Singer Kevin Griffin led the Louisiana band Better Than Ezra to big success with the number one hit "Good" in the '90s. Continuing that trend into the next decade with big songs like "Extra Ordinary" and "Juicy" once again brought more fame currently with the eighth album for the group All Together Now in 2014.
Many artists have performed his songwriting work such as Taylor Swift, Train, Sugarland,and James Blunt over the years.
Recently at City Winery in Chicago, he wowed a sold-out crowd with acoustic versions of past hits and stories with hilarious impersonations of Matthew McConaughey and Dave Matthews.
Windy City Times went backstage before that solo show to catch a glimpse of him behind the scenes.
Windy City Times: Hi, Kevin. I see the venue made you your own personal bottle of wine to sell at the show.
Kevin Griffin: Yes, it's a Malbec. I had to stomp on a lot of grapes!
WCT: This weekend I spoke with another Ezra: George Ezra.
Kevin Griffin: Oh, yeah; he's the "Budapest" guy. He's a cool guy with fresh new music. Everyone is going to want him on the road with them because he makes them cooler. He opened for Sam Smith, who is the male AdeleMadele!
WCT: Is everyone in Better Than Ezra from Louisiana?
Kevin Griffin: Yeah. I was born in Atlanta but grew up in Louisiana and went to LSU [Louisiana State University]. Better Than Ezra got together at that school in 1988. It has been a long journey. We did what we set out to do, which was have fun and play music. Luckily people keep coming to Better Than Ezra shows and I get to do these solo shows.
WCT: Do you like doing the solo shows more?
Kevin Griffin: I like variety. The longer I play music the more I like doing different things. We did a lot of Better Than Ezra shows this past year in support of the new album. We are doing a summer tour this year and will be playing at Ravinia here in Illinois. I like doing the solo thing because it is a different vibe.
This venue is intimate. All of these supper clubs are popping up and doing well with live music. I get to do Ezra songs, songs I have written for other people, and tell lots of stories.
WCT: Stories work well at City Winery, some artists even do more stories than music.
Kevin Griffin: It is easy to go off on a tangent. You have to find a balance and have an inner barometer to not talk too much. I don't want to lose the crowd or be self indulgent.
WCT: Would you ever write a book?
Kevin Griffin: It is interesting you ask me that question because I have written one book and was editing it half way through. The Hangover movie came out and it was basically my story done much better so that ended it.
I have another story that I am a third of the way through that is a lot of fun. I have no preconceptions about writing a novel but it is a rollicking good time. If I ever finish it, who knows?
WCT: Has living in Nashville brought you more songwriting?
Kevin Griffin: I lived in New Orleans and was writing outside of the band early on. I left there during Katrina and moved to L.A. for five years. I wanted to raise my family in a place more affordable and Nashville is that place. It is a great place to be a musician. Songwriters are revered and there are guitar circles where people play.
WCT: There must be some great songwriting stories from you.
Kevin Griffin: Yes, starting with Meatloaf and a seven-minute-long opus with a choir about a trucker addicted to crystal meth who goes to a street revival tent. It's called "Testify."
I wrote for Blondie in the beginning then went for younger pop stars all the way up to now. I went to James Blunt's villa in Ibiza to write for him and it was hard to get any work done. We were onstage with David Guetta because James loves all the EDM music. There is a nightclub at James' house called Bluntys and underneath it says, "Where Everyone Is Beautiful." Everything is very tongue in cheek there.
WCT: You wrote Howie Day's big song "Collide," and he just performed here at City Winery.
Kevin Griffin: We must be playing around the same venues because he just played the Music Box in Cleveland and I was there. I'm stalking him!
WCT: Tell me about Taylor Swift.
Kevin Griffin: She covered our song "Breathless." We have met and sat at the same table together at an awards show. To hear her sing our song was super sweet.
WCT: Is anyone in Better Than Ezra gay?
Kevin Griffin: No, not strictly. We were all in college together so you know how things lead to one another. I am kidding. ... We have had a lot of people that come to our shows that are gay. I have certainly been called flamboyant on many occasions.
WCT: Have you written lyrics in the past covering LGBT topics?
Kevin Griffin: No one knows this but a song called "In the Blood"off of our first recordwas written about my wife's uncle, who was the editor of The Advocate. He died of AIDS in 1995. "In the Blood" is about AIDS and all the people I was losing at that time. I was just getting to know that man and he was an amazing dude. I just told my wife yesterday how it sucks that Patrick is no longer here with us. He grew up with a father that disowned him who is still to this day living and a jerk.
A lot of people don't know what that song is about. It doesn't have the lyrics"in the blood" in the song but that is the title. It is about how we are all interconnected.
Songs like "Gonna Get Better" are about being in a position of adversity. I like to think there is a positive message where everyone can relate to the lyrics.
"King of New Orleans" is about a character that swings both ways: "He loves the girls and he loves the boys, going to make 20 dollars before the weekends over."
I love colorful and interesting people so there are no lines about what I do and don't write about.
WCT: The public doesn't know all about this until now.
Kevin Griffin: Most people have never known that because fans will have much more eloquent explanations about songs like "In the Blood."
WCT: Some artists don't like talking in my past interviews about their lyrics because it gives too much away.
Kevin Griffin: That is because sometimes it's only about an amazing ice mocha they had at Starbucks or something really mundane!
WCT: How did your life change after "Good" came out?
Kevin Griffin: We had played together for seven years before that. I was 28 at the time when that took off. It was a realization of a bunch of dreams. We were suddenly a signed band and flying all over the world. It was fun to finally have validation. Life changed for the better. When you reach certain milestones you realize your horizons have changed. It is always a new challenge to keep things going.
The thing that changed the most from "Good" was that I paid off my credit-card bills.
WCT: Talk about this recent Christmas project with Band of Merrymakers.
Kevin Griffin: This past spring Sam Hollander, a successful songwriter in L.A., called me up and asked me to write a Christmas song with him. He's Jewish but asked for my Gentile sense of melody. We wanted to do a Band Aid sort of thing with a bunch of our friends. We wrote "Must Be Christmas" and called the group Band of Merrymakers. We recruited Fitz from Fitz & the Tantrums, Tyler Glenn from Neon Trees, and a bunch others. It got great reviews and over 800,000 streams on Spotify. Now a major label is offering us a deal to do a full album next year. Hopefully one year we do a major market Christmas tour with this East Village cool alternative to Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
WCT: Good luck getting all of those schedules together.
Kevin Griffin: Exactly, now we are doing a whole album together instead of a single so the logistics will be crazy. One thing I am doing this summer I am excited to mention is called Pilgrimage Music Festival in Franklin, Tennessee. It is a multi-genre music festival that is based on New Orleans Jazz Festival. There will not be an EDM stage like Lollapalooza so very different than that. The headliners will be Willie Nelson, Elvis Costello, Fitz & the Tantrums with an older demographic but then people like Hozier. We are putting bids out now to people like George Ezra. He doesn't know it yet but he's getting an offer from us. You could have slipped him an envelope from us!
Check current information on Griffin's upcoming performances at pilgrimagemusicfestival.com and www.ravinia.org .