Tickets are on sale for the sixth annual Guster On The Ocean shows in August at the State Theatre and Thompson’s Point.

The band wrapped up its We Have Eras Too tour last month and heads back out in June in support of the new album “Ooh La La,” released on Friday.

Adam Gardner, who lives in Cape Elizabeth, plays guitar and sings in the band. The rest of Guster is Ryan Miller, Brian Rosenworcel and Luke Reynolds.

Gardner, Miller and Rosenworcel formed Guster while students at Tufts University in the early 1990s, and Reynolds has been part of the band for 14 years.

We chatted with Gardner last week about the We Also Have Eras tour that Guster just wrapped up, as well as Guster’s appearance at Woodstock ’99, and what it was like to work with legendary producer Steve Lillywhite on the 1999 album “Lost and Gone Forever.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us about the We Also Have Eras tour that you just wrapped up.

We actually reenacted our 30-plus-year career and were literally acting in costume, and there were sets. We had a script we had to memorize. It was a super big swing, and we had no idea if it was going to work or not, and it went incredibly well and was super fun. It was a theatrical production of our band. We played all of our songs, and it started with Ryan in my dorm room at Tufts sitting on my bed. Brian wrote the script, and he did a great job. We had a buddy who is a Broadway producer help us tighten it up.

With Guster On The Ocean, you always assemble an impressive list of bands to perform, and this year is no exception, with Grace Potter, Toad The Wet Sprocket and Kevin Morby, to name a few. How does this all come together?

We work really hard to really put together a good lineup and a good experience for our fans. We try to balance, first of all, who’s available and able to come up to Maine in the middle of summer. We also try to balance music that our fans know or will like.

Steve Lillywhite, who produced albums for huge acts like U2, Dave Matthews Band, Talking Heads and Phish, also produced “Lost and Gone Forever” in 1999. What was that like for you and the band?

This is a good question, because part of the weekend for On The Ocean is the 25th anniversary of that album. Steve Lillywhite producing that record was a big deal for us, especially at that time, our first major label record. He came to see us play at Irving Plaza (New York City) and brought Adam Clayton from U2 with him. The whole thing for us was just a pinch-me experience. We’re still friends with him.

It’s also the 25th anniversary of the Woodstock ’99 Festival. How significant was that for Guster?

Woodstock ’99 kind of typified us kind of being stuck between what alternative rock was changing into. When we signed our first record deal in ’97, we had “Airport Song” as the first single and alternative rock stations were playing bands like R.E.M. and Toad the Wet Sprocket, and we slotted into that. Then alternative rock started turning into Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock and Korn, so we were caught in this weird transition where that wasn’t us, especially then, because it was just acoustic guitars, hand drums and vocal harmonies. So we show up to Woodstock ’99 when it’s like, Metallica, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock and Guster. That was weird, but we had a good set there, and it was definitely at the time probably the biggest crowd we’d ever played in front of. We had a good experience.

What do you remember about The Red Hot Chili Peppers Woodstock ’99 set, when fires raged out of control and structures collapsed?

I was side-stage watching. Flea comes out wearing nothing but a bass, not even a sock, just his bass. He’s doing dive rolls completely naked with a bass, playing amazingly well. He’s incredible. I could see far away that there were bonfires, then realized they weren’t bonfires. I was confused. We didn’t really see just how bad it was. Ryan and I actually spent the night, after it was all done, and saw the morning after, and it was just wreckage everywhere. Everything was just burned out and pillaged and plundered, and it was awful. It looked like a warzone.

Guster On The Ocean
Aug. 9, 10 & 11. State Theatre and Thompson’s Point, Portland, $50 to $290, $20 kids. statetheatreportland.com