Backstage Pass with... Adam Ezra
Profile: Adam Ezra
By: Alexandra Harris
Adam Ezra sits at a table for two in the window of Espresso Royale with tea and the day’s crossword puzzle. Periodically he glances at the clock on his cell phone and looks around. Earlier, he ran into the Guitar Center to find some equipment for this weekend’s shows but the store, unfortunately, did not have the parts he was looking for. Ezra, who prefers to omit his last name, Olshansky—“it’s too long,” he says—performed at Sunday River and Sugarbush Village ski resorts in Maine and Vermont on February 11 and 12, as part of the Budweiser True Music Tour.
The tour, according to Ezra, is a way for Budweiser to appeal to a younger, hipper crowd by supporting grassroots musicians through advertising and booking shows throughout New England.
“Budweiser is an incredible resource,” says Ezra. “It’s a good fit. They didn’t want to take over the music at all. They just want to be cool.” Budweiser is sponsoring the group forthe second consecutive year.
The Adam Ezra Group signed with Boston Event Group, a booking agency, three weeks ago. Since the signing, the group has performed at the Hard Rock Café, Paradise Rock Club, Middle East and Nectar’s in Burlington, Vermont. “Adam’s work ethic is amazing and he has this undeniable je ne sais crois that makes him really unique,” says Millen, an agent at Boston Event Group. Ezra doesn’t mind relinquishing booking responsibilities. The 27-year-old Wayland, Massachusetts native has been writing since 1999, throwing his emotions and experiences into his music, a blend of rock, folk and acoustic guitar, something that is lacking in the days of Ashlee Simpson and various pop artists whose songs offer nothing but uninspiring artificial emotions and unoriginal innuendoes for sex.
Ezra began writing in 1999, following graduation from Colgate University in New
York, when he moved to Chicago and lived with a friend who was playing blues. That fall he played his first “open mic” night. “I stayed in his closet,” Ezra says. “I played open mics three to five times a week.” In the spring he played his first official gig at a “little shit bar” in Chicago.
The next couple of years, Ezra lived out of his car, a Saturn and then his grandpa’s Oldsmobile, playing shows in California, Chicago and New England. In Chicago, he performed at the Uncommon Ground, a small café with live local entertainment, until he got too popular for the venue.
Around Ezra’s sporadic touring schedule, he recorded a solo album in Chicago, just him and a guitar. He opened up about his experiences from working on the dairy farm in Canada on his self-titled debut. On the nine-minute song “The Ballad of Ray Thomas,” Ezra shares the life of Canadian truck driver Ray Thomas, a man he met while working on a dairy farm outside Cookstown, Ontario. “I went up to Canada to have an understanding of what it’s like to work your entire life,” he says.
“There was a bar in [Cookstown], called Fitzy’s. When I was hired onto the farm, I celebrated there. In the bar, there was one table of mean-lookin’ farmer-type dudes who hung out,” says Ezra as he clenches his jaw and tenses his body to describe the tough farmers. “I made it my mission to be part of the table. I met Ray at the table. He was an alcoholic truck driver who was abused as a child and abused his family.”
Even though Ezra did not pursue a degree in music at Colgate—he studied environmental geography—he uses his degree to look at human culture as it’s shaped by the environment and shapes the environment. It’s an attempt to gain perspective on the world and people. It also helps that Ezra lived in South Africa, did relief work in Kosovo, as well as worked on the farm.
The song “Nkosei Sikelel ˇAfrika” is derived from a South African apartheid-struggle anthem during the 1990s that Ezra heard when he lived with a family in a Cape Town township when he was 21. “I was living with a family who fought in the struggle against the apartheid government,” says Ezra. “The father played guitar and he’d sit around and play the anthem and my host mother would sing in harmony. I’d go, ‘Sing the song again’ and he would do it. A year and a half ago, the father died of a heart attack, so I decided to record the song for him.”
After establishing himself as a solo artist in Chicago, Ezra returned to New England and auditioned musicians for a band. He found drummer John Appa and his childhood friend, bassist and vocalist Kristen Ezbicki. The next few years brought an influx of musicians—violinist, keyboardist, and hand percussionist—to provide variations of sound on Ezra’s second album and first group album, “Sessions.”
“A lot of what I write, I hear a band behind it,” says Ezra. “I’m writing all the time. Sometimes it has a band notion. Sometimes it’s about words, guitar and a voice. It’s exciting and hard seeing a song as the band takes it on.” Ezra is moving his hands with excessive motion, indicating the different visions between him and band members, drumming his fingers on the table to demonstrate a drummer’s idea. “It’s the process of taking something you created and not just making it yours but everybody’s.”
Although Ezbicki departed from the group, Ezra added keyboardist Josh Gold, former member of Boston pop-rock group Wheat and percussionist Jeff “the turtle” Goulart. The group is working on their follow up to 2004’s “Tumble Down Slow.” Ezra is excited, grinning and flailing his hands when he talks about the direction of the group. “When we were at rehearsal the other day, I realized, Jesus Christ, I’m the worst musician in the room and everyone is really talented,” he said, tugging on his wool beanie. “I’m surrounded by great musicians and it’s exciting to be immersed, to help me become better.”