The long-running indie rock band Guster have a come a long ways from their earliest days of playing as a three piece band in coffee shops in Somerville, Mass. Back then, they were defined as much by the songwriting talents and harmonies of lead singers Ryan Miller and Adam Gardner as they were by the hand-drum only approach of their drummer Brian Rosenworcel. But following by following Guster from album to album, fans were rewarded as each new album expanded upon their sound all while maintaining their dedication to pop-songcraft. The band will be releasing their eigth record Look Alive on January 18th and from the sounds of the record’s first three singles — “Hard Times”, “Don’t Go”, and the title track — it seems as though the band will be entering a completely new sonic territory than what most fans are used to. Their first new music since 2015’s Evermotion, the new songs overflow with layered synths that give the band a much bigger overall sound but still maintains their gorgeous sense of melody. We caught up with Ryan Miller to talk about this new direction for the band ahead of their small intimate show at Jersey City’s White Eagle Hall on Nov. 1.
Ryan Miller walks us through the fearless next chapter of Guster
Guster: Adam Gardner, Luke Reynolds, Ryan Miller, and Brian Rosenworcel. Photo: Nat Girsberger.
You’re about to release your eight studio album “Look Alive” and the first two songs “Don’t Go” and “Hard Times” have a bigger sound than fans are used to. With your last record, Evermotion, you hinted at this when working with the late great Richard Swift. What was the approach to writing and recording this album this time around?
Ryan Miller: I think that we think about things in terms of fidelity, to. Where with Swift, the thing that he did really well with Foxygen, Damien Jurado, and his own records was that they had this crazy vibe but they weren’t really audiophile records by a longshot. I never thought that I could put on a Swift record and feel like it was something you could tune your PA to. You don’t put it on next to a Steely Dan track. That’s what we loved about him and what we loved about the process. There were a lot of first takes and a lot of ‘let’s go record this fast’. That informed so much about how we approached it. Actually, we recorded this record pretty quickly as well. I think that we ended up on our last record cycle talking a lot about Swift because of how much he arranged our songs. How he really affected our recording. I think that if we had recorded with somebody else it would have been a completely different record and that’s not true with a lot of producers. Some producers just have a very light touch.
This new record is a nine song record and eight of the songs were recorded with Leo Abrahams. He was an equally gigantic force in the record. Obviously, we’ve developed a lot as songwriters and sonic people. But, it was such a strong mind-meld with Leo pretty much right from the beginning. His imprint is all over it and a lot of that stuff that comes in has a lot of synthy energy on the record. It’s a much more audiophile record. It is one of those records you would ultimately tune your PA to because there’s a lot of sonic exploration that we haven’t done before.
It feel like your band has a lot in common with some of the more rewarding bands in Alternative Rock — like Low and Wilco — where you started with a very minimal setup and have expanded your sound over the years. Is that always a conscious effort with each new Guster album you work on?
Ryan Miller: I don’t really think of it in terms of, like, layering stuff. Like “Okay, here’s our bass player and now we’re going to do this.” But I think it was very cognizant to kind of explore sonically, dynamically, and rhythmically things that were changing from record to record… I think that’s our thing where we make a record and play it for a couple of years and ask ‘where do we want to go?’ I don’t think we’ve ever thought after a record cycle ‘Cool. Well, we did great on the last one. Let’s just do that again.’
It’s hard for me to know. I feel like our band goes through eras or big stretches. I think if you look at a band like Low or a band like Wilco you can put them into eras. What I think is that we had an era of bongos, bongos, bongos that ended with Lost and Gone Forever and working with Steve Lillywhite. I think it started with Keep it Together afterwards. I feel like we are going to make more records with Leo. That didn’t really ever happen with when we worked with Swift. We thought it was great and that we would work together in other capacities. But, I feel like this thing that we stumbled into with Leo feels like something we are going to be pursuing and trying to better. So, I feel like this is a really hard chapter for our band starting with this record.
When I play it, I basically have been sitting in my friends cars and been playing it for them. They all react very similarly. There’s a big jaw-drop-y moment with the record. There’s a lot of different kinds of songs on this record. There are some records that I really love that I can just put on and just play through. Like Mojave 3 records or Beck records. They have a vibe that’s a throughline. I think on this record, it’s really kind of crazy. It’s almost like a Michael Jackson record! Where you have “Human Nature” but you also have “Pretty Young Thing”. It’s kind of a pop record in a sense but there’s a six minute long stoner track where we’re trying to do Moon Safari. Then there’s a track where most people think it sounds like Madness. Then there’s “Hard Times”. I don’t know what the hell kind of music that is! “Don’t Go” feels like a little bit of a throwback thing. A lot of people refer to the record as a 60’s, Beach Boys, psychedelic kind of record but the production is very contemporary.
