HUNGRY & HOLLOW SESSIONS GUIDE: EVERCLEAR: SPARKLE & FADE

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Recording: 07/XX/94
(Smart Studios - Madison, WI)
Recorded and Mixed: Brian Anderson

Band Members: Arthur Alexakis (guitar, vocals), Craig Montoya (bass), Greg Eklund (drums).

Recorded:
[O] Fire Maple Song (Acoustic)

Sources:

Source	Quality	Complete	Runtime	Lowest Gen	Tracks Featured	Notes
SBD #1	10.0	Yes	0:04:14	Official CD (White Trash Hell EP)	• Fire Maple Song (Acoustic)	A Music Video was made for this acoustic version of the song and has never been officially released.

Notes: There was a music video made for this song to promote the ‘Fire Maple Song EP.’ The video however never was officially released. Eventually the video has made its way in trading circles in low quality.
This was the first recording done by Everclear after being signed by Capitol records.

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Recording: 09/XX/94
(Smart Studios - Madison, WI)
Recorded by: Michael Douglass

Band Members: Arthur Alexakis (guitar, vocals), Craig Montoya (bass), Greg Eklund (drums).

Recorded:
[O] Electra Made Me Blind
[O] Heroin Girl
[O] You Make Me Feel Like A Whore
[O] Santa Monica
[O] Summerland
[O] Strawberry
[O] Heartspark Dollarsign
[O] The Twistinside
[O] Her Brand New Skin
[O] Nehalem
[O] Queen Of The Air
[O] Pale Green Stars
[O] Chemical Smile
[O] My Sexual Life
[O] Annabella’s Song
[?] Happy Hour

Sources:

Source	Quality	Complete	Runtime	Lowest Gen	Tracks Featured	Notes
SBD #1a	10.0	No	0:42:49	Official CD (Sparkle & Fade)	• Electra Made Me Blind • Heroin Girl • You Make Me Feel Like A Whore • Santa Monica • Summerland • Strawberry • Heartspark Dollarsign • The Twistinside • Her Brand New Skin • Nehalem • Queen Of The Air • Pale Green Stars • Chemical Smile • My Sexual Life
SBD #1b	10.0	No	0:05:22	Official CD (Heroin Girl UK Maxi Single)	• Annabella’s Song • Nehalem (Alternate Mix)

Notes: ‘Sparkle & Fade’ was recorded over a two-week period. (7) at Smart Studios, the same as Nirvana did, 4 years earlier. The band was extremely focused and prepared coming into the studio.

Similar to the Colorfinger album, many of the songs featured on ‘Sparkle & Fade’ come from Art Alexakis’ past experiences.

"This record is a lot more personal, as opposed to me getting on a soapbox and spilling my guts about what's wrong with the world," says Art Alexakis. "It's angry, but I think the anger is manifested in different, hopefully more useful ways, because the one thing I don't want to sound like is some whining rock star; I've always hated that `poor pitiful me' attitude more than anything." (37)

When asked about what the album title means, Art Alexakis said, “I create stories and put certain yearnings of mine or experiences of mine into them. This record is about making your own life and making your own sparkle. That's what life is about to me. The good things that we do and the right things we do are the sparkles and the bad things are fades." (2)

"You know," he says, "The song 'Strawberry' (about the temptation of junk) is like my biggest nightmare, falling off the wagon. I actually was having a bad dream abut that when I was in Madison recording the album. I was calling Jenny and telling her about it. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't really articulate what my dream was about, but I was having anxiety attacks. We'd been in the studio about a week, and I woke up in the middle of the night and I wrote the song. It's my biggest fear, and by facing it like that and putting a face on it I think I deal with it a little bit. "But if I got high again, if I drank again, if I shot up again, I would feel like the last ten years was just a total fucking waste," he says, eyeing the bar across the room like it's a death trap. "I shouldn't look at it that way, because you should just get up and go from there, but I would feel like everything good I'd done in the last ten years just didn't mean anything. I'd feel negated." He laughs darkly. "It's the feel good song of the album." (2)

When asked about the song ‘Heroin Girl’, Art responds, “The heroin girl wasn't just the girl," he says. "It's the drug. That's his girl. That's his romance as well. Older people will pick that up. The kids won't pick that up. They'll take it more literal but that's OK.” (2) A lot of times, people will say, "I knew Esther, I knew the 'Heroin Girl.'" And it's like, there was no Esther. There was no "Heroin Girl." I got the name Esther from a girl I had a crush on when I was in second grade. I always liked that name. And then I created this character from my life and my brother's life and a girlfriend of mine who died from heroin and the romance of the drug itself. I romanticized it to be a man and a woman.” (8)

“[The song Heartspark Dollarsign is about] when I was living in L.A. ... I met a girl who was black and we just really hit it off and it was just great and we ran into some ... weird headway with my family and her family. And it kinda, you know, early on set the relationship off on the wrong foot. So we broke up and kinda ran out of touch with each other. [Recently] I was somewhere back on the East Coast and met her old roommate and I guess this woman now has three kids and is happily married." (40)
“[Pale Green Stars] is about a pretty hard period in my life. ... That song's about my daughter, Anna, but I changed the name because it was a little too intense for my wife at the time. I agreed to change the name to Amanda." (40) "There's a really personal song called 'Pale Green Stars' which is about the effect on my daughter of a breakup of me and my girlfriend. It was a really bad scene. It was Christmas time." (62)

