Kevin Griffin On Better Than Ezra At 35, ‘Legends Of The Fall’ Tour, New BTE Music

For Better Than Ezra frontman Kevin Griffin, maintaining a diverse brand has been key to successfully navigating a changing music industry, continually finding new ways to monetize music amidst the rise of the internet as the primary means of music delivery.

Despite upheaval of the major label system that once helped drive platinum record sales for the New Orleans alternative act, Better Than Ezra is going strong, in the midst of their “Legends of the Fall” U.S. tour while staring down a once unthinkable 35 years in 2023.

Griffin co-founded the Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival in 2015 and stays busy as a founding member of Ezra Ray Hart, a supergroup featuring members of 90s hitmakers Better Than Ezra, Sugar Ray and Tonic specifically geared toward domination of the corporate gig circuit.

In addition to work as a songwriter and speaker, Griffin will also deliver his first book, a business parable entitled The Greatest Song, via Brown Books this spring following release of a brand new Better Than Ezra record in March.

“The album is tentatively called Super Magick. That could change. But I spent time with a guy named Emery Dobyns, who I co-produced the record with, who’s worked with everybody from Patti Smith to Travis,” explained Griffin of the group’s ninth studio album and first since 2014, one recorded in his home studio just outside Nashville, Tennessee. “There’s always a couple of songs right at the end that I’m like, ‘This song has to go on it!’ Every one of our albums has had a song that came in right under the wire. So the album is never finished until it’s finished – but it’s about 90% done. We’re just mixing it. And we’ve been playing three songs from the new record live.”

During opening night of the group’s current “Legends of the Fall” tour at Chicago’s House of Blues earlier this month, Better Than Ezra performed for over two hours, digging deep in the catalog as they dusted off soundtrack cuts like “Circle of Friends,” reportedly for the first time in nearly 25 years. In addition to all the hits, well-curated covers and one brand new track, “Mystified,” rounded out the highly entertaining performance.

“I wrote it with this guy Henry Brill, who is living up to his last name. He’s a brilliant lyricist. We came up with ‘Mystified.’ It’s a bit rooted in real life and a bit rooted in fiction,” said Griffin of the new song. “There was a time when I was writing songs and I felt like everything had to be biographical. Then I had this kind of aha moment where I was like, ‘Oh, wait a second. I can just take dramatic license and write this whole narrative about something that doesn’t have anything to do with me.’ It’s a real challenge to write a narrative and a story that people can follow within three minutes or three and a half minutes. And ‘Mystified’ is one of those songs.”

I spoke with Kevin Griffin about Better Than Ezra’s current “Legends of the Fall” tour, one which continues into mid-November, the return of his Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival, getting back on stage and an early moment as a songwriter which would help steer Better Than Ezra’s next 35 years. A transcript of our phone conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity follows below.

How has the “Legends of the Fall” tour gone so far?

KEVIN GRIFFIN: We’re so thrilled with how this tour is going – the ticket sales, the reaction from the audience. We haven’t done a proper bus tour just on our own. We’ve been doing a lot of package tours. And those are fun. But there’s just something about having our own show in a theater or a club and seeing people come out.

And it exercises different muscles for us. We’re playing a two hour plus show going deep in the catalog and playing new songs too. Doing a package show is great. But you’re only playing a 50 minute set – so you kind of want to just play the hits. But your hardcore fans, the ones that really support you, they don’t want to necessarily hear those songs – they want to hear the deeper cuts. So this is important for us and we’re enjoying it.

In Chicago, there were several songs I don’t think I’ve ever seen you guys do live or at least haven’t seen live in a long time. How’d you go about putting the setlist together this time around?

KG: I went through all of our albums. We rehearsed for four days and soundchecked at this place in Nashville. We were like, “What about this? What about that? What about this?” Just feedback. And we have a long list of fan requests that we keep. And then everybody in the band weighed in. “Let’s do ‘Tremble’ from the first cassette or ‘Circle of Friends’ from the Empire Records soundtrack.” Songs that I haven’t thought about in ages – but we used to play them all of the time.

I know you guys did festivals this summer and are in more intimate venues on this tour. What’s it been like getting back on stage in front of actual people after the layoff?

KG: Man… It just validates the power of playing music. I did a lot of virtual shows. And that was a saving grace for me – being able to perform during the pandemic. And I’m going to keep doing that stuff. Just like everybody, the hybrid workplace or music space is always going to be around.

But, god, playing shows and being back in that visceral reaction of a crowd – and just that communal aspect of going to see a show. I mean, humans are social animals. And people love going to see live music. And that’s one thing you can’t stream is the live music experience – thank god.

Maybe one day in the virtual world, or the meta universe as it’s called, something will replace it. But, right now, just playing in front of people is really cool. Music is a salve for the soul. And it speaks to people. It touches people in unique, very personal ways.

You guys celebrated Friction, Baby at 25 last year, performing the album in full. What was that experience like?

KG: Just amazing. On a few different levels. When you replay an album, it takes you back to when you recorded that album. You’re listening to it and, on the acoustic songs, you hear the sound of that room. We recorded that at Daniel Lanois’ Kingsway Studios, the famous studio in the French Quarter [in New Orleans] in the Count Arnaud mansion right at the corner of Chartres and Esplanade – where R.E.M. and Pearl Jam and Blind Melon, Neil Young and Emmylou Harris – so many bands recorded there. So I hear those rooms and I hear where I was in my life – personal things. So that’s really cool to revisit that and those memories. It’s like a time machine.

But then also, just playing the songs, it’s like, “Oh. This is awesome. Why did we quit playing this song?” That’s really cool. And then actually playing it live and having to pull it off, and sing the way you used to – people want it to be accurate and authentic and the way it was. And that’s a challenge.

