The most recent tour for Everclear was one of the more rugged and rewarding ones for the veteran Portland band: Rocking the troops in Baghdad and beyond.

Soldiers fresh from high school might not know Everclear from Eveready, but, according to Art Alexakis, there were plenty there who knew and loved the post-Nirvana alt-rock band from the late '90s.

"Our shows were packed," he says. "We did some small bases that we had to get to with attack helicopters and go out on the field and play to like 200 people acoustic. And there were some around Baghdad where we were playing to like 3,000 fans. I think a lot of them were Everclear fans, because the age in the service is anywhere from 18 to 40."

Being with the troops, he was struck by a few things (that weren't missiles, thankfully).

"One, how lame this war is. And two, how cool our soldiers are for being there. We went there three days after Obama won the election, which was interesting, because military people as a rule are pretty conservative, and it was interesting to see the juxtaposition of a lot of the enlisted people very excited about it and a lot of officers just kind of stunned. We spent all our time on bases -- it wasn't very luxurious, to say the least. We were out in the middle of the desert and it was pretty rough, but I'd do it again in a minute."

Alexakis' current outing is a more comfortable Hard Rock Cafe tour, part of the March on Stage series, benefiting Musicians on Call, which brings live music to the bedside of patients in health care facilities. Alexakis' set goes beyond acoustic gig into one-man show status, which might be fascinating considering Alexakis' rough-and-tumble background in Los Angeles.

In summary: His father walked out on the family, leaving his mother to move him and his four siblings to a housing project; his brother died of an overdose; his 15-year-old girlfriend committed suicide; he attempted suicide by jumping from the Santa Monica pier; then came a journalism job, drug addiction, recovery and rock stardom.

The background was the grist for such harrowing songs as "Summerland," "Strawberry" and "Heroin," to go with radio cuts like "Santa Monica" and "I Will Buy You a New Life."

"It's something I wanted to do for a while," he says of the show. "It's basically me doing monologue and songs of mine that correspond with the monologue and there are images and videos going on behind me and beats going on while I'm talking. It's more of a multimedia show than me and a guitar. From the people who see it, everyone really seems to dig it a lot."

After the tour, Alexakis will go into the studio to record the follow-up to 2006's "Welcome to the Drama," which debuted a new version of Everclear. As for the new material, he says, "The songs I've been writing, what I've been feeling, it's more of a stripped-down rock record, a little bit minimalistic, a bit of a return to old Everclear in some ways, and it's just more aggression and sarcasm in the lyrics. You never know. You get in the studio and it goes where it wants to go."

This year is shaping up as big for '90s bands, with the return of Jane's Addition, blink-182 and Limp Bizkit, plus a new Green Day album. Everclear will participate in the festivities.

"Our music is going to be the classic rock of the next five to 10 years," Alexakis says. "My guitar player and bass player give lessons when we're not on the road, and they're meeting all these young kids who don't like the bands of today. I'm talking like 200 to 300 kids in the Seattle area who don't like the bands of today, and really like the bands of the '90s -- and the '70s. My daughter's 17 and her favorite band is Led Zeppelin, and how can that be wrong? That's the classic rock. That's exciting for me, 'cause I go back and find new music all the time. That's the great thing about recorded music. It's timeless."

Along with his 17-year-old, the guy who wrote the riveting "Father of Mine" -- "my daddy gave me a name/then he walked away" -- is back in the diaper-changing phase with a 16-month-old with his fiancee.

"I'm looking forward to my baby daughter getting older," he says. "I just love watching them grow. I've always love children, man. I love being a parent, my favorite thing in the world."

You can hear more about that tonight at the Hard Rock.