Guster On The Ocean is coming to Portland’s Thompson’s Point for three days and two nights of concert performances with such acts as Grace Potter, Trousdale, Toad the Wet Sprocket and, of course, Guster.
When I learned that Toad the Wet Sprocket was returning to Maine the excitement caused a call to their management to see if a phone interview could be arranged. You see, I had chatted with Glen Phillips — lead singer, guitarist — and was very interested in chatting with the band again, seeing the last time was in 1994 when they played at The State Theatre and the next night at Colby College.
This time around it was Dean Dinning — bassist, backing vocalist — who called from his home in Santa Barbara, California; and I began by explaining the desire to chat.
Q: I’ve interviewed your band twice, with Glen both times. The first time was in 1989 when you were at UMaine in the Pit touring for Bread & Circus. And the second time was in 1994 when you were supporting Dulcinea. Now you are touring on the 30th anniversary of that album and it feels like we’ve come full circle with our continuing conversation, this time with you handling the narrative. So it’s kind of neat the way this trilogy of chats coincides, right?
A: It is and I think it’s great — it’s like some kind of synergy going on.
Q: So what are you guys doing nowadays, do you have a new album in the works?
A: We’ve got a couple of things in the works. We are slowly writing songs and making demos for an album of new material, but whether it’ll be an album or whether we’ll put out songs one at a time, or maybe four songs in a batch, you know … it’s a different world out there.
Q: Yeah, I know that all too well.
A: And it’s just because of the delivery system, which is different than it used to be. However we release it we are working on new stuff; and we’re also working on a new acoustic album/EP set of songs.
Q: Oh, tell me more — that sounds intriguing.
A: I had this idea to do what I call an in-studio, greatest hits album. Which is an in-studio album rearranging our songs like “All I Want,” “Walk on the Ocean,” “Good Intentions,” “Something’s Always Wrong” using only acoustic instruments and it sounds absolutely phenomenal. I got this great guy to mix it — his name is Robert Stevenson, he was just nominated for a Grammy and he’s a friend of mine — and it’s blowing everyone’s mind who hears it.
Q: Well, to prepare for this interview I went to Spotify and found a 50-song block of TtWS material and worked my way through them. I hate to do an interview “deaf,” if you know what I mean — and there are a lot of them that were refreshed in my memory. So this acoustic project sounds great to me, too … and an album of new material sounds equally as great.
A: Well, that’s what we’re working on right now. Everybody is passing around the demos and working on their own, then we’ll collect those and finish them. These are things that are in an unfinished state but there are a lot of ideas now.
Q: Having been together as long as you three have has got to have led to cohesion between Glen, Todd (Nichols) and you that only enhances the music that you create.
A: What we have in this band is we have people who are really good listeners and people who are comfortable leaving space for other people to fill. People who don’t need to fill every bit of air time. So since everyone is doing that, we were able to make a pretty good album even separately during the pandemic. We made a record called “Starting Now” that came out in 2021 and we recorded it almost entirely remotely.
Q: How did you accomplish that?
A: We just started sending the files around to each other. It’s not the most fun way to work, but it got the job done. You have to embrace different things.
Q: For example?
A: During the pandemic I got really good at having people send me a song to play on and sending it back. You just have to be a good listener and do what the song wants.
Q: Well, I also think the longevity of a group is something that should be celebrated, and it sounds like this is something that the three of you locked into. I believe that you’ve got some longevity from here on out. Does it seem that way to you?
A: I think that was what we were aiming for from the beginning because our music doesn’t necessarily scream that it’s from a certain era. It may have come out of the 90s, but in many ways it’s just solid singer-songwriter music. It’s not that different from the way a Fleetwood Mac record sounds or an Eagles record sounds. It comes all from the stuff that we were listening to on the radio in the 70s when we were growing up — and in the 80s — all those sensibilities.
We were always trying to make something that would be timeless. And 30 years on, looking back on it, you realize that that was the smart thing to do because I still enjoy playing these songs every night — the songs have aged really well. A lot of the time they don’t mean the same things to the audience, and even to us, that they did when they were written but they still carry that weight and emotion — and sound great — and people just love it.
Q: Do they change much over the years?
A: They definitely do. I can’t think of a single song that I’m playing exactly the same as I did on the record. I mean, sometimes people have accused us of sounding so good that it sounds just like the record, but then I have to say, “I’m not playing anything exactly like I played it on the record!” You play things differently the more you’ve done it and we’ve had three different drummers now, so each time it’s different for me and I lock in a little differently. The sound of the band is very much what it always was but it also sounds better than ever and new at the same time.
Q: As one who has been working with music as long as I have, it’s nice when you have a common thread that runs through the music which doesn’t sound the same in every song.
A: Exactly! There may be some nostalgic feelings in the audience when they hear these songs but it’s not novelty — that’s what it’s not.
Q: Is there anything you’d like to pass on to the folks reading this article?
A: Just that it’s been a while since we played in Maine, the last time we got rained out and had to move the gig indoors…so I suspect that this will be a nice chance for a do-over—and I hope it doesn’t rain again!
Lucky Clark, a 2018 “Keeping the Blues Alive” Award winner, has spent more than 50 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.