Music Saved Me.

Pizzier, one of my heroes.

I had a change to medium that we're passing by.

Someone introduced me.

He shook my hand.

He did not spare a second for small talk or pleasantries.

He took my hand in the first thing he said.

He said, look here, this is a folk conference and you're one of the few people that are here that are belowd the age of sixty.

This music is suffering right now.

Use your voice in your lifetime to keep this music and this message a lot.

I'm Lyn Hoffman, and welcome to the Music Save Me Podcast, the show where we explore the power of music to heal, to help others, and to create good.

Now, if you love this podcast, please share it with your friends and family, and please follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode, and thank you in advance.

Today we have an amazing artist who lives and breeds the qualities that we love here on the Music Save Me Podcast.

Adam As is an underground Americana songwriter who leads Adam as a group and he takes This is the Coolest Thing a month out of each year to visit the living room of his fans around the country.

Literally, his band and nonprofit organization Rally Sound hosts a free festival every summer, raised almost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for homeless vets just last year.

Adam Ezra, Welcome to music saved me.

Thanks so much, Lenn, Thank you so much for wanting to chat with me today.

I'm so excited.

First, I don't even know where to start, So let's start here.

When you started your career a few decades ago, can you tell us about the journey when you started in how you discovered then how important music is in creating good in the world.

Now I would be I would be happy to I have, by no means, had a fairy tale journey.

When I started music, I was in I was in Boston and just I was writing songs all the time, trying to figure out how to perform them in front of people, wanting to be a part of the band, wanting to be a part of something bigger than myself.

And I came up against the challenge that so many starting artists have that don't have a leg up in the music world right, that don't have money or connections of resources.

I needed to get hired to play in the good music clubs in order to get fans.

But the good music clubs won't going to hire me until I had fans.

Right, It's like this catch twenty two that all starting artists, or many starting artists, most starting artists face.

And you know, I ended up going to kind of the least successful, nastiest, darkest, dankest bars that I could find in Boston now and ask the owners if I could set up in the corner.

For many years, we were not getting hired to play concerts.

We were hired to keep people drinking in a close time, play five hours and nine every night that we could in any bar that was wanting to hire us anywhere in the Northeast.

And at one by one, people in those bars kind of turned away from the socks game plan over the bar and decided to pay attention to music and decided that they liked it, decided that they wanted to listen, and shared it with their friends and people that they cared about.

And that's how our music community has grown very very slowly over the years.

Now we get to play in such cool, inspiring venues and festivals, and we get the tour around the country.

It is and I.

Think because it took so long, and because it was not a fairy tale.

It is something that I am always amazed by and appreciate so deeply.

Have you personally discovered the healing forces of music in your life during this time?

Oh man, Man, I think that music and art, any kind of expression of art in general, right, I find it ironic and inspiring all the time.

That is not when an artist really digs deep, digs out something unique in them.

It speaks to a human experience that is universal, and when great art is happening, it connects us.

It reminds us that there's more about us that is saying than is different, and that that I have always felt so strongly through music and adds a huge reason that I write songs and a huge reason that I'm out there for man music.

And I said something earlier about you being an underground americanis singer songwriter.

Yeah, it's amazing to the power of that, that underground movement.

It is coupled with your hard.

Work, many years of hard work.

I wonder who are some of the musicians that have lifted you up during perhaps challenging times in your life.

You're pretty open about those challenges.

Yeah, I mean there have been so many interactions and moments and songs that have helped inspire me along the way.

But I will tell you I'll give you because there are too many stories or examples racing through my head.

I'll give you one that happened when I.

Was in my twenty eights hours trying out, banging my head against the wall, trying to figure out how to play music.

And during that time I ended up at a music conference, very grassroots, in a camp somewhere in the Northeast I can't even remember, and it was mostly folk musician and Pete Seer, one of my heroes, not only for his songwriting, not only because I grew up listening to his music, but also because of his mission through music to shape the world around him and inspire others.

I had to change the medium that weekend.

It was we were passing by.

Someone introduced me to and he shook my hand.

He did not spare a second for small talk or pleasantries.

He took my hand in the first thing he said, he said, look around, right, this is a folk conference, and you're one of the few people that are here that are below the age of sixty.

This music is suffering, right, now and use your voice in your lifetime to keep this keep this music and this message a lot.

You know, the power of hearing those words spoken from a hero of mine and just the briefest of interactions.

I think back about those those words in that moment often in my life.

I bet that was would you say that was a crossroads for you where you just sort of got put on that right path.

It was certainly one.

It was certainly one of many crossroads, but it was more spark that continue to fan the flame of of what I was feeling inside.

You didn't mean to get out letting you know you were you were on the right path.

Sure, that's pretty exciting.

I mean that I can't even imagine.

I've had those moments in my life, and you know, it's hard to pinpoint one, but that's that's a pretty big one.

That was a good one for me.

Something else that's really big is rally Sound, which I understand it was.

It was created based on the premise of just helping others.

Can you explain this is your nonprofit organization, what rally sound is, what it does, How it came about.

Yeah, I mean it came about way back in the day where I was playing the bars on Sundays as Boston Gal.

You appreciate a place called the Pine Street in almost Shelter in Boston.

Sunday more.

I would go down and kind of play for the folks down there when I could.

People would come up to me at shows and they would say, you know, hey, I'm doing this event at this bar down the road.

I'm trying to raise money for the American Drub Association.

Hey, we're doing this event in our backyard.

We're trying to raise some money for handicap accessible ramp for our neighbors, right like me, And I would always say yes because doing good feels good, but also because I was just excited.

People wanted me to play music right.

But I would find I would find early on that when a concert was about more than just a concert, the music sounded better, the experience connected a little bit deeper, and those shows inspired.

