Guster to rock for the Earth

The crowd of students typically gathered near McCosh Hall to celebrate their completed term papers and cheer on classmates rushing to hand in papers by the 5 p.m. Dean's Date deadline may be smaller than usual on Tuesday. Instead, students will be in Dod Courtyard waiting for alternative-rock band Guster to take the stage for the USG Spring Concert.

Princeton is the final stop on Guster's Campus Consciousness Tour, the band's first venture in bringing environmental awareness to college campuses. Throughout the tour, Guster has traveled in a biodiesel-fueled bus, powered each concert with wind-power and held clean energy demos and discussions at various schools.

"We're basically combining Guster concerts with environmental awareness and service projects," band guitarist and singer Adam Gardner said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. A few years ago, Gardner and his wife founded an environmental nonprofit, Reverb, which helped organize the tour.

In keeping with the environmental theme, band members will host a game of Jeopardy in Cafe Viv at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Members of the Princeton community will be challenged to demonstrate their knowledge about energy and global warming issues. The event is being organized by Princeton Water Watch.

Gardner said the band is excited to be returning to Princeton, where it has performed several times in the past. The group even cites a 1997 Princeton concert on its website, noting that "[d]uring a performance at a Princeton University party, [singer] Ryan Miller tinkles in a Nantucket Nectar bottle. The crowd of ivy-leaguers who averaged 1530 on their S.A.T.'s goes wild."

"Are people going to expect that now?" Gardner said, chuckling. "Is that part of our show?"

Gardner, a New Jersey native, added that he especially looks forward to concerts here because his family can attend.

Gardner, Miller and drummer Brian Rosenworcel have been together since freshman orientation at Tufts University in 1991. They formed a band called GUS — later renamed Guster — during their sophomore year and released their first album, "Parachute," in 1994.

Since then, Guster has recorded three more albums and traveled around the country on numerous tours. And even after 12 years, the group's popularity only seems to be increasing, Gardner said.

"[Our fan base] is actually still building, which is amazing, and the majority of our fan base is still college-aged," Gardner said. "There are constantly new people being brought into the community ... The trajectory of our career has been slow and steady growth."

The band will tour this summer to promote its new album, "Ganging Up On The Sun," which will be released next month. The tour will be "the most ambitious and biggest production we've put on to date," Gardner said.

The most notable difference in the new album is the addition of a fourth band member, Joe Pisapia, from Tennessee. "Ganging Up On the Sun" will also have more of a classic rock edge to it.

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"Everyone always says our records are different, and I think that's definitely true," Gardner said. "But the common thread between all of our records stylistically is melody."

Another distinctive aspect of the group is its collaborative writing process, Gardner said. "Whenever we bring in a producer, they're always shocked at how democratic our writing process is," he said. "It's very slow, but we all end up with something that we're happy with, and it doesn't seem to hurt the end result at all — it actually helps."

The slow writing process and the band's heavy touring are reasons for the long delays between record releases, Gardner explained.

But because its fan base is still growing and its concerts are still packed, the 15-year-old band plans to continue touring and producing albums.

"We're only getting better each time we make a record; we're still improving and there's still room to grow," Gardner said. "We're in the fortunate position in that we're making a great living — not only are we doing what we love, but there are enough people who are into it to keep us going financially."