Certain elements of Boston-based trio Guster's story lend themselves rather easily to misperception. For instance, let's say all you knew about them was that a) they formed in a college dorm room playing two acoustic guitars and bongos, and worked from that blueprint well into their recording career; b) they're outspoken proponents of both tape trading and a grassroots, word-of-mouth approach to fanbase-building; and c) they've opened for both Widespread Panic and Dave Matthews Band.
Given only that to go on, what might you infer regarding their sound?
Exactly. It's a three-letter category, and it ain't "emo."
It's totally understandable. It's also totally wrong.
"It's a common misconception, I think. The organic grassroots development and the tape trading, people just assume you're good at your instruments," says drummer Brian Rosenworcel of the jam-band connotations, "but we're not. We're just songwriters."
While he's right about the first part, that last bit is something of a lie. Over the course of four albums, Guster has established itself not only as a unit capable of some solid, finely wrought songcraft, but also as three guys who know their way around fretboards and percussion. They ultimately use their instrumental chops and writing skills to create perfectly presented pop tunes.
"Pop like The Beatles, not pop like Mariah," Rosenworcel clarifies, somewhat unnecessarily, with a laugh.
Rosenworcel and guitarists/vocalists Ryan Miller and Adam Gardner got together in '92 as newcomers to Tufts University. Lack of space, lack of rehearsal space, and the need for communion that comes with being thrust into new environs inspired the trio's original unplugged format.
"That wasn't really something that we conceptualized so much. We were college freshmen, and we brought our acoustic guitars and bongos to our dorm rooms," recalls Rosenworcel. "It was a real surprise to end up turning it into a band or career or whatever. I just kept adding drums one at a time from there. Now, Ryan plays bass and I play a kit. The whole thing just evolved really organically from the dorm room."
Early on, Guster evinced an appetite for live performance that would later sustain them through endless van tours, busking around Boston by day and playing clubs at night. The next four years or so saw them applying that work aesthetic to the road, and self-releasing two albums, Parachute and Goldfly, whose combination of earthy sounds, slightly hippiefied whimsy and emerging pop smarts connected with a large collegiate crowd. That the members of Guster took pains to treat show attendees as equals, eliminating the barrier between performer and audience with the kind of camaraderie and unassuming conversation reserved for groups of close friends, didn't hurt much either.
In 1998, the Sire Records imprint Hybrid signed the trio and re-released Goldfly, which yielded the modest hit "Airport Song." The increased exposure led to support slots on high-profile tours with the likes of Semisonic and former jam-culture be-all-end-all, H.O.R.D.E. Their profile was raised further with '99's excellent, underrated and often more rocking Lost and Gone Forever; Guster often found themselves alternating between jammy tours and radio station-sponsored all-day shindigs, and fitting neatly into neither niche.
"Sometimes we'll end up on some alternative rock festival, but we can't just rock and we can't just jam," Rosenworcel laughs. "We dabble in those arenas, but for the most part we just play our pop songs."
But wherever they went, their pop songs found a few loyal, open-minded audience members. The incremental growth in the band's fanbase led them to look to themselves and their throng for the next step. They relied even more heavily on shows and word-of-mouth, and helped pioneer the "street team" concept of fan promotion used so successfully by pop-punk and metal bands in recent years.
With Lost and Gone Forever, the trio began a tradition of bringing friends and respected musicians into the recording sessions to mix things up and elaborate on the songs' foundations. And though their latest CD, this year's Keep It Together, eschewed its predecessor's live-in-the-studio process in favor of building the new tunes track by track, they again looked outside their ranks for help and inspiration, recruiting Josh Rouse, Ben Kweller, Papas Fritas' Tony Goddess and others.
"On this record, we hadn't really played any of the songs live — it was written with more of a studio approach," says Rosenworcel. "The last one was a live kind of production. Everything about it was like, 'let's capture the band.' This time, it was like, 'let's throw any instrumentation we like into it, and worry about replicating it live another time.'"
The resulting disc features what are far and away Guster's most layered arrangements to date, yet retains their knack for engaging, traditionally grounded popdom. Upon finishing, the band realized they couldn't possibly re-create the album's sound in a live context themselves, and have recruited album contributor and multi-instrumentalist Joe Pisapia (himself an accomplished songwriter with his own full-length out) to flesh out the touring lineup.
"[He's here] to play as many of the overdubs as he possibly can," Rosenworcel says with a laugh. "Bass guitar, banjo, keyboards. He's one of those ridiculous musicians who can play anything."
Guster has built its fanbase on the strength of its loyalty to them, its earnest intentions, and the signature pared-back, deceptively light execution of its almost preternaturally well-constructed material. With Keep it Together, the band puts forth something its followers haven't heard before and it might be awhile yet before the throng returns a verdict on this latest step forward.
But Rosenworcel, for one, isn't worried — he thinks the essence of what Guster does shines through whatever studio augmentation and aural shenanigans the band might be up to.
"We used to be concerned with the existence of a 'Guster sound,' and it being connected to our instruments. But with the new record, the intention was to destroy that temple that we'd built," he says. "I really think that, it being the same children behind the songs is what gives it its signature … we have an aesthetic that guides whatever we do when writing songs.
"We probably lost some of the Guster purists out there [with Keep it Together], but most of the fans will roll with the changes in noble fashion."
Scott Harrell can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or by e-mail at scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2003.