Originally with the fan-funded part of the release there were some crazy offers, like taking them up in an airplane. Did you book any crazy stuff yet?

There is something awesome we were trying to do. One of them is Pot Jam – you go to Colorado and you get stoned with us and we all just play music together, which I’m still surprised no band’s done yet. It’s the perfect combo of being sort of irreverent but also being true and fun for the fans. Who wouldn’t want to get high with their favorite band and play music with them?

There are these kind of weird promo things that can feel really forced but we didn’t want to do that. I’m such a fan of music that I still try to get in the proximity of people who write great songs and think it’s cool, so I know what that means for both sides. I like doing that kind of stuff.

We were in Portland last month and we were supposed to do some press thing and the guy didn’t show up and we didn’t know what to do, so we just tweeted our coordinates on Twitter. It was a dumpster behind a 76 gas station and we had a little battery-powered amp. Six people showed up and we played an eight song set. It’s dumb, but it’s awesome. That shit was super fun for us, it was fun for them, and people on Twitter could say, “Oh wow, Guster’s still doing weird shit like this.” If there’s a fan experience behind it, it can be a really cool way to go through the process of disseminating your record. That’s all that touring is—just trying to connect with people. If we can do that in a way that feels really organic, that’s the goal moving forward. We’re all about the sort of verisimilitude of “this is who we are,” and breaking that fourth wall on stage. It feels really organic to our whole mission.

We did a show on the rooftop of the W Hotel on Friday in Washington. We showed up and there were 150-200 fans there and I thought, “Well, what are we going to do?” We ended up doing fan karaoke. A fan came up and sang “Careful” and Brian sang. Afterwards we did an album signing and everybody was like, “That was the craziest Guster show. I’ve seen you 20 times but that was so weird and cool.” It was just a testament to where the band’s at. It was cool that our band can be dynamic and respond to places like that. It feels good that we can take a potentially weird thing and make it into something cool.

You guys always did weird shit onstage, but your lyrics are very sophisticated and introspective, and the music is serious and about the melody.

I think it was sort of an accident in the beginning. That was what I was doing, but then I figured out it just helps to keep pop songs from floating away. I’m not upbeat when I write about stuff. I just find it does help to weigh it down and dig into the words.

You need the light and the dark, which I think is sort of part of it. Like with pop songs, Robyn, who I love—those lyrics are great. Her record is so good. There are kind of these things that you can dig in and think, “Oh wow, ‘Call Your Girlfriend’ is a really twisted song lyrically,” and that’s the high watermark I think. I kind of want to make a weird dance record.

I’m always careful. We’re not playing in the fringes and we’re not making art rock by a long shot, but we’re trying to make pop music and to keep pushing out a little bit more and still make it in the context of what we are. I still want people to like it. That’s why the Robyn stuff is such a touchstone for me because it’s still really accessible music. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being in a commercial or writing a hit song.

*The point of a non-nostalgic band is that you guys have come so far and grew so much. *

As long as people keep an open mind. Vice or Noisey did a thing on our new video for “Long Night” that said, “Yeah, Lost and Gone Forever was my college experience and the poster fell off the wall and that was it for Guster. And then this thing came through, and all of a sudden, I was like, ‘Oh this is cool. This is spacey and open.’” I posted it on my Facebook feed and people said, “That writer’s a dick.” He’s not a dick. This is his experience because Guster was a gateway drug for cooler music for everybody. I get that and I appreciate that.

I want to make sure that those people know that, while we split off, we’ve still been going this whole time on this other fork and it’s very possible that you can come back around. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for people to come in with an open mind. That’s been our fight over the last few records.

I just want to move it forward. There’s this sort of Guster 1.0 and 2.0 and 3.0, but it’s not a trilogy. A trilogy means that it’s over. If we make a record every three or four years and they’re just cool and we all do our other shit, we could keep going. As confident as we are, we’ll find a way to make another record if this doesn’t totally set the world on fire.

With Vice …that definitely wouldn’t have happened two years ago. I think that’s because of the record and also because of that perception that people have been more open minded.

People love a comeback story in Hollywood but I don’t know if they like it in music as much. It’s not this fucking dude that came out of the ashes. I just think we’re smarter and cooler now. After all this time we’ve made this record and you can sit back a year later and think it totally holds up. It can be part of the conversation, but also feels kind of classic.

The pressure is to keep going – you can’t just make a cool record and be done with it. We have to figure out how to play it live and how to make it work. It’s holistic to be in a band and put out a record. We’re all feeling very creative and inspired by the fearlessness. I think we’re going to reprise the challenge.

It’s a cool and unique story, how you guys have evolved as a band.

It is funny. At the NPR thing they played “The Prize” from Parachute. I first thought, “Really?” but that there is power in that story. We’ve had interviews where they harp on like how long we’ve been here and not about what we did. That’s always a foil, the “let’s go where they started.” I cop to that all the time. I came to college and I never heard the Beach Boys before. I never heard of Marvin Gaye, or The Kinks. I was raised on heavy metal and then I got right into The Cure and The Smiths and New Order—that was where my musical education stopped. It was this very thin line of when alternative music was on the radio. We’ve been playing catch-up in a lot of ways but now I think we go toe-to-toe with most people.

“The Prize” was a highlight of that Bowl show. That was my favorite song that night.

It was a funny experiment to kind of have to do that in the midst of promoting a record that you think is cool and groundbreaking and then have go back and figure it out. I think you should take ownership over that even if you’re embarrassed by it.

Hopefully our winter run will be good. I’m really excited about Europe and then hopefully we put something together. It would be fun to find a band to tour with in a way that felt like when we went out with Ben Folds and Rufus. Those guys were cool. It’s nice to meet ascending bands like Lucius and think, “This could work.”

Kind of like the whole talent show concept you explored when you did Jack Antonoff’s Ally Coalition benefit.

I love that idea that we can kind of roll with it and know enough to make it happen. I think that’s a unique position we’re in that a lot of bands can’t do. We always talked about curating our own festival, or something where we’re the house band. I don’t know. It’s becoming more and more up to us to decide. We have the power to control that shit.

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