Adam Lambert
Photo: Jason LaVeris/ FilmMagic

Kevin Griffin made a name for himself in the '90s with Better Than Ezra, but these days, when he's not busy working with the band and releasing new music, he's writing with some of the biggest names from "American Idol."

He's worked with everyone from Jason Castro to David Cook and David Archuleta, and this time around, he's written some songs for Kris Allen and Adam Lambert for their top-secret, highly anticipated debuts, both out this fall. He's hoping the songs he submitted for Lambert make the final cut.

"As a songwriter, you want to get on the projects that are high-profile but you hope are going to be successful," he said about collaborating with "Idol" alumni. "And certainly, the 'Idol' things are successful."

So what should fans expect from Lambert's upcoming debut? "Adam has that potential for that worldwide, crazy success, 'cause his taste is kind of an international kind of thing," Griffin said.

As fans of the show know already, Lambert has a flair for the theatrical and a penchant for glittery rock. Griffin said that there will probably also be some disco thrown in.

"I know that they're going for more of an international, pop-rock, goth sound," he said. "I know what they're wanting, and I think it's going to be something that you could hear in between a Fall Out Boy song and a Kylie Minogue song. You'd mash that together and put some mascara on it."

Get your "Idol" fix on MTV News' "American Idol" page, where you'll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions.

• Better Than Ezra
• David Archuleta
• David Cook

<I>For the Lady</I>
Photo: Rhino Records

U2, Avril Lavigne, R.E.M. and Pearl Jam are among the artists donating tracks to a benefit album for Aung San Suu Kyi, an imprisoned Burmese humanitarian known to some as "Asia's Nelson Mandela."

For the Lady: Dedicated to Freeing Aung San Suu Kyi and the Courageous People of Burma, due October 26, features previously released tunes by Lavigne, Coldplay, Bright Eyes and Travis, while Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Damien Rice and Better Than Ezra contribute live cuts unavailable anywhere else. Also exclusive to the album is "Let Freedom Ring," a studio track by Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello's solo incarnation, the Nightwatchman.

U2 dedicated their contribution, "Walk On," to Aung San Suu Kyi on All That You Can't Leave Behind, the album on which it first appeared. The double album's final track, "Tempest of Blood," was written by a jailed student activist for democracy in Burma (which is also known as Myanmar).

Aung San Suu Kyi is the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient. For her efforts to promote democracy and human rights in Burma, she has garnered the support of President Bill Clinton, Senator John McCain, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Desmond Tutu, among others. For the past 14 years, she has been under house arrest by Burma's repressive junta.

Proceeds from the sale of the album will benefit the nonprofit organization U.S. Campaign for Burma.

For the Lady track list, according to the album's publicist:

Disc 1:

• U2 - "Walk On"
• Pearl Jam "Betterman" (live)
• Coldplay - "In My Place"
• Ani DiFranco - "In the Way"
• Bright Eyes - "No Lies, Just Love"
• R.E.M. - "Drive" (live)
• Avril Lavigne - "Complicated"
• Talib Kweli featuring John Legend - "Around My Way"
• Lili Haydn - "Unfolding Grace"
• Peter Gabriel - "Here Comes the Flood"
• Natalie Merchant - "Motherland"
• Maná - "Cuando Los Angeles Lloran"
• Rebecca Fanya - "Paper Airplanes"
• Ben Harper - "Oppression" (live)

• Paul McCartney - "Freedom" (live)
• The Nightwatchman - "Let Freedom Ring"
• Eric Clapton - "Wonderful Tonight"
• Sting - "Fragilidad"
• Bonnie Raitt - "Angel From Montgomery" (live)
• Damien Rice - "Lonely Soldier" (live)
• Travis - "The Cage"
• Guster - "Keep It Together"
• Hour Cast - "Memories and Lies"
• Indigo Girls - "Perfect World" (live)
• Better Than Ezra - "Get You In" (live)
• Matchbox Twenty - "So Sad, So Lonely"
• Mun Awng - "Tempest of Blood"

• U2
• Avril Lavigne
• Coldplay
• Pearl Jam
• Bright Eyes

Usher
Photo: MTV

Usher and Jagged Edge, along with actual teenager Mandy Moore, will perform later this month at the Miss Teen U.S.A. competition in South Padre Island, Texas.

