The Sober Sit-Down: Art Alexakis of Everclear

If you’ve followed Everclear at any point over the last three decades, you already know that beneath the sweet-sounding, radio-ready power pop of the Portland, Oregon outfit’s music, frontman Art Alexakis never sugarcoated a damn thing. He’s always been the guy who turned the ugliest parts of his life into songs, ones that just happened to be incredibly catchy and resonated with millions.

But hearing those tracks now, with everything we know in hindsight, you realize they weren’t just hits; they were flare-bright warnings and often brutally autobiographical. Alexakis lost his brother to a heroin overdose and his girlfriend to suicide before his teenage years even began. He tried to take his own life at one point, and when that didn’t work, he was swallowed by a different, yet just as deadly, form of self-destruction using hard drugs and alcohol to cope.

Eventually, and luckily, he entered the sober lifestyle.

And while many assume time smooths out the rough edges, the 63-year-old Alexakis is living proof that life doesn’t always stick to that script. Back in 2016, creeping up on three decades of sobriety – an achievement most would frame as the triumphant second act – he found himself facing a completely different kind of fight. A minor fender bender led to the discovery that a rare form of multiple sclerosis had been quietly sabotaging his body. When he let fans in on what was happening, it wasn’t an admission of weakness; it was him drawing a line, so nobody mistook his symptoms for a relapse.

To read the rest of my Sober Sit-Down with Art Alexakis, head over to The Sober Curator. Below is one of my favorite solo songs of his, “Overwhelming,” which came out on the soundtrack to the film Permanent Midnight.