Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - We chat to 90s icon Art Alexakis from the American rock band Everclear!

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

We catch up with the lead vocalist of Everclear, Art Alexakis! The boys use him to cheat a hopeful win in Thursday Throwback. He shares his opinion on Ben's Trump sticker... We dive deep into his struggles growing up and how he used songwriting to control his emotions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hits, with the Jono and Ben podcast. Cheers to Dilma, making the world a better tea. Well, good morning to you. It's afternoon here, but I'm glad you guys are having a good morning. Where are we at the moment? What room are we in? I can see a lot of plants. I'm in my office. I have a studio in the back. I'm in Pasadena. I'm about a mile from my house. Oh, that's great. Are you next door to other businesses, and do they know what you're doing in there? Well, there are a couple of businesses over here. They know who I am, but they're older people.

They don't really care. Well, you're about to go on tour to New Zealand. You're coming back. You haven't been here for, what, seven years, I think? Very exciting. It's been a minute. Coming over. Summertime as well.

That's when the weather, well, now I say it's probably not going to be, but hopefully we put on our best weather for you. There's never a bad time to come to New Zealand. I've been there every season, and it's always been lovely. And seriously, we're looking forward to coming back. Yeah, it's going to be great. Yeah, no, it's good. And I appreciate you not forgetting us.

Sometimes we're left off the world map. Yeah, we are. In New Zealand. Yeah, no, it's good. And I appreciate you not forgetting us. Sometimes we're left off the world map. Yeah, we are. We're a very forgettable country, so we appreciate you including us. Now, Art, we must let you in on a little bit. Every week we do a game where we each pick a song from yesteryear and we champion it and then the listener votes which one

we play every week. And Ben and myself, we've never had a win. We've never had a win with this Megan, who we work with. 100% success rate in this game. Yeah, she's pretty good. And so we thought today, Jono and myself, we'll team up and we'd choose Everclear,

you know, a song from you, maybe Santa Monica. And we might surprise Megan with the fact that you're joining us just to make our case for your song a little stronger. Is that okay? It's okay, but you're going to lose. Women are always smarter and better than us. Haven't you young men figured that out yet?

Amen, brother. Amen. Well, we're slowly figuring it out. Megan knows there's something afoot. Megan knows something's going on. Now, Megan, you know every week how you win Throwback Thursday. Yeah, I like that you point that out. I do, yeah.

You do, and Jono and I, we've been gutted about the fact that we haven't won, so we thought we'd team up together and we'd pick a great song. Santa Monica from Everclear. And just to really help our case, we've got Art, the lead singer of Everclear, with us right now. Hello? Hello. Okay, Matt.

Hi. How's it going? They've really one-upped me now. Yeah. Have you got the artist for your song? No, you haven't. We've got the artist. No.

Art wrote this song. This is a song that you wrote about the safe place, the safe haven in your life, right, Art? Santa Monica. Right. Well, I was missing living next to the ocean. I was missing Santa Monica. So I wrote this song about comfort zones,

which I don't mention Santa Monica. And I named it Santa Monica, which irritated the record label to no end. They're like, oh, what's the world die? Tell it to swim out past the breakers. Oh, such a good song. Actually, my favorite movie is Romeo and Juliet and your song Local God is a big favorite of mine as well.

Are you going to pick another ever? You'd have a way to ask. That's a smart play. God is a big favourite of mine as well. Are you going to pick another Everclear song? You'd have a win, huh? That's a smart play. Do you want to pick that one? I'm going with Local God. I love that song. Alright, well there we go. Megan, you didn't hear me before. I go, it doesn't matter what song you're going to pick,

you're going to lose because women are smarter and better than you. And I figured that out in my 40s. These guys. Was this song banned temporarily, wasn't it, after the horrible events of 9-11? But it seemed an unusual one to be banned from radio play. Which one?

What song was that? Santa Monica. Was that banned? Was it on a list of banned songs? Yeah, yeah, because it said, watch the world die. ACOP band, you got to remember uh arch conservatives were in power over here as they raise their heads up every you know 8 to 12 years the religious right who just you know try to control everybody and make them think like they

do so they're they're the book banners in my world uh do politicians ever ask to use your music sometimes you hear those stories oh yeah oh really usually politicians that I don't like and I'm like they're always trying to use born in the USA yeah and Bruce is like man have you guys listened to the lyrics of this song it's not yeah this is very unpatriotic it's been a war veteran right it's like it's a protest song yeah it's a hardcore protest song yeah well i guess i guess if you uh if you don't listen to uh the verses and just the chorus it's a hell of a patriotic anthem yeah yeah just the one line right oh we're very excited about everclear coming to new zealand and yourself being back here because you're a really interesting life. Music really helped you turn your life around, right? My brother died when I was young. My parents divorced and lived in a housing project. And it was a rough childhood growing up.

I would use that damage as a motor sometimes with anger and rage to be successful. It took me finding songwriting for a way to do that without hurting people. Because I was a drug dealer i was violent i carried a gun i was uh i was not a nice person really you don't you didn't i was i was a nice person but i was just i was scared when people are scared they do bad things yeah and uh when i finally came into my own like this is something that's mine that i can do it sounds like me people can they can sense when you're not being authentic can't they yeah man i'm we're in the middle of a presidential election that is just on fire right now i mean i'm sure you guys know

what's going on yeah and uh yeah everyone's losing their mind i'm i'm enjoying it can you guys read my shirt democracy is not a spectator does it say sport down the bottom exactly yeah now it's probably a terrible time to tell you that ben is a trump supporter we say out we american politics is something that we we we know a lot about but we're just like wow there's a lot going on as you say man if you're a trump supporter you just you must you must be drinking too much he just came back from america look what he got me as a present no the do you know i was a cab driver on the way back he was like i'm not into politics and then he and i was like oh good but so we had a chat and then he gave me a sticker that said trump uh to return to greatness okay, let's talk about greatness.

What were you returning to? The disturbing thing is it's a homemade sticker. It's not even like a professionally printed sticker as well. Is it really? Yeah, no, he's gone. He said he was not political. No, but then I left with a sticker, and I was like, New Zealanders,

we're too polite to say no to anything. So you're like, oh, yeah, yeah. Anyway, we can't wait to have you back it's going to be amazing playing all the hats and thank you for putting uh your weight behind and we'll both your songs that we're going to play in just a moment one of them's going to win megan's gonna win i haven't even seen that you're right she's got your vote hey good on you lovely chatting with you mate and i look forward to seeing you good chatting with you guys thanks for having me i hope you guys come out to the shows