Art Alexakis, lead singer of Everclear, has a theory on the power of good songwriting and it’s one he experienced prior to the release of their seminal album “So Much For The Afterglow.”
“Hit songs will get responses before you even know they’re hit songs,” he says. “All the songs on “Afterglow” — “Everything To Everyone,” “New Life,” “Father of Mine” — there was a sense of familiarity even though they’d never heard them before.”
Alexakis sat down with amNewYork to wax poetic on the 20th anniversary of “Afterglow,” the painstaking process recording it and the unlikely feature film that inspired some of the music from that album.
It was “So Much for the Afterglow” that really catapulted you into superstardom. Does it feel like 20 years has passed?
Sometimes it feels like 150 years. We still play those songs every show. So it’s become a part of me, and a part of Everclear. I love “Afterglow,” it’s a masterpiece. I poured my whole body and soul into it. And I probably stole other people’s souls to put in it. But I was driven, just driven on that album.
Did you feel the pressure to follow up the success of “Sparkle and Fade” when you were making “Afterglow?”
I tried to put the blinders on and not be influenced by it. I didn’t want to write a bunch of “Santa Monicas.” In the fall of ’96 we recorded it inside some big fancy studio in L.A. We took a break, went to Portland [Oregon] in a smaller studio to record a few more and I gave it to my A&R guy and we were listening back, and he goes, “I know you have a better album in you.”
How did you respond?
I was kind of destroyed. I hadn’t failed in awhile and it kind of kicked my a–. I sent my wife home. I stayed in New York for two weeks. Went and saw “Jerry Maguire” like five or six times — that’s where I got the idea for “Song For American Movie” — wrote “Afterglow” and wrote copious notes on every song and what I could do on it. I did a lot of work to make that record.
Are you guys taking a break from your famous Summerland tours or is that a thing of the past now?
Just taking a break. I can’t do two full tours in a year. I’m just too old for that crap. I was thinking of doing a Summerland festival like in Vegas and that might happen this year or that might happen next year.
I just wanted to do the 20th anniversary for “Afterglow.” We did it for “Sparkle and Fade” and people just love that. It felt like the right thing to do at the time.
Everclear celebrate the 20th anniversary of their smash record “So Much For The Afterglow,” alongside Fastball and more at Irving Plaza, Tuesday, 7 p.m., SOLD OUT, 17 Irving Pl. at E. 15th St., 212-777-6800
