PipemanRadio Interviews Everclear at Welcome To Rockville 2025

0:04 Hi, you love them too? Yes, that's sure. W for see why were you you? Welcome to Rockville, North America's largest rock festival is finally here. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio, and I'm here with. Art Alex Suckers from the band Ever Clear. Nice here at Welcome to Rockville. Like how I said that? All like fancy and perfect, and. It reminds me of when you had your radio show on Sirius x. Ye Freddy here, Freddy from ever Close here and he was actually Art, my engineer and sychekick on the show. Nice. Yeah, they're still playing it. I love that, And they don't pay me. I don't love that at all. Isn't that like two so twenty twenty five, like it's twenty seventeen. Really, they don't pay any really.

1:00 No, And I'll say it even though I'm on them Spotify, Like it bugs me because like I pay licensing and I pay royalties and then Spotify pays you guys like pennies. No, no, and they can afford it more pennies on the doors and they can afford it way more than I can. And I'm spending thousands well they're giving you not even enough to buy a cup of coffee. No, I could tell you, but I won't do it on Mike. But I'll tell you later. But I have a story about that. Oh I check it out. So this is my battle vest from the eighties. Okay, And so I gotta say too. We were talking right before the interview about the long hair thing. So I was a metal head that loved punk. And you know, in the day you were long hair, you couldn't go to a punk show. There are yeah, you couldn't go to either or And here's a funny story posers on Melrose.

1:55 So I wanted to get my spikes there, you know. So I took three of my friends that were friends with the owners. Fair I'll be okay, we walk in. We're not even there thirty seconds my bro comes up to me. We gotta leave. I'm like why, He goes, we'll talk about it side. We need to leave in that we have long hair, yes, And then he tells me outside that yeah, because we're friends with the owners, they gave the courtesy. But they said that we needed to get you out of there or they were gonna kick your ass because I had long hair. So back in nineteen eighty, Black Sabbath did a tour and it with Dio. Mom's opened up for him and I went and saw him at the LA the Long Beach Arena about nine thousand people. A small arena, but when you're a kid, it looks huge. We walk in there like we're a little bit late for the opening band, and all the lights are on, the band's on, and everywhere in the arena. Everywhere it's just fights, full on, like fight's going at the same time, like literally thirty or forty.

3:02 I believe that. And I'm there with my punk rock friends and I got long hair and they're like, man, you gotta get out of here. You yeah, put your hair back in a ponytail. It was just punk against metal. Oh yeah, Now it's not a deal. It really likes everything. It was stupid then though, because I remember being I was at Gora High. There were like three or four of us that were metal heads, like two or three punks. We were both getting the crap beat out of us by the jocks, and it's like, why not band together instead of being a part from each other. So that's what's cool about today is we're all one big happy family. Now I want long hair, have long hair, you want short hair? Up. Yeah, it doesn't even matter anymore. My grandson over here, he doesn't even know what that's like, where you couldn't be yourself at all.

3:48 My daughter loves Green Day, loves Descendants, loves Pennywise, loves punk rock. But she also like Lama God, Rage Against the Machine. Deftones are probably your favorite band of ball time, she says. Nice, She says, my band is, but not really. Well, she's got to say it to you, right her dad, So I got to show you to the other side. The other side has a lot of history because its got blood on it from climbing up a Marshall stack and diving off, and the crowd moved while it was mid air, and you could see these patches they've bit that that was a metallic capacity I can see. And then you got Venom over here way back with Kronos in it. But yeah, So I grew up in Jersey and my dad one day he came up to me and he goes, meet your new mother, and we're moving to California in three days. That was in nineteen eighty And.

4:43 What happened to your original mom? Did she pass since then, Yes, but I wasn't. Not at the time. No, his dad being a. Dad, yep, and mom was whatever, you know. But what a time to move to La nineteen eighty so I was like, I remember the first show I went to was at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip. It was Motley Crue, but before they had an album when they were like horror punk and they tried to burn everything to burn down the Roxy to bring satan. And now I'm like, I'm never going to a real concert ever again. And that started me the whole club scene there in the Troubadour, in the country club and reci it.

