REAL LIFE
From Issue #4
THE FAZE INTERVIEW WITH: EVERCLEAR
Talking about breaking up!
By Julia Dascalescu
Offbeat
yet whimsical, shirt revealing a few strategically placed tattoos,
bleached blond or black hair (but never medium brown), an ironic
half-twisted smile, and chewing pink bubblegum: the portrait
of a rock star. Well, at least that's what you'd see if looking
at Everclear. You'd see a band rimmed with a darker edge that
seems to accompany the trappings of rock groups, yet underlying
that surface, a sense of optimism often associated with pop
music. If anything, Everclear has enjoyed playing with the duality
of their musical ability in their newest releases. But, good
comes with the bad and these opposites are inextricably linked:
not even rock stars escape the common fate of anyone with a
heart.
Art
Alexakis, the lead singer of Everclear, has been through divorce.
Not just of his parents, but his own. He seems to know a thing
or two about this increasingly common practice among North Americans,
as the divorce rate pans out at fifty percent. Art muses upon
these grim odds with a sense of practicality: "…being
second generation children of divorce, we've learned more about
how to have a divorce, which in some ways is better for our
children, although it is a bad indictment on our society…whereas
back in the late '60s and '70s no one knew how to get a divorce."
While the learning process has been invaluable to sparing his
own daughter from the pain he felt, Art cannot help but also
admit that divorce has become so common that society has become
detached.
Art's
youthful exterior is betrayed by his voice, which speaks with
the certainty and wisdom of experience. One expects careless
anecdotes to come streaming out, but instead, Art takes a look
in the past with a calm but not embittered seriousness. As a
child, he never really experienced stability. In fact, probably
the first lessons life served up were harsher than most can
fathom for a child seeking security. "In my experience
as a child of divorce, I felt abandoned by my father."
Art says this factually, perhaps because time has distanced
some of the more painful emotions, as he recounts the general
difficulties of growing up. " I felt loved by my mother,
very much loved, but trying to raise as many kids as my mom
did, on very little money made her a little neurotic and crazy.
I mean what mom isn't?…but it made my mom a little more
neurotic and crazy," Art smiles. You get that sense of
duality again, that Art is very good at accepting the good with
the bad. Looking over at Craig Montoya, the guitarist, leads
to the recounting of a similar scenario of experiencing divorce
as a child. " Since I was so young, and my dad split, I
didn't have a male role model." An unfortunate common bond
between Art and Craig that draws a parallel of their childhoods.
" I was pretty young… I don't remember a lot of it,
but I remember a lot of yelling, a lot of fighting, a lot of
confrontation. And I think at such a young age it shaped me
in a kind of way that my whole life I basically avoided confrontation.
I don't like to argue with people. I stuffed a lot of things
inside."
Repression
is another common bond between Art and Craig. Art plainly states
that people just didn't talk about those kinds of things when
he was growing up, and Craig's family viewed counselling as
something to be looked down upon. Neither had anyone to talk
to as adolescence reared its rebellious head. Craig remembers
his journey as one where the lack of guidance led to a destructive
life. "I was just kinda thrown out there on the ice, slipping
and sliding until I found a niche or a crack that I fit into,
and unfortunately that was drinking, drugs, and music."
Perhaps not so unfortunate for the latter part. But to his own
detriment, Craig felt he belonged with the "cool stoner
guys." And so he spiralled downwards. "I started taking
things to extremes…to feel more, to experience things quicker…I
had to hit rock bottom. Basically lose my job, get kicked out
of my house, get busted by the cops, everything to finally realize
that drugs and drinking were really bad for me."
"Hindsight
is worth a million dollars," states Art when asked what
he would have done differently while dealing with the divorce
of his parents. "Having known then what I know now…
I would have believed in myself." The simplicity is endearing.
A man who at a considerable height looks down at the people
he speaks to stares off as he says, " I would have worked
it out somehow to make myself feel empowered. I wouldn't have
done drugs, and drank, and tried to escape through that route.
It didn't make me feel better, it made me feel worse."
Art didn't know what he was about, never mind the world of academia
and textbooks. " I would have paid way more attention in
school and just learned more about what made me tick."
Craig looks back and makes a few plainly stated regrets. "I
would have communicated with my parents more about it, and the
people around me. Going to the sources instead of escaping it,
instead of just forgetting about it, and hoping it'll go away.
There's always a solution, there's always an answer…"
It seems almost too easy to make these comments now, as the
many years of experience and knowledge distance them from the
pain and uncertainty of their youth.
It
seemed as if life was creating an uncanny sense of deja vu for
both Craig and Art as they came face to face with their own
divorces after experiencing the separation of their parents.
It was almost a challenge, or perhaps even a test to see if
misfortune had taught them anything. And their approach to the
entire process is what made them different than their parents.
Art explains, "My ex-wife was a child of divorce as well,
and when we got together and knew we were going to have a child,
we made the agreement then and there that if anything happened
to our marriage, we would never do what our parents did to us…we
kept it very amicable. Craig also fought to avoid the past.
" I tried really hard to keep my marriage together even
though I knew it was wrong for me. We went to counselling countless
times, but she just wasn't right for me. I didn't argue with
her, I just tried to get a common ground…" Craig's
past came rolling back in the form of his own divorce but accepting
the differences and struggling to work diligently was the real
turning point. He was glad he didn't hear his own voice screaming
and shouting, not eerily echoing his parents.
After
looking back in retrospect one instinctively wonders what the
future holds. What realisations can be drawn from these occurrences?
Looking at Art, what does he hope his daughter, grown up ten
years from now, will take away from her experience as a child
of divorce? "Consistency. That we were consistent and that
she grew up feeling loved, level, stable, and that she felt
secure." This importance of security becomes even more
evident when he puts it into context. "I counted not too
long ago, in my life, I have moved place of residence sixty-seven
times (he looks away) I have lived in sixty-seven different
places." Suddenly stability seems like a precious gift
that he can offer his daughter.
Is
Art finally learning how to smile and care about the world again?
"I've always cared about the world. That's never been an
issue. But with learning how to smile, it's been learning how
to feel comfortable within my own skin, and to feel accepted,
and to feel empowered, and to feel worthy." These are the
words of a rock star. Someone who basks in the light of fame
and yet realizes that this knowledge is priceless, and hard
to come by at a younger age. Craig although somewhat deep in
thought, surfaces to say, "I'm happier than I've been in
a long time…it was getting kinda crazy in my head there
for awhile…but I couldn't ask for anything better right
now. I'm ready to hit the road, I'm very happy. I'm in a good
place."
