from: Wesleyan College Paper
written by: Kelly Gleason
date: 4.2001

On Friday night Everclear, with openers Flipp and The Mayfield Four, rocked out in Rockefeller gym in what can best be described as a loud, raucous assault on the ears and a sweet, shirt-drenched sweat fest where the floors shook like they haven’t in a long, long time. The concert was a blast, but the sound, well, sucked. Of course, not all can be blamed on the bands, or at least on their music. Our gym is not the greatest place to have a concert, and sound ricocheted off every surface and sounded fuzzy and was, for sure, damn loud. The lead singer of The Mayfield Four mentioned that every technical problem that could have gone wrong did, but that still it was one hell of a show. I had the opportunity to sit down with the bands, and the interviews are below. Only Art Alexakis, the lead singer for Everclear, was available for a chat, and Chia Karaoke, “the worst guitar player in West Virginia,” was the only one I spoke to from Flipp. Still the same, all three were really informative and a helluva lot of fun, and my notes are below.

Art Alexakis

Alexakis seemed really normal and just a cool person to talk to, proclaiming to be anti-rock star. He’s married, with a daughter, and writes many of his songs on the hardships of growing up without a father and in a tough city (Los Angeles). This inner tranquility and peacefulness, however, didn’t stop him from asking one of the girls at the concert to go back to the hotel with him, minus her friends. All the same, he was an interesting person to talk with and answered my questions cordially, wholeheartedly, and, something that struck me, remembered my name after the interview.

Pharos: So how do you like West Virginia so far?” I asked as we snaked our way past speakers, ducked under wires then headed out into the cold cement hallway steps of Rockefeller gymnasium. The lead singer of Everclear, Art Alexakis, seemed relaxed and, more importantly, incredibly down-to-earth, and as we continued on our way outside to escape the noise of the sound checks, he answered a few questions. “I like what I’ve seen so far,” Alexakis said of West Virginia, “I almost ended up here 15 years ago.
P: Really. For what?
A: I got accepted to the film school here, but I didn’t come out.
P: Oh up at WVU?
A: No, here at this school.
P: Really. I didn’t even know we had a film school.
We stepped outside and wandered between the buses, eventually settling on a concrete slab out back where the Alladin employees smoke.
P: How do you handle the popularity of being a rock star? The Beatles once said they felt trapped by their own popularity - is it hard to be a prisoner of your own fame?
A: First off, you can’t compare us to The Beatles. We’re not at that level nor will we ever be. I get recognized a lot of places I go, and some of the other guys are getting recognized more also. But we’re not at that level.
P: Do you ever find it hard to not be able to focus wholly on the music? Or has that never been a problem?
A: No, it’s all about the music. When we’re on the road it’s the only thing that keeps us going. Everything else - the adulation, the attention, the media, all that crap, we do it in spite of that stuff. The autographs, some people look forward to that stuff; we see it as a necessary evil and a necessary part of what we do. I don’t want to say, you know, I mean, we get a lot of attention. When people start singing “Father of Mine” as I walk down the hall, I just kind of ignore that. But if people come up to me and say, “Hey, are you Art? Are you in Everclear?” Then I’m like, “yeah.” Nine times out of ten I’ll sign an autograph or take a picture with somebody. I don’t understand it, I’ve never asked anyone for that, but it really seems to matter to a lot of people, you know?
P: What’s up with Flipp and The Mayfield Four?
A: Mayfield Four is a great band, we’ve known them for a long time. They’ve got a really amazing new album coming out that I think is going to make them HUGE. Myles, their singer, and Craig, our bass player - that band is from Spokane - Myles and Craig grew up together. And Flipp is just a band that came to our attention that we’re just crazy about their cd. They’re an indy band. They’re like a cross between Kiss, Sex Pistols, and Cheap Trick - all three positive bands. They kick serious ass.
P: Do you guys still get nervous when you perform?
A: Oh yeah. I get nervous every show. If I’m not nervous it’s usually because I’m too wound up about something else, like something else that’s going on, like a video or my wife couldn’t get backstage, or someone was an asshole to my family. You know, something’s got me distracted, or else usually I’m nervous. But once I walk on stage and feel the crowd, it turns to excitement.
P: What do you think about Napster in terms of smaller bands like Flipp and Mayfield Four - will it be hard for them?
A: No, no because there’s other situations coming up right now. I think that if a band wants to have a record shared for a certain amount of time then they should be able to do that, it should be something that’s cool…Napster is, is ya know, just an innovator. Innovators rarely reap the benefits of the things they create. They [Napster] didn’t make it ligit. They didn’t pay the artists and the label. If they’d of done that, there wouldn’t be a big hoopla about it, it wouldn’t be as big as it is, and it would still be around, still making a lot of money for them and for the label. I think file sharing is inevitable, whether I like it or not. So I’ve accepted it. The fact that there will be people who want two or three Everclear songs - that’s fine, buy ‘em. You don’t go to the store to buy a slice of bread, you buy the whole loaf. Same thing with hamburger buns.
P: But they always sell the hotdog buns with less buns than there are dogs.
A: Why is that? It’s not fair.

