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The secret for Better Than Ezra is their eagerness to please; their desire to charm the ears off everyone they meet with their scrappy, amped-up and sloppy pop rock rattled out in the tradition of gritty bar bands like Superchunk and the Replacements as well as the loud post-grunge alt rockers like Third Eye Blind and Collective Soul. They want to write the rowdy love song that will capture the hearts of the lowest common denominators, and they don’t see a need to pretend otherwise. "We set out to make an undeniable album for everyone: existing fans and indifferent people alike," vocalist Kevin Griffin said in a press release for Closer, a new album that finds the band bumped from the corporate sponsored roster at Elektra after a ho-hum reception to the questionable How Does Your Garden Grow? in 1998. Having backtracked a bit and landed a deal with the upstart independent label Beyond Music label, the members of Better Than Ezra find themselves on the bottom end of the rock band cycle of life. The band has come up through the ranks and gone all the way to the top of the charts only to then be squeezed out through the ringer.
Better Than Ezra – Griffin, bassist Tom Drummond and drummer Cary Bonnecaze - caught their first big break when, after self-releasing a cassette-only album of demo tracks, the trio caught the ear of former Kerrang! magazine writer Derek Oliver, who turned around and inked the band to a deal with Elektra Records. Having already done most of the legwork behind Deluxe (recording the album, finishing post-production and assembling the artwork), the band virtually exploded into the mainstream overnight as the single "Good" reached number 1 on the "Alternative Radio" charts. The down-home boys from N’Orleans had splashed into the MTV pond on a bubble at the tail end of the grunge dynasty alongside bands like Sponge and Seven Mary Three, but Better Than Ezra hit the road hard, earnestly supporting the album and helping to push the repackaged and re-released Deluxe into Billboard magazine’s Top 50 chart. Better Than Ezra toured hard, and before recording the follow up to their major label debut they had parted ways with Bonnecaze, replacing him with Travis McNabb for the recording of Friction, Baby. Once on top of the up-and-coming pile, Better Than Ezra took time to explore the freedom and the boundaries of their newfound success, ultimately treading water for five years while producing a mixed bag of albums that never established the band as a heavy hitter on the monsters of rock circuit. But for all the fluctuations in their sound and image, Better Than Ezra have never tried to convinced anyone that they are anything more than a rock and roll band doing the only thing they know how to do - write the best pop songs possible. "We like to think of Better Than Ezra as genuine, in how we live and the songs we write," says Drummond, "It's all from the heart, just three normal guys making music."
"This is our best album yet without a doubt," says Griffin. "It's our most focused and consistent because our backs were up against the wall, and we knew we had to make an album where every song was undeniable. The key to original sound is to feed your inspirations into your imagination and come out with something that’s never been done before."
I would be lying if I told you that Closer was something that's never been done before, but I can't deny the album's aloof charm either. There are a handful of unfortunate missteps when parts fail to establish themselves and Griffin's vocals feel a bit ham-handed, but as a self-contained pop/rock radio-ready sampler, Closer holds its own with the play list of most any station you'll find on the FM dial. Assembled with the tutelage of veteran producers Brad Wood and Ethan Allen, Closer reflects a balance between the solid, amplified power of bar room college rock and the more shaky limbs out on which the band members' hunches take them. "It's New Ezra meets Old Ezra," said bassist Tom Drummond. "It's a combination of the pop of Deluxe with the rock of Friction, Baby and the off-center perspective of How Does Your Garden Grow?, but with a maturity level that far surpasses our previous efforts."
It’s hard to say if Better Than Ezra will ever regain their former stature in the public eye, but on the ground floor they’re as tight an alternative rock band as you’ll find touring the rock and roll B-list circuit of small cities and large bars, and that is where you will most likely find them these days, with their backs against that proverbial wall.
SEE ALSO > http://www.betterthanezra.com/
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