Guster's Adam Gardner
On biodiesel, potato-starch silverware, and the Weather Channel.
By Thomas Coen
October 31, 2007
Adam Gardner, singer and guitarist for the rock band Guster, regularly electrifies fans with his band’s live shows and innovative music. With the help of his wife, Lauren Sullivan, he has also co-founded a nonprofit, Reverb, which works to “green” the music industry, particularly concert tours, and promote conservation practices.
After testifying on Capitol Hill last week about the benefits of biodiesel, Gardner stopped by Campus Progress to chat about biodiesel, potato-starch silverware, and the Weather Channel.
Campus Progress: You just came from Capitol Hill, where you were testifying on the benefits of biodiesel. What exactly is biodiesel?
Adam Gardner: Biodiesel is a vegetable-based fuel that burns way more cleanly than what I call “dino-diesel”—standard petroleum diesel from fossil fuels. I’ve been running around this country using it in my tour bus for almost two years now.
I started a nonprofit organization called Reverb that encourages bands to use biodiesel while touring. Reverb has facilitated the fueling of over a quarter million gallons of biodiesel in various fleets from Dave Matthews Band, Norah Jones, Sheryl Crow, Lincoln Park, Red Hot Chili PeppersÉthe list goes on and on.
But is it realistic to implement biodiesel on a broader scale? It seems like a fringe fuel at the moment.
It was even more fringe when we started, but now it’s more and more mainstream. What we’re butting up against now is the availability of the fuel. And that’s why I was [on Capitol Hill] today, to testify and say, “Look, this stuff works. There are a lot of people who want it. The demand is there.”
We’re hoping for some legislation that pushes automakers, fuel suppliers, and gas stations to have it available so that I don’t have to be facilitating all of this coordination with local suppliers coming out to venues and filling up, for example, Barenaked Ladies’s fleet of buses and trucks. They should be able to pull into any old Flying J and get it.
Is it more difficult to testify before Congress or perform in front of thousands of fans?
I was way more nerve-wrecked this morning than I am before any gig. It’s different when you’re up there and you feel like you’re on trial. I felt like I had to be sworn in or something.
But it was actually a really unique experience. I can see why artists get addicted to coming to D.C. and trying to make stuff happen. While we do have a nice platform to influence our fans and people who may be listening to our music, when we really want to hammer something out, it happens here.
Has it been difficult to get other bands on board with what you’re doing, or are all the artists you work with already sold on the environmental message?
We work with bands that have come to us for the most part. They’re actually asking us to provide them a service. Artists reach out to us all the time.
Why did you become an environmental activist?
My wife. She’s been an environmentalist for a long time. She worked for the Rainforest Action Network and advocated for green space in New York City when we lived there. So living the green lifestyle with her and then leaving our home and going on tour on the giant bus that guzzles fuel and leaving behind a bunch of waste at concerts—I started to think, “Well, what can be done here? There’s got to be a better way to do this.”
So what are the personal sacrifices you’ve made to “live the green lifestyle”?
I don’t consider them personal sacrifices.
Okay, well, what day-to-day changes have you made?
If you want to poke holes in my green-ness, they’re there. I’m not 100 percent green. That would be ideal, but for me the message is: “Do something.” If everybody did something, that would be better than a small group doing everything.
But it’s not like you’re leaving your car running for 3 hours at night…
Of course not.
So have you tried to change how you do things in your personal life?
Certainly. I just want to make sure that the philosophy behind what Reverb does is clear, so that people aren’t like, “Wait a minute, I saw you on an airplane.” Yes, I take airplanes. But do I also look at my carbon footprint and offset it? Yeah, I do. It’s not all or nothing.
And how does your band tour and remain “green”?
We run our bus and truck on biodiesel. We use reusable catering products when possible—and when that’s not possible we bring along bio-compostable products like cornstarch cups, potato-starch spoons and forks and knives, and sugar-cane bowls. We use reusable water bottles.
We also sell organic cotton merchandize to our fans, and offer them carbon offset programs so they can neutralize their drives to and from shows. Eighty to 85 percent of the carbon footprint of a concert comes from the cars that drive to and from it, not the show itself. But that being said, we carbon neutralize every show by looking at the kilowatt average that is expended through every concert and neutralize that through renewable energy such as wind power.
So you buy carbon offsets?
It’s kind of like replacing your divots, if you’re a golfer. It’s not the only way to do it— that’s why we try to shrink our footprint in the first place. But inevitably there is a footprint there. We still have to go out on tour.
So you just make smaller divots?
Yeah, we try to make those divots as small as possible and refill them with offset products that we think give us the most bang for our buck, like building wind farms and helping family farmers with their methane products.
Shifting gears a bit: How do you feel about your fans downloading free online? And what about the recording industry’s lawsuits against some of them?
It’s ridiculous. Why would you sue the people you want to be buying your records? That’s not the right way. It’s a typical example of an industry that’s just too slow to change and keep up with technology.
To answer the first part of your question: The reality of the situation is that a band at our level—you know, we’re not Metallica—benefits from online downloading more than it hurts us. The only thing that’s hard is that we’re depending more and more on making a living on the road. As we’re getting older and having families, that part is hard, because it would be nice to actually get paid for the music we spend a year and a half recording.
The goal at the end of our day isn’t to get rich. It’s to make a living doing what we do and get our music out there to as many people as possible.
You play a lot of shows on college campuses. Some have criticized our generation for not being activist enough. They say we spend too much time online.
I don’t think that’s true. I’ve seen a lot of people on campuses doing great work with environmental sustainability. Guster has done this tour that Reverb created for two years now called the Campus Consciousness Tour, where during the day we actually have roundtable discussions with environmental groups on campus, faculty, administrators, and local press. I’ve sat down across a lot of tables from college groups across the country that are doing amazing things. People take the frying grease from their dining halls to a lab and turn it in to biodiesel!
While there is a ton of stuff happening online, there’s also tons of stuff happening in the flesh, on campus, in those communities. That inspires me.
I heard a rumor that one of your songs is the theme music for the Weather Channel? Is this true?
I hope it is, and if it is, I better give them my address so that they can send me the royalties.
It’s on your Wikipedia page, so it must be true.
Is that a compliment? Are we Weather Channel music? I don’t know.
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