Everclear

0:01Thank you. We were just talking about Grand Prairie. You love the Alberta tours. You seem to really know our province pretty well. Oh man, I love the Alberta tours. You guys have the best looking woman in the world. I mean, we're all totally committed men and we walked the line where we're great guys. You can look, you can't touch. We look. That's it. Not even plirting. We don't even flirt. But boy, we just like, oh my god, did you see her? And usually we're to the point where we don't even talk about checks. A pretty girl will walk by and we'll go, yeah, she's hot. Hey, man, if you check out the chili that they got back to you, yeah, that's probably good. That's real thrill on, isn't it? You know, we'll start talking. You're in mature of you. You know, well, it's just, it's all from the fat of us, is what it is.

0:48It's just middle-aged, man. You start, you know, you get a woman, you get a good woman, you don't need to screw around. Food is the, is the, ever change. You got the conch there. Yeah, I mean, food is the thing, but I don't do anything else. It's a good vice. If you're going to have any vice, probably food. As long as you stay a little healthy. Well, I'm 48 and I work out every day and I have to watch what I eat a little bit, whereas I didn't used to at all. Even until like three years ago, I could eat sweets and everything and people would be looking at me like, oh, I hate you. But now I got, I got to watch a little bit. So, moderation. That's what we heard on the road though, because I mean, while we're here on the bus, it's a pretty, pretty sweet. It's pretty swank, yeah. But it must be hard to eat properly on the road. It is. You know, we cook a lot.

1:34We have a grill, we have a George Foreman grill and a slow cooker and I usually make a roast or a chicken or something like that, like two, three times in a tour. Not me, really. And we try to eat better. And, but you're right. I mean, two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning after a gig, you know, it's like you get off work. It's like eight o'clock at night for me, you know. I mean, you get off at a bus at a truck stop and it's not really healthy food at a truck stop. No, you might find the odd banana though. Me, I've seen a few there. Yeah, they're using brown. They're ready for banana breaders, but they're ready for it. Yeah. But, you know, you're right. But you have to work at it a little bit and I drink a lot of water and, oh, oh, boys in the beer. Oh, boys in the band pretty much were pretty straight arrow.

2:21I mean, they drink a little bit, but not much. I don't drink at all. I'm straight and sober. Right. How long? Twenty one years in June. Congratulations. Yeah. About almost about the same time as my daughter turns 18. We talked about your daughter last time, actually. Again, new daughter now. Do you really? Yeah. How old? Two and a half. Wow. So you're a family man now. Yeah. It's harder to go on the road nowadays. I can't. I can't get to Skype and not at the iChat and everything. You know, I see my family every day. Yeah. She sees daddy every day. So that's, you know, I don't come home a stranger and I don't do those three month tours anymore. I do like two to three week tours. Right. So, yeah, it's, you know, and it's, I've taken ahead economically a little bit, but it's a trade-off.

3:10Right. Well, our family's more important. Absolutely. As long as you spare the bills. That's what it's about. I'm a great economics and it just got me thinking that I know you're a Democrat down there and you're big on it. And yeah, I'm a green party guy. You guys don't have anything as far left as you have here. What is it? Oh, I'm talking like your Democrat is our conservative. Yeah, but is the green party, that's not actually true because there's been pretty conservative people in your legislature. Yes, true. But that would definitely be very welcome in the Republican party. Yeah, I agree. I mean, there's some racial issues and immigration issues. You guys got a lot of the same stuff. But you're a lot more humane about it and your right center is a lot more left for you than it is for us. We're in a battle for controlling our country and we're winning it, but it's not an easy fight.

4:01It's not going to be an easy fight. Fighting with thought for health care and we've got it. And, you know, the crazies are all going nuts. Like, it's going to ruin the world. It's not going to ruin the world. It's not. No, of course not. You know, you guys get single hair. We don't even have a public option, but we're working towards it. It's like... You almost did. Oh, you know, we're going to get it. Yeah, we're going to get it. If not, we're going to get it sooner or later. It's a matter of like, I mean, look at the Civil Rights Act of 1957. A lot of people don't know about that. They think about 64. Yeah. But 64 wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for a few months. Exactly. It was really a big deal at the time. And it set the stage and it was done under Eisenhower. Eisenhower administration fought for it. That's when Republicans and Democrats weren't so far apart.

