The Observer, April 22, 2005
Volume XXXVII, Issue 26
Guster's Rosenworcel discusses success, new album
Before Guster rocked the audience's socks off in Adelbert Gym last Thursday at their UPB-sponsored concert, drummer Brian Rosenworcel sat down with The Observer to talk about life on the road, the new album, and nerds.
Megen Vo: I can't handle driving for long distances, how do you handle doing it so often?
Brian Rosenworcel: Well, we drove in the sense that we were asleep on that bus. None of us really drive anymore, we did four years in a van in which we drove in three hour shifts, but now we have a driver.
MV: What kind of van? Like, scary abductor van? Retro?
BR: Well, there were windows. If I were to abduct someone, I'd want a nice rusty white van with no windows. Maybe a black van with no windows. We had a gold Ford Club Wagon with tinted windows. We had it pretty souped up; we built a little futon loft in there. We knew we'd be out on the road for a while, and then we graduated to one of those [gestures towards tour bus] in 1998. [Laughs] Now it's 2005.
MV: So what would you say your biggest accomplishment as a band is? The bus?
BR: I think this album will be. I really think we made a great album. I feel like we had a better batch of songs to work with and I think we made it as a four piece band instead of a three piece band for the first time, meaning we wrote the songs with Joe, our new fourth member. And that went a long way, because he's a great musician and a great songwriter. So you know, in the same way that Lennon would finish McCartney's ideas, if we were stuck somewhere, we had an extra voice to help us. And that's why the writing process went faster, and that's why the recording process went faster, I think, than last time. When we did "Keep it Together," it was almost a year of recording off and on. It had some dark moments. But this one was pretty smooth.
MV: So how would you describe the new album?
BR: You know, I've been getting that question, and it's tough to describe. I think all of our albums are like reactions against the last album. Like, we try to do the things we didn't do the last time, once we have the perspective that we have. I think this one is less understated. In Keep it Together there were a lot of great, subtle moments on the record. And this album it's just more like, instant songs. I think we just focused on the songs more, and the production second. And that's not to say that we didn't over-produce it, because we did. [Laughs] It's definitely less understated and more instant. Am I talking in vague terms about music? [Laughs]
MV: What made you decide to change to a drum kit for Keep it Together?
BR: These days, I can point to the fact that it's good for my longevity to be playing with sticks. But at the time, it was just a reaction to Lost and Gone Forever which I felt like we finally made a record which captured the sound of our instrumentation at the time, which was guitars and percussion, and we captured it well, and it was like, I didn't want to do that again. So we just totally threw all the rules out the window, and Ryan started playing bass and I started playing drums, and it was hard because, well, we weren't great at our instruments beforehand, but we were pretty bad. I'm still not a great drummer. It's kind of humbling to be out there on a kit, but I did really get into it, and you have to be inspired when you're writing music, so what inspired me was the kind of refreshing side of playing with sticks and four limbs.
MV: So what was it like to start a band in college?
BR: It literally progressed out of a dorm room. I literally just brought my bongos to college with me and I met these guys who played guitar and we were just jamming in the dorm room. It was never, ever supposed to go into our thirties. It was never supposed to take on this kind of life, but it was very organic. It was just like, we started writing songs, we made a demo tape, we started playing campus parties. Then we started playing off campus, made an album, bought a van when we graduated. One thing led to another. Which is a good way to develop because it helps you build a fan base.
MV: I hear you guys are die-hard Mac users. What's on your iPod playlists?
BR: I've got a bunch of albums that haven't been released yet, so maybe I shouldn't say them. [Laughs] I have the new Spoon, the new Clem Snide. That's kind of the genre I like… It was really hard to listen to music while were making our new record. It's just like, just stay focused on what you're doing. It's kind of distracting to listen to how mixed, mastered, finished music sounds. It can bring you down. So I stayed away from my iPod for the last few months. It was kind of hard, but we worked from noon to like one a.m. everyday, so that was it. You're like interviewing Gilligan right after he got off the island or something.
