by Dawn St John

     A sunny August day, and we're sitting on a curb inside the High Falls festival site. The crowds won't be arriving for another several hours, but we're here to interview Adam Gardner. He's running a little late at the band's radio performance, but we see the guys arrive. Excited, we make our way over to the vehicle (driven by WBER's own Joey Guisto, with whom we spoke last month) and say our hellos to Joey, while the band heads back to the tour bus. A short time later, tour manager Seth Loeser brings Adam to us, and the interview can begin.

     The nearby stage is loudly preparing for the Guster soundcheck, so Adam leads us to the tour bus where it's quiet enough to conduct an interview. The biodiesel-powered bus is chilled by AC, and we settle onto black leather seats to talk.

The Lyrics:
The Green Room: There are a number of Oz references that come in through the songs, both in "What You Wish For" and in "Come Downstairs and Say Hello." Is there a particular member of the band who's a big fan?

Adam Gardner: I think we all like the movie a lot. That's funny. I know the one in "Come Downstairs," what's the other one you picked up on?

GR: "Crashed down in Oz..."

AG: Oh yeah, you're right. I even sing that lyric, and I hadn't even thought about it. Yeah, you're right. I dunno, it's obviously a movie everyone's seen and is familiar with. We do all happen to love the movie, too.

GR: Cool. The specific songs we're going to reference next, I know Brian wrote the lyrics to those two. I'm just wondering if you have a particular insight into the meanings of "Ruby Falls," for example. There's a lot of abstract things going on in there. Also "Red Oyster Cult," same kind of deal.

AG: I know more about the meanings behind "Red Oyster Cult" than "Ruby Falls." I mean, it's funny, typically we don't like to say where the lyrics came from because I think they mean different things to different people, and obviously that's a pretty trite thing to say. A lot of artists say that, but it's true! And often times, people come up with better interpretations than the actual intention of the lyric, which makes people think you're a better lyricist than you actually are. I think "Red Oyster Cult," I can at least tell you where the title came from. We wrote the song, and often lyrics are last. We write music first. So we'll nickname songs, first, just so we can keep track of which one's which and we know what we're referring to. And we called that one Blue Oyster Cult for a long time because it reminded us of a Blue Oyster Cult song. And then somehow Brian was like, "Oh, well, let's go with that," and it obviously to "Red Oyster Cult" and I think it... I don't really know exactly what it's about but I think it's about... Nah, I'm just gonna leave it open. I'm gonna leave it at that.

GR: Alright, that works. There are a couple of [songs] which sound like they're references to drugs. Is that something the band feels strongly about? Is there a back story [to "Amsterdam," for example]?

AG: *jokingly* We feel very strongly about using drugs. *laughs* We're strong proponents of drug use ... "Amsterdam" literally came.. a lot of times, like I said, the music comes first so a lot of times we go with something that sounds good. "Amsterdam" was like that (*hums*) -- the end of that chorus was like, "What do we do on that melody?" and we were like *sings* "Amsterdam." Literally, it was vowels. And Brian had an experience of getting incredibly high when he was in Amsterdam and getting lost, and actually talked to a bunch of people, and that happens to a lot of people, apparently. So it was sort of that. We liked that whole reference, "Did you get lost in Amsterdam?" And we went to Amsterdam to shoot that video. The other benefit of using Amsterdam in a lyric is that we got to go there to shoot our video. It was actually my only time that I've been. And sure enough, we got high, and got lost in Amsterdam.

GR: A friend of ours theorized that that was actually supposed to be an expression, that "lost in Amsterdam" was supposed to be a reference to getting high, and Oliver responded, "Y'know, I think I've been 'lost in Amsterdam' in Amsterdam."

AG: Yeah, well that's just it. I think it's just a lyric that we knew people would ... certain people would associate with.

GR: Right. I know that there's this [lyrical] change in "I Spy" and there's also a radio edit for "Wrecking Machine." Whose decision is that?

