Rev Gusto discovers the delights of vinyl in time for Record Store Day

On a crisp January day, three of the five members of Rev Gusto pore over bins of records at Mills Record Co. Shaun Crowley, Peter Beatty and Sam Frederick have been discussing the band’s upcoming 7-inch — a partnership with Too Much Rock Singles Series’ Sid Sowder, who chooses a band and pays for a pressing of 500 45 rpm records featuring two songs.

Mills is like a candy store for adults, and the members of Rev Gusto, although just barely into adulthood, are delightfully overwhelmed by the options. (Frederick, the band’s bassist, recently turned 21; guitarist Crowley and keyboardist Beatty are both 19; the two members not present — drummer Quinn Hernandez and singer-guitarist Jerry Frederick, Sam’s older brother — are 22.)

Crowley, Beatty and Frederick attack different corners of Mills’ Westport store, shout out their discoveries, marvel at the artwork, and contemplate their potential purchases.

So far, the success of Rev Gusto’s music career has been about talent and a lot of luck. Without Sowder’s 7-inch single, the band wouldn’t have a physical release to its name. (Its 2012 self-titled debut EP was digital-only.)

Now, four months after that first meeting at Mills, Crowley acknowledges that putting out a record, emblazoned with the band’s name, is a big step. It also marks the first time that the band has recorded inside a professional studio, as opposed to the Frederick brothers’ basement.

“We’ve always wanted to have something out on vinyl,” Crowley says. “And working with Sid is awesome. He’s so on-point with everything that he does, and it’s really nice because we’re young and we’re new to everything, and he guided us along. Even if we goofed up, he was like, ‘Don’t do that. Here’s how to solve that.’

“It’s a totally different experience being able to hear your song coming from vinyl,” Crowley continues. “I hadn’t been into vinyl until I was in this band, and to be able to have our own vinyl, it’s — I don’t really know how to put it into words. It sounds like it does when we’re playing in our basement, and that’s what we wanted to get from these recordings. It sounds as authentic as it possibly could.”

The first official pressings of Rev Gusto’s Too Much Rock 7-inch will be in hand in time for Record Store Day (Saturday, April 19). The record will feature “Still There,” an original, unreleased Rev Gusto song on the A-side, and a cover of Graham Parker’s “Local Girls” on the B-side.

“Still There” is catchy, surfy-pop goodness shrouded in lo-fi guitar fuzz. It sounds like a track that local pop-rock band the ACBs would come out with, and Rev Gusto is pretty proud of that similarity.

“I feel like a lot of our new stuff has been influenced by the ACBs,” Crowley says. “I feel like ever since we listened to the ACBs and the Shy Boys, they changed our sound, made us focus on what we really want to sound like. So the song ‘Still There’ is really going in a new direction. It has a lot more instrumental parts than what you’re used to hearing from us.”

Crowley says the band relished Sowder’s challenge to cover Parker’s “Local Girls.” Jerry Frederick’s voice echoes Parker’s off-kilter, pop-punched-with-punk spirit. The cover is a genuine ode to the fickle nature of local girls — not bad considering that Frederick was the only band member who had heard of Parker.

“Sometimes when I hear a band, I think, ‘Oh, they’re outside of this, but I would love to hear them do this,'” Sowder says in a phone conversation. “I wondered if they were aware of that particular Graham Parker song. His heyday was before they were born. But it just called out to me, and made so much sense to me because they’re a band that did not have any physical product out at all. In an age when bands can be instantaneously successful [because of the Internet], Rev Gusto is going about it very organically.”

On Record Store Day, Rev Gusto celebrates by joining an all-local lineup performing at Mills.

“Mills has kind of done a lot for us in terms of opening the door and opening our eyes to vinyl,” Crowley says. “The welcoming vibe is so amazing there. You can go in and look for hours, and I feel like it’s a lot less stressful than the other record stores, because even if you have no idea what you’re doing with vinyl, it’s still fun.

“And because of Judy [Mills, owner of Mills Record Co.], we realized that it’s possible for local artists to make vinyl, and that it’s getting popular again. That’s awesome because that’s the route we want to take.”

Rev Gusto is also working on a new full-length album, which the group hopes to release this summer. Crowley says now that they’ve had a taste of vinyl, it’s all they crave.

“This was a totally new experience for us, to do that vinyl stuff and do it professionally, because we’re really unorganized,” Crowley says. “But we’re in love.”