“[Santa Monica] is about being so in love with someone and being so in love with life, just saying "Go to hell to the rest of the world, let's watch the world the die, you and me, we'll be together and that's all we need."” (57)

"There is a literal place called Summerland--it's a little town right off highway 101. But the song is more figurative than that," he explains. "It has a really great ring to it like a place that's beautiful but kind of unattainable. I guess that's true. I've passed by the `Summerland' exit so many times, but never actually been there." (35)

“‘Summerland’ is “Hands down... my favorite Everclear song of all time." (33)

Though ‘Santa Monica’ would bring Everclear it’s first real successful hit, it also directly inspire another song on the album, ‘You Make Me Feel Like A Whore.’ 
Before Sparkle and Fade, their A&R man suggested to Art that he should change part of a song around. That upset Art, to some degree. He thought it made him feel like a whore. Later, however, Art admitted, "He was right." (40) "Santa Monica, on the new record, my A&R guy, loves it. Thinks the hook's amazing, didn't think it was long enough so we argued about it, but he said it should be another chorus. So we put another chorus in there and it's not exactly how I want it, but it works. People seem to like it like that." (62)

The previous drummer, Scott Cuthbert, had already written drum lines for most of the songs from ‘Sparkle & Fade’. (Songs like ‘Electra Made Me Blind’, ‘Heroin Girl’, and ‘Chemical Smile’ are songs that Everclear had been playing for a while.)  Greg Eklund added something more to the band and made them special.
"Electra grooves a little bit more with Greg playing the drums. We didn't screw with that at all. We nailed it on one take." (62)

With a larger salary, recording was a little different this time around for Greg Eklund. Greg explained, “Oh, definitely. I just bought a DW kit, so for the first time in my life I could really focus in on drum sounds. The other thing is that I could afford new drumheads as opposed to saving a week's salary to buy a snare replacement. And I learned stuff about miking positions, and we did funky stuff with the bass drum in terms of isolating it to make sure it didn't bleed into the other microphones. There were a lot of times when we would go into the control room and they would take the guitar and bass out, and I'd just be sitting there going, "Oh, that sounds terrible." Even to this day, there are parts on Sparkle & Fade that make me cringe. But it was all very much a learning experience. And it was the first time I had ever played to a click track on one of the songs [Pale Green Stars]. Because it was so slow, they're like, "Well, we're going to use a click track for this track," and I was like, "Oh no!" I was totally freaking out, but you know what? It took me forever to get used to it, but we were in L.A. just a couple days ago recording some stuff and they wanted to use a click track, and it didn't freak me out like it did the first time. Because rather than trying to play perfectly like a drum machine with the click track, I use it more as a reference point. In case I did slip a little bit, I could sort of get back to it without ruining the whole take.” (15)

There are believed to be only two outtakes from this session, ‘Annabella’s Song’ and ‘Happy Hour.’

When Art was asked why Annabella’s song was not officially released, he responded, “We did [Annabella's Song] as a track that was going to be on Sparkle & Fade but decided it just wasn't done right. I mean, it sounded okay…” (41)

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Recording: Winter 1994
(Basement Studio - Richmond, VA)
Recorded and Mixed: Ricky Tubb

Band Members: Arthur Alexakis (guitar, vocals), Craig Montoya (bass), Greg Eklund (drums).

Recorded:
[O] American Girl

Sources:

Source	Quality	Complete	Runtime	Lowest Gen	Tracks Featured	Notes
SBD #1	10.0	Yes	0:03:36	Official CD (Heroin Girl UK Maxi Single)	• American Girl	Originally featured on the ‘You Got Lucky: A Tribute To Tom Petty’ Compilation

Notes: The band played the song live several times from 1994 until 1996.

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Recording: XX/XX/95
(White Horse Studios - Portland, OR)
Engineered by: Dave Friedlander

Band Members: Arthur Alexakis (guitar, vocals), Craig Montoya (vocals, bass), Greg Eklund (drums).

Recorded:
[O] Don't Change
[O] Sin City
[O] Heroin Girl (Acoustic)

Sources:

Source	Quality	Complete	Runtime	Lowest Gen	Tracks Featured	Notes
SBD #1	10.0	Yes	0:11:14	Official CD (Santa Monica AUS Maxi Single)	• Don’t Change • Sin City • Heroin Girl (Acoustic)

Notes: ‘Don’t Change’ is an INXS song. ‘Sin City’ is an AC-DC song with Craig on lead vocals.

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Recording: 01/XX/96
(Tone King Studios - Hollywood, CA)
Engineered by: Peter McCabe

Band Members: Arthur Alexakis (guitar, vocals), Craig Montoya (bass), Greg Eklund (drums)

Recorded:
[O] Hateful
[O] How Soon Is Now?

Sources:

Source	Quality	Complete	Runtime	Lowest Gen	Tracks Featured	Notes
SBD #1a	10.0	No	0:01:36	Official CD (M.O.M. Vol. 1 Compilation)	• Hateful
SBD #1b	10.0	No	0:03:11	Official CD (Jabberjaw – Pure Sweet Hell #6 Compilation)	• How Soon Is Now?

Notes: ‘Hateful’, a song written about Art’s 2nd wife, Jenny, when he first met her, was re-recorded by Everclear and contributed to the M.O.M. compilation. ‘How Soon Is Now?’ is an interesting cover of ‘The Smiths’ classic.