gotten really heavy-handed, production-wise, because I can. I've got the time and I've really been listening to a lot of older produced music, like Pet Sounds.

On this record, we started recording the day Volume 1 came out, and we were in the studio for about two and a half months. In the midst of it I got married, had a honeymoon, and all that good stuff, too. I've been pretty happy, all the way around.

S2S:What gear did you use on this album?

ART:On this record, we primarily used the Flextone HD. I love that thing. I just lvoe the different amp sounds. I like to do a lot of double guitar sounds, you know, and I rarely double the same guitar sound, same amp sound, same effects, same compression. That just doesn't sound good to my ear. I'd rather have a different texture in there. I planned on using both a Marshall and a Mesa Boogie like I have on previous records, but on this record I'd say I used the Flextone head a lot of the time, for either lead guitar sounds or effected guitar sounds.

On tour, I tend to let the sound guy add effects, delays, and what-have-you. Now we've got a monitor guy who's going to assume more of that, and we're going to use the Line 6 amps on our next tour.

S2S:You just finished two albums, and you're still writing--do you feel the need to hurry and get your songs out?

ART:Well, I've always been like that. I never demo stuff. Even back in the Colorfinger days, it was like, "I got an idea, let's go in the studio and record it." The times I've tried to demo stuff, I usually end up using the demos, because they've got all the juice in 'em, all the verve and excitement. And when you demo something two or three times it starts sounding boring.

Like speeding up at the chorus... It sounds normal to me. Even on Pro Tools we speed things up on the chorus because that's what a rock 'n' roll song does to breathe, you know. I firmly believe that you can use digital technology, such as Line 6, Pro Tools, all the plug-ins, and with the right attitude, make it aggressive and raw. It's just a matter of where you're coming from. Use the technology to get to where you want to be, not let the technology go where it wants to go.

S2S:With the more pop tunes from Volume 1, and the harder-sounding Volume 2, what kind of a set do you think you'll be doing on tour?

ART:Probably seven to eight songs each from the two new records, and two or three songs from each of the other records. We'll do all the hits and singles, because people love to hear those, and we'll make 'em interesting enough to play every night. The only song that we'll probably use a backing track on is the loop from "AM Radio." When we play it live now, that's all we have, is just that sampled loop from "Mr. Big Stuff." It doesn't have singing, it doesn't have drums, it doesn't have anything else on it.

S2S:Everclear is just three guys. How many band members will you have for the tour?

We have the three of us, another guitar player, a percussionist to help recreate that loopy percussion sound. It's a pretty big rock show, It's gonna be fun--we're gonna do a lot of cool stuff, like get radio listeners involved. In each show we're gonna have theater seats on the side of the stage, so 40 kids can come down and dance on stage. And there'll be a contest for who can play the song "Rock Star," where the winner will get up on stage and actually play with us. I think that would be really exciting, because I know, if I was a kid, that would be like the coolest thing in my life.

We start rehearsing in January. We've never really done tour rehearsals, like with lights and the whole thing. We usually rehearse two or three days before the tour, but now it's gonna be three weeks. We're getting three or four sets down, and getting the lights down, and we're gonna gave some films made for a screen behind us, and, you know, have a show.