Q&A: Before Clearwater show, Everclear’s Art Alexakis talks ‘Sparkle and Fade,’ upcoming album, and mental health

For a guy who once wrote a song called “One-Hit Wonder,” Art Alexakis sure as hell isn’t living like one.

The 63-year-old main creative force behind Everclear has had to endure some major changes in the last few years, including adjusting to a Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis. But he hasn’t let it deter him in the least. “I have an immediacy, a sense of urgency to work, just to put things down, to create,” he told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay during a recent phone call. 

Alexakis revealed that he’s been working on a long-awaited memoir with his friend, after years of publishing talks, and there are even hopes to go full steam ahead on a new Everclear album (the band’s first since 2015’s Black Is The New Black), which he wants to get out by summertime so he can do a fall tour behind it this time next year.

“It’s not necessarily just political, but it is stepping to what’s going on in our world that’s causing me to write, because it’s very intense and distressing every day,” he told CL.

But for now, four years after their COVID comeback show at St. Pete’s Ferg’s, Mr. “Santa Monica” and friends are in the midst of celebrating the 30th anniversary of his breakthrough album Sparkle and Fade. While the album has plenty of meaning to him, Alexakis takes a lot of pride in how age-diverse his crowds are at these full-album-and-then-some gigs.

“I’d say three percent of our crowds these days are kids that weren’t even born when this record came out,” he told CL. “Obviously, there’s a relevance to it, and if you ask me, I think it’s genuine. And I think genuine is always going to—pardon my use of the word—trump over non-genuine.”

Tickets to see Everclear play Clearwater’s Bilheimer Capitol Theatre on Wednesday, Oct. 8 are still available and start at $70.

Read our full Q&A with Art Alexakis below.

On this tour, you’re doing all of Sparkle and Fade on shuffle, and split up. Surely, there are some album tracks on there that you haven’t performed in ages. Are there any in particular you were looking forward to dusting off?

Brother, we’re 11 shows into the tour. We’re doing it every night. So, side two, basically, right? I mean side one, we play pretty much throughout the year. All those songs. But side two, we had to go in the studio for a day and practice those a little bit, but they’ve been really fun to play. You know, songs like “Her Brand New Skin,” “Nehalem,” “Chemical Smile,” the punk rocky songs. And “Queen of the Air,” “My Sexual Life.” Yeah, they’re really fun to play.

The symbolism and metaphors in your lyrics are poetic as hell, and they make me see things in ways I haven’t before, in kind of a therapeutic manner. Where do you draw inspiration for coming up with such deep symbolism?

Well, I’d say about a third of my songs are autobiographical. I mean, they’re mostly all storytelling, as you said before. I like storytellers, obviously. I take situations from my life, maybe combining something that happened to me yesterday, and something happened 10 years ago, and, create a composite, then add artistic license, right? Just create a character out of that. And then, there’s another third of the songs where I just think of stories, and I get inspired—to answer your question—I get inspired from stories, from different things. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. 

Like, there’s a song on Sparkle and Fade called “Queen Of The Air,” and I used to walk by this book shop every day in Portland on my way to go to breakfast at this diner. But the book shop was never open. I’m a sucker for first editions and second, third editions. Old, leatherbound, gold embossed books that you can tell are like, 100 years old. I’d seen this one—just, I’d be right at the window, waiting for them to call us to our table, and I saw this book. It said “Virginia: Queen of the Airwaves.” I’m like, “what the fuck does that mean? What is that?!” I never got to read the book, and I just came up with this story about this woman, Virginia—this kid’s perspective of it—her taking to the air, and jumping off a bridge when he was little.

It just came out as a very intense song. So intense that my old drummer, after we recorded that and listened to it, he came to me with tears in his eyes and said “man, I’m so sorry about your mom. Kudos on being brave enough to write about it.” I go “what’s wrong with my mom?” He goes “you know…queen of the air” and I say “my mom lives 20 minutes away. *laughs* I made that up.” 

And then there’s a song we recorded that came out on my live album, which came out three years ago, called “Sing Away.” It was on my solo album as well, and that was from my wife, who comes to me one day during COVID, or after COVID, crying because she read about this nine-year-old boy who was getting bullied at school because he had a colostomy bag, and he went home…and killed himself. And it was just like, I don’t care who you are: If you’re a parent, you’re feeling that. Even if you’re just a human being, you’re feeling that. I mean, do you have kids?

I don’t, but I have a three-year-old niece and I completely agree.

It’s just, you talk about horror. That’s true horror. and so I wrote that song from that perspective, feeling that horror, and what it would feel like. Plus, I have friends who lost kids to suicide. My mom lost my brother. All my sisters lost sons to drugs and disease. Knock on wood, both my daughters are doing well. So yeah, that’s one of those where I take stuff from my life and put it together. 

Thank you so much for sharing all that with me. I had no idea about a lot of it. 

What do you think it is about Sparkle And Fade that keeps it relevant and holding up as well as it does 30 years later?

That’s a great question, I guess that’s, in other terms, why are 17, 18, 20-year-olds listening to this and getting so excited about it? I’d say 2% of our crowd these days are kids that weren’t even born when this record came out. Obviously, there’s a relevancy to it that, if you ask me what it is, I think it’s genuine. I think genuine always is going to—pardon my using the word—trump over non-genuine. You know what I mean? I think for a lot of people, it just really connects. It’s raw, and it has a sound of its own, you know? But anyone who thinks they’re totally unique in rock and roll who strums a guitar, you’re being pretentious. You’re precocious at best.

