Arthur Paul Alexakis was born on the 12th April, 1962 in West Los Angeles, California. He grew up lower-middle-class in a housing project in Culver City, California. The youngest of five children (one other brother, and 3 sisters), Art was raised by his mother. When He was only five years old, his father ran out on him and his family, leading to his parents divorced. Art based the song Father Of Mine on on these events. Art sumed up his father once in an interview, "My dad never paid child support and was basically an asshole". He used to send Art a birthday card and a Christmas card every year with a five dollar bill and that was all he ever heard from him, "that was my dad".
For the next 5 years until he was age 10, Art lived in the Culver City housing project with his mom. At age 8, Art first starting drinking, at 9 he was smoking marijuana, he was dropping acid at age 11, and he shot dope when he was 13. In 1974, at the age of 12, a tragic event occurred in Art's life. His older brother, George, to whom Art was very close and looked up to a great deal, died of a Heroin overdose. He was only 21. This affected Art and his family a great deal. "I kind of went off the deep end. My whole family kind of fell apart." In the song Heroin Girl Art refers to an event from this incident with the line "I heard a policeman say just another overdose". His mother actually did hear a policeman say this. Art tried to kill himself sometime shortly after his brother George died. He jumped off a bridge into a river, but he survived because he said he heard the voice of his brother telling him to live. So Art swam and barely survived. He was rushed to a hospital after he was found.
Throughout his teenage years, Art got into a lot of trouble with the police, and he spent some time in Juvenile Hall, and later on in life, jail. He was charged with burglary, possession, dealing, and even assault one time. He was in a bad crowd, doing a lot of drugs, but he was also playing music. "I got a guitar and played and played and played," he says, "I was just a guitar player for a long time, plus I was doing a lot of drugs. Cocaine, speed, heroin. To me it was cool to do that. That was my identity. Drugs. I did drugs. And I didn't like myself enough to think that I could do anything else, basically."
When Art turned 18, he received $10 000 as insurance money from the death of his brother. With part of this money, he went out and bought a black Toyota Corolla. However, four years later the car was stolen and Art used the insurance money from the theft to buy cocaine. He was now 22 years old (1984). He shot up, overdosed and nearly died. This event caused Art to decide to go cold turkey and he's been straight ever since. "I overdosed really bad," he says. "I tried to put quarters of a gram of coke in one shot in my arm. I woke up with the paramedics. About six months later, I started having anxiety and panic attacks real bad and had to get treatment for that. That's basically when I just cleaned my life up. Quit smoking, quit drinking. It was either that or put a gun to my head."
For the next few years Art spent his time trying to get his life back into order. He worked in a lot of different jobs, including road manager for small bands, driver, and many more. He also studied film at Santa Monica College and U.C.L.A., and he was in 2 other bands called the Easy Hoes and Shakin' Brave. In 1987 he moved to San Francisco with his first wife, Anita, and he eventually started up his own record label, Shindig Records, an indie label specializing in alternative bands with countryish styles. At the same time he started up a solo project which later became a band by the name of Colorfinger.
He released an album with Colorfinger called Deep In The Heart Of The Beast In The Sun in the year 1990 on Shindig. He sent the album off to Geffen Records A&R man Gary Gersh (who would later become the president of Capitol Records), because he was the guy who had signed bands such as SonicYouth, and Nirvana. "He sent me a letter saying I think this stuff sounds kind of dated but I think your voice is cool and I think you write really great songs. Please keep sending me new stuff. He wrote by hand, 'Gary.' "
Colorfinger toured a tiny bit and gained a few fans around the San Francisco area, but they never signed a major label deal.A short while later Shindig's distributor, Rough Trade, went bankrupt and therefore Shindig went down. The lose of Shidig set off a chain reaction of bad fortune in Art's life. Colorfinger broke up, and Art and Anita devorced. While single Art met record store clerk Jenny Dodson. In 1991, Art and his new girlfriend Jenny decided to move to Portland, Oregon. "I moved to Portland because my life was falling apart, because my record label went under, my girlfriend's pregnant, my band's falling apart. So I'm going to go to Portland."
In 1992 Art placed an ad in a local Pacific Northwest newspaper, The Rocket. The ad recieved two responses, one from bass player Craig Montoya, and one from drummer Scott Cuthbert. The three held their first practice four days after the birth of Art's daughter, Annabella Rose. The 3 recorded the demo for a mear $400 as a tape to give to clubs to get gigs. This same demo would later be known as World of Noise, Everclear's 1993 debut album. Art released World of Noise through local indie record label Tim/Kerr. Unhappy with Tim/Kerr's promotion of the album, Art promoted the album himself, gaining the interest of many major record labels, including Capitol Records now headed by Gary Gersh. In 1994, Art dismissed Scott Cuthbert from the band for breaking his no drug policy. Art later hired local drummer Greg Eklund, not telling him of Capitol Records' interest in the band. Thus, forming the rock trio we know today.
