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Hitman talks to Kevin Griffin Better Than Ezra and Ezra Ray Hart · Classic Hitz with Hitman

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, what's going on? It is hitp Man with you
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: and I've got on the phone with me right now.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Kevin Griffin from Better Than Ezra? Dude, how are you?
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Man? It's so good to be talking to you. I'm great.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: I'm in Nashville. We're about to kick off our nineties
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Hits and Christmas Risk tour that we're bringing to San Antonio.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. If people don't know this, you started up. It's
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: a band called Ezra ray Hart and it's with you,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: but also Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray and Emerson Heart
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of Tonic. How did this get together?
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, we wanted to stop. We wanted to
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: start an unstoppable nineties juggernaut band, and we're like, how
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: do we do that? And the three of us were
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: hanging out, we were playing at festival out in California, LA,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: and we're like, man, we should form a band. Let's
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: do a band where we play all our hits, we
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: sing each other songs, we play other nineties hits, and
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: it's just an amazing nostalgic two hour show. And that's
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: what we've created. We've been doing it now, honestly for
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: like like seven or eight years and it's been great
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  Speaker 2: and now now we're bringing a proper tour together. It's
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: a nationwide tour and we can't wait to hit Texas.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll be in on December twelfth, you'll be over
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: in Grand Prairie. Then on the thirteenth you'll be in
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  Speaker 1: sugar Land, and then the one I'm going to go
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to is on the fourteenth, which is over at the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Majestic Theater in San Antonio. The Majestic Theater. That is
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: a beautiful theater and that's a perfect place for you
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: guys to do your show.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: At the Majestic is fine. Man, It's a gorgeous place.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I love it. I've been there. Actually I went and
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: I think I see I think I went and saw
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  Speaker 2: Bill Burr there or something. Yeah, and I love those
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: old theaters. We can't play. We can't wait to be there. Yeah.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, we know about the nineties hits. But tell
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: us a little bit about the Christmas.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Rifts now Christmas rifts.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me a little bit about that. What are
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you doing, like the classics or or do you guys have.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we're doing we're doing classics. We're doing one original.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, I was in this kind of Christmas
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  Speaker 2: supergroup with Martin McGrath, Fits from Fits In the Tantrums,
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  Speaker 2: Nick Hexum from three to eleven, a lot of different people,
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  Speaker 2: and we recorded this song called Must Be Christmas, and
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  Speaker 2: it's got about thirty million, thirty million streams. It's actually
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: kind of taken off as a as a new classic.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: It's always on, you know, all on the different streaming services.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: But we're going to play that, but then we're going
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: to play some Christmas classics of course Last Christmas, Little
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Saint Nick, and then we do this kind of punk
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: rock SoCal version of All I Want for Christmas? Is you?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's that. That's actually gonna be kind of cool.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: You can get your tickets right now, of course, said
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: ticketmaster dot com. If you want to find out more details,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: you can check it out on Ezra ray Hart's Facebook page.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And you also, besides that, you know, you're still doing
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: some great stuff with better than Nazra. As a matter
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: of fact, I see that on January you're booked for
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the nineties Cruise. Tell me a little bit about that.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, we so better than NASRAA We continue to tour.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: We just played in San Antonio, earlier this year at
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Stable Hall, that new place over near the Pearl, right.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: But in January we are getting on a cruise ship
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: with Sugar Ray, with TLC, with in Vogue and it
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: is going to be a full not just nineties rock,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: alternative rock, but all nineties music. It's a six day cruise,
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  Speaker 2: goes out of Tampa. I think we go to Nassau,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: all the usual stops. Basically wow. But that's gonna be fun.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: That's gonna be that's gonna be interesting.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Now, tell us a little bit about the latest album
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: called super Magic. Tell me a little bit about the
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: latest album.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Man. We put that out last year, and that is
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: our best performing album we've put out in probably fifteen years.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Face and were blown away by. It was kind of
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: a return to maybe the rock that we started with,
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  Speaker 2: with some with some new influences, of course, but it
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: was a it was a look at what it was.
