Guster may be the only jam band that isn't actually a jam band.     The harmonic trio -- guitarists Ryan Miller and Adam Gardner and percussionist Brian Rosenworcel -- formed and performs organically...has a grass-roots following...tours constantly but rarely plays the same song the same way twice...allows fans to tape its shows...encourages them to trade those tapes...often is joined on stage by saxophonist Dan Myers of the late great jam band From Good Homes...works with that band's former sound engineer, Rob Calabrese, has toured with Dave Matthews Band and Widespread Panic...has been produced by Steve Lillywhite, who brought in Phish keyboardist Page McConnell to perform on its third album, "Lost and Gone Forever."

    Karl Denson of Tiny Universe and Greyboy Allstars also appeared on Guster's  latest CD, a followup the 1998 Sire debut, "Goldfly." But the Guster guys, who are opening for jam band demi-gods Phil Lesh and Bob Dylan on July 29 at New Jersey's Waterloo Village, consider themselves more of an acoustic pop band than a improvisational rock outfit, as evidenced by their hit ditty, "Fa Fa." Check it out for yourself when Guster performs Aug. 7 on CBS-TV's "The David Letterman Show" and headlines Fleet Pavilion in Boston, Aug. 4, and Central Park Summerstage in New York, Aug. 19, the band's two biggest gigs so far.

    Things look like they're going to get bigger for Guster in a big hurry. I spoke with Gardner about that, his roots and the whole jam band question while he was staying with his folks in New Vernon, N.J. To find out more about the band, visit its hysterical website at www.guster.com.

Your band is based in Boston, but actually grew up in New Vernon, N.J. Where is the rest of the band from?  

Brian's from Hartford, Conn., and Ryan's from Dallas, Texas.    

What musical experience did you have growing up in New Vernon and going to Pingry High School in Bridgewater that paved the way for you to be in Guster?

Well, my parents forced me to take piano lessons when I was very young, like seven or eight. Then I moved to the typical junior high marching band situation. I played trumpet. Then guitar happened I guess in eighth grade. I just needed something that was even louder. I started on electric guitar. Took lessons in Lake Hiawatha. The second I could play 'Yesterday' by The Beatles, I started a band.

In rural Jersey, it was different. There wasn't a whole lot of clubs for an original band to be playing in. I ended up in a high school cover band and just played battle of the bands in different towns and what not. But I learned a lot about music doing other people's songs, the classic Stones and Beatles, The Who.

It gave you a good sense of pop?

Yeah, a good sense of pop, a good sense of where music came from. We were doing the biggie bands that people knew. We weren't doing the hits of '87 through '91, which is when I graduated. We did Creedence and Van Morrison.

That explains why you would gravitate to Guster's sound rather than an alternative sound because classic rock is your roots. After Pingry, you went to Tufts University in Boston. What was it like forming the band in college? Did you find that your major was Guster?

Absolutely. We met the first day of school. We were friends first. We were just fooling around in dorm room situations and our friends overheard us and thought that we were great, so we wrote some songs. It just really happened organically like that. It wasn't this grand plan to form this band that we ended up doing full-time after we graduated. It was just a bunch of friends playing together.

You put out your first record, 'Parachute,' on your own, but then you put out 'Goldfly' on Sire. How did your sound change with the third record, 'Lost and Gone Forever,' and how much did Steve Lillywhite have to do with that?

If you listen to our first record, which we made while we were still in school, that sounds very different from the second record, which we made the year after we graduated, which also sounds different from the record with Steve Lillywhite. We like to change our sound up as much as we can every time we play because if you're just putting out the same record, what's the point of that? They were all done with three different producers. Lillywhite was definitely our most positive experience producer-wise. It's so tricky to know where the influences of a producer ends and where the influence of the band begins. It was a good match with him.

The thing that made him so good is he knew when to step in and really help us out where we were weak and he knew when we were strong and to leave us alone. As far as the songs went, as far as trying different arrangements or bit parts on the guitar or on a hornline or something random, he'd led us try it. That was the big thing. He allowed us to make the record we wanted to make. Our first record was our first record. We didn't know what we wanted to make because it was the first time we made a record. The producer there, we depended heavily on him. With our second record, it was on our budget. We only had three weeks to make an entire record so the producer had to take over as well to make sure we finished on time. With Lillywhite, it was the first time we were able to experiment and do things that we wanted to try.

And obviously Lillywhite is a genius. Probably the biggest contribution he made was to make sure that he captured what we did live. All the other records were good records, but they didn't really capture the energy live that we have, especially Brian's percussion. I think finally on 'Lost and Gone Forever,' we captured that. The drum sound is huge. It doesn't sound like some guy tapping on bongos. They sound like gigantic drums.

