September 8, 2024 • 9 mins
Tracey caught up with Everclear frontman Art Alexakis ahead of their New Zealand tour this summer
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Gold Ice Sides podcast The Stories behind Just Great.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Rock Alex slkeis what a treat to see you. You're
coming to New Zealand in January for the summer concert too.
Obviously you were here not long pre pandemic and again
in twenty twelve. You pay a lot of attention to
your fans down under.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Our fans in New Zealand and Australia have just been lovely.
This will be I think my sixth time coming to
New Zealand. It's always been wonderful and I've always only
been in the big cities, you know, So it's going
to be nice going to places that I haven't been
before and being a part of this tour.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
It is gonna be great.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What do you know about Cold Chisel and Ice House
that you're going to be touring with, Well.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I mean I know ice House is hits. There were
hits here as well. Cold Chisel never really broke here,
but I've been to Australia fifteen sixteen times, so i
know Cold Chisel and I know a lot of their songs.
He's a phenomenal songwriter. The other person on at the
New Zealand Local Talent, I don't know her but I've
listened to Summer from Music since getting on the tour
(01:07):
and is phenomenal.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
So I think this is going to be a great tour.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It really is. And it's a real guitar he'v eat
lineup as well, which I know was a sort of
massive influence of yours back in the day. You were,
you know, Aneray Sabbath and Aerosmith. Such sad news, isn't
it about Aerosmith retiring with Stephen Tyler's vocal and dreaming?
We saw it with John bon Jovi recently. Celine Dean,
it must be the worst nightmare for an artist.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well, it's really scary. I have vocal surgery in two thousand.
I was a younger man then, but it was still
scary coming back and teaching yourself how to relearning how
to sing, how to breathe differently, because I had just
always got up and just belted it out in bars
and stuff. I never learned how to sing or took
lessons or anything like that. But Stephen is just a
(01:51):
natural talent, and I think that that there's hundreds of
thousands of shows he's playing. It's just mind boggling. And
I've been a touring musician for really close to forty years.
So yes, it is in some ways because I know
he wants to be able to express himself. But at
the same time, I feel like they have nothing to
apologize for it. They give us fifty plus years of
(02:14):
one of the best rock and roll bands ever. To me,
they were a better version of a cross of Led
Zeppelin and the Rolling Stares.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
I was a big, big family. I was a kid
in the seventies.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Sure, wow, I mean to that. I actually didn't realize
your head vocal surgery because I actually was going to
genuinely compliment you. You've got, what I would say, one
of the nicest talking voices. I'm wondering why there's not
an Alex Orkas podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
I have very strong opinions about a lot of things, music, sports, relationships.
I'm a licensed life coach. I talk about stuff all
the time. I talk in my work. I scream in
my work any more than.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
I already do.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
And if you ask my wife, no one really cares
what you think. So I'm like, okay, Because you know
people have pitched him to me several times, I'm sure
they will again, it's not my.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Time, It's not for you look, I just want to
touch on what you touched on the regards to work
as a life coach. Obviously you do work with people
in drug and alcohol recovery. It must be really unique
for your clients to have this world famous musician who
is proof that you can go on and live a
massively fun and successful sober life. Because you do work
exclusively with creative times, don't you in that field?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah, I mean that's one of my specialties that I
have three specialties, but one of them and the main
one I work with, is people who work in creative
in the creative industry, So you nail that.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
But it doesn't necessarily have to be the two of them.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
But we know by working in the creative industries, recover
is a big part of usually for a lot of
people who work in the creative industries, so addiction and alcoholism.
So I've worked in the creative industries my whole adult life.
I've worked other jobs, but when I've really put my
heart into it, it's been in the creative industries. So
that's the people I want to work with.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And by the time you are down here in January,
you're obviously just going to be a few weeks off
Spa Clinton Fades thirtieth anniversary. I mean, it's funny, isn't it,
Because you have your ten years, your twenty year anniversary.
It must feel like there's always an expectation when you're
in a band to celebrate these big occasions three release
or a tour, or to issue a deluxe album. You
got plans for the thirtieth.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Absolutely, you're looking into your crystal ball there, Tracy, because yes,
we are going to do a thirtieth anniversary with tracks
that some people have never heard and very few people
have ever heard, like tracks that didn't show up on
Sparkland thead or tracks dead that were recorded earlier in
the original version. It's going to be really cool. We
hope to have that out by October or September, as
(04:43):
we hope to be on tour in the fall in
the United States and hopefully New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Oh, we're so excited for the tour because we know
that you're you're very well known, which we love for
just playing all the bangers in concert, which is great
for the fans. And then you often do the is
it the surly jukebox you call it, which is where
you sort of turn over to the fans for a
quest and chat. And that is such a great way,
is it to get a couple of the deeper cuts
in there?