AG: "I Spy," actually, that lyric change, about "gay parade" versus "May parade," that was just something Ryan liked to throw in live. It was originally "May parade." It didn't get changed because of anything from a label standpoint or anything. However, "One Man Wrecking Machine," yeah, we did a different version of because certain stations.. the label was worried that certain stations wouldn't play it, and sure enough certain stations did request the alternate lyrics that took out the whole going down people's pants and smoking pot references. The smoking pot reference is the one that kills me the most because it's like the stations that were same ones that play that Tom Petty song with, "Let's roll another joint." It's like, "Uhh... what's the problem here? We're not even talking about-- We don't get that direct about it." So we figured fine. That's the first time we've actually done that, we've actually succumbed to a little bit of the outside pressures there. And the only reason why we agreed to do it is because we thought that the lyric change was also a decent change. Like it didn't ruin the song for us to change those words. If we thought it would, we wouldn't have done it.

Ganging Up on the Sun:
GR: Did you have any trouble transitioning into working as a four-piece when you'd been a trio for as long as you had?

AG: It was remarkably smooth. Yeah, this is the first time -- you're talking about Joe Pisapia -- it's the first time we've brought Joe in from the ground floor on the recording process. We brought him in after we made Keep It Together. And that, we made as a three-piece, but we arranged the songs for definitely more than just three sets of hands. And it became very obvious from the moment we finished recording that, we were going to need more hands on deck live to pull it off. And that's when we called Joe, who we -- his band, Joe Mark's Brother, had opened up for us a bunch and we were friends with him already. He's a great player. We asked him, thinking he wouldn't say yes. We thought for sure. We were like, "Well, let's just ask him. He's our ideal, but he's busy." He had a solo record out at that point, and we were like, "There's no way he'll say yes," but of course he did! And it was a natural transition to have him in a band. It was great, an instant fit. And after doing that first tour, originally it was just supposed to be a temporary thing, but none of us could really imagine playing without him at that point. We asked him to be an official member of the band, and without any real discussion just started writing together as a four-piece. So no, it was actually really easy, and was a breath of fresh air. At that point, when we brought Joe in, we'd been a band for over a decade, so to have somebody with fresh ideas, and he's a great player, and just changing up the group dynamic a little bit was actually a really positive thing.

GR: Do you think that had a strong influence on the sound on the new album?

AG: Absolutely! No doubt. His abilities as a musician are far beyond all of ours, so he's a ringer. And I've said this before and I'll say it again because it's a good metaphor: It's like when you play tennis with somebody who's better than you, it raises your game, too, so all of us I think are better musicians just for having Joe in our band. And again, he has fresh ideas. The three of us -- Ryan, Brian, and myself -- have been writing together for years and years. We met freshman year of college, and that was in '91. It's 2006, so 15 years. So to have somebody who hasn't been writing in our little bubble and has outside experience coming in adds a whole 'nother perspective on the songwriting process, which has been huge.

GR: The new album does actually have some of the more aggressive sounding material that you've recorded in a while: "The New Underground" and "Beginning of the End," specifically I'm thinking of. Has it been difficult to bring these to a live setting?

AG: No, it's been a lot of fun. It's been injecting the set with a different energy. I mean, the reality is that this record we really pushed ourselves in many directions. We also ahve one of the most mellow, melancholy songs we've ever written, too: "Empire State," which is really ambient and quiet and slow. So at the same time we have our loudest, most rocking, raucous song on the record, we have our most mellow, ambient, somber song we've ever written, our longest song we've ever written: "Ruby Falls." ... It's great. It's fun to play live. And of course, that trumpet solo at the end, that's my job now to try to tackle that. I was the most qualified in the band to try to play the trumpet because I played trumpet in 6th grade! So I recently picked it up at the beginning of this tour. Fortunately, the trumpet solo is pretty free-jazzy at the end, so if I hit sour notes, it's all part of it. It's all part of the spirit of it.

GR: Do you have a personal favorite track from the new album, and if so is there a particular reason for that?

AG: I do. I'm leaning towards "Ruby Falls." On the record, as far as listening to it, I really enjoy that one. I think it's the most adventuresome song we've written to date. Playing live, I really enjoy playing "The New Underground" because of it's tempo and because of it's spirit. It's a lot of fun live.

The Boston Pops & Fenway Park:
GR: [We were fortunate enough to catch you last June] with the Pops, and I know you're also going to be doing [Late Night with Conan O'Brien] with them. Is this something we can expect more of in the future?