Of course, Brian plays so much more than bongos. He really has quite an unusual rig. How did that evolve?

That's exactly what happened. It evolved. He started with a conga and a pair of bongos. Then he added a tambourine. Then he started learning more about drums, going, 'Oh, what's a jimbe? What's a tumba? Oh, they make hand snares?' Basically, anything he could do with his hands, he picked up.

He's got enough sound that it sounds like a traditional drumset, but it's not. Why take it that way other than just to be unique? What makes it comfortable and fun?

Well, first of all, he can't play with a stick (laughs). He came from hand percussion. He's self-taught.

Were any of you guys music students in college?

Nope. None of us. We were all liberal arts majors. This wasn't a preconceived idea of 'OK, this is going to be an unusual thing if we don't have a bass player and don't have a traditional drum kit.' These are the instruments we played when met. It seemed to work.

If ain't broke, don't fix it. It's really fun for both you and the audience.

It definitely forces us to be more creative as far as how to use our instruments to our fullest.

Did Steve Lillywhite hook you up with Dave Matthews Band and Page from Phish?

Definitely. With Dave Matthews, we sort of ran in the same circles with him in a lot of areas so we had a few connections to him. But Steve Lillywhite was a large help. We played in Charlottesville earlier this year when the Dave Matthews guys were recording. Steve brought them out to check out our show. They really liked it and liked us so that helped. They invited us over to their studio for a day. We hung out over there in their giant playground.

That really helped. We just did those shows. It was almost too much of a tease because it was only three shows. It was almost frustrating to play three shows with them because they went over so well. We went, 'God if we could only have more! (laughs).

Will there be?

I hope so. We left things on a great note with them. They were really psyched with how things went. They led us to believe that they would like to have us play with them again.

The interesting thing about Lillywhite is that he's able to take these great-sounding live bands, like Dave Matthews Band and Phish, and make them work in the studio. You mentioned he got your live sound. I think he makes the effort. He went and checked out a bunch of your shows before he worked with you. A lot of producers will check out a few but not that many. Comment on his commitment to his projects.

He was so committed to us. It was amazing. Before we even had an album's worth of material, he was like, 'I'm ready to record you guys.' And, of course, that was frightening because we only had four or five songs at the time.

Did you have 'Fa-Fa' yet?

Yeah, we did. But his commitment was amazing. It was just shocking. Every once in a while we'd have to just pinch ourselves. As he's there mixing our record, we're sitting in the back of the studio watching, going, 'Hey, that's Steve Lillywhite' (laughs).

That's when you knew you made it.

Yeah, it was amazing. His personality also was crucial to have. He's a really jolly, positive, upbeat person so he added such a happy and positive atmosphere to the process whereas before it was always sort of a dictatorship. We weren't sure what to expect. He easily could have been, 'Oh, I'm Steve Lillywhite and what I say goes.' He wasn't like that at all. He's a really easy person to work with. It was such a pleasure.

I'm sure working with Dave Matthews Band worked because you share a similar audience. The interesting thing about the two of you is that you have been called jam bands. And there is this whole jam band scene, but Dave Matthews Band and Guster both seem to have their own thing going on so you can float in and out of that jam band scene, have a lot of fans from it, but yet you're mainstream acts.

We always chuckle and are shocked by the jam band thing. It doesn't happen that often, but some people do absolutely lump us in there, and it's like, 'Have you listened to the music?' We don't jam at all. We write three-and-a-half-minute pop songs. There's no jamming at all. None of us even try to improvise because that's not what we do.     With Dave Matthews, at least there's two instrumentalists who solo and stuff like that. They obviously do jam out a little bit. But I don't get why that label gets put anywhere near our band.

How did that happen?

I think people get confused who don't know necessarily know what the music is about. They just understand that we have a huge grass-roots following. They just assume it's a jam band thing because any band that tours as hard as we do and has that grass-roots, I guess to someone who doesn't know, just assumes, 'Oh, they must be a jam-band thing.' But the reality is that it's not at all what we are. I think people that just see it from the outside may just lump it in there because they haven't actually listened to any records.

Live, you seem to stretch out a little bit.

That's not really true. We may do different versions of the songs, but it's very rare where we say, 'OK, somebody take a solo.' That just doesn't happen. If anything is improvised, Ryan will spew something funny in between songs or we'll do some sort of spew song, but as far as the actual material we have on our records, we have a live version that we'll play and maybe we'll change that up, but it's nothing that spontaneous happening before your eyes (laughs). I wish we could do that sometimes, but we just don't have that ability.

One of the things that the jam band scene definitely relates to Guster is the grass-roots fan representatives. I think Guster may have invented these band boosters to distribute records on an incentive basis even with your major label debut, which had distribution.