Of course, the more I ended up doing, the more people would ask me.

It became a part of my mission as an artist.

Eventually, as we began to grow a little bit, put together aboard and started this nonprofit organization called rally Sound, and rally Sound's mission is to empower community through music.

Most of what rally Sound does help people that are trying to put together events oftentimes and they want music, but they don't really know how to do that right.

It's as you can appreciate, right, complicated thing.

To set up.

An event that has music to it, you have to think about sound.

You have to think about the band and how you're going to get them in, and how the day is going to work, and how you're going to figure everything and anyways.

It can be common and we wanted to empower people to be able to do those things.

Over the years, rally Sound has taken on a life of its own.

The community within rally Sound has really mobilized in an incredible, incredible way, and most of our atam Mesure Group shows very often will see an element of rally Sound at them.

Now, there will be folks fans in the area, you know, ninety percent of the time will will will reach out and they will they will do some kind of awareness campaign or a fundraiser, or they'll have people bring non perishable items for local food pantry.

But those things are happening.

Once a year, rally Sound puts on our own festival, which you also mentioned in your introduction called the Ramble.

It's our one, it's our one big event that it's awesome.

It is.

It's awesome.

It is awesome.

It is and for those of you listening, uh, it is a festival unlike any cestival I've ever experienced one.

Anyone can come to the Ramble.

They can comfort for me, they can donate what they can.

All of the musicians that come to the Ramble donate their time and their talent.

It is run entirely by an army of volunteers to regular folks.

I give me coming together.

Not one of us actually knows how to run a festival, but somehow.

I mean, this year we had two hundred volunteers working all summer to put this festival together.

It was unbelievable and it's the most inspiring day we have.

The Rainbell has a mission which is to put an end of veteran homelessness.

And we actually this is an exciting week talking to you in because we just found out our results from this year's Ramble, which happened just a couple of weeks ago, and we are going to be presenting a check to the New England Center and Home for Veterans for one hundred and fifty one thousand dollars, which is more than I could ever I ever imagined we'd be able to raise together.

So congratulations, that's huge, it is It is really exciting.

It's a good week for me to be talking about the power community and music.

For sure, certainly, and the power of music is so strong.

I would I'm just curious.

I don't know, a little more of a personal note, I did hear some interviews with you recently that you discussed how you started during COVID talking to person you know, to people online and then you know, promising you'd be back if they came back, and how that just sort of grew when you when you play music, or when you play music and talk to people, which is probably all a part of your shows.

How does it feel when you connect with your fans and you see them taking you know, inspired by your music to take action in their own lives.

So how does that make you feel?

Hm, Well, that.

There's two things that your there's two things that you're there your needs.

You can touch upon that question, both of which I think about a lot.

Right.

One is the connection itself, making that connection, and there are men, there are artists that are out there that are incredible, beautiful singers, incredible beautiful players, like so beyond right.

When I go to see them, I feel like I'm getting to experience that they are embodying human potential, right.

And for me as an artist, I mean, it's just it ain't my art form.

It's a different art form.

And that's the coolest thing about music.

Within this big category of music, there are so many different ways to express and share art, and so for me, the musical experience is about that connection.

It's about That's what a show is for.

It's about trying to connect with folks and trying to connect folks with each other.

I am so so fortunate in because of my because my journey has been so grassroots and undergrad, because it has been so one, one person at a time, and so very personal for me and for the folks that have connected to us over time.

The feeling of connection at our shows these days is just one of the most inspiring things I get to experience, apart from being a daddy to two little girls.

It is the most inspiring thing that I get to experience these days.

And the fact that rally sound and community activism and empowerment is so closely meant to our mission as a band.

Getting to watch that.

Community engage and mobilize and impact each other in different ways.

It's, uh, it is.

Just so so rewarding for me, you know, I get.

I It's it's like I got to be a little a little, a little firestarter.

I got to be a little spark, that is it.

And when I get to play shows get I get to fan those slams a little bit more every single night.

And that's often kind of how it feels to me to be a musician.

What do you think it is about music specifically, Because you said music has a it's a big tent, all different kinds of talents, levels, messages, songs.

What do you think it is.

Specifically about music that heals people or helps people?

You know, I think the way that I think words are limited.

I think the way that we communicate through words it's limited.

I often struggle to find them write words to really say what's inside of me right.

Music adds a whole other dimension down vibrates a person and can speak to emotions that oftentimes I don't let myself feel on a day and day baby, or I am not even aware of on a.

Day to day basis.

Sometimes when I listen to a singer singing about something that's really really real, right, if they had just said those words, it wouldn't hit me as deeply as music does.

And ultimately, I think when we are together and we are listening to music, if it's if it's good music, if it's art that's made honestly, no matter what genre it is, we all get to experience that thing that is universal and all of us, and that's that's that's inspiring.

Sure is well, Adam Ezra from Adam Ezra Group, you are inspiring clearly inspiring a lot of people, not just myself and my listeners, but but I just I'm so happy to be the one to hear the news today about the money you've been able to raise.

Me's pretty cool, veterans, that's so exciting, and there's there's nothing better than doing and what you love and you found a way to make a living at it.

But it's true giving back.

So it's like you get stuff from the people who listen, you give back, and you're able to find a way to get volunteers to do all of this incredible work without sort of the traditional trappings of a music career, and I think that's probably dare I say a wish of a lot of artists who didn't follow that path.

But congratulations on all of that good stuff, and please come back and see us again, and thanks for doing what you do.

And I'm even more a little impartial because you're from my hometown and see us again.

Thank you for your words, man, and thank you for this podcast.

Thanks for doing what you do.

I think telling stories about the way that music has the power to impact us all.

I think those are important stories to be told, and I'm glad you're out there doing it.