One has to believe that if you were anywhere in the 1990s, you would immediately recognize the voice of Kevin Griffin, singer of the Billboard chart-topping alternative band Better Than Ezra. His serene wail of “wha ha…wha ha….it was good living with you a-ha” was all over radios and its corresponding video was in MTV’s heavy rotation the summer of 1995.
Now, after a year of quarantine-related livestreams and fundraisers (the band was even profiled by Forbes magazine
Kevin Griffin asks who misses live music via his Instagram 2020
for raising $130,000 to benefit MusiCares and Second Harvest), Better Than Ezra is back to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of the release of Friction, Baby, the follow up to the wildly popular Deluxe. Tracks like “King of New Orleans” and “Desperately Wanting” solidified Griffin and his bandmates (Tom Drummond, on bass, and then-drummer Cary Bonnecaze) on the international pop-rock alternative map which even surprised Griffin, a Monroe, Louisiana native who attended LSU.
“New Orleans is known as a world center of great music, but it is traditionally funk and R&B and obviously zydeco and stuff like Allen Toussaint and Dr. John,” says the singer-songwriter who now resides in Franklin, Tennessee. “So obviously, we were an anomaly to be a rock band in the ’90s breaking out of New Orleans but at the same time, it gave us instant cred because it’s such a cool city to be from. It’s always been known to be a world- class city that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Paris or Prague, and it’s always been about music. We always got so much support from the local music scene in New Orleans especially from our friends in more traditional bands. Allen Toussaint was a fan and we used to hang out with him and speak to tons of the guys in brass bands who were fans. I think at the time people were just cheering to have any band from New Orleans take a national stage. We were a breakout, and it was great that the city rallied around us.”
He pauses for a moment then acknowledges the success of the Revivalists as another great pop/rock breakout from the city.
Known perhaps most for his crisp and clear falsetto trademark voice, the singer still maintains the boyish looks and lightheartedness of an English major at a state school in the ’90s. At six feet four inches tall, he was enamored with sports as a kid but immediately fell head over heels for the guitar when his father purchased a guitar and enrolled in classical guitar lessons.
“There was this guitar lying around but there was also a piano and the guitar just seemed to speak to me. The first time I ever played guitar for people I was in second or third grade playing ‘It’s a Small World After All’ with my class in a gondola. My first real band was in middle school. My brother got me into rock and roll when he was into Kiss, and I was so enamored with the glitz and promise of rock and roll. I got the bug, and I knew I wanted to be a showman. I’ve just been so lucky to do this my entire life.”
Griffin doesn’t shy away from acknowledging that “Good” put the wheels in motion for the band. “I knew it was cool and catchy [the first time we played it together]. We performed the song for the first time in Jackson, Mississippi at W.C. Don’s, a double-wide trailer in a crappy part in Jackson. (Sorry Mississippi!) The lyrics weren’t finished. The wha ha part was gonna be lyrics and I remember us as a band thinking, ‘People dig this as is and this feels really cool to play live.’ Then we opened for a band called Poi Dog Pondering asking us ‘Whoa, is that an original? That’s something special.’ Then I just kind of knew it was kind of something good and different. That was written in 1991 and it took us for years to get signed and we played that song for labels and A&R people.
“It’s a great example of something that’s very true in the music industry: you got to believe in the song and believe in what you are doing in a world of no’s, and it just takes just one yes. We kept believing and kept pushing. The biggest thing in music is not quitting. If you are talented and people love you, it’s about not quitting you gotta keep spreading the word. We did that song for five years before we got signed in 1995.”
Before the end of that year, the major label release from Better Than Ezra (under Elektra) Deluxe had reached platinum status and they were ready to record Friction, Baby. They settled into Daniel Lanois’s French Quarter studio, Kingsway Studios, to pen their album which sonically reads like a love letter to the band’s favorite city. “King of New Orleans,” the first single, is a tribute to the gutter punk hierarchy of Decatur Street. There is a track titled “WWOZ” and Matt Perrine plays tuba with Jamil Sherif on trumpet and Mark Mullins on trombone. It only makes sense that the married father of three would get the band back together 25 years later in the same place where Friction, Baby came together. Before taking the stage at the House of Blues on August 13 and 14, the band will be rehearsing (with current drummer, Michael Jerome, formerly of The Toadies, who has been in the group since 2009) on Esplanade Avenue once again.
When he’s not touring, Griffin stays busy in Franklin, a suburb of Nashville, that’s more oriented to the songwriting aspect of music. There he has worked penning songs with giants like Meatloaf, Taylor Swift, and Barenaked Ladies. When asked if his kids influence his songwriting, he says there is no doubt.
“They are typical suburban kids—all into rap. I’m hearing a lot of that with certain rhythmic deliveries. Whenever you listen to music, it’s through osmosis. I’ll be in a songwriting session, and I’ll be thinking of something I heard my kids play. I’ll play it in the session and people will say, ‘Oh my God that’s so dope!’ I make it a point to listen to what my kids are into because I write with 18-year-olds who are signed all the time. I have to be coming up with ideas that feel fresh and relevant and current.”
As we wrap up our nostalgic ’90s conversation (or nowstalgic as kids like to call it today), we return once again to the song that really started it all, even though it’s not one from Friction, Baby. I read him some comments on the YouTube video of “Good” that say people in 2020 felt comforted by the memories the song gives them and I have to ask Kevin Griffin if he ever gets sick of playing it.
“No. I never get sick of playing it live! Some bands famously resist their hits and think they are better than the song and want their fans to like their more complicated, musical songs. That song has given so much to my life. You build a setlist around what is going to bring the energy. I love seeing people react to it and I’m super grateful I’ve done this!”
Griffin remains just as charming, upbeat and positive as he seemed on MTV back in the day, and as optimistic as ever. I ask him if he still believes what he told Forbes at the height of the pandemic last year—that there would be an explosion of great art in the aftermath of COVID-19.
“I still believe that!” he exclaims. “The big albums you are going to hear are going to be coming out this fall. I’m bullish about that cuz’ it’s gonna be great!”
Better Than Ezra will perform Friction, Baby in its entirety (probably with “Good,” as well) at the House of Blues August 13 and 14. Tickets are available here.