MV: What are your touring must-haves?
BR: I need my drum tech Sean, because he's thinking about quitting. I need my iPod and my headphones for falling asleep at night. Gotta have my laptop, gotta have a strong wireless card. [Laughs] This is going to trump the nerdiness right here: we need our bocce set… we play everyday on the road. I go deep with the chess, too. I'm not quite the rockstar I'd like to be portraying myself as, so go back to the heroin. "He was putting needles in his arm while he was talking to me! It was awesome!"
MV: Where do you see yourself in ten years? Where will the band be?
BR: Arthritic. The band will be arthritic. You know, I just want to be making music as long as I can, as long as it's growing. At this stage, playing live is fun and it's a good way to make a living, but your creativity really comes out when you write and when you make records. I think that we all get more serious with every record, and so I think that's where the challenge is, and that's where the longevity is, I think. So in ten years I'll probably not be playing the hand drums anymore, because I may have to amputate my arms off at the wrist. But I hope to still be involved with the music.
MV: Do you resent being labeled as a "pop" band?
BR: No, the Beatles were a pop band. That term can be taken in any way. We're a rock band now, but we don't need to rock very hard for our sensibilities. We just need to write the harmonic changes that rock. [Laughs] We don't actually need to rock ourselves.
MV: Where did you learn everything you know about music and songwriting?
BR: Honestly, I just went to college with my bongos. I learned nothing. None of us can read music. We were all in high school bands, and Ryan seemed to have a knack for songwriting early on. But we all grew together, we all developed this together, and the process is still evolving. We wrote "Lost and Gone Forever" in a living room. We just had our instruments set up there, and it was a very earnest and pure process in the fact that we'd just wake up in the morning, and if someone had an idea, we'd just play it. "Keep it Together" was a bit more labored. But this new album, we just got in a room and the ideas were everywhere. We couldn't even keep tabs on them, we were so excited to be making music again.
MV: What's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you guys on tour?
BR: There was this one time we did heroin with Playboy bunnies! (Laughs) They were shooting the heroin into us while we were shooting the heroin into them.
MV: Did you ever think you would get this far?
BR: Not in a million years. No way! I think I started to believe at some point when "Lost and Gone Forever" came out. Steve Lillywhite, who is like, a legendary producer decided to produce our album, and it was like "Whoa! Wait a minute, what are we doing?" But I've never had any, like, goals. I just wanted to make music. The fact that we have one of those [points to bus] is the coolest, still… I don't know sh-- about music. I've never taken drum lessons. I barely even know how you're supposed to hold the sticks.
MV: Do you have any advice for college students who want to make it? Like, you don't have to know anything about music?
BR: Just keep writing. Don't cover songs. Write your own songs. That's what we decided early on. Yeah, we played "Me and Julio Down by the School Yard," and yeah, it was cool. But after a while it was just more rewarding to play our own songs
MV: Who do you think would win a fight between the three of you? Or the four of you, now that there are four of you?
BR: We're pretty democratic. I think we'd all die with our last gasps in a pile of corpses like Gangs of New York. That's what our fight would be. Gangs of New York. Gangs of Guster.
MV: Who would be Leonardo DiCaprio?
BR: None of us. F--- that guy… We debated on the bus about Napoleon Dynamite. Some people just don't think it's funny. I was laughing the whole time. I guess I made judgements in my head about Mormons. I didn't think Mormons could be funny... Actually, every time we play Salt Lake City we draw a huge crowd, like freaking out, like all this energy. We always have the best shows at Salt Lake City.
MV: Maybe Cleveland can beat it.
BR: Maybe, I doubt it. [Laughs] I'm not expecting a big crowd. It's mainly Case students, right? Cleveland has always been weird for us. Last time we played here it was in a pavilion downtown. We played with Ben Folds; we came out during his set, and we were just supposed to play the two songs that we worked out and one thing led to another and we ended up playing for 25 minutes. The crowd was like, awestruck, but I think impressed that we would take it that far. But we were having fun.
