It wasn’t all that long ago that Everclear singer/songwriter/guitarist Art Alexakis seemed on the verge of, if not breaking up the trio he’s fronted for the past decade, at least taking a leave of absence. In 2000, he was poised to release both an Everclear CD and his first solo album. And he’d already started playing the occasional solo show. In the end, though, Alexakis turned what might have been his first solo album into a proper Everclear release, bookending Y2K with Songs from an American Movie, Volume I: Learning How To Smile and Songs from an American Movie, Volume II: Good Time for a Bad Attitude (both Capitol). And if the return to aggressive, guitar-driven angst characterized by Volume II left any lingering doubts about his commitment to Everclear after the broadened musical vistas of the "solo" Volume I, well, the new Slow Motion Daydream (out this Tuesday on Capitol) should allay those concerns. The disc finds Alexakis and mates (drummer Greg Eklund and bassist Craig Montoya) retrenching in the kind of hard-edged, hook-laden modern rock that propelled Everclear from a basement recording studio in Portland, Oregon, to the national stage in post-Nevermind 1995 with the release of Sparkle and Fade, the trio’s proper Capitol debut.

As far as Alexakis is concerned, however, change of some sort remains imminent. "The other guys are just kind of waiting on me to see what I’m going to do," he explains over the phone from the West Coast as he gears up for the release of Slow Motion Daydream. "My feeling is that we’re putting out this record, we’re going to tour, and then we’re going to take it from there. I do know that I still want to make a solo record. And I will make a solo record. And there’s also another idea I have for a band I want to do — it’s just kind of a fun, rock-and-roll dance band, like the B-52’s-meets-Sonic-Youth-meets-Aerosmith. That just sounds fun to me because I love to dance but I hate dancing to techno."

So why didn’t he use Volume I of the Songs from an American Movie pairing to test the solo waters, as he’d originally planned? "Well, to a certain extent I think I realized that I could do what I wanted to do with the band. I wanted to do more of an R&B thing — just something fun that was different from Everclear. I mean, I would have loved to have seen Otis Redding — I just loved his rawness and his country demeanor. I grew up the son of a country girl, and even though she was very white, I can still appreciate the Southern African-American influence of music, food, and culture. And it’s there in my music, in the vocal stylings, and in the groove. I mean, a lot of the bands who came out of the alternative thing in the ’90s, like Smashing Pumpkins, really didn’t have that sense of groove. But more than any of that, I think I just felt that the band needed to make at least one more record to cap out what we had started 10 years ago. And that’s what I think this record is."

In other words, Alexakis, who turns 41 in April, isn’t quite sure what his musical future holds. For now, though, Slow Motion Daydream sums up Everclear’s development as a band, from the raw, post-teen spirit of their appropriately titled indie debut, 1994’s World of Noise (Tim Kerr/Capitol), up through the more complex Songs from an American Movie discs, which included everything from looped rhythm tracks and horn charts to string arrangements and acoustic-guitar-based reflections. If Sparkle and Fade was populated by nipple-pierced heroin girls and fleeting memories of careless beach days in Santa Monica, Slow Motion Daydream finds Alexakis taking stock of the world through the eyes of a "Volvo Driving Soccer Mom" (the disc’s first single) from behind an imposing wall of distorted guitars and tuneful background vocals and trying to make sense of the news in the "New York Times." Yet for all the maturity of the subject matter here, both numbers are fueled by the same angst and alienation that drove "Heroin Girl" and "Santa Monica," and their narrators haven’t lost touch with their misspent youths. "I really used to be a bad girl," Alexakis sings in "Volvo Driving Soccer Mom." "I got busted for possession of my wizard-shaped bong."

Since Everclear have brought Alexakis this far in his career, you have to wonder why he’d want to move on, especially since, as the band’s sole singer and songwriter, he’s the voice of Everclear. "That’s kind of a dumb question," is his first response. "I mean, Everclear is not Art Alexakis. And if it were just Art Alexakis, then I would get the whole paycheck.

"But it’s not just about money. I mean, I do see where you’re coming from, but if you had heard Volume I of Songs from an American Movie before it became an Everclear record, it didn’t sound like it does now. The feel of the album was totally different. That’s when I first started fooling around with loops and samples, and I had horn sections on three or four songs, and strings. I also had no loud distorted guitars. And I think I forced myself to sing more than just saying the words in a melodic way — you know, longer notes and doing more with the vocals.

"There’s still a lot of that on the album, and being that way, it’s probably one of my favorite records we’ve done, even though it may not be to a lot of hardcore Everclear fans. I mean, Everclear is where I get my rock out. And I love playing with them. And I love cranking up the guitars. But there are other things I want to do too — things that I can’t necessarily do within the context of Everclear. You’ll see that when I finally do a solo album. I still haven’t made up my mind whether it’s going to be me and a huge cast of characters or me just doing everything myself. Maybe it will be a combination of both."

Talking to Alexakis, you get the sense that he’s as surprised as anyone that Everclear have lasted this long. Along with Pearl Jam, they’re one of the last of the great Alternative Nation bands of the ’90s to have survived to see the new millennium. And they’ve continued to be one of the few staples on modern-rock radio, even as Alexakis has hit 40 and the audience for modern rock has remained, well, younger than that.

"I guess I am making this kind of rock music that a lot of people younger than me are also making and buying," he admits. "But I still enjoy this kind of music. And I still listen to this kind of music. My frustration with most rock music that I listen to is not necessarily in the music but the words. That’s the one thing that I think makes us different from the average rock band out there. And that’s probably both contributed to our success and kept us at times from being more successful. I mean, I don’t write really stupid lyrics."

True — "Volvo Driving Soccer Mom" may not be deep social criticism, but it does deal with issues of identity. And even "New York Times," with its allusions to the singer’s disillusionment in the wake of September 11, hangs its point on well-crafted hooks and sing-along melodies. It’s a balance that’s reflected in Alexakis’s generally down-to-earth attitude toward his status as a rock star.

"I guess I’ve always just wanted to be middle-class," he says, only half joking. "But in my own way. I mean, I like tattoos and I like certain other aspects of having an alternative lifestyle. But at the same time I like having a house, and I want my daughter to be secure, and normal things like that. If people want to call me a rock star, fine, because by their definition I might be one. But if you looked at my life for a few days, you probably wouldn’t come away thinking of me as a rock star. I mean, I guess I am a tattoo’d, bleached-blond, Volvo-driving soccer dad. And that’s fine, because these days I enjoy the down time as much as I do the on time."