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Member of headlining 'Guster,' Brian Rosenworcel, sits back with <I>Chips</I>

Date 11/9/2000 12:00 AM | Topic: Arts & Culture

When they reached the Luther College campus on Nov. 5, members of 'Guster' craned their necks to peer through the tour bus windows. This would be their last stop this year on a headlining tour supporting their third album Lost and Gone Forever.

While guitarists and vocalists Ryan Miller and Adam Gardner explored Dunning's Spring and Ice Cave, the man with the hands supplying Guster's stickless percussion, Brian Rosenworcel, pulled up a chair with Chips News Co-editor Amy Domaszek to discuss the band's progression since their meeting in 1991.

Amy: I understand you and your bandmates first met at Tufts University during freshman orientation. Can you tell me a little more about that?

Brian: I remember we were on one of those wilderness trips, and we were all talking about our high school bands whom we had just departed. We became friends and talked about jamming sometime, and over the course of the next semester we got together

Amy: One of the things I find interesting about your early years is that you, Adam, and Ryan used to busk in Harvard Square for a number of years. How did that affect your early exposure?

Brian: There's this competition called Head of the Charles (River). It happens in Cambridge in October every year and it's like, tons of crew teams in Harvard Square where we would busk. It was so full of people, we'd wake up at 5 a.m. to get the spot that we wanted. We'd take turns sleeping out there, set up our little P.A. system, which was powered by a boat battery, and play the same half hour set of mostly original songs, over and over throughout the day.

Basically we just exposed ourselves to so many people and I guess if it taught us anything, it's the whole grass-roots way of beginning a band you know, through mailing lists and just exposure.

Amy: There are a number of bands on campus here at Luther who have released their own CDs. Do you have any advice on how they can get started or what characteristics are important for a band to have if they want to continue growing together?

Brian: Not every band has eight years to develop a fan base. The way we did it was beneficial to us because it was organic, and labels came to us because they saw the buzz about us from our fans. But it takes a long time and a lot of time investment and you can't expect everyone to do that.

The best quality you could have if your band is to try to be original, keep writing songs, not covering songs. Try to develop your own sound as best you can.

Amy: What is the 'Guster' song-writing process like?

Brian: It is collaborative, but it starts with Ryan. He writes our lyrics and our melodies, which is a lot of what people like about us. Our song-writing is very catchy, melodic, and Ryan is our chief guy as far as that's concerned. After that, we all structure the song, add the music, figure out dynamics and how to make it work with our instrumentation, which always is a challenge.

Amy: You have been touring with 'Barenaked Ladies.' How did you hook up with them?

Brian: We actually did the H.O.R.D.E. tour with them in 1998 just for a couple weeks and our bands get along really well. Our music isn't too similar anymore, but our vibes still are. No one takes themselves too seriously. We'd been hoping to tour with them for a long time and the timing worked out. We were thinking about calling it quits on the road and starting on a new album and they were just about to release their album. They invited us and we decided to go for the rest of the fall.

Amy: You are on tour until early December. Is that when you think you'll start working on the new album?

Brian: Yes. We need to write some songs; it's been over a year, which is the longest we've ever gone without writing a song, meaning that the song writing process will be different now. We're going to spend the better part of next year in the studio and that's what I would prefer. We've always treated the studio as something to get done so we could get back out on the road and continue to develop, but at this point I'd rather try to get good at being in the studio, try to involve myself more in the production, and learn a little bit more about how to record. I'm looking forward to it; I'm kind of tired of the road.

Amy: In your albums now, do you feel it is important to stick with a signature sound?

Brian: With each album we throw away the old and start with a whole new approach. I don't think we make a particular effort to keep anything stylistic or signature. I think with this next album we may start to involve new sounds. There'll be some changes, but hopefully our fans will be willing to roll with them. Bands need to evolve creatively and a lot of fan bases have a hard time with that, but ours seems to be pretty open to change.

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Amy Domaszek
Chips Staff Writer

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