Speaker 4 (05:05):
You've been doing your reading, young lady, that aren't you.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So when I'm playing solo, I'll ask people and if
they give me a song I don't like it, to
go absolutely not. Shut the hell up, get out of
here now. But on stage we'll do requests. If you
have us up on social media and we get it
before the show and we know how to play that song,
we'll play it for it And will.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It be any new stuff? I mean, I do like
the decision that you've made sort of recently, is shuere
you've sort of decided you're not going to do more
new albums. You'll do one or two new songs a
year to the massive commitment I guess of making an album,
which isn't really how people consume music anymore.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Is it sad to say? If not?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
You know, I still think like that because that's how
I grew up. I'm sure with you as well. I
grew up thinking albums right and this will fit and
we'll have this and this, and my feelings could change
on the subject, but they haven't yet. I've got a
couple of new songs that I'd like to record before
the end of the year. We've got a big tour
coming up here on the fall, celebrating twenty five years
of our fourth album, so we're going to do that
(06:06):
with Marcy Playground and Jimmy's Chicken Check, a couple of
great nineties bands. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
But then in December, I hope to record some new songs,
so maybe we will have a new song out by
the time we get down there and we can play.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It exciting well, going back to a time when albums
did matter love when we were growing up. World of Noised,
the debut which you famously made for about four hundred bucks,
and you got them out to record companies and suddenly
you've got sixty odd voicemails on your machine from the industry.
You were in demand from day one, weren't you really
from the get go?
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:35):
You know it's interesting. We made Sparkling Dad. It hadn't
even been made as a record yet. We just made
a tape of all the songs that put it in
order that I thought was right, and we got accepted
to this festival called south By Southwest and this is
back in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
So we borrowed a bunch.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Of money, rented a minivan, books some dates, and on
the way back, before we left town, I sent out
thirty tapes and bios and pictures and stuff, and I
put them in like, you know, envelopes and mailed them
as we drove out of town. Put them in the
mailbox as we drove out of town.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
On the way back, I got a message on my beeper. Remembered, yeah, yeah, yeah,
no taxt Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I got a message on my beeper from my fiance
at home. She's like, man, you better get home because
there has been sixty seven messages everyone raving about your album.
You're in every paper in town, everywhere. It's just like
people are raving about your new album, World of Noise.
I go, you mean that demo tape? She goes, yes,
get home. You've got cakes all over the Northwest. I'm like, okay,
(07:42):
I'll be there as soon as I can. I think
we were somewhere in Nebraska, So it was about four
days drive, but we were pretty stoked. And we got
home and we went from being unknowns and outsiders to
one of the bigger bands in Portland over the year
and we opened for a lot of nationals and still
did tours and then we got signed to Capitol in
(08:02):
June of nineteen ninety four. It just opened up for
us when people heard the music. And that's the way
it's supposed to be. Music's supposed to do the talking,
not your pr person, not your image, not any of
that stuff. It's all about the music to me, and
that's what has been our fallback is we just keep
putting out music that's honest and true to people keep
(08:24):
picking up on it.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Well, you're certainly all about the music. I gether you're
a bit of a foody as well, because I have
seen a couple of interviews including this one. Aren't were
you are? I guess having lunch looking at the time
where you were? You are a bit of a foody. Now,
some of the places you're going to be on this
to a New Zealand will blow your mind. Queenstown in particular,
is going to be some incredible eateries there for you
to try. I know you're a fan of the crinkle
cut fright.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I am a fan of the crinkled cut fry. But
you know what I'm excited to go to Queenstown. The
only place we've ever been in South Island is christ Church.
We went once many years ago before the earthquake, and
I won eight months after the earthquake, so we're looking
forward to getting back down there. I've got a couple
of guys in my band myself included or Big Jr.
(09:06):
Are talking fans, so we really want to come to
Start Island.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Oh well, we are so excited to see you're going
to be down here on the summer concert. Two are
three shows this January playing with Cultures at Ees House
and beg. Thank you so much for taking the time
to talk to your fans here in New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Thank you so much, good to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Likewise, take care you too.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Gold Asides podcast The stories behind Just Great Rock. If
you enjoyed this podcast, click to share with family or friends.