5:26 I was down the street seeing X and the Germs, Nice and the Flush Eaters and bands like that. But even though I had the long hair and stuff, I knew friends that knew the Motley Crue guys and like Motley Krue and they're like, it's metal, they look metal, but it's punk. And they yes their first record, and I really liked their first record. Yeah, before they did the hair and the glam, I mean, they were more like punk with the metal, but they were to start almost of the crossover. Yeah, they were almost like a prettier California, California version of the Misfits. That's a good way. I've never thought of that, but that's like a perfect explanation. And without all the muscles.

6:07 It's funny because I am a Jersey boy, so it's like they are typical Jersey boys. Oh yeah, oh yeah, you talk to Danzig, you barely understand. Oh yeah. I interviewed Doyle on the tour bus. Oh really, And the publicists warmed me ahead of time of how to do the interview. Let's put it that way. Were they right on? They were right on the money. It took my engineer like five hours to edit the interview because I want to make an artists look really good. That's my job. I'm not one of those people like, hey, I want to shock jockey. So there were parts he didn't sound that great. So I'm like, you work your magic, do whatever you can to make him sound good, and like the most intelligent person ever. Did it work somewhat a little bit. You guys just did something with the whiskey a go go a couple of years ago.

6:57 Right, it was a couple of years ago. You know what's weird? So I grew up. I grew up in Santa Monica, and I used to take the bus and up to the Sunset Strip for like whenever there was underage night and because I turned eighteen and eighty. Wow, say I was thirteen, twelve and thirteen in eighty five six years on, Yeah, I'm fifty eight. You're closer to his age. And that was like heaven. That was better than Disneyland. I loved disneyl Ant and that was way better than Disney at the time because it was girls and rock and roll and girls total rugs. And if you can remember the eighties on the Sunset Strip, you weren't the hair. Yeah, I don't remember it much. Once it turned into the super spandex heavy metal, like long hair, guys with better hair and prettier than even girls.

7:47 I'm like, that's when I was out, Like Okay, So I went to slayers first show ever, Metallica's first show ever, and then they left us and went to the Bay Area. So me and my bro used to hitch up the Bay Area to go to the Exodus shows and the Possessed shows, and then Slayer was playing up there. Because they left us with all the crap we didn't want to go to. Yeah, the be area. I had a lot of that speed metal and death metal. And what's the one Angel folic in the park? What band was that? Filipino guys? I know, yeah Angel, So the singer of death Angel is now singing for Kerry King's project. Oh okay, that makes sense, Yeah, that makes sense.

8:28 And remember being a teenager in my life's goal was to go to London for the punk scene there. And it's so funny now I go over there and they're all saying they want to come here for the punk scene. It's so wild. Yeah. Yeah, that was the thing is like I discovered punkin like late seventy seven. It was like the perfect times fifteen, right. Yeah. You know who played in my high school gymnasium, you know in Westlake High and CALLI who Wingo Boingo? Oh yeah, man, I love doing going on. Like they played in my gymnasium. That was okay. So do you remember the first crossover show. It was at the Sun Valley Sportsman's Lodge. Do you remember that place?

9:12 It was like an Elks lodge, Okay, And so it's the first time you had metal and punk bands playing at the same time. There was no security. It's epic. Coc played pre Pepper when they were hardcore punk, Savage Grace played The Descendants played Suicidal when they were still punk they weren't crossover yet. Possessed and Dark Angel was eighty three eighty two. I think that one was like eighty five or eighty four or something like that. Yeah, I think it was January eighty five because I just interviewed Gene Hoagland the other day and he said, yeah, that was January a five. And remember I was talking to coc One, So I'm like, you guys probably don't remember this. It was two separate interviews, one with Mike and one with Woody. You probably don't remember this, but this is the most epic show of my life. And he goes, yeah, it was like an Elk's lodge. Right.

10:06 They were like, yeah, that was the most epic because, like what you were describing before, there was no security, so it was just mayhem. There was no safe place to hide like some gigs you can go and there's a place to hide from all the mayhem. Now there were people diving off the rafters, fights breaking out like it was like insane. That's probably like a thousand people, right. Yeah, something like that. This was nine thousand. Wow, imagine that. And there was security but they were just they were getting beat up. Yeah, the security go to try to break it up, and then the punks and the metal guys would turn on them both beat them up and get rid of them. And then they turn around. It was vicious. Man, there's blood everywhere. Wow. It was awesome.