The Mayfield Four

Camped out in their locker room-converted dressing room, The Mayfield Four, from Spokane, Washington, were more than willing to sit down and chat about music, life on the road, and gay humor - not necessarily in that order. Three of the four, Myles Kennedy (vocals/guitar), Marty Meisner (bass), and Zia Uddin (drums), grew up together in Spokane, where they knew each other since elementary school. Joining the original three is Allessandro, from Italy, who plays guitar. With their laid-back attitudes and the kind of personalities that would fit in wherever decency, politeness, and sincerity were required, these fellows might just go far on personality alone. With endorsements from Everclear and an Epic record label (and a new album coming out this summer, Second Skin), The Four are poised to leap up to grandeur status. Excerpts of their funny, witty responses to my queries are below.

Pharos: So on your website it says The Mayfield Four but there’s only three of you. Now there’s four.
Myles: Allessandro is the newest addition, he’s from Italy.
P: As a band that’s on the rise, how do you feel about Napster in terms of artists’ rights and money?
Myles: It’s a really complicated issue. In a lot of ways, it exposes a lot of bands that would otherwise not have been heard of.
Zia: I think that the main problem that happened with Napster is that the music industry was too slow to catch on to the technology; it was too slow to realize that this could be something that could really explode in our faces if we don’t set up some kind of provisions so that artists are, are getting their royalties from whatever’s taken from Napster and that kind of thing. So I think the main issue’s we were too slow to realize that hey, technology is at the forefront right now. Napster will need to set up some provisions and guidelines so that artists can their royalties. I don’t have - I don’t think anyone has - an issue with Napster so long as, as it’s fair to the artist.
Myles: I’d agree with that. To a point it is copyright infringement. I mean, it takes a while for someone to create it, and then other people are gonna get it for free. A lot of people don’t realize that songs, when you get those royalties, unless you’re like, Led Zeppelin or something, touring is not that much money. So those royalties are actually pretty important.
P: Have you played in West Virginia before?
Myles: Yeah I know we’ve played here before, not here, but…
Zia: It was outdoors somewhere.
P: At WVU?
Myles: I don’t recall. I don’t recall. I mean, after a while they all kind of blend in. The places that stick out are where there’s enthusiasm…like tonight. There was a lot of pent up enthusiasm here, God.
Zia: Yeah (laughs).
Myles: I mean it’s great. I mean, it makes our job that much easier.
Zia: How often do bands come?
P: Every spring.
Myles: Oh every spring.
Zia: So this is it here, obviously.
P: Yeah.
Myles: It’s like having sex once a year.
Zia: It was great, great energy.
Myles: It was unreal.
Zia: It’s cool, it was a blast. Lot of energy, and it’s a beautiful area.
P: How long have you guys been on the road?
Zia: Uh, tonight is like officially our first night being back out on the road. We took a long break to write and record, so this is really our first tour, our first national tour back.
P: Does it feel good to be back on tour?
Myles: Oh yeah.
Zia: It was amazing, yeah, it was a blast. We had all kinds of technical difficulties on stage and despite that it was f**king blast.
Myles: Like everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. Everything. Guitars were breaking, all my stuff totally fell down and broke.