Yeah, we call it the rep program. It's still happening. It's something that came out of before we were signed. It was one way to get the record out to people's friends who may have seen us in Boston that went to college there, but then they go home to Atlanta, where we had never played before and had no distribution. They say, 'Hey, I played the record for my friends in Atlanta and they want to know where they can get the record.' And we go, 'Well, actually, you can't. If you think you have a bunch of friends who'll buy it, why don't you just take 10 CDs with you next time you go to Atlanta and when you sell them, give us the money (laughs). And here's a T-shirt and a nickname and you're on our rep list.' That's really how it started.

So they would buy the CDs wholesale and sell them retail?

Not even that. We would just give it to them, and when they sold it, they'd give us the money. Now there's a thousand of these reps all over the country. Now it's different because people can buy the record in stores, but it's still very valuable to us because when it's a friend passing music to a friend, that's so much more meaningful than some advertisement on television  or some poster in a store or even hearing a song on the radio. When you have a friend passing you music, you take it that much more seriously than if some corporate label somehow puts up an advertisement in front of you.

And that makes for real fans. If Guster just means 'Fa Fa' to them, then that's not the same thing as someone who knows all of our albums and has been to five live shows.

See, that's in the same spirit as the jam scene, like taping and tape trading.

Oh, and we allow the taping thing too. Some of the ideas and philosophies and attitudes of the jam bands we absolutely agree with it. But we were never, ever a part of that scene. They're ideas that presented themselves too us because of fans who liked our music and liked other music. There's several bands in this generation of music that aren't necessarily jam bands who do things the same way, who emphasize mailing list and taping and allowing the real way of promoting your band. I think what happened honestly, ever since people figured out in the early '90s that you don't need a record company to make a CD, that CD's are actually affordable to make, all of a sudden you seen any Joe Schmo making a record. Obviously some of the bands we're talking about, like Dave Matthews Band and ourselves and several other bands that haven't quite made it but have done fairly well on the club scene, basically made their own records and really emphasized their mailing list and the grass-roots way of spreading themselves and could actually make a living from that and didn't need to be signed.

We didn't financially have to sign a record deal. We decided to do that because we wanted to be able to play huge venues with Dave Matthews and Bob Dylan and get on TV and play on Letterman. That was the reason why we signed the deal because we wanted it to grow to as big an audience that's out there for us.

A mainstream audience in addition to a grass-roots audience.

Those (grass-roots) fans are very, very important to us because they're the core, they're the real thing. They're the ones who set an example for the newcomers as to what our scene is.

That's so much like Dave Matthews Band.

That's so much like Dave Matthews Band, but even more so, I would say Barenaked Ladies, where they have specific scene, a specific humor, a specific personality for that solid core fanbase that knew that already when they blew up and all these newcomers came in. There already was a scene in place so they either ingratiated themselves into that scene or they bowed out. It's either your scene or not. That's important to have. Otherwise, if it's just a bunch of newcomers and there's no core audience there, then the newcomers will just come and maybe go to the next thing that's happening. 

You're going to be opening for Bob Dylan and Phil Lesh at Waterloo Village, which is just a few miles from your hometown in New Vernon. Jersey kids dream of playing there or PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel.

That's where I always went as a kid. I've never even seen a concert at Waterloo.

You played PNC Bank Arts Center last summer, right?

Yeah, we played with Widespread Panic, which, again, they are a jam band. And I have mixed emotions about that tour. That wasn't the most appropriate tour for us, but it being in New Jersey and having our fanbase there, it was great.

Well, how about playing with Bob Dylan and Phil Lesh? How do you feel about that?

I'm excited about that. I mean Bob Dylan appeals to so many different types of people. I think it'll be fine. I think it will go over well.     I'm interested to see what type of person shows up to it. I think you're going to get such a mix between people who are old-school Bob Dylan fans, some of the older crowd, and some of the younger crowd there to check out Phil Lesh that may have missed the Grateful Dead, but want some sort of taste of it. It'll be interesting to see what the crowd is there.

You're probably going to be considered more of a jam band after that show.

It's interesting because a lot of the people who are into the jam band scene like us. But we also did this radio show with Hanson and Christina Aguilera and all the 13-year-old teeny-poppers liked us there too. It's sort of hard to pin down who likes us, which is probably a good thing. There's a wide variety of groups that can understand what we're doing musically. I like to think of us, as far as the jam band community, as a taste of pop for the people who like jam bands. If we were running around doing dance moves, the jam band people wouldn't want to have anything to do with us (laughs). But because we have acoustic-based instruments, which is a little more earthy, they can swallow it.

Dylan must have been an influence on Guster's acoustic-oriented songwriting.