I really don’t know how to talk about the record yet. We haven’t really had press to even bounce off of. We’re so close to it! But in playing it for friends, it all feels very confident to me. It feels very fearless in a lot of ways. We are just very confident in terms of thinking this feels musical to us. There’s going to be some kind of bassline of melody and arrangement so it doesn’t feel so disparate. It’s very exciting for us in a different way that making the Swift album was exciting was for us.
The Song “Hard Times” is maybe one of the more heartbreaking and politically charged songs you’ve written in a while. It seems so of this time and that you are addressing women’s rights head on.
Ryan Miller: That was the first song that we ever wrote completely in the studio. We had done one show in January of this year and I had bought a new pedal. The pedal that I sing through, basically (laughs). We started messing around with a 12 minute recording and our drummer Brian went through it and was like ‘This is a song!’ I was like ‘What? I was just playing with presets!’
When we were in Montreal we kind of put it together. We had never come into the studio with a producer and made a song. So the pressure was there to get the lyrics through right then. Generally, our lyrics are about something. You can drill down and they’re about existential things, loss, or relationships, or literally existential stuff like life and death and religious language. That one I think, I didn’t have time to obscure what I was saying. I normally would. I would just be like I’m not going to call a song ‘Hard Times’ because it is hard times. Talking about your sisters, yeah that’s a little bit on the nose. But there was something about the immediacy of it that I did. I’m always a little bit hesitant saying what my intention is with the song because I am also super into not letting people know. I don’t think a lot of those lyrics are not obscured. I think a lot of that stuff is just saying what I’m thinking about. When I say “one click at a time” it’s about social media and this malaise that has kind of come over me and my peers for the last two years basically (laughs). Then the chorus basically addresses all of that existential stuff that I ultimately in dealing with this existential stuff I don’t feel doomed and I don’t feel like life is over and when I zoom out this is all going to play into a greater narrative that is ultimately going to get better. While the slings and arrows that are happening right now aren’t necessarily necessary, but I think there is sort of — not a silver lining — but that there’s a greater journey that’s going on. I think that’s what I was kind of hoping for in this song. There’s sh-t out there in a lot of ways but things come around (laughs)!
Check out “Hard Times”,”Don’t Go” and the album’s title track by Guster below…
You can see Ryan Miller and the rest of Guster at White Eagle Hall on Thursday November 1st. You can check out the rest of their tour dates below…
GUSTER 2018 TOUR DATES
11/1 Jersey City, NJ @ White Eagle Hall (SOLD OUT) %
11/2 Baltimore, MD @ Ram’s Head Live %
11/3 Charlottesville, VA @ Jefferson Theater %
11/5 Saxaphaw, NC @ Haw River Ballroom %
11/6 Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel %
11/9 Birmingham, AL @ Saturn %
11/10 Louisville, KY @ Headliner’s Music Hall %
11/11 St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall (SOLD OUT) –
11/13 Madison, WI @ The Sylvee –
11/14 Indianapolis, IN @ The Vogue –
11/15 Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre –
11/16 Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr. Smalls Theatre
11/17 Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
‘LOOK ALIVE’ 2019 TOUR
1/16 Clifton Park, NY @ Upstate Concert Hall *
1/17 Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore Philadelphia *
1/19 Boston, MA @ House of Blues *
1/21 Montreal, QC @ Theatre Fairmount *
1/22 Toronto, ONT @ The Mod Club *
1/23 Rochester, NY @Anthology *
1/25 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club *
1/26 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club *
1/30 San Fran, CA @ Bimbo’s *
1/31 San Fran, CA @ Bimbo’s *
2/1 San Fran, CA @ Bimbo’s *
2/2 Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory *
24 Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
2/6 Estes, CO @ The Stanley Hotel *
2/7 Denver, CO @ The Ogden Theatre *
2/8 Omaha, NE @ Holland Performing Arts Center w/ Omaha Symphony
2/9 Minneapolis, MN @ First Ave *
2/11 Missoula, MT @ Top Hat Lounge *
2/12 Spokane, WA @ The Bing Crosby Theatre *
2/14 Portland, OR @ The Wonder Ballroom *
2/15 Vancouver, BC @ Imperial *
2/16 Seattle, WA @ The Showbox *
3/14 Providence, RI @ The Strand $
3/15 Portsmouth, NH @ The Music Hall $
3/16 New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre +
3/27 Houston, TX @ The Heights Theater ^
3/28 Austin, TX Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater^
3/29 Dallas, TX @ House of Blues ^
3/30 New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues ^
4/4 Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom ^
4/5 Atlanta, GA @ The Tabernacle ^
4/6 Orlando, FL @ The Beachum ^
4/7 Ft. Lauderdale, FL @ The Culture Room ^
4/9 Charlotte, NC @ Neighborhood Theatre ^
4/11 Covington, KY @ Madison Theater ^
4/12 Grand Rapids, MI @ The Intersection ^
4/13 Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre ^
% with Zac Clack
– with Andrew Duhon
* with Henry Jamison
$ with Tall Heights
+ with Nada Surf
^ with Saintseneca