4:48I don't know what happened. It's polarization, man. It's hate and money. Yeah. It's where there's all money at the end of the day. At the end of the day, but I hate it's fuel in it and control. That's the hate, money and control. I can't necessarily in that order. Are things getting better down there at all? Like financially for everyone? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, how's it starting to turn around? Do you kind of be starting to turn around? Yeah. I mean, it's actually turning around a lot. I feel better. I think a lot of people feel better. Our gigs have increased a lot. I'd say 30, 40 percent. Last year was brutal. Last year was brutal across the board for everybody though. It was. But it was especially brutal for me emotionally and financially.

5:33This is a much better year. My daughter got accepted into her number one pick for college. She was swinging for the fans. She got in. Nice. And we're super proud of her. You got to play like a Frosh Week thing for him. No, she wouldn't like everyone. No, I wouldn't like you to do it. Yeah, that happened this year. Last year my wife went to a miscarriage and that was rough. And this year she's doing much better and looking for... I was trying to figure out what she wants to do. She'd get a graduate degree or whatever. But I think everybody's. Everybody on the center to the liberal side of it is feeling pretty happy.

6:19But the right wing is miserable. Those people are angry. Yeah, we see it on the news. It's just anger all the time. Yeah, but don't believe that it's anything other than racial. It is. Yeah, well, I'd like to think it's not, but you're probably... Really? Yeah, you don't want to pay taxes. So you don't want to use our roads? You don't want to use... Yeah, right. No. They weren't like this when Clinton was in there. They didn't like Clinton. No, well, look at what happened to him though. They did everything they're power to impeach him. I still couldn't. Because people loved him. Well, true. Because things were good under Clinton. I did well under Clinton. You've had a level of massive hits under Clinton too. It's kind of worked out. Well, that worked out well. Yeah, but you know, I mean... Yeah, that's true.

7:05That's true. But at the same time, that was in Clinton's second turn. You know, that was 96 on it. So, I don't know. I did pretty well. I mean, the first couple years of the Bush regime, I did pretty well. And I called it a regime because he wasn't elected. So speaking of which Santa Monica was taking... was on that list, right, after 9-11. Yep. Santa Monica and a couple other like obscures on it was Santa Monica was on the list. How did you feel about that? Like, so we're not allowed to play that song at all. Alright, played it. We got a new album coming in soon. Yes, well, well, we got... I'm told August-ish. Well, we're going in the studio this summer. I want to go in the studio May and then we have some issues.

7:55I got a bunch of great songs. This is like the most aggressive record since probably Spark 1 day. That's going back a long time. So yeah, I've got that fire in my building again. I'm pissed off all the time. The politics of me pissed off. But I'm happy too at the same time. I've got a sense of assurance that I didn't have when I was younger. So I think there's more breadth and more depth to a lot of these songs. But I would say a lot of the immediacy reminds me of that. Reminds me of that era afterglow, Spark 1 day. One of the songs on the record is called White People Scare Me. And I don't know that I would have wrote that song, man. I would have thought it, but I don't know if I would have wrote it.

8:41Interesting. And these days, yeah. White people do scare me. Adam Bomb? White people. Not these? White people. Yeah. Probably a tea party. Don't even go there. Do you see any black people there? No, of course not. Yeah, and anyone under 40 or 50? I mean, it's just sad. But that's got to be nice to see. That is no one under 40 or 50. Like the youth understand. Well, I mean, that's the whole thing. They get more pressed than they deserve. Because they're making a lot of noise. Well, and those people walking around with loaded guns, you know, like, oh, my second amendment, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. You're staying your coast and you'll be okay. Yeah, just stay the hell away from me with your gun, man.