Oh yeah, especially the lyrics. We used to not take lyrics seriously at the beginning of Guster, but we just weren't that good at writing lyrics. It was during 'Goldfly' that our producer, Steve Lindsey, was like, 'You've got to check out Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and all these amazing lyricists.'

Was that your introduction to Dylan?

Not mine. I grew up in the whole classic rock realm. But it's interesting that even in making our video, the initial sketch of it was to be in the vein of Dylan and the Band circa the 'Don't Look Back' video.

For 'Fa Fa'?

    Of course it ended up looking nothing like that at all with hula girls and beach scenes and roller skating rinks. But that was the original plan. It got somewhat aborted. We were excited about that whole vibe, but the only thing we ended up with was me wearing my strange Mexican blanket that was left over from The Band.

The Band meets Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid meets The Beach Boys.

Yeah, I don't know what happened. Actually, we get that a lot too, which is interesting.

The Beach Boys?

Yeah.

I would think Crosby, Stills and Nash too?

Oh definitely. In high school, I loved them. I was heavily into the vocal harmony thing. I was in singing groups in high school, a capella groups. It would be great if Lesh would let you guys sing a song with him because his vocals aren't strong.

I'm not sure if Phil Lesh as ever heard of who we are, but who knows. They actually wanted us to do the entire Northeast, but we have our own headlining shows in Central Park and in Boston this summer so we wanted to be a little more careful. But God, how can you say no to Bob Dylan? We wanted to at least do one and that's the one that made the most sense.

What do you hope Dylan and Lesh get about your music?

I just hope they get a chance to see it. As a headliner, sometimes you're out to dinner or whatever's happening during the opening. I would just love for them to get a glimpse of it. I would love to meet them, but I hear Bob Dylan is sort of a tough person to actually meet (laughs). I think they keep him fairly protected.     But if they get to see it, I hope they get some part of it or all of it. Whatever. I'd be very interested to see what their reaction would be.

It's very funny because right now there's a Sting show that's possibly happening for us too in Ohio. Everybody's ready to do it, but Sting wants to hear our record. They were like, 'Can you send out a CD?' So we know Sting is going to hear our band. If we get the date, that means he liked us, and if we didn't get the date, that means he didn't like us (laughs). But we'll know directly whether Sting likes us or not. It's sort of funny.

Now you're going to be at Waterloo and then Central Park Summerstage. You must have a lot of friends and family coming to see you.

It's amazing. Whenever we play New York or New Jersey, it's like, 'Adam Gardner, this is your life!' (laughs). All these friends, 'Oh, I haven't seen you since third grade.' It's amazing.

I went to high school with two of the guys in Stone Temple Pilots. We just played with them two days ago at a radio festival.

Well, Bobby DeLeo, who used to hang out at my house with my sister and their friends, would point them out in the crowd from the stage during concerts. Have you ever had the urge to stop the show and go say hello to really close friends?

I haven't stopped the show, but I'll definitely point and nod or something, a little wave.     It'll be great to play Central Summerstage. I hear the venue's amazing. New York City is definitely one of the best cities for us as far as a large crowd.

You've worked a lot with Dan Myers from From Good Homes. They were quite the popular Jersey act.

They were a great band. He's on the road with us right now.

How do you like working with him?

We have him on the road as much as we can. We love having him with us. He only adds to what we're doing. He's an amazing musician and a great guy to be with on the road. He obviously knows what it's like to be on the road because he did it for 10 years, which is a lot longer than we have. It's been nothing but a pleasure to work with him especially for 'Fa Fa,' which is the current single. His horn playing totally adds to the whole song.

The first time I wrote about From Good Homes, they were a cover band.

No way. We also have Rob Calabrese with us too, their sound engineer. He's our sound engineer now.

I'm sure with Dan, you draw a few From Good Homes fans. They had a very organic, acoustic, harmonic sound.

When they had their last show at Waterloo, Brian came out and played a couple of songs with them. So Brian's been to Waterloo before I have (laughs).

What else going on with Guster?

We're doing 'Letterman' Aug. 7. That's going to be a huge deal. The single's still cruising along. We're starting to think about the next single, but we don't know what'll be yet.

I've been into Guster since before 'Goldfly' came out. And after you played some temple show, my wife, who's a Jewish youth director, started playing your CDs for all her kids and they love it.

That's awesome.

Do you think you'll ever play another temple again?

We did one temple and it's amazing how that's come back to us. It's like, 'You guys do temples! We know you do!' It's like the word got out. All three of us happen to be Jewish. We always joke about maybe we should put out a record of Jewish youth group songs on the sly and just market it to youth groups (laughs). Shabbat shalom, hey!

Bob Makin is an entertainment writer for Gannett NJ. Jam bands are welcome to send him information at makinclan@aol.com and material at Courier News, PO Box 6600, Bridgewater, NJ 08807.