Sure, I’m biased when it comes to the music of the 1990s — those were my prime years. Nostalgia is one thing, but when many of the top bands of the time are still recording new music, it makes a yearly gathering — such as the Summerland Tour — something special.

Co-founded by Everclear front man Art Alexakis and Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath in 2012, Summerland is an annual 1990s music tour that provides a new roving lineup every summer. Joined in 2015 by The Toadies, Fuel, and American Hi-Fi, Everclear kicked off the two-month-long summer tour on June 11th. We spoke with Alexakis about how Summerland has panned out for him so far, and where he sees it going in the future.

Has Summerland become what you planned it to be? Did you plan for it to be an annual event?

I hoped that it would be. I don’t know that it’s everything I thought it would be, because I left it pretty open. I kind of [included] the broad strokes of ’90s bands that had been successful then.

I don’t want bands that aren’t touring. I got four great bands, counting my own band. We got three hours. Low ticket prices across the board. No one’s getting hurt. Everyone’s working, and the fans get a great show for not a lot of money.

Is it hard to find the acts who have the time to go along with it, or can you find a band at any time who will be there for you?

I have a wish list. I pick all the bands from the bands who want to do it. I’ve been trying to get The Toadies for years, and it was hard because they had commitments or whatever. But this year I got the Starting Line, Fuel, and American Hi-Fi. They have a singer that’s also a combo-drummer. We’ve been planning for it since 1993. I told him to come out and tour it. They’ve got great hits, so this will be a great rock and roll tour.

There are plenty of bands that don’t fit into the ’90s time frame to many, but may have been an influence for you, like The Pixies- will there by room for bands like that in future Summerland Tours?

I love The Pixies — Santiago is one of my favorite guitar players of all time. They tour their own thing; they would always want to play a 40-minute set. There are bands that I would love to have, but I know they wouldn’t do it, for whatever reason. They can make more money doing their own thing.

It’s not just the bands — they usually would love to do it. [But] there is also management and agents, and if they can make more money….those are the unspoken words. But for the bands [I want on the tour], I’m batting like .800. If this were baseball, I’d be the best batter ever.

You released an album around the time of the first Summerland Tour, and now you have another new album this time around [Black is the New Black]. Is the experience of preparing your sets for a tour different when it coincides with a new record?

It is, to a certain extent. We’re playing a couple of new songs off this album. But it’s a different age: you used to tour to sell records; now, you sell records as an added tool to help your touring. No one gets advances that you can live off of; no one gets royalties from record sales. Those days are over.

You guys really broke through around the beginning of the digital age. Now, you’ve worked with PledgeMusic to launch your new album. How has crowd sourcing worked for you? Do you really notice the differences from how the process used to be?

Absolutely. I love to play music. I love the whole idea of crowd sourcing as a way to connect and to bring the hardcore fans into the fold. It also cuts out the middle man — [fans] get [the album] cheaper, and you make more money out of it. It’s a great part of any model, and for us, it made sense with a small label like The End Records, who are super enthusiastic.

The digital service is good — the combination of PledgeMusic and the small, enthusiastic, aggressive label makes perfect sense for us right now.

The general public has a view of how they think the business works — or, at least, how it used to work. So we’re kind of jaded, in a way. They think you need to sell albums to make the money, or you need the tour to make the money, etc. You once worked as an A&R rep, so you know how things really worked. If you were still in that part of that world, would you tell clients that PledgeMusic is the way to do it?

If I had a label, I’d go to PledgeMusic with each artist and help develop a customized model plan for them that takes care of everyone. Having a label these days and making a living is a lot of work. I think we’re at the tail end of the old era — we had a 10-year career when we were on a major label and selling a lot of albums. But to be honest with you, I make more money selling fewer albums now. And that’s not unique to me — that’s [the case with] just about everyone I know from previous eras that had success and had a fan base.

We got signed in 1994. Money was still shooting out of the ground. The head of the record company would fly in his Bentley wherever he went so he could drive in that town with his own car, which is crazy. Just rent a Prius and shut the hell up. Who flies in their car? And everyone thinks you sell millions of records so you’re rich.

I don’t own any of the publishing or albums. The platinum or multi-platinum record money, I don’t get any of that. But I still have the name Everclear. I have a seven-year-old, and I’ll need to pay for her college.

You’re making new music, but like any popular band, you have to live with and play some of those same songs you first recorded, and you’ve been playing them for a long time now. Do you feel the need to play into the hands of what could be considered “fan service” when playing a show?

A little bit. But more importantly, I make new music because that’s what I do. I thought [Black is the New Black] would be a fun record to play live, and it is. The two songs we play from it are balls-out rock and roll music, and they’re a blast to play live.

Yeah, I do want to have a tool (from a business point of view) because it’s good to have a record to tour on, because it will be played on the radio. Like this one, “The Man Who Broke His Own Heart,” which will be played on the radio on 30 or 40 stations. Today, I’m getting calls from people I haven’t talked to in years. And that’s not just because of me or Everclear. It’s the radio. These days, it’s way more singles-oriented than album-oriented.

It’s funny, because that’s how rock and roll started. It used to be about singles, and now we’ve kind of gone back to that.

We’ve kind of come full circle in a lot of ways. Early rock and roll was singles; then the albums developed in the late ’60s and ’70s. I fell in love with the idea of an album of songs that worked together as an album. And that’s what I tried to do and am still doing it. Will I do it again? I don’t know. We’ll see.

Well, you succeeded on this album — just look at the reviews from the fans alone. Not to say that you have to go back and record an album that sounds exactly how you once did, but that’s what everyone’s saying, and they’re thrilled. So congratulations on that.

Some people are saying that, but some are saying it sounds totally different. But it sounds like old-school Everclear, and that tickles people’s fancy. I wanted to make an honest record that makes sense because that’s me. But at the same time, I want to bring some new blood in there, so I got two new guys in there to produce it. The way they work and the sound that they got was a combination. There was a compromise and collaboration, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. On this record, I feel like it worked well.

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Matthew Schuchman is the founder and film critic of Movie Reviews From Gene Shalit’s Moustache and a contributor to Den of Geek.