MAGNET #117 is out now! As you can see, the great Guster is on the cover. Crave longevity in this wacky business? You better learn to love change—and the best little band from Boston has embraced it. We present the Guster Rock ‘N’ Roll Survival Guide.
This issue’s MAGNET Classic: the making of Yo La Tengo’s Painful. Also in the mag: Belle And Sebastian, Bob Schneider, Butch Walker, Dengue Fever, Alasdair Roberts, the Dodos, Sonny & The Sunsets, the Go-Betweens and much, much more.
Order your copy here.
Sneak preview of the cover story after the jump.
Guster’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Survival Guide
Story By Hobart Rowland / Photos By Gene Smirnov
Brian Rosenworcel owns a minivan, and he’s fine with it.
Not that he has much of a choice these days, with three young kids to haul around Brooklyn. “I just had twins,” says Guster’s lanky, bearded drummer between forkfuls from a heaping bowl of hash browns at a rancher-themed gastro-pub in Bushwick. It’s 4 p.m. on Sunday, and the shadowy corner space is packed with hipsters taking advantage of the extended brunch hours. “Places like this, pretty much in the middle of nothing, always amaze me,” says Rosenworcel, as if he’s just been beamed in from another far-off realm.
And, in a way, he has. For the past week or so, he and the rest of Guster have been holed up in a local rehearsal space working out the various electronic kinks and nuances of what’s likely to be their most challenging album to translate live. “If there is a through-line on this one, it’s embracing the pads, the keyboards and the deeper grooves—and mostly getting rid of the acoustic guitars, which frees up a lot of space,” says Rosenworcel.
The album is called Evermotion (Nettwerk/Ocho Mule), and it’s Guster’s most subtly compelling batch of tunes since 2003’s Keep It Together. Imagine that: Four average-looking, well-educated guys in their 30s and 40s—with wives, fiancées, kids and minivans and such—turning out a wholly of-the-moment minor masterpiece that should be ranked among 2015’s finest LPs. (Where do I sign up?)
For anyone counting, this is studio album number seven for the group, whose varied and impressive body of work demonstrates, among other things, that image isn’t everything—and change is the only thing. “The keyboards really allowed us to use this whole new palette,” says Ryan Miller, the band’s lead singer and primary lyricist. “How we stay scared and how we get out of our comfort zone have been absolutely crucial to what we’ve been doing for the last 10 years.”
Most evident on Evermotion is how effectively the cutesy-quirk factor (first embodied in the bloated teddy bear on the cover of Parachute, the band’s 1995 debut) has been exorcised. “It’s been a goal every time out to figure out what the fuck we have to do to make ourselves interesting or better,” says Miller. “I read a review of this record that was like, ‘These guys need to go back to their roots.’ If that’s what you want, you have those early records. But I’m 42 years old, and I don’t want to write that song anymore.”
More than 20 years in, the evidence suggests that Guster may be just coming into its own. Obviously, the band is doing something right. What follows an attempt to break it down for you: 20 survival tips from a group that once toured with Nickel Creek. You’re gonna want to take notes.
