When he decided to pursue music, Bostonian Adam Ezra was aware he could end up as a 60-year-old playing live at Joe’s Crab Shack on weeknights.
“That would be okay,” he said.
I caught up with Ezra this week as he and the rest of the Adam Ezra Group were somewhere in Ohio and headed west. The roots rock band is in the midst of its most recent tour, stopping at the Zebra Cocktail Lounge in Bozeman on Saturday, July 5, at 9 p.m., one of around 200 dates the band will play this year.
Ezra, who said he needed some time “outside the bubble” in college, traveled to South Africa. He worked on a dairy farm in Canada. He volunteered in Kosovo.
“Through those experiences, I brought this guitar with me and started teaching myself to play and write songs,” he said. “It became a way I sorted myself out in my head. The most honest part of myself I found was bubbling up to the surface in the songs I was writing.”
The songs, off his and the group’s nearly yearly albums, are a reflection of his various sides.
“I love writing songs about so many things,” he said. “We have some really stupid, idiotic songs we’ll play over the course of the night.”
But the songs about relationships and dreams of the future are joined by those relating to the state of the world.
“There’s never a night we’re not singing or playing about something we care about,” Ezra said.
Ezra credits some of his musicianship to his folk musician mother and some to his youthful rambling. It is also a path that allows him to promote the activism that makes him tick.
“As I’m writing, I want to write about things that mean something to me,” he said.
So, Ezra doesn’t limit himself to one issue.
“There are so many worthy causes out there, so many things to be angry about,” he said.
We’ll see what comes out in his latest projects. Ezra is working on another live album, “Better Than Bootleg 2,” a film score for upcoming indie film “Folk Hero and the Funny Guy,” and another studio album. He may release the first track this fall.
As for what to expect this weekend, the band’s shows are unplanned, free of any set lists or restrictions. Instead, the group feeds off the crowd’s energy.
“I guess for me, the thing that’s inspiring about live music is the community you can form over the course of a concert,” Ezra said. “At the beginning of the night, people come from different places, different lives. But the best ones, at the end of the show, they’re all one group, dancing and singing together.”
Rachel Hergett is editor of the Get Out! and has been a KGLT DJ for more than a decade. She may be reached at rhergett@dailychronicle.com or 582-2603. Follow her on Twitter @hergett.