For Just Great Rock, listen to gold FM anytime anywhere
on iHeartRadio.
Gold Ice Sides podcast The Stories behind Just Great.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Rock Alex slkeis what a treat to see you. You're
coming to New Zealand in January for the summer concert too.
Obviously you were here not long pre pandemic and again
in twenty twelve. You pay a lot of attention to
your fans down under.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Our fans in New Zealand and Australia have just been lovely.
This will be I think my sixth time coming to
New Zealand. It's always been wonderful and I've always only
been in the big cities, you know, So it's going
to be nice going to places that I haven't been
before and being a part of this tour.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
It is gonna be great.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What do you know about Cold Chisel and Ice House
that you're going to be touring with, Well.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I mean I know ice House is hits. There were
hits here as well. Cold Chisel never really broke here,
but I've been to Australia fifteen sixteen times, so i
know Cold Chisel and I know a lot of their songs.
He's a phenomenal songwriter. The other person on at the
New Zealand Local Talent, I don't know her but I've
listened to Summer from Music since getting on the tour
(01:07):
and is phenomenal.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
So I think this is going to be a great tour.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It really is. And it's a real guitar he'v eat
lineup as well, which I know was a sort of
massive influence of yours back in the day. You were,
you know, Aneray Sabbath and Aerosmith. Such sad news, isn't
it about Aerosmith retiring with Stephen Tyler's vocal and dreaming?
We saw it with John bon Jovi recently. Celine Dean,
it must be the worst nightmare for an artist.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well, it's really scary. I have vocal surgery in two thousand.
I was a younger man then, but it was still
scary coming back and teaching yourself how to relearning how
to sing, how to breathe differently, because I had just
always got up and just belted it out in bars
and stuff. I never learned how to sing or took
lessons or anything like that. But Stephen is just a
(01:51):
natural talent, and I think that that there's hundreds of
thousands of shows he's playing. It's just mind boggling. And
I've been a touring musician for really close to forty years.
So yes, it is in some ways because I know
he wants to be able to express himself. But at
the same time, I feel like they have nothing to
apologize for it. They give us fifty plus years of
(02:14):
one of the best rock and roll bands ever. To me,
they were a better version of a cross of Led
Zeppelin and the Rolling Stares.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
I was a big, big family. I was a kid
in the seventies.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Sure, wow, I mean to that. I actually didn't realize
your head vocal surgery because I actually was going to
genuinely compliment you. You've got, what I would say, one
of the nicest talking voices. I'm wondering why there's not
an Alex Orkas podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
I have very strong opinions about a lot of things, music, sports, relationships.
I'm a licensed life coach. I talk about stuff all
the time. I talk in my work. I scream in
my work any more than.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
I already do.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
And if you ask my wife, no one really cares
what you think. So I'm like, okay, Because you know
people have pitched him to me several times, I'm sure
they will again, it's not my.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Time, It's not for you look, I just want to
touch on what you touched on the regards to work
as a life coach. Obviously you do work with people
in drug and alcohol recovery. It must be really unique
for your clients to have this world famous musician who
is proof that you can go on and live a
massively fun and successful sober life. Because you do work
exclusively with creative times, don't you in that field?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah, I mean that's one of my specialties that I
have three specialties, but one of them and the main
one I work with, is people who work in creative
in the creative industry, So you nail that.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
But it doesn't necessarily have to be the two of them.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
But we know by working in the creative industries, recover
is a big part of usually for a lot of
people who work in the creative industries, so addiction and alcoholism.
So I've worked in the creative industries my whole adult life.
I've worked other jobs, but when I've really put my
heart into it, it's been in the creative industries. So
that's the people I want to work with.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And by the time you are down here in January,
you're obviously just going to be a few weeks off
Spa Clinton Fades thirtieth anniversary. I mean, it's funny, isn't it,
Because you have your ten years, your twenty year anniversary.
It must feel like there's always an expectation when you're
in a band to celebrate these big occasions three release
or a tour, or to issue a deluxe album. You
got plans for the thirtieth.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Absolutely, you're looking into your crystal ball there, Tracy, because yes,
we are going to do a thirtieth anniversary with tracks
that some people have never heard and very few people
have ever heard, like tracks that didn't show up on
Sparkland thead or tracks dead that were recorded earlier in
the original version. It's going to be really cool. We
hope to have that out by October or September, as
(04:43):
we hope to be on tour in the fall in
the United States and hopefully New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Oh, we're so excited for the tour because we know
that you're you're very well known, which we love for
just playing all the bangers in concert, which is great
for the fans. And then you often do the is
it the surly jukebox you call it, which is where
you sort of turn over to the fans for a
quest and chat. And that is such a great way,
is it to get a couple of the deeper cuts
in there?
