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Better Than Ezra's Kevin Griffin Is Singing A Different 'Song'

The Pilgrimage Festival Co-Founder Explores Another Side Of Himself

Article by Maria Dinoia

Photography by Danielle Del Valle @ The History & Culture Center of Williamson County

Originally published in Franklin Lifestyle

You may have first heard Kevin Griffin's name back in 1993 when his band, Better Than Ezra, first emerged on to the music scene with the album Deluxe and 1995 hit single "Good" that reached number one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart. Or maybe you remember his name from 2015 when he helped to launch Franklin's beloved Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival, now in its ninth year. Today, you'll hear Kevin Griffin's name again as the author of the highly regarded book, The Greatest Song: Spark Creativity, Ignite Your Career And Transform Your Life, a fictional business parable with inspiring real-world advice, due out later this month.

Kevin says, "I started doing speeches with Young President's Organization (YPO) groups like five or six years ago. And when I sat down to write my speech, I started to think, 'What would be compelling to a business person?' This organization was made up of very successful business people. People are just so interested in music and behind the scenes, and it's a career that people are fascinated with. So I started thinking 'How have I stayed successful in a notoriously fickle business, and are there actual things that I've done, tangible things that I've done, to stay in this game that I've learned over the years?'

That's when Griffin realized he really did have something to say. "I realized there are these tools and these kind of methods that I do, sometimes overtly, but also just out of habit, these things I do to stay in the game. And I put it together in a speech that was really a story arc of my career from the beginning of Better Than Ezra to writing hit songs for other people. The ups and downs of the music business, getting dropped, peppered with the hits that I've written for other people. And then I put these five things that I do to stay in the game."  

Kevin's Five Tips 

- Creative collaboration

- Filling the well 

- Changing your attitude 

- Leaving your comfort zone 

- Dare to be stupid

"Writing books is a long process. It takes a long time. I was like, 'I'm going to do a business parable about a songwriter' and not make it autobiographical, but it couldn't help but be just a little bit. It's just the things that I've learned and the anecdotes and the stories and the characters, and it all just fell together. It took a long time to write. I spent many, many hours at Frothy Monkey. I was that guy on the computer," says Griffin.

Writing a book was something the English major from Louisiana State University (LSU) always wanted to do. Next up, he says he's working on a purely fiction book. Griffin adds, "I love doing it all. I really love pivoting. It's always exciting to me, and what I learn. It's inspiring that within any profession, there's a whole skill set that you aren't aware exists. And I'm a firm believer in always evolving."

Speaking of evolving, what's next for Better Than Ezra? "We have a new album coming out at the end of the summer. It will be our first full-length album in nine years. And we're doing a summer amphitheater tour with Train. It starts in Northern California, and goes all the way across the U.S. And then in the fall, we'll do our own tour of theaters along the East Coast and the Midwest." KevinGriffinMusic.com

The Greatest Song is available locally at Parnassus Books, on Amazon, and anywhere you can buy books online. 

"I hope I'm speaking to people who are saying, 'What's my second act? Where am I in my life? I've done this, but I really want to do this. How do I continue getting better?'