Better Than Ezra’s Kevin Griffin on Super Magick and Kansas connections ahead of Friday’s Uptown bash

Better Than Ezra. // photo credit Robbie Klein

Alt-rockers Better Than Ezra had some of the biggest hits of the ’90s, with “Good” and “Desperately Wanting” still finding their way onto radio nearly 30 years later. However, while the band’s been regularly touring ever since, it’s been ten years since their last full-length, All Together Now.

That all changed with the release of Super Magick last week via Round Hill Records.

The new album shows a band who knows how to make music that still resonates with that original fanbase while also picking up new sounds and ideas in the years since Deluxe and Friction, Baby.

Ahead of their show at The Uptown on Friday, May 10, we spoke with frontman Kevin Griffin about Super Magick and some surprising local connections.

The Pitch: Big tour and a new album. Good start to the year for you all?

Kevin Griffin: You know, Ezra’s always been touring, we’ve been putting singles out, but we haven’t put a whole album out in 10 years, so it’s a fun time for us. Now that we’re doing the whole album release cycle again, we’re like, “Why did we wait so long?”

We’ve all been doing different projects and stuff, but we’re excited. It’s a really good album and we’re excited to be back in Kansas City. I mean, we used to play Kansas City all the time at the Hurricane. Oh God. Yeah. Those were late nights, but we would always play there and then the [Power & Light]. It’s going to be fun to to be back in a proper theater. We’ve always done well in Kansas City so I’m glad we’re back.

There’s a reference to the area on the new album in “Mystified,” where the hometown hero is now a million miles away from a place like Topeka. Is that a dig at Fred Phelps?

No. I had the melody for the song and the feel and I wrote it with a guy named Henry Brill, who’s a great lyricist. I was just talking about my wife, who was born in Topeka. She lived in Topeka, and her family’s all still from there and I’m there often. Then she moved out west, near San Francisco, so those lyrics are all about a fictional version of my wife’s life, and in “Mystified,” the prom queen gets seduced by the dark elements of San Francisco, and it doesn’t turn out right, at least not in the short term.

But, no–I just love Topeka. Topeka is just such a name. It’s just a weird word in your mouth, and it’s a typical Midwestern town, and my wife is from there, so I just love saying, “Topeka.” In the demo for the song, we were just like, “Topeka, Topeka, Topeka!” and it just kind of became this thing.

In addition to that, you’ve had other area connections. You co-wrote Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear’s “Hell and Back.” What brought you into their orbit?

Oh my god, right? I love that song. I love Madisen Ward. They were out on Glass Note and I know Daniel Glass, the namesake of the label, and we were just in touch. He was like, “Hey, I got this artist, Madisen Ward, I think he’d be great.” I’m like, “I’m a fan. I love his voice,” and he came down to Nashville. We wrote four or five songs. “Hell and Back” is the only one that made the record. We text all the time. We’re going to be having lunch when I’m in town.

Are there challenges in making music for yourself and the band when you’re also creating songs for other folks?

No. I think in the beginning when I first started writing with other artists, there were maybe some times when my band was like, “Hey, why didn’t we do that song,” but now I’ve been doing it so long and the package of me being part of Better Than Ezra is I do all the other stuff, but what it’s done is become a way to keep our band more relevant and exciting. Because I write with different artists and different writers, I’m always constantly exposed to what they’re into and at the same time.

I love always devouring new music so much so the songs I’m writing and stuff sound fresh, because it’s my job to stay up on everything and be competitive. My writing for Ezra–it’s always going to sound like Better Than Ezra, but it’s also going to have new elements and new sounds in it and hopefully something that sounds fresh, while also having a foot in the past. I think the band sees it and I see it as an asset that I do it.

I’m always like, “Hey, we got to get this person to mix this record, because I just worked with them on this album, and they’re fucking awesome. I just had strings done on this artist. We should use this person.” It’s really kind of it’s kept me in touch with what’s happening currently in music.

“Live A Little,” like you said, sounds like Better Than Ezra, but it also sounds fresh. It sounds like something that could play alongside everything that’s on modern rock radio these days.

Well, here’s the deal with that. That song was written by me and the bass player from 30 Seconds to Mars [Stephen Aiello]. Songwriting sessions are often, if the artist isn’t in the room, then sometimes you do what is called a pitch session or you were writing for sync, where you’re writing for synchronization or placement in films.

We’re like, “Let’s write a song that feels like Neon Trees meets Fitz & the Tantrums meets Young the Giant,” and that’s what we came up with. Then we were like, “Fuck, this is really good,” so Ezra decided to record it.

What is ostensibly the first single off the album, “Grateful,” came out in 2018, so how has the process of making Super Magick gone? As you mentioned at the top of all this, it’s been 10 years since your last album.

When a band has been around a long time, it becomes a touring vehicle, ’cause we’ve got a great catalog of songs. We get to go play and people who know Better Than Ezra’s music come to our shows. So you end up getting in that mindset, and then, unless you’re Coldplay or Green Day, you start looking at records, albums, as something that you do because you really just got to create, and you want to get the album out there and you want your fans to hear new music.

It’s not the old days where, “Hey, we got to release a new album because this could go triple platinum.” The motivation to make an album is different. I think we had to come to terms with that on finally getting back in the studio and making an effort to do it because it’s not the financial driver it used to be. It’s really got to be out of the love of music–making and putting out new music. That played into taking a long time between albums.

Then, also we just wanted it to be good. We just picked up songs as songs were written, and I was like, “This is a great Better Than Ezra song,” and we collected about maybe 20—these 12 are the ones that made the cut.

I love the song “Grateful.” We put it out as a single in the summer of 2018. I’ve always loved it. When songs are just released as singles, they’re just kind of like a babe in the woods, and you want them to have the protection, and the–I don’t know, there’s something about being on an album that gives it just much more staying power. It doesn’t get lost when it’s a part of an album. I wanted “Grateful” to have that. And yeah, so that’s an older song, but it fits right in.

Better Than Ezra plays the Uptown on Friday, May 10. Details on that show here.