Flipp (w/ Chia Karaoke)

This was one of those interviews where parts of the tape should be destroyed so as to not incriminate anyone. If Art Alexakis was the well-spoken one, and The Mayfield Four were the nice ones, Flipp were the cool guys. After listening to a couple of their opening songs, and getting a cool picture (that didn’t turn out) of the guy in the jetpack spraying the sparks, we left, because our ears hurt. Make no mistake - these guys’ music is not great. Frankly, it’s not really even good. It is loud, and their music video for “Rockstar” is not only semi-musical, but well done also. As for their live show, it’s more of a performance thing than anything else - these guys are entertaining. And they might go far. The band is composed of Brynn Arens, lead singer, Chia Karoake (Brynn’s little brother) on guitar, Freaky Useless on bass, and Kilo Bales (just guess) on drums. Their new album, Blow it Out Your Ass!, is in stores now. They are doing for rock what Jackass did for MTV, and I think it might catch on. Just make sure to bring the earplugs.

Flipp comes from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and cruises the country in a decked out RV which has probably seen its fair share of drugs. As Troy (the photographer) and I walked up to the bus, which you could just tell was party central everywhere they went, we were a little, uh, hesitant. Okay, we weren’t sure we’d come out of there alive…or at least sober. As we were let in, Chia (the bald guy with the band-aid on his head) asked us if we wanted a beer. Hell yeah we did. Budweiser. Real man’s beer. We passed on the pot and Vikatin though…maybe next time.

