{"id":6911,"date":"2012-07-24T00:12:28","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T07:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=6911"},"modified":"2012-07-24T00:12:28","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T07:12:28","slug":"everclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/07\/everclear\/","title":{"rendered":"EVERCLEAR"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

EVERCLEAR\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Life changes bring the inspiration for their long-awaited new album\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Everclear fans have been waiting for an album of new material since 2006\u2019s Welcome to the Drama Club<\/em>. Now that the band has released its eighth studio record, Invisible Stars<\/em>, leader Art Alexakis explains that it simply took that long before he felt he had something new to say. \u201cI wasn\u2019t writing songs for a while because I didn\u2019t feel like I had anything to write about,\u201d Alexakis says. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel inspired. I think too many people try to write when they can\u2019t, and\u00a0it\u2019s just not exciting.\u201d\u00a0It\u2019s not as if there were no new product in the intervening years. In 2009, the group released In a Different Light<\/em>, an album of stripped-down reinterpretations of its songs, and recorded straight-ahead versions of some of their best-known tunes (and a few covers) for 2011\u2019s Return to Santa Monica<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gave me the money and the studio time to make the new record,\u201d Alexakis says. \u201cI really wasn\u2019t in a place where I wanted to re-record old songs, but when that offer came up, how could I say no?\u201d The benefits weren\u2019t only financial: Revisiting songs he had written over the years also helped\u00a0shape Invisible Stars<\/em>. \u201cSinging those songs again brought me back to where I was when I made them,\u201d he says. \u201cIt gave me that\u00a0fire in the belly again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexakis also experienced major life changes over the past six years. His mother died in 2006, he divorced, remarried and had a baby, and his daughter graduated from high school and went off to college. He also moved from Portland, Ore., where he had lived for 20 years, back to L.A. where he grew up\u2014a relocation that helped inspire\u00a0the new songs. \u201cPeople who aren\u2019t from L.A. look at it as this lotus-eating la-la land, but it\u2019s not, man,\u201d Alexakis says. \u201cL.A. is very intense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new songs sound like classic Everclear, with the addition of some well-placed synthesizers on tunes like lead single \u201cBe Careful What You Ask For\u201d and the loving homage \u201cJackie Robinson.\u201d \u201cMy early belief system was about Jackie Robinson. He changed the world,\u201d says Alexakis, who grew up in a housing project where Robinson was revered. \u201cHe opened the door for so many because he didn\u2019t confront, he didn\u2019t fight, he didn\u2019t do any of those things that would have beaten him in the end, and he won. The power in that, the strength in that, the restraint in that, it gives me chills. I wanted to write a song about him for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Eric R. Danton<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EVERCLEAR\u00a0\u00a0 Life changes bring the inspiration for their long-awaited new album\u00a0 \u00a0 Everclear fans have been waiting for an album of new material since 2006\u2019s Welcome to the Drama Club. Now that the band has released its eighth studio record, Invisible Stars, leader Art Alexakis explains that it simply took that long before he felt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[4348,4351,4345,4349,4347,4352,4300,4350,10156,4346],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6913,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911\/revisions\/6913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}