Speaker 4 (05:05):
You've been doing your reading, young lady, that aren't you.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So when I'm playing solo, I'll ask people and if
they give me a song I don't like it, to
go absolutely not. Shut the hell up, get out of
here now. But on stage we'll do requests. If you
have us up on social media and we get it
before the show and we know how to play that song,
we'll play it for it And will.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It be any new stuff? I mean, I do like
the decision that you've made sort of recently, is shuere
you've sort of decided you're not going to do more
new albums. You'll do one or two new songs a
year to the massive commitment I guess of making an album,
which isn't really how people consume music anymore.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Is it sad to say? If not?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
You know, I still think like that because that's how
I grew up. I'm sure with you as well. I
grew up thinking albums right and this will fit and
we'll have this and this, and my feelings could change
on the subject, but they haven't yet. I've got a
couple of new songs that I'd like to record before
the end of the year. We've got a big tour
coming up here on the fall, celebrating twenty five years
of our fourth album, so we're going to do that
(06:06):
with Marcy Playground and Jimmy's Chicken Check, a couple of
great nineties bands. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
But then in December, I hope to record some new songs,
so maybe we will have a new song out by
the time we get down there and we can play.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It exciting well, going back to a time when albums
did matter love when we were growing up. World of Noised,
the debut which you famously made for about four hundred bucks,
and you got them out to record companies and suddenly
you've got sixty odd voicemails on your machine from the industry.
You were in demand from day one, weren't you really
from the get go?
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:35):
You know it's interesting. We made Sparkling Dad. It hadn't
even been made as a record yet. We just made
a tape of all the songs that put it in
order that I thought was right, and we got accepted
to this festival called south By Southwest and this is
back in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
So we borrowed a bunch.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Of money, rented a minivan, books some dates, and on
the way back, before we left town, I sent out
thirty tapes and bios and pictures and stuff, and I
put them in like, you know, envelopes and mailed them
as we drove out of town. Put them in the
mailbox as we drove out of town.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
On the way back, I got a message on my beeper. Remembered, yeah, yeah, yeah,
no taxt Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I got a message on my beeper from my fiance
at home. She's like, man, you better get home because
there has been sixty seven messages everyone raving about your album.
You're in every paper in town, everywhere. It's just like
people are raving about your new album, World of Noise.
I go, you mean that demo tape? She goes, yes,
get home. You've got cakes all over the Northwest. I'm like, okay,
(07:42):
I'll be there as soon as I can. I think
we were somewhere in Nebraska, So it was about four
days drive, but we were pretty stoked. And we got
home and we went from being unknowns and outsiders to
one of the bigger bands in Portland over the year
and we opened for a lot of nationals and still
did tours and then we got signed to Capitol in
(08:02):
June of nineteen ninety four. It just opened up for
us when people heard the music. And that's the way
it's supposed to be. Music's supposed to do the talking,
not your pr person, not your image, not any of
that stuff. It's all about the music to me, and
that's what has been our fallback is we just keep
putting out music that's honest and true to people keep
(08:24):
picking up on it.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Well, you're certainly all about the music. I gether you're
a bit of a foody as well, because I have
seen a couple of interviews including this one. Aren't were
you are? I guess having lunch looking at the time
where you were? You are a bit of a foody. Now,
some of the places you're going to be on this
to a New Zealand will blow your mind. Queenstown in particular,
is going to be some incredible eateries there for you
to try. I know you're a fan of the crinkle
cut fright.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I am a fan of the crinkled cut fry. But
you know what I'm excited to go to Queenstown. The
only place we've ever been in South Island is christ Church.
We went once many years ago before the earthquake, and
I won eight months after the earthquake, so we're looking
forward to getting back down there. I've got a couple
of guys in my band myself included or Big Jr.
(09:06):
Are talking fans, so we really want to come to
Start Island.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Oh well, we are so excited to see you're going
to be down here on the summer concert. Two are
three shows this January playing with Cultures at Ees House
and beg. Thank you so much for taking the time
to talk to your fans here in New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Thank you so much, good to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Likewise, take care you too.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Gold Asides podcast The stories behind Just Great Rock. If
you enjoyed this podcast, click to share with family or friends.
For Just Great Rock, listen to gold FM anytime anywhere
on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!