Art Alexakis

Arthur Paul Alexakis (born April 12, 1962 ) is an American musician best known as the singer-songwriter and guitarist of the rock band Everclear.

He has been a member of several other bands in addition to his own work as a songwriter for other artists.

Alexakis has founded several record labels throughout his career and worked as an A&R representative for major record labels between and during his own musical projects.

Later he became a political activist and lobbied for special concerns which include drug awareness policies and support for the families of the military.

Alexakis was born in Los Angeles, the youngest of five children.

When Art was five years old his father left the family, and financial difficulties forced his mother to relocate the family to the Mar Vista Gardens housing project in California, located on the west side of Los Angeles in Del Rey.

When Alexakis was 8 years old, he was beaten and sexually assaulted by older children in his neighborhood.

His brother George died of a heroin overdose when Alexakis was 12.

That same year, Alexakis's 15-year-old girlfriend died by suicide.

Not long after her death, Alexakis attempted suicide by filling his pockets with sand and lead weights and jumping off the Santa Monica Pier.

Later, he said that the vision and voice of his brother George compelled him to survive.

Alexakis started shooting up when he was 13, mostly taking crystal methamphetamine.

He became addicted to heroin and cocaine, and he survived a cocaine overdose when he was 22.

He quit drugs cold turkey in June 1989.

Alexakis took film classes at Los Angeles Community College.

While living in Los Angeles in the '80s, Alexakis was in 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.

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", a style merging two prevalent forms of music with which he grew up — the tunefulness of country and the distorted guitars/fast tempo of rock and roll.

Inspired, Alexakis established Shindig Records.

He spent several years with his cowpunk band, the Easy Hoes that formed in the late '80s and released one album, Tragic Songs of Life, in 1989.

Alexakis's next project began as a solo album but grew into a group project under the name Colorfinger.

This band released the album, Deep in the Heart of the Beast in the Sun as well as an EP, Demonstration.

Only the full-length album was made available for sale.

Both were released on Alexakis's Shindig Records.

A few songs originally performed by Colorfinger were made into Everclear songs, such as "Why I Don't Believe in God", "Invisible," "The Twistinside", "Heartspark Dollarsign", and "Hateful".

Following a move to Portland, Alexakis placed an ad in The Rocket seeking a bass player and a drummer to form a new band.

Alexakis had two respondents, Craig Montoya and Scott Cuthbert.

The trio became the first incarnation of Everclear.

After Cuthbert was replaced by Greg Eklund, the band spent the better part of a decade as a dominant act on alternative rock radio.

The band scored three platinum albums in Sparkle & Fade, So Much for the Afterglow, and Songs from an American Movie Vol. One: Learning How to Smile.

The instability and personal turmoil Alexakis experienced throughout his life would directly inspire his lyrics.

"Father of Mine" and "Why I Don't Believe in God" described his difficult youth, while "Heroin Girl", "Strawberry", and "Color Pit" touched upon his drug addictions.

Everclear's breakthrough album, Sparkle & Fade, deals with the themes of escape and redemption that pervaded his life upon leaving San Francisco.

While finding success as a musical act and songwriter, Alexakis took on other projects within the music industry.

For several years, he served as an A&R representative for Capitol Records.

In 1996, he produced Frogpond's album, Count to Ten.

In the early 2000s, Alexakis established his own label, Popularity Recordings, as a subsidiary of Artemis Records.

He produced the label's first release, the 2002 album Volume by Flipp.

The label closed in 2003.