Better Than Ezra will also perform at the competition, which CBS will air live on August 22, according to organizers. (MTVi's parent company, Viacom, also owns CBS.)

In addition to performing, Moore will co-host the event with MTV's Brian McFayden.

The four acts are intended to "reflect the diverse tastes of today's teens," according to a statement from organizers.

Both Usher and Better Than Ezra released albums on Tuesday (see "Usher Spends All Of 8/7/01 Celebrating 8701" and "Better Than Ezra Get 'Ordinary' With AC/DC-Inspired Single").

• Usher
• Jagged Edge
• Mandy Moore
• Better Than Ezra

Better Than Ezra
Photo: Beyond

Sometimes the simplest sentiments weigh heaviest on the heart. Just ask Better Than Ezra singer/guitarist Kevin Griffin, who only had to look around for the ways to express his feelings for the one he loves.

"['Extra Ordinary'] is about trying to tell somebody through everyday references about how you feel about them," he said of the band's latest single. "I had just seen 'Searching for Bobby Fischer' and I was listening to the radio and an AC/DC song was on. I just wanted to take things that you take for granted in your day-to-day life and use those to tell somebody, maybe in a profound way, how much you care about them. A lot of times as a songwriter you try to get some type of lyrical epiphany and I just wanted to cut to the chase and use these barebones references for how I feel."

"Extra Ordinary," whose lyrics feature such everyday similes as "smart as Bobby Fischer" and "just like that AC/DC song/ come on, baby, shake me all night long," is the first single off the New Orleans power-pop trio's fourth album, Closer, due for release August 7, according to their publicist. The band — Griffin, bassist Tom Drummond and drummer Travis McNabb — took 18 months to complete the follow-up to 1998's How Does Your Garden Grow, and the relaxed pace made for a solid album that might surprise some of the 10-year-old band's longtime fans.

"This is probably our strongest album," Griffin said. "It's our most focused effort we've had to date. How Does Your Garden Grow had a lot more experimentation than we'd ever done previously. And this album incorporates a lot of the sounds we discovered with [that album], but it also brings in what we do best as a band.

"We also had an amazing time [recording it]," he continued. "When you have your own studio — which is every band's dream and we were lucky enough to be able to fulfill that — you get to work on so many things and explore any tangent that arises. When you're paying $2000 or $1500 — and those are cheap prices — a day for a studio, it becomes a very cut and dry situation, where you can't explore."

The most striking foray on the 11-track Closer is the band's use of subtle DJ wizardry on "Extra Ordinary" and "Recognize," courtesy of Beck's longtime turntablist, DJ Swamp. While mixing the album in Los Angeles after recording in the Crescent City, the band felt the songs needed somebody scratching on them. So producer Brad Wood (Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair) asked his management company for a recommendation and was met with the reply, "DJ Swamp. He's the only person to get."

"He showed up in this beat-up Chrysler New Yorker," Griffin recalled. "I thought he was going to be this hip-hop kid, but he [actually] looks like a Goth rocker — long black hair, black fingernails, wearing an 'Exorcist' T-shirt. And he came into the studio, hooked his stuff up, and we went through the song like eight times, and he would do take after take [perfectly]. I have a profound respect for great DJs now, because before I had not been in the presence of someone so amazing. There were a couple of times where I almost lost my cool and stood up and clapped because we were just so blown away by what he was doing."

Better Than Ezra kick off a U.S. tour in support of Closer Thursday (July 26), but if you don't catch them on the road, they'll be playing in a living room near you come football season. The band filmed a series of promo spots in June for ESPN's "College GameDay," which feature the trio performing while on-air analyst Lee Corso crowd-surfs his way to the stage, where he continues his commentary on the game. Fans shouldn't expect to hear anything from Closer, How Does Your Garden Grow, 1996's Friction, Baby or 1995's Deluxe.

"We were a bit iffy about part of the script, so I thought, 'What can we do to make this fun for ourselves and our fans?' " Griffin said. "So we switched instruments: I'm playing drums, Travis is on bass and Tom is on guitar. So now we really do sound like some awful college band."

