Colorfinger
| Art Alexakis | |
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Alexakis performing at Emory University, September 2007
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| Birth name | Arthur Paul Alexakis |
| Born |
April 12, 1962 Los Angeles, California, United States |
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| Website | everclearonline |
Arthur Paul "Art" Alexakis (born April 12, 1962) is an American musician best known as the singer, composer, and guitarist of the rock band Everclear. He has been a member of several notable bands, in addition to his own work as a songwriter for other artists. Alexakis 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 included drug awareness policies, and support of the families of the military. Along with the band Everclear, he performed for soldiers stationed in Cuba. His political involvement continued to expand, and Alexakis campaigned for the bid of former candidate John Kerry for the position of President of the United States.
Alexakis was born in Los Angeles, California. He had an older brother, George, and three older sisters. His father was of Greek ancestry.
Soon after Alexakis' father left the family, financial difficulties forced Alexakis' mother to relocate the family to the Mar Vista Gardens housing projects in California, located near Culver City. Alexakis was sexually abused by older kids in his neighborhood. His brother George died of a heroin overdose when Alexakis was 12. That same year, Alexakis' 15-year-old girlfriend committed 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 took film classes at Los Angeles Community College. He helped found The Easy Hoes. 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. 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—which involved the tunefulness of country and the distorted guitars/fast tempo from 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. Colorfinger also released an EP, Demonstration, although only the full-length album was made for sale. Both of these were released on Alexakis' own Shindig Records. A few songs originally performed by Colorfinger were made into Everclear songs. These include "Culver Palms (or Why I Don't Believe in God)", "Invisible" and "Hateful" among others.
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