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| Birth Name(s) : Art Alexakis |
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Full Art Alexakis Biography
Arthur Paul Alexakis (born on April 12, 1962) is the singer/guitarist and songwriter of the rock band Everclear. He was born in Los Angeles, California.
At a young age, Alexakis' father walked out on the family, leaving Alexakis, his mother, his brother, and his three sisters to fend for themselves. Not long after, financial difficulties forced Alexakis' mother to relocate the family to the Mar Vista Gardens housing projects in California, located in Los Angeles near Culver City.
There, Alexakis came in direct contact with the area's criminal and drug culture. Alexakis' brother George died of a heroin overdose when Alexakis was twelve. A lyric in the song "Heroin Girl" refers to his mother overhearing a police officer describing his brother's death as "just another overdose." A few months after his brother's death, Alexakis' 15-year-old girlfriend committed suicide. Not long after her death, Alexakis attempted suicide by getting high on marijuana, filling his pockets with sand and lead weights, and jumping off the Santa Monica Pier. He claims that the vision and voice of his brother George compelled him to survive.
Regardless, Alexakis' drug addiction continued. Over the next eight years, he was shuffled around between various family members all over the country. He spent a brief period in Houston, Texas, living with his father, and a period in Roseburg, Oregon, living with his sister, a born-again Christian, and her husband. Eventually, he returned to LA to live with his mother. He attended journalism school for a time, and worked as a music reviewer for The Evening Outlook, a small newspaper in Santa Monica. Eventually, a near-fatal cocaine overdose pushed him to quit drugs cold turkey.
After cleaning himself up, Alexakis briefly attended UCLA film school. While living in Los Angeles, he organized a band called Shakin' Brave. Shakin' Brave featured a rather rough rock sound, but never really rose above the sea of music in Southern California. Generally frustrated with the music scene in LA, Alexakis and his first wife Anita relocated to San Francisco.
While living in San Francisco, Alexakis stumbled upon a genre of music known as "cowpunk". The sound meshed together the two prevalent forms of music with which he grew up - country and straight-ahead rock and roll. Inspired, Alexakis established Shindig Records. Much of this period was explicitly detailed in the album, Deep in the Heart of the Beast in the Sun, which was originally intended as a solo album, but gradually developed into a group project under the name Colorfinger.
In 1992, within a single month, Shindig went bankrupt, Colorfinger disbanded, and Alexakis' girlfriend Jenny became pregnant. Seeking a change of scenery, Alexakis moved to Portland, Oregon. There, he married his girlfriend and had a daughter. Though less directly biographical, Everclear's second album, Sparkle and Fade, deals deeply with the themes of escape and redemption that pervaded his life upon leaving San Francisco.
The instability and personal turmoil Alexakis went through left him with a wide breadth of subject matter for his songs. "Father of Mine" and "Why I Don't Believe in God" described his difficult youth. "Heroin Girl", "Strawberry", and "Color Pit" touched upon his drug addictions.
Alexakis has also dabbled in songwriting with other artists, including co-writing the song "At the End of the Day" released on Marion Raven's 2005 and 2007 album Here I Am and Set Me Free respectively.
While pursuing a music career, Alexakis has also dabbled in acting. In 2000, he made brief appearances in the Heather Graham comedy Committed. Two years later, he made cameo appearances in two episodes of The Chris Isaak Show. In 2006, Alexakis appeared on an episode of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide on Nickelodeon, portraying a music teacher. He also had a lead role in the 2006 short film Room to Breathe.
As a result of his history of drug addiction, he has also been involved in drug awareness, including the taping of Public service announcements for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
On January 4, 2005, Alexakis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in United States Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California. According to the filing, Alexakis owed a federal tax bill for the years 1999, 2001 and 2002 of $2.75 million, as well as nearly $230,000 to the Oregon Department of Revenue and more than $120,000 in credit card debt spread over several accounts. As a result to the bankruptcy, Art sold all his rights to the previous Everclear catalogue in order to pay some off.
In August 2006, Alexakis appeared on The O'Reilly Factor discussing the video for "Hater", the first single from Everclear's Welcome to the Drama Club.
With Everclear:
- 1993 – World of Noise
- 1995 – Sparkle and Fade
- 1997 – So Much for the Afterglow
- 2000 – Songs from an American Movie, Vol. 1: Learning How to Smile
- 2000 – Songs from an American Movie, Vol. 2: Good Time for a Bad Attitude
- 2003 – Slow Motion Daydream
- 2004 – Ten Years Gone: The Best of Everclear 1994-2004
- 2006 – Welcome to the Drama Club
Alexakis appeared in the "Music Class" Episode of Ned's Declassified school survival guide as Mr.Gibson, the music instruction teacher. |
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