Stepping away from Sparkle And Fade for a little bit. You’ve said that you’re working on writing a new, politically-driven, Everclear album. Is there anything you can tell us about that yet?

Nope. I mean, I literally got six rush songs put together, and about 15 more ideas I wanna mark in the studio in January, with at least 10 to 12 songs. But I don’t want to spend a lot of time recording it. I want it to be more visceral. I want to go in in January, February, March for a week, then record and mix a record, and put it out next year. It’s not necessarily just political, but it is stepping into what’s going on in our world that’s causing me to write, because it’s very intense and distressing every day. And I’m old enough to know that it’s good to have a plan, but it doesn’t always work out that way. But I feel pretty confident that we’re going to have a new record to tour on by the fall next year. I hope it’s out by late summer. That’s the plan, so we’ll see. I don’t even have a record label! *laughs*

There you go. Release it independently!

This is your first new album since you went public with your MS diagnosis. Do you think that aspect of your life caused any changes in your songwriting topics, or even just stylistically speaking?

That’s a good question. I don’t know if stylistically, it changed anything. I think that it’s just progressed on its own. But as for whether it changed way I look at everything in my life, my music, my family and my relationships, my sobriety? Yes. It’s chronic disease, meaning it’s never going to go away. It’s going to constantly progress, and the only thing I can do with exercise, diet and medication is slow that progression down. Yeah, that’s what I’m doing. I’ll tell you one thing it’s given me—this is such a good question. I have an immediacy, a sense of urgency to work, just to put things down, to create. I’ve had offers to do a memoir for years, but in the last two or three years, I’ve actually been working on writing pages and giving them to a friend of mine to edit. I’m writing it myself, but a friend is the editor, and does none of the creatives. Just like, “yeah, that’s a run-on sentence.” And I go “okay, I don’t care. I like it. Leave it alone.” laughs*

But I’m not trying to win a Pulitzer Prize; I’m trying to tell a story. But that, and I do a lot of life coaching, so I think my disease has helped me be more immediate about how I’ve got to make a living, leave a legacy, I don’t know. I mean, I’m doing pretty good, but I could be in a wheelchair in the next few years. I’m just gonna keep doing it until I can’t do it anymore, and while it’s still fun. And it is fun. The travel, not so much, but the shows are great. Playing shows, talking to people…I love it.

My friend Jak wanted me to ask about a super deep cut, which is “Your Arizona Room.” Where did that come from?

Oh my god! *laughs* wow! I’m gonna tell my wife that! That was a love song for my wife, Vanessa, who I met in Arizona. But at the same time, an “Arizona room” is a room that’s something really unique to Arizona, and I’d say Florida, but when you go buy a house that has three bedrooms, a den, and two bathrooms…an Arizona room is usually a back patio that they built in, right? They put walls around it and air conditioning, or before air conditioning, we had these things called swamp coolers. *laughs* I don’t know, you’d have to look it up.

But what’s really unique and interesting, when we started gigging, I moved from the house I was living in and rented this house, and lo and behold, in Portland, it had a built-in, what had obviously been an outside patio with a door, and they built it into another room, the Arizona room. So it was a love song to my wife, and when our daughter was born, we named her Arizona. So now, I have other aspects to it. Like a lot of the time, when we gotta go wake up my daughter, you gotta go to the Arizona room. I don’t wanna go. Teenagers are frightening. As my hillbilly mom said, “Ain’t nothing meaner than a teenaged girl.” *laughs*

The mental health epidemic is stronger than ever right now, and it’s really no secret that you’ve seen some shit throughout your life. Are there any words of encouragement or wisdom that you have for kids, and people in general, struggling with their mental health, or even addiction?

Well you know, advice is one of those things that’s best kept to yourself until somebody asks for it. But I’m neurodivergent, I’ve had mental health issues. I was a drug addict, alcoholic, like in the program, what we call a “real alcoholic.” Like, I was killing myself with alcohol and drugs. Subconsciously or consciously, that’s what I was doing. But that being said, when I talk to people, I’m like, you know, “if I can do it, and if other people I know can do it, you can do it.” I tell people when they think they might have a problem, I go “I know a way that works. It’s hard work, but if you do it, and you do what we do, you can not feel like you’re feeling right now, and lose that sense of hopelessness.” And when it comes to mental health, just don’t feel shame about feeling different, and tell that to people.

Have you ever read any Malcolm Gladwell? The author of “The Tipping Point,” “David and Goliath.”  He talks about people who have ADHD or autism at levels on the spectrum. Incredibly famous, influential people throughout history that have been neurodivergent or autistic. And it’s just that you have to find a different way of working through the means, because our synapses don’t work like most people, like normal people. Our synapses work differently. But once you figure out how to work through them, and how to understand what you have, the sky’s the limit. I think most neurodivergent people are more sensitive to art, music and small minutia that other people won’t see, you know? 

Even in business. Businessmen, businesswomen…Steve Jobs! *laughs* brilliant, and neurodivergent, but a pain in the ass to be around. *laughs* But for me, the job is to not be a pain in the ass, to be a match, to be a big guy, and to still be able to function and tap into that creativity and that sensitivity. I think people are learning how to do it, and a lot of the stigma is going away. I don’t know about right now, because things are kind of weird, but we’ll see.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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This article appears in Oct. 2 – 8, 2025.