New England Band, Guster Comes to Newport

Playing to a near sold out crowd in 2009, Guster, the popular alternative rock band from Boston, MA, will be back to entertain its fans at the Newport Yachting Center’s Nantucket Nectars Sunset Music Series on Thursday, August 4. Opening for Guster will be Ra Ra Riot, an acclaimed indie rock band from Syracuse, NY. Beginning the night on the smaller Courtyard Stage will be Fall & Bounce, nominated as “2011 Best New Act” by Providence’s Motif Magazine. 

Tickets are still available at $25 for standard seats and $35 for preferred seats and those interested can purchase and print tickets at home by visitingwww.newportwaterfrontevents.com or by calling the Newport Yachting Center Box Office at (401) 846-1600.

Forming after a chance meeting between three Tufts University undergrads in the early 1990s, Guster is known for its soaring harmonies, inventive guitar riffs and a hardcore following due in part to their energetic live shows. The band has topped the British and German billboards, sold out New York’s fabled Radio City Music Hall, performed with the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall, toured with Ben Folds, John Mayer and Barenaked Ladies and founded the eco-friendly Campus Consciousness Tour with buses powered by bio-diesel and performances generated by wind power.

The band broke into the musical mainstream in 1999 with its third studio album, Lost and Gone Forever, with the single song “Fa Fa,” which made it onto the Adult Top 40.  The band then enjoyed success on the charts with Keep It Together, its fourth album, with two singles in the Adult Top 40 (“Careful” and “Amsterdam”). Guster’s fifth studio release, Ganging Up on the Sun, won “Album of the Year” at the Boston Music Awards in 2006 and peaked at 25 on the Billboard 200.  Guster’s sixth studio album, Easy Wonderful, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim. Guster's music has also been featured on numerous movies and television shows, including Disturbia and the Wedding Crashers.

“We welcomed Guster to our waterfront venue in 2005 and 2009 and were thrilled with the size and spirit of the crowd each time,” said Michele Maker Palmieri, General Manager of the Newport Yachting Center.  “We’re expecting more of that same magic on their third visit to Newport.”

Guster frontman, was kind enough to take some time to talk with Coventry Patch Editor Lauren Costa, in anticipation of Thursday's show:

Q: So you guys have been together for almost 20 years. What's the secret to sticking together and continuing to make great music, while still get along with one another?

A: I've known those guys forever, we met in ninety-one, so it's been a while. (Laughs.) The secret? Well, we lived together for five years, not living together definitely helps. I mean, we just enjoy playing music together and people keep being interested in the music we're performing and ya know, it's like we're all brothers, it's more familial than anything else, more than a business relationship. It definitely feels more like a family, I've been in this band for more than half my life...I don't know what the secret is, but it'd be great to figure it out.

Q: Guster has been described as a very evolutionary band, that changes and grows with every album. In regards to your latest record, "Easy Wonderful", how do you feel it differs from earlier records?

A: Maybe it's just a more fully realized version of what we've been trying to do, ya know, make a sort of upbeat, classic pop record. We've always had a focus on melody and arrangement and I think that it really feels like a record that we can stand behind, even eight or nine months into it.

Q: You're releasing an EP on August 2nd. What can your fans expect from this?

A: There's two songs that we recorded during Easy Wonderful that we couldn't put on the record. There's two songs that we recorded live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when we played there. And there's an edit of "On the Ocean", hence the name of the EP, and I did a remix of on of our songs, too.

Q: Us lucky Rhode Islanders get to see you perform just two days after the EP is released at the Nantucket Nectars Sunset Music Series. Can fans expect a good variety of old and new material, or do you plan on sticking to the more recent music?

A: Yeah, we'll play a bunch of the new record and then we'll play a bunch of old stuff, too. We're fans of music and fans of seeing live bands and I get pissed when a band just plays their new record, so we won't do that to people. 

Q: Have you ever played in Newport before? Visted? What do you think of the island?

A: Yeah, we've played that venue before I think. It's a really nice spot to play.

Q: You guys start touring with Jack's Mannequin starting August 7th. How did that pairing come about? 

A: We sort of got hooked up through management and agents, and I think we have a lot of crossover on our fan base too, and it's just one of those things. I think us and Jack's wanted to get into some bigger venues this summer, so smart pairing is great for everyone. For your fans, because you can get more for you money. I'm excited, I'm really interested to see how it all plays out. 

Q: With the Campus Consciousness tours that you've done in the past, you guys used a lot of "green" initiatives. Will any of those environmentally-friendly steps be taken on this tour?

A: Yeah, Adam, the other singer in the band and his wife started a nonprofit called Reverb six years ago, so we're always doing our bio-deisel and recycling efforts and filling water bottles. Pretty much the full, green touring perspective, as much as we can.

Q: One last question, not music related, but since you are a Bostonian, how do you feel about the Bruins winning the Stanley Cup?

A: What? The Bruins are a hockey team, right? No, I'm just kidding. I don't actually follow hockey, but I think it's pretty awesome when Boston teams win, because Boston is the best city in the world.

Find out a little more about the guys of Guster, preview their music and get tour information on guster.com.