Adam Ezra Group have a band mission to help serve humanity. It’s part of what they’ve been doing their inception in the year 2000. This Saturday’s annual Ramble at Salisbury Beach will try to raise funds to build a handicap accessible home for a homeless veteran. Ezra, each year, passes around a “bucket of love” for his audience members to contribute to at the free show right on the beach.
Ezra and his band headline at the end of the event, this August 29th, which will also feature several other bands, beginning at 2:00 p.m. CHAD HOLLISTER BAND, JASON SPOONER, COLD ENGINES, BELLA’S BARTOK, GRETCHEN AND THE PICKPOCKETS, PROJECT KALI, BEN KNIGHT, and THE WHISKEY TREATY ROADSHOW.
This year‘s Ramble comes during a difficult time for the band. Their percussionist, known as Turtle, recently suffered kidney failure and is on dialysis. This has kept him off the road for many Adam Ezra Group gigs, yet there are some he will perform at.
“Turtle is doing real good,” Ezra said. “He’s on dialysis for right now and coming out to meet us at a show tonight. Whenever we’re close enough, and he can work it into his dialysis schedule, he’s coming out and playing with us. Hopefully, pretty soon, he’ll be skinny enough to be eligible for a kidney transplant and well be able to get him back out on the road with us.”
Turtle will perform at The Ramble and a Rhode Island show called We’re Glad You’re Fucking Alive Party. “We have a lot of his old friends and band mates coming out, with Adam Ezra Group, for a night of music. We’re going to raise a little money to help his family take care of some of those hospital bills,” Ezra said. Yet, the current shows must go on, and The Ramble is a band mission that’s taken on a life of its own.
“The Ramble, to me, has always been a metaphor for what we can do as a community, together,” Ezra said. “The first three years of The Ramble had different community based fundraising goals. The first years we helped an organization called Partners In Help. They were doing relief work in Haiti. The second year we were working with TD America to feed hungry families in New England. The third year, we built a park in Lynn. When we hit the fourth year, we decided that we would see if we could raise enough money to take some number of homeless veterans off the street and put them in safe housing.”
Ezra feels that this current cause ignited something in the band and in its fans, making them all feel passionate. Last year’s Ramble raised enough money to get 20 struggling veterans off the street for a year. The mission has shifted somewhat for this year, The Ramble Six.
“This year we’re going to be raising money to build a handicap accessible home for a veteran,” Ezra said. “Giving back in a various ways is an important part of a our mission as a band. Over the years we do a whole lot of events for other people who are attempting to do a little bit of good for the world in one way or another. The Ramble came about when we decided we would do an event of our own. We would bring together the growing community that’s been surrounding our music to see what we can do together.”
Ezra and his band mates have made many accomplishments over the years. Their Ragtop Angel CD was very well received and continues to sell well. They tour nationally, often opening for big names. They’ve won two New England Music Awards. Yet, they still make time for these causes even though they’re very busy and their band has an elevated status in the music industry.
“This is the stuff that builds us up,” Ezra said. “It’s days like The Ramble that remind me just how powerful music can be at shaping the world a little bit.” Ezra has met a handful of homeless veterans while working on these last three Rambles. That sparked something in him. Both of his grandfathers, too, are veterans and each had various challenges.
“They struggled throughout their lives after serving,” the singer-songwriter said.
Ezra connects with communities and audiences on a personal basis. “I love the way it feels to play for a roomful of people that’s helping a group of people. When that community is also dedicated to having a positive impact at the same time, towards giving back,” he said. “That makes the concert that much more powerful.”
A lot of Ezra songs are tunes people can connect with personally. His song “Takin’ Off” is a story that was inspired by New England and the towns that we drive through all the time. “I think there are characters in the story that when you listen to the song, you can relate to because in one way or another, we’ve all been there,” he said. “I also think the bands plays amazingly on that song, and they make it beautiful. I love what my team of musicians does to those lyrics with their instrumentation.”
This personal connection may account for why he sells so many CDs and draws so many to his shows. “I think that’s part of it,” he said, “the personal connection that happens in the songs can happen at shows. The fan base that we have grown over time, we’re connecting to our audience person to person. That from within the songs, I hope to connect with people. But also when we actually are playing live, the live performance, I think, also connects with people. At least that’s the goal.”
This makes The Ramble a special event, the band’s favorite show of the year. “We can give back to fans who can’t afford a ticket or can’t afford to donate,” he said. “We can give back to the veterans who’ve made such sacrifices on our behalf, and all that feels really, really good to me.”
Ezra began a tradition of making humanitarian speeches during his song “Burn Brightly.” It started after a showcase gig for a talent scout in a nasty little club late on a Tuesday night. There were not many people in attendance.
“At some point I just kind of started talking,” he said. “At the end of the show, the guy that was scouting us came up to me and said ‘Man, that thing that you do was so great.’ And, I didn’t know exactly what he was talking about. He said ‘You just kind of go off in that and whatever happens happens. That was the moment in the show I connected the most. You should do that at all your shows.’ From that day one, we’ve done that at almost all our shows. That’s the thing that I hope to do more than anything else is connect with people through communicative creativity. That kind of rawness helps people connect.”
When asked how his music has evolved since the year 2000, Ezra referenced how he and his band have been working with a filmmaker on a movie about him. The filmmaker has been going through the music has been writing over the years.
“I think that I’ve become a better songwriter over the years, for sure,” he said. “When I write songs, I try to write from an honest place inside of myself. To a certain extent, listening to those older songs feels like I’m coming from a different version of myself. Over the years, the band, too, has evolved musically in really cool ways. We’re able to do things now, musically, with the songs that I write, those lyrics that I created, that we were never able to do back in the day.”
Erza returned to his theme of community service by referencing another project he and his band have begun. Adam Ezra Group’s latest video “Let Your Hair Down” is about people who have and or are going through cancer treatment. Ezra didn’t say too much about the video, and he didn’t really have to. It’s emotional content is strong enough on its own.
“The element of giving back is also present in that song and visual,” he concluded.
