Joe Pisapia had never been to South Dakota before today.

The bassist for the alternative rock band Guster will play the M.A.C. Center Monday as part of programming for Homecoming, but after playing tonight’s show, he’ll have visited every contiguous state.

The band been around for over a decade and is still maintaining a strong fan base on the college circuit. Joining Pisapia are vocalist Adam Gardner, guitarist Ryan Miller and drummer Brian Rosenworcel.

The band just finished the West Coast portion of its tour and kicks off the college leg of its North American tour in the Midwest tonight.

“It’s (the tour) been going well,” Pisapia said.

The band is mainly focused on touring right now, which is something that is very important to them.

“You can’t duplicate a live show. That’s something that will always have an intrinsic value,” he said.

Guster was also recently nominated for the MTVU Woody award for greatest social impact for its environmental work with the Reverb organization. Reverb is an organization that Gardner and his wife Lauren founded in 2004 to help touring bands reduce the amount of pollution they create on the road. Reverb has helped green the tours of artists like the Dave Matthews Band and The Fray.

“We are really psyched about Reverb,” Pisapia said. “It is really fantastic. (Gardner) worked very hard on it.”

Some of the services that Reverb provides its participants with are biodiesel fuel for vehicles and generators, waste reduction, biodegradable catering products and eco-friendly merchandise.

While Gardner founded the organization, all the members of the band try to help out with it, Pisapia said.

“A lot of it we practice ourselves,” he said “That’s what it’s all about, just being more aware.”

After completing its tour, the band will begin to work on its next album.

“It is difficult to do that stuff on the road because there is not a lot of time or space.” Pisapia said. “That’s why we will just go full into recording when the tour is over.”

He said he hopes the band will have a new album out within a year. Pisapia said the band takes a while to write an album because the members want to make sure they all like each song that is written.

“If you don’t love the song, if you can’t get behind it, you are going to hate yourself for having to perform it every night,” Pisapia said.

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Kristen Kotz at [email protected].