10:47 So I love it. And we were talking about before the interview my germ shirt here, and you had a story about that share that I was. It was nineteen seventy nine. I had long hair, but I had an ex T shirt on and I was at a record store in Santa Monica. I was in there looking at stuff and then all of a sudden, this guy yells at me and goes take off that fucking shirt. You don't get to wear that fucking shirt, hippie. And I turn around and starby Craft and I had seen them at so this must have been eighty nineteen eighty. I had just seen them at I don't know, somewhere on the strip, probably Whiskey, and I'm like, no, I go just back off, and then we started yelling at He started yelling at me, and I'm trying to be cool. Look, I like your band.

11:34 Fuck you. You don't get to listen to my band. I go, why because I got long hair? I go, not a hippie, motherfucker? Fuck you? And that is what they called you to a hippie, like I remember. I go, I don't fucking I forget what his real first name was, but I called him that. I go, and don't lie. Clarence, you had long hair and you were listening to fucking metal like three years ago. So just fuck you right quickly. Oh yeah, by the way, fuck you. And they had the hole us apart. Oh shit, I love it. Pat's mirrors like in the background, says it. I've asked me, he doesn't remember that. All these stories? Is that what led you to be who you are today?

12:16 Partly? Yeah, I grew up in a housing project, single mom, my dad left, My brother died of no overdose. Yeah, I was twelve, Lots of stuff like that, beaten and raped when I was eight, just like, really bad things happened, So angering me go way back. And when I heard Black Sabbath and Zeppelin and bands like that, that was my thing, right yeah, And then punk rock happened and I was like I still like Rush. I still love Rush and all those bands, but I love punk at the same time. And at the time you're old enough to remember you couldn't like both. No, you couldn't. It was hard to find it. I just saw some of my favorite punk bands in the past few years. You have felt like you oh most of them too, because we were thrash metal heads, so most of them were like were we all like punk and we were trying to create that crossover.

13:09 It was six years ahead of you. It was just they people were not having it. I wouldn't talk about it. The first movie, the original Decline Western Soulo. Yes, barely see me at the X show with my hair. That's so cool and it's like a second there, I am. I refuse to cow down or cut my hair. In hindsight, I wish I had cut my hair. Would have had a much better girlfriend right right for the middle a lot easier because I liked those people because they were into punk. Some of them were kind of into metal too, but they weren't. They didn't dress like it. You know. There was always crossovers, Yeah, but there'd be metal. I had to hide it. They like punk rock, but they wouldn't say anything. They'd be like cool shirt.

13:53 Yeah, I just saw a discharge exploited GBH and stuff like that. In the last ten years for the first time that I loved back then. I can go to our shows, no I know, and they're basically metal bands, but faster exactly. Look coc Crows in a conformity. We're full on hardcore band. Totally turned into a full on metal band. Yeah, like Overnight. Dri another example example. So one thing I do want to say before we go is I know you went through a lot in life. I've gone through a lot, and I think it's great. You're such a role model. Now in my opinion, we're both still here. Yeah, we're still doing because I was thinking about while you're talking about your brother, and I knew about it. I was thinking about it. But my grandson, his cousin passed away in September from odean and it's like they don't know, probably heroin.

14:46 Yeah, fifteen, Sorry, brother, I'm really sorry. Fifteen. Yeah. I lost my brother. I was twelve, he was twenty one. And then we almost lost you several many times. And here you still are a voice. I've been defibulated three times, but. I love that you're here because you're a voice for the kids this age. No, I'm gone, but I'm a voice of legacy. Just the fact that we're here, we're still doing it. Yeah, clean sober. I'm cleaning sover, and it's just a testament that if I can do it, I'm a loser. Man. I'm just I'm not that good at anything. I'm good at writing songs and playing them. But yeah, I was going to disagree with you. That you can disagree you are great.

15:30 I can see a softball to disagree with me. But seriously, I am so grateful that I get to do what I love to do. Look, I'm a guy in my sixties and I get to play rock and roll in front. Of Welcome the Rockville. Absolutely, I love it. So happy you're here. Thanks man, and I hope you keep going for another twenty years because you are a badass time. Yeah, but you're a badass musician and your music will stand the test of time long after we're both gone. So thanks for being on the adventure a pipe man. Thanks brother. Everybody's art from the band ever clear. I'm here with the pipe Man and you're listening to W four c Ui Radio, thank your own Live, Save Yourself, Thank you for listening to the adventures of Pipe Main on w for c u I Radio.