9:28You know, I could get a gun. I know how to shoot. I want to shoot people. I want people shooting at me. I sure as hell don't want to go to Starbucks. And I have people with loaded guns. No. I have a podcast, political podcast I do, a couple times a week. And this one thing we did was this guy was the news Starbucks in a few states, Virginia, Georgia, a couple states under pressure by local legislatures decided to allow people to openly wear firearms as Starbucks. Do you really want caffeinated people with loaded guns? Really? That's not a good idea. And it shows this big chubby dude with a cowboy hat drinking a, I don't know, your

10:16rootin' chute, you know, caramel macchiato. And he's got this huge gun. It's huge. It looks like a Yosemite Sam gun. So I had a picture of him and then I showed a picture of Yosemite Sam. You're rooting a chute and caramel macchiato. Yeah, so. Well, tell me about this political podcast. So you're doing more than just music. I heard you were an A&R guy at one point too. I used to be. I used to be. I mean, that's when the music business was still around. Yeah, fair enough. Seriously. Seriously. I do a lot of stuff. I wrote a script. And the process is writing another script working on a book. I'm doing a lot of stuff.

11:01If I was just getting paid for it, I'd be a woman. Okay, one day you'll find a way. We all will. We'll see. You gotta follow your blast. You definitely gotta do it. You love doing this? I do. I gotta find a way to get paid for one day, but I do. There you go, brother. You and me both. When you figured out, you probably got paid pretty well back in the day. I did, but I went through a lot of marriages and they took all my money. All my money was over with them. I went through bankruptcy and all sorts of stuff. Yeah, I could do some living. My woman's a great girl and my daughters are awesome. And I don't know. Baby needs any shoes. Of course. Baby needs daycare. And it's going to Sarah Lawrence, which is one of the most expensive

11:46college in the United States. Wow. She'll make it back though in the back end. We hope so. Yes, I hope so for you. I go, you're taking care of me, kid. Because I'm helping you. I'm putting it out there now and for grad school, fine. She wants to be a lawyer. So that's actually pretty good. She wants to be an anthropologist. I'd be like, oh man, you're never going to make that money back. You'd have a cool job. I'm not rich enough for you exactly. Anthropology is awesome. Sociology, all that stuff. I'm not rich enough for you to have. I'm not a rich girl to degree. Yeah. Fair enough. It is. How come this is a never-clear record coming out? How can you put anything out under art? Because it hasn't felt like art. I would like to do it on our own.

12:31It's like a solo record. But I think it would be weird or probably more acoustic and a little bit more bizarre. One of the things I'm doing right now is I'm scoring a horror movie. I've never scored a movie before. I've written songs for a movie, but I'm doing the whole score. Anything other than guitar? Moderately. How are you scoring? I don't know why I'm just doing a picture of piano. Using keyboards and piano and stuff like that. I get the notes. I hear the notes in my head. I write them down. I work it out here. Then once the director likes where we're going with it, I'll bring in people to really play it. Whether it's strings or keyboards or horror. Is that just what it was presented to you?

13:17They asked me and I said yes. That's really cool. I'm not really a horror guy. I actually acted in the movie. So we'll see. Do you want to do acting again? I like to act. It's fun. It's a door end to film. I went to film school back when I was a kid. And I would like to do more of that. I'm also joined the school online to become a life coach. That's something that people really wanted me to do. I've got a lot of letters that people want me to be like a therapist. I don't really want to be a therapist. I like the idea of coaching people and looking at problems and coming at it like a big brother has been through a lot of crap. You have been through a lot while I was reading prep for this interview. I don't want to go into it because it's all in the old records and try and listen to it.

14:02But yeah, you had one hell of a life grown up. I've had a hell of a life since I've been a grown up. Most of it's been choices. Some of it's not so much. I've learned a lot from it. I think I can help people. I've lived through it. So if I can only do it, they can too. How come it's been a while since we heard from you music-wise? I mean there was an acoustic disc. There was the best of. But the last one was three years ago. I guess it's not that long. But I guess it feels longer because there were the two in between. The cover is all in the name? Yes, sorry. The cover is all in the name. Yeah, the cover was in the late. So it was about two years ago. And then I don't know. It wasn't planned. I mean I've been spending a lot of time with my family. Like I said, I had another daughter.

14:48I've been raising kids and doing stuff and working. I just love the guys in my band now. I love the sound. We're huge. It's just a big rock band. Hope you come tonight and say it's fun. You still bring the girls up on stage at the end? No. They're going to be very disappointed. The wives won't. No. And that's what's important at the end of the day. At the end of the day. Cool. Thank you. Thank you.