Pharos: Minnesota huh?
Chia: Minnesoter.
Pharos: How’s Wes…
C: St. Paul!! I live in Minneapolis, wew!
C: Sorry, what was that question?
P: How does West Virginia compare?
C: Um, you know, we’ve been here for a very brief period of time, but I gotta say, we’ve driven around, up and down through hills saw, uh, I think it’s beautiful.
P: It is beautiful.
C: I think it’s beautiful. The weather’s definitely much better. I mean we’re dealing with all that rain and the flooding right now, the summers just suck ass, I mean the winters just suck ass. But uh, see, we were here, where’s Myrtle Beach?
P: South Carolina.
C: Oh. Sorry.
P: That’s cool. You go down there with Mayfield Four also?
C: No, we’re on this…we’re doing five dates with Everclear. They just got a copy of our video, which I’ll give you a copy [rummages around, can’t find it], when we’re done, and uh, they saw the video, and no one had to blow anybody, just they f**kin’ saw the video, said that they played it like every time they got in the van, and uh, that was it man. And they called us up and said would you like to come on the road and we’re like “Hell yeah!” So we got this bus, and took all the money we were gonna pay to stay in hotel rooms, and f**kin got a bus so we could make it look like we were doin’ it for real!
P: Saw this on your website, gotta ask: five foot bong?
C: It’s for real man.
P: Is it really?
C: It lights up, in more ways than one. We brought it out at Woodstock…and announced that we were going to give away free pot, and started throwing joints from the stage, and what we had in front of our stage was like 30,000 people turn into about 100,000 people like that. There was no bands playing, we were the first band…and Brynn [lead singer] goes, “Ladies and Gentlemen, you are now the majority, let’s smoke pot. So come to the front of the stage, our drummer Kilo Bale will be throwing out free pot.” So we started throwing out free pot and you know everybody’s like, whatever. So it was a beautiful day out. But yeah the five-foot bong is for real.
P: What’s up with your guys’ names?
C: There kind of just extensions of our own personalities. That kind of just happened naturally.
P: What’s up with your nickname “the worst guitar player.”
C: It’s so true. There’s no lying in that. When I joined the band, uh, it was kinda just out of fun, I could play a little bit and blah blah blah, and just kinda fun hangin out with the guys etcetera, and then I borrowed Kilo’s guitar for awhile, and ah, then I got my own guitar. And that’s pretty much how I’m the world’s worst guitar player. I just suck. I only know how to play Flipp songs. I don’t know the names of any of the chords, I knew where the bar chords were, AHHHH!!!! [girls outside yelling for autographs]
C: [randomly] It’s Flipp cereal.
P: You have your own cereal?
C: Yeah well we make it up, but yeah. Sometimes we drop it from helicopters, tons of it.
C: [manager walks in] And he cleans our underwear. He’s the other specialist in rock ‘n’ roll.
Mngr: Yeah, maybe girls underwear.
C: Oh is that it? Oh okay. [Chia goes out again to the screaming fans]
Mngr: Did he give you a pair of underwear?
P: [confused looks]
Mngr: Oh he’ll give it to you as you walk out the door.
P: Maybe we’ll crawl out the window then…
Mngr: They’ve gotta be around here somewhere…[searches while Chia entertains screaming girls]
P: Underwear and cereal huh?
Mngr: Yeah. Chia will know where that stuff is [underwear]…he keeps track of all that stuff.
Groupie: He can find ‘em. They might be out Bill [manager].
Mngr: Nah, they can’t be out of underwear [opens drawers and cabinets, finds nothing].
Grpe: They could be out.
C: [comes back] Yeah I don’t know where the underwear is. Will a video do? We have a new set of trading cards, they’re on their way here.
P: You guys have cards?
C: Yeah dude, we have many sets of trading cards.
P: So what’s up with the cereal?
C: We came out with our own ce…, well, truthfully, we were kinda jokin around one morning about how crunchy would sound on a mike.
P: Is that the best kind of cereal out there?
C: Well, it’s really good ‘cause it, um, it’s better than Smurfberry crunch. Smurfberry crunch has this thing where it can turn your s**t blue.
P: Oh yeah.
C: This’ll turn it bluer.
P: Really?
C: Yeah.
P: Now I haven’t seen it in stores…how do I get some?
C: Well we did a limited, um, run up in Minneapolis/ St. Paul where we’re from, which were just kinda startin’ to spread the Flipp word, and that’s where you could get it. Every once in a while you’ll see a box go on e-bay. And General Mills is from Minneapolis area, and we actually talked them into giving us an actual ton of Fruit Loops, at which point we dumped half a ton of Fruit Loops on the crowd. We play this thing called the Edge Fest and there’s like 35,000 people and we dumped half a ton of Fruit Loops on the crowd, and our pilot got thrown in jail.
P: For what?!
C: I don’t know what it was, it could have been air space issues. He ended up on the Jenny Jones show as a cereal bomber. This year we’re gonna drop, we’re gonna drop 500 pair of Flipp bo, under, Flipp pair, ah, Flipp underwear on a crowd. So you know, we sit around and go, “what can we do, what can we do?”
P: One of your verses was you wish you could be a planet. Which planet would you be?
C: Uh, I’m not gonna say the typical punch line, which would be __
P: Uranus.
C: Right. For me, I guess Neptune, because I don’t know, it’s just got this mystery about her, and I like blue. Somehow it’s always depicted as being blue, and it’s not all the way out there, but it’s out there enough to like, you know, you’re not alone, you still got Pluto. And I guess since I’m from Minnesota I can handle the extreme cold temperatures. My parka could probably withstand it, and my moon boots. Bringing back moon boots by the way.

We finished the interview and were escorted to the dressing room with Chia to pick up a copy of the video he promised, and for the first time got to see the rest of the band. Chia announced that girls outside were asking them to sign body parts, to which one of them piped up, “I got the spleen!”