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  Speaker 2: We put out a lot of singles but it but
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: it had been ten years since we had put out
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: a proper full album, so we had plenty of time
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  Speaker 2: to work on it, build a great catalog of songs,
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  Speaker 2: and super Magic is the result of that. It is
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  Speaker 2: performed beyond our Wildest Dreams. We toured about a year
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: and a half on it.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Wow, we're talking with Kevin Griffin from Better Than Ezra.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: He's going to be with Ezra Ray Hart over at
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: the Majestic Theater December fourteenth and San Antonio. Make sure
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: you get your tickets now. So of course, the band
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: consists of Mark McGrath of Sugar Rain and Emerson Heart.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Emerson Hart to me, he is one of the nicest
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  Speaker 1: guys I have ever met. I gotta tell you a story.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: A while back, he actually came down with Tonic and
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: they did a great show and they signed. They signed
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: guitar for us, but somebody came to the studios and
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: stole it. When Emerson Hart found out. When he found
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: out about it, he actually went and signed another one
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and personally delivered it back to us to make sure
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: that our winners got another guitar. The nicest guy around.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Him, Bibertson and I've known each other for twenty years. Man,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: he is that it doesn't get any nicer. And there's
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: no better voice in music. The guy can I can
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: sing like Steve Perry or you name our Freddie Mercury.
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  Speaker 2: He's got the best voice he's the best dude, and
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  Speaker 2: we've got him singing a lot of amazing songs that
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: you guys will dig.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually you are correct. I loved his solo
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: album that he actually had out a couple of years back.
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  Speaker 1: I think one of the songs was if You're Gonna Leave.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: It was a great song. It was a huge, an
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  Speaker 1: amazing I've only got two last questions for you, and
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: you got it, and this one's I always I always
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: ask this to now every single interview. I do one
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: when you come to Texas. What's your waterburger order?
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: I do a double cheeseburger burger? Oh yeah, always a
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: double cheeseburger. Let us fully dressed, Let us tomato, mayonnaise,
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  Speaker 2: no onions.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I love that. The other one I asked this to
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  Speaker 1: every single rock band all the time, is, you know,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Corpus Christie is a rock town. We have lots of
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: local rock bands that are here that are doing their
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: best and doing so great. What advice can you give
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: to some of the rock bands here in Corpus CHRISTI
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: to make them go to the next level to where
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: they can, you know, get to that level where you
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: are right now.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you man, it's record as much as
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: you can't. You've got these days with a laptop, You've
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: got logic or garage band. Record those songs, follows them
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: up as best you can, and then upload them on
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  Speaker 2: your own through distro kid or tune core. Get them
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: up online. Work your music with it, you know, on TikTok, Instagram.
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  Speaker 2: Book as many shows as you can, try to get
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: on south By Southwest, play every dive bar in Texas.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: And if you make enough noise with your own music
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: and it takes off, you know online, suddenly you'll have
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: everybody knocking in your door. You could be in Corpus Christy,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: you know, and be a great band and you can
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: finally get heard. You really have all those tools at
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: your fingertips. You just got to you just got to
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: do the work. But it's a great time to be
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: in a band, and it's it's easier than ever to
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  Speaker 2: get noticed.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. Well, I appreciate you taking
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the time to talk to us today. Of course, again,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Ezra Rayhart, it's nineties hits and Christmas riffs. They're going
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: to be on the twelfth and Grand Prairie, Texas on
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the thirteenth, and sure Land and the one I'm looking
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  Speaker 1: forward to is on the fourteenth at the Majestic Theater
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: in San Antonio. Get your tickets now you want to
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: find out more detail else They're all over social media. Kevin,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Bud hit Man, thank you so much for this interview
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: and all the years of support. We will see you
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: in Texas.