AG: With the Pops? I hope so. There's talks. The first time we encountered them was when we did those two nights at Symphony Hall in Boston. We did two nights with them, and they learned a 45 minute set of Guster material and we performed it both nights, and it was a blast! It was amazing to feel a hundred piece orchestra behind you, playing your songs. It was amazing! Definitely a career highlight. And there was a lot of love between us and them right off the bat. After that weekend, we went out that night with Keith Lockhart, who's the conductor of course. And there was a lot of excitement from both ends. I'm glad this is happening with Conan, and there's talks of doing a full-on concert at Tanglewood together, maybe recording a live record. This is all maybe stuff, but I hope so. We wanted to record the Symphony Hall shows, but there were issues with union fees. Because there's a hundred-piece orchestra, each one of them's on a union fee. It gets really expensive really fast.

GR: That makes sense. You also got invited to sing the national anthem at Fenway Park. How did you react to that?

AG: Fear was the initial reaction! Initially, we were like, "We can't do that. No, we should say no. We're going to make fools of ourselves." ... I think actually we did great. Well, Brian probably [felt foolish] because he stood there holding cymbals the whole time, not even mouthing the words. Meanwhile, the entire stadium was singing. But no, we worked out an arrangement that actually sounds good. And now we have it in our back pockets, so the next time somebody else wants us to do the national anthem, we won't be afraid to say yes. It was a positive experience; it went well.

B-sides:
GR: I know that there are a few other songs from the Ganging Up recording sessions that never did make it onto the record.

AG: A bunch! There's a whole other album's worth, actually.

GR: Is "G-Major" going to ever see the light of day?

AG: Absolutely!

GR: Or "Emily Ivory?" Both of these are songs I'd really love to hear.

AG: Absolutely. There's a bunch of songs that are some of my favorite songs that didnt make it onto this record because we still think of albums as albums even though with the iTunes generation and the MP3 stealing generation, most people just think of it as songs. But we still want to consider the album as a collection of songs, and there are certain songs that were redundant that didn't make it on this album that are great songs. It wasn't because we didn't like them. So we're actually looking forward to releasing a B-sides record. We might either do it as a full B-sides album, or two separated EPs. We're not sure yet, but there's plenty of material that I'm looking forward to releasing. ... There's another song called "Rise and Shine," that we sometimes play when we do acoustic performances for radio stations or what-not, we play that one too, which is one of our favorites.

Tag & the perils of success:
GR: If there's a particular artist (or artists) that you'd like to see us feature in The Green Room at some point, who would that be?

AG: Well, considering that you're a combination of music and environment, which is obviously what Reverb is too, any of the Reverb artists we've worked with: folks from the Dave Matthews Band. Reverb actually just did an EcoVillage at Randall's Island, which is their two big festival type shows in New York City, which went really well this past weekend. Those guys are great. Bonnie Raitt is obviously amazing. She's involved with Reverb; we're technically a product of her non-profit, Aria. Jack Johnson's awesome that way. There are a number of artists that are actually doing their part, as far as taking advantage of their role in society and trying to make a change in a positive direction as far as protecting the environment. ... Oh, there's also Hot Buttered Rum. I believe they're doing a thing with Clif Bar, where -- I'm not sure if they're running on B-100 or straight vegetable oil, but they're doing something significant as far as their fuel on the tour. And that's a band that's not in the stratosphere that would probably be excited to talk.

GR: That's definitely good to know. We're mostly focussing on the smaller artists. Guster is the biggest artist we've dealt with. Mostly, we've been doing a lot of bands that have the sort of "indie" feel. They may be with major record labels, but they have more of a sort of cult following. You guys are sort of at the top of that.

AG: Yeah, we're in-between. People still call us indie rock even though we've been on Warner Brothers since '98.

GR: #25 album, you're starting to really transcend that.

AG: Well, we'll see. I don't mind. I actually like where we are. Our position's quite perfect because we're successful, we're able to tour, we're able to put food on the table, but we're not superstars where we can't walk around, and we have our freedom. I can walk about and people don't recognize me. And if people do, it's only because they like our band. As opposed to some of my other friends I have that are big stars. People will go out of their way to tell them they don't like them. "Oh are you John Mayer? You suck!" Great. That actually happened. I went to a mall with John Mayer while we were on tour with him, and someone went out of their way - didn't recognize me, recognized him - to tell him that he sucked. That would be hard. So I'm glad that people who recognize me, recognize me because they've seen a show. They like our band, already. It's a good position to be in.

     From here, go check out the review of the show from later that evening!