ince the formation of their band in 1992, the guys in Guster have feverishly been out on the road building a strong and steady fan base and fervently producing music. The pop band consists of Ryan Miller (guitar, vocals), Adam Gardner (guitar, vocals) and Brian Rosenworcel (percussion).

	Guster brought in additional musicians for its new CD and tour.

The Boston-based group, which will make a tour stop in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, has had plenty of time to grow over the past 11 years. Keep it Together, Guster's fourth studio release, stands as strong evidence of the many changes that the band has made. Rosenworcel said, "Every record is a reaction against the last one." This concept of the band's production led to a conscious group decision to "do things differently than we had the last time."
Rosenworcel explained that much of the criticism for the band's third album, Lost and Gone Forever, centered around the idea that most of the songs on the record sounded too alike. Acknowledging this disapproval, the band members made an effort to stir things up a bit. Rosenworcel said, "On the new album, each song has its own identity. It's definitely a more diverse record."

The diversity of the songs is largely due to the band's decision to incorporate a wider range of instrumentation. Rosenworcel said that the band "threw out all of our old rules, which is that we had to just use guitar and percussions. And that opened up our sound a lot. I think that we started writing our songs differently too, from a more collective jam situation rather than one guy sitting down and writing a whole song and everyone hammering out the arrangement."

According to Rosenworcel, the resolution to include more standard instruments such as bass and a full drum set was heavily influenced by boredom. "We sat down to write music together again for the first time in a couple of years because we had been touring so heavily, and it was like, 'I don't want to do this again.'" The boredom of all three members of the band led to a unanimous desire to "keep experimenting with things that were fresh to us."

One of the first steps taken to create a different sound was the decision to recruit Roger Moutenot to help the band "make a studio record." In contrast to past albums that were written for the precise purpose of being played live, Keep it Together was a direct attempt to create music for an album. Rosenworcel revealed that this was made possible because they "worried about playing it live later on. We built the songs up. However, they needed to be built up and sound best on tape."

Though the band's efforts to make such dramatic changes have resulted in many positive reviews by a variety of critics, the guys in Guster have found that some of the hard-core fans from the past have begun to stray. Though it is somewhat disappointing to the band, Rosenworcel said that "there are definitely purists who have abandoned us because we are not just two guitars and percussion anymore. We knew it was gonna come, but you can't make records to satisfy the most stringent members of your fan base, you're gonna have to make choices based on your own artistic impulses."

The addition of Joe Pisapia, who plays bass and banjo on tour with Guster, was another shocking choice that helped satisfy Guster's newly found impulses. Pisapia's presence has aided the band in creating a new sound live. Stylistic and musical changes have helped define the band as a whole. The record not only reveals a desire to grow, but according to Rosenworcel, has provided the band with a unique feeling of liberation.

Keep it Together presents a series of songs that open the band up, forcing them to become vulnerable. The sound is peaceful yet exciting and begs to be played over and over again. Guster will be touring until next summer, when it will take a break and perhaps begin working on its next album.

Check out Guster live when it plays on Wednesday, Nov. 19 at the University of Utah Union Ballroom. The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players will open. Tickets are available through Smith'sTix, 467-TIXX, 1-800-888-TIXX and www.smithstix.com.
autumn@red-mag.com