Pilgrimage made it back last year and again this year. How did everything go?

KG: It was amazing. We had Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Jon Batiste, The Avett Brothers. We couldn’t be happier. Especially against the backdrop where a lot of our festival peers were struggling with tickets. We did great. That said, 2021 was a huge year for us and other festivals. Because everybody was just so anxious to get out, because they had been stuck inside for two years. So we didn’t sell quite as many tickets this year as we did last year. But we sold better than most.

We’re already booking 2023, we have a killer lineup so far and it just keeps going and getting better. We just keep getting smarter about it. And bringing in people that help us make it better.

I remember you guys fighting rain one year. Then there was the pandemic. It’s hard to sustain a festival under optimal circumstances. To keep it going despite moments like that, I imagine you have to get smarter about it. What have you learned these last few years that’s applicable in that way?

KG: You just have to run your festival efficiently. Festivals are – well, I guess any business but especially at festivals – you can spend way too much money and lose your ass really fast. So having a great festival director and a great controller who makes the different department heads stay on budget.

What we realized is that, with our festival, Franklin, Tennessee and Harlinsdale Farm is a headliner in itself. We don’t have to go crazy with decor and stuff. What’s already there – the buildings that are already there – you couldn’t make a cooler atmosphere. It’s about the music and the bands. So, the first few years, we just went over the top and spent money on a lot of things that we didn’t need to. We overpaid for bands. We were just neophytes in the business. We’re still independent. We’re not part of Live Nation or AEG or anybody. We do it ourselves. So it took us a while to get our business acumen down as well as we did in booking the festival. And amazingly we survived. So that was the biggest thing, just learning how to do that.

Keeping your business solvent, watching the bottom line and just running a tight ship is key. Because, without that – I don’t care how great the music is – you’re just not gonna be able to afford to do it.

Ezra Ray Hart is another unique revenue stream you’ve seized upon. How did that come about?

KG: Look, you know, I am a poster child for putting irons in the fire – hustling. When I say someone is a hustler, I say that with the greatest respect. They’re always looking. “How do I continue evolving? How do I monetize what I do and have fun doing it?”

About seven years ago, I was just noticing that my band wasn’t getting the corporate gigs that bigger bands were. Insert Alicia Keys or Pink or Train here – because they had more hits. So I reached out to Mark McGrath [of Sugar Ray] and Emerson Hart [of Tonic] like, “Man, let’s put a band together. Let’s just play all of our hits and cover other 90s songs and just have fun.” And we did it!

We ended up having so much fun that it just kind of turned into its own thing. So now we do hard ticket shows, where people buy tickets, and there’s some festivals we’ve done. But it’s just fun. It’s another outlet. It’s working different muscles. And we’ll continue doing it.

On stage in Chicago, during the tour opener, you joked that, early on, all of your songs sounded like “R.E.M. ripoffs” – but then you started listening to The Replacements and Hüsker Dü . Is there an early songwriting moment there where you realized you had taken a real step forward?

KG: Yeah. Absolutely. I was really into R.E.M. and more of that jangly, lighter kind of thing. Maybe the lyrics were more descriptive and not like a narrative. And then I wrote a couple of songs. One was called “CDU.” And another one was “Circle of Friends.” They were really just about real life things and heavy subject matter. They were influenced by the rock I grew up with – listening to Hüsker Dü and The Pixies and The Replacements. And the reaction, suddenly, to those songs… People had just ignored our originals because we’d just squeeze them in between college rock covers. But we’d start playing that song and it was a visceral, immediate reaction to our band. We just did that better.

People have such short attention spans and there’s so much competing for people’s interests. But one thing that still works is if there’s a song that feels authentic. And if it just connects with people, it works. Even in this day and age, people will react to it.

Back in the early 90s, when we started playing songs like “Circle of Friends” – which laid the groundwork for “Good” and “In the Blood” and “Desperately Wanting” – when you’re creating something, and you know this as far as writing, when you write that first thing that people really react to, you’re like, “That’s my voice. This is what people like from me.”

I remember driving in an old GMC four cylinder Jimmy, which was just this terrible SUV. I was in Baton Rouge. But we would record our rehearsals. And I put in a cassette of “Circle of Friends.” And just listening to it, I was like, “This is it. This is our sound. This is the thing.”

It was a pretty cool moment. And it definitely changed the direction of the band.

Nobody looks ahead thinking their band is gonna be around in 35 years but you guys are just about there. What’s it like thinking about Better Than Ezra in those terms?

KG: It’s a lot of emotions. One of them is humbling. It’s like, “Whoa, this band that we called Better Than Ezra when I was in college, I’m still doing. I’m in my 50s and I’m still playing music. I’m jumping around the stage and I’m in a bus…” It’s really great.

Part of it is arrested development. You get to stay a kid, you know? You get to play rock and roll, that silly thing you dreamed about when you were a kid. I still get to do it. So, that’s really great.

Also, I think if you have any self-awareness, you realize how lucky you are. We realize how lucky we are because we get to do this. Just like any profession, whether it’s you as a writer or me as a musician or an athlete, I can always name artists or bands that have done better than me – that are just bigger or had more success. And I’ve had moments in my career where I’ve gone, “Why can’t we be this band playing arenas or stadiums?” But then I take a step back and go, “Wait a second. You are playing to sold out theaters around the country. You’ve been doing this for 35 years. It’s led to all of these other things. You are fortunate enough to be in the 1% of people who ever start bands. So just f—ng enjoy it. And be grateful.”

And that’s where we’ve been sitting for quite a while.