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

Transcript

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

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: With the John and Ben podcast.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Cheers to Dilma making the world a bitter Tea. Well,
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: good morning to you. It's afternoon here, but I'm glad
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: you guys are having a good morning.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: Where are we at the moment?
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I talk roomily and I can see a lot of pimes.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: I'm in my office. I have a studio in the back.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I'm in Pasadena. I'm about a mile from my house.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Oh that's great. Are you next door to the other businesses?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: And do they know what you're doing in there?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Well, there are a couple of businesses over here. They
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: know who I am, but they're older people. They don't
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: really care.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So you're about to go on tour to New Zealand.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: You're coming back. You haven't been here for what seven years?
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: I think very exciting. It's been a minute coming over
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: a summertime as well. That's when the weather hope, well
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: now I say it's probably not going to be, but
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: hopefully we put on our best weather for you.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: There's never a bad time to come to New Zealand.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I've been there every season and it's always been lovely
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: and seriously, we're looking forward to coming back. Going to
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: be great.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's good and appreciate you not forgetting us
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: so sometimes we left off the world map.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we are in New.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Zealandery we're a very forgettable country. So we appreciate you
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: you including us. Now we must let you in on
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a little Every week we do a game where we
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: each pick a song, a song from yes to year,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: and we champion it and then the listener votes which
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: one we play every week, and being and myself, we've
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: never had a win. We've never had a win with
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: this Meghan, who we work with one hundred percent success
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: rate in this game.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's pretty good. And so we thought today John
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: and myself will team up and we choose ever clear
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: you know, a song from you, maybe Santa Monica, and
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: we might surprise Meghan with the fact that you're joining us,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: just to make our case for your song a little stronger.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Is that?
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's okay, but you're going all loose. Women are
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: always SMARTERO.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: You figure that out, amen, we're slowly figuring it out.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Meghan knows this. There's something I thought.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: So something's gone on now. Meghan, you know every week
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: how you and throwback Thursday?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that. You point that out. I do, Yeah,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: you do.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: And we're John and I. We've been gutted about the
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: fact that we haven't won. So we thought we'd team
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: up together and we'd pick a great song, Santa Monica
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: from Evercleaire, And just to really help our case, we've
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: got Art, the lead singer of Everclear, with us right now.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, Oka, Hi, how's it going? They've really what
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: up to me? Now?
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Have you got the artist for your song? No, you haven't,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: We've got the artist. No, Art wrote this song. This
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: is a song that you wrote, the safe Place, the
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: safe haven in your life? Right Art? Santa Monica.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I was missing living next to the ocean. I
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: was missing Santa Monica. So I wrote the song about
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: comfort zones which I don't mention Santa Monica one, and
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: I named it Santa Monica, which irritated the record label.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: What's the World Get? Swim out past the Breakers? Oh?
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Such a good song.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Actually, my favorite movie is Romeo and Juliet, and your
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: song Local God as a big five of mine as well.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Are you going to pick another?
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Ever you never went out?
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: That's a smart place.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I'm going like, who got Okay? All right, Well we
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: go everyone, Megan, you didn't hear me before I go.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what song you're gonna pick, you're gonna
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: lose because women are smarter and better than that. Yeah,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: and I figured that out my forties.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: These guys it was.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: It was a song that was banned temper reily, wasn't
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: it after the Horrible of Eats? Not eleven? But it
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: seemed an unusual one to be banned from radio play.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Which one WI song was that Santa Monica?
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Was it?
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Band was on the list of band songs.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, because it said watch the world die
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: a cup bam. You got to remember art conservatives were
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: in power over here as they raised their heads up
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: every you know, eight to twelve years. The religious right,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: who just you know, try to control everybody and make
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: them think like they do. So they're they're the book
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: in my world.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Politicians even ask to use your music. Sometimes you hear
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: those stories.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Oh really, usually politicians that I don't like, And I'm like,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: they're always trying to use Born in the USA. Yeah,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And Bruce is like, man, if you guys listen to
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: the lyrics of the song, it's not Yeah, this is.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Very unpatriotic hasn't been a war veteran, right, It's.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Like it's a protest song. Yeah, it's a hardcore protest song. Yeah.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Well I guess, I guess if you if you don't
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: listen to the verses and just the chorus, it's a
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: hell of a patreoon again.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just the one line.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: We're very excited about efically coming to New Zealand and
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: then yourself being back here because you have really interesting life.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Music really helped you tune your life around, right, Well.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, music was the vehicle that I you know,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: it helped me overcome my low self esteem. I grew
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: up very poor. I was abused very badly when I
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: was younger. My brother died when I was young. My
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: parents divorced and lived in a housing project, and it
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: was It was a rough childhood growing up. I would
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: use that damage as a motor sometimes with anger and
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: rage to be successful. It took me finding songwriting for
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: a way to do that without hurting people. Because I was.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: I was a drug dealer, I was violent, I carried
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: a gun. I was I was not a nice personally.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I was a nice person, but I was just I
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: was scared when people are scared they do bad things.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: And when I finally came into my own, like this
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: is something that's mine that I can do, it sounds
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: like me.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: People can scenes when you're not being all scenes, you
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: can't they.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, we're in the middle of a presidential election
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: that is just on fire right now. I mean, I'm
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: sure you gout. You know it's going on and everyone's
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: losing their mind. I'm enjoying it. Can you guys read
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: my shirtc.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Is not as spectator as they sport down the bottom exactly. Now,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: it's probably a terrible time to tell you that being
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: is a Trump.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Supporter, say, American politics is something that we were not
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: a lot about, but we're just like, wow, there's a
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: lot going on.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: As you say, man, if you're a Trump's supporter, you're
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: just must be driven too much. He just came back
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: from America.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: Look what he got me as a prison do you know?
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I was a cam driver. On the way back. He
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: was like, I'm not into politics, and then he and
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh god. But so we had a
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: chat and then he gave me a sticker that said
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: Trump into Greatness.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, let's talk about greatness.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Disturbing thing is it's a homemade sticker. It's not even
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: like a professionally printed sticker as well. Yeah, no, he's gone.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: He said he was not political.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: But then then I left. I said, I left with
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: a stick and I was like, and I felt in
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: New Zealanders, we're too polite to say no, do anything
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: because you're like, oh yeah, yeah. Anyway, Well, we can't
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: wait to have you back. It's going to be amazing
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: playing all the hats, and thank you for putting your
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: weight behind and well both your songs that we're going
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: to play in just a moment, one of them is
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: going to wait.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Means going to work.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: You're right, she's got your vote. Good on your lovely
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: chatting with your mate, and I look forward to seeing you.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: You're chatting with you guys. Thanks for having me. I
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: hope you guys come out to the shows.