Better Than Ezra tour dates, according to the band's publicist:

• 7/26 - Nashville, TN @ Dancin' in the District
• 7/28 - Omaha, NE @ McCormack's Sports Complex
• 7/29 - Noblesville, IN @ Verizon Wireless Music Center
• 8/3 - Scottsdale, AZ @ Cajun House
• 8/4 - Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up Tavern
• 8/7 - West Hollywood, CA @ Roxy Theatre
• 8/8 - West Hollywood, CA @ Roxy Theatre
• 8/10 - San Francisco, CA @ Slim's
• 8/15 - Santa Ana, CA @ Galaxy Theatre
• 8/16 - Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues
• 8/25 - Greeley, CO @ University of Northern Colorado
• 8/26 - Salem, OR @ Oregon State Fair
• 8/29 - Chicago, IL @ Park West
• 8/30 - Indianapolis, IN @ The Vogue
• 9/3 - Virginia Beach, VA @ American Music Festival
• 9/22 - Boston, MA @ MixFest
• 10/26 - Birmingham, AL @ Samford University
• 10/27 - New Orleans, LA @ Voodoo Fest

• Better Than Ezra

Schoolhouse Rock<BR>from<BR>"I'm Just a Bill"
Photo: ABC Children's Entertainment

"Schoolhouse Rock" creator Thomas G. Yohe died of cancer on Thursday, according to the Associated Press. He was 63.

Yohe, the creative director of the ABC animated series during its 1973–85 run, came up with the idea for a cartoon that blended educational messages with ear-candy pop music while working at an advertising firm in 1971.

" 'Schoolhouse Rock' gave him the most pride in the world," Yohe's wife, Diane Sanden Seely, told AP. Michael Eisner, former head of ABC's children's programming and now chairman of Walt Disney Co., championed the show, which went on to win four Emmy Awards and spawn such classic tunes as "Conjunction Junction," "I'm Just a Bill" and "Interplanet Janet." Those songs and several others were remade for a 1996 tribute album that featured the Lemonheads, Ween, Moby, Buffalo Tom, Biz Markie, Better Than Ezra, Pavement and Blind Melon, who scored a minor hit with their rendition of "Three Is a Magic Number," featuring Shannon Hoon softly crooning the words originally written and sung by jazz legend Bob Dorough.

In 1998, the Roots and John Popper joined an array of artists on Schoolhouse Rocks the Vote, a benefit album for Rock the Vote that featured "Schoolhouse" covers such as Joan Osborne and Isaac Hayes' "I'm Just a Bill." Yohe graduated from Syracuse University and began his career in advertising in 1961. His survivors include Seely, two sons, two daughters, two stepsons, a brother and four grandchildren.

• The Lemonheads
• Ween
• Moby
• Buffalo Tom
• Biz Markie

Better Than Ezra is hoping to compile a tour documentary from concerts mounted in support of its most recent album, "How Does Your Garden Grow," and will shoot several NYC shows next week for the film.

• Better Than Ezra

With Better Than Ezra currently on tour to help promote its just-released third major label album, "How Does Your Garden Grow?," the band is hoping to reprise the success of its 1995 record, "Deluxe," which spawned a pair of alternative hits, "Good" and "Rosealia."

The band is also hoping that the new album and the new year will bring an end to its long-running legal dispute with Ezra's original drummer -- who played on "Deluxe" -- Cary Bonnecaze.

Better Than Ezra has been embroiled in a series of lawsuits with Bonnecaze since he left the group in 1996 in what was then referred to "as an amicable parting." Studio drummer Travis Aaron McNabb was then tapped to replace Bonnecaze for the group's last record, "Friction Baby," and since then Better Than Ezra and Bonnecaze have been swapping suits and counter-suits regarding his departure in New Orleans courthouses for the past year.

The trio spoke with MTV News recently about the on-going lawsuits, which BTE's management also declined to discuss, and while the members shied away from discussing particular aspects about the pending suits, the band did express its desire to have everything resolved with Bonnecaze soon.

"[The suit] has been going on for a while," said Ezra frontman Kevin Griffin, "and it's unfortunate when something like that goes on. We can't control it. When someone sues you, the bad thing is you have to defend yourself. So what do you do? It's just human nature and that's just the way of the society that we live in. So, that's how we view it and hopefully it will all be wrapped up by the middle of next year."

"It's a bit of a disgruntled thing," added bassist Tom Drummond.

"It's not a business [matter]," Griffin explained,

Better Than Ezra is scheduled to bring its horticultural rock to Boston on Thursday night.

• Better Than Ezra