“My choice to go with Bush was wildly uncommercial."
Gavin Rossdale – the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and founding member of the aforementioned band – is speaking candidly with Mixdown about their formation and origins. Such a turn of phrase might raise an eyebrow, considering the multiple platinum records on Rossdale’s wall. To him, however, the band’s alt-rock leanings completely went against the wave of Cool Britannia that was developing as the band came to prominence in the early-to-mid ‘90s.
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“If you really wanted to be successful at that time, you had to make Britpop,” he reasons. “Suede, Blur, Oasis, even Primal Scream. The whole nation was in love with it. I loved bands like Fugazi, the Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains… and England didn’t even have those kinds of bands.” Despite not keeping with the trends, Bush almost instantly found global success, established with 1994’s Sixteen Stone and continued on 1996’s follow-up Razorblade Suitcase. With the latter’s 30th anniversary on the horizon, Rossdale takes a moment to reflect on what the album meant to him – particularly its creation with beloved American engineer and musician Steve Albini.
“Having lost Steve a couple of years ago, that record is always going to remind me incredibly of him,” he says. “He remained a really good friend right up until his passing, and I’m still deeply friendly with his wife, Heather. There are other things, of course; recording at Abbey Road was extraordinary, as well as in Hook End, where Trevor Horn’s studio was. I remember the sounds of birdsong getting me up in the morning, taking my dog for a walk, getting a fry-up for breakfast and then going to work with Steve in the studio. It was just an idyllic time.”
Fast forward three decades, and Bush are still very much holding their own. Having released their 10th album, I Beat Loneliness, last July, their shows have evolved into intergenerational affairs – and it’s not just the kids of teenagers who grew up on them, either. The advent of the streaming age has allowed the band a chance to connect with an audience that was not even born when Sixteen Stone or Razorblade Suitcase came out – and Rossdale is all for the co-mingling.
“There are young people really connecting with the new material, discovering there’s a bit of a catalogue, alongside the OG Bush fans who know the first four records and don’t know the new material as well,” he says with a grin. “I write the setlists in a way that, even if you don’t know one song, there’ll be one next that you definitely do. I hedge my bets a little bit and have these very wide, expansive setlists across the years, and it’s been fantastic. I love the mixture – to me, that is the sign of a band well-lived.”
Given there’s a wall dedicated to them behind Rossdale, I can’t help but inquire about Rossdale’s penchant for guitars. He’s closely associated with Fender Stratocasters, having played the Eric Clapton signature and the HSS Deluxe, as well as a Custom Shop that he co-designed.
There’s more to his collection, of course: “I’m happy with a Strat, but I do use a lot of PRS guitars and have a couple of [Gibson] SGs that I’ve tuned down,” he says. “I have a Jim Root signature Jazzmaster, too. My old Diesel amp that I toured the whole ‘90s with is set up at my house downstairs, along with a [Roland] JC-120 and a Fender [68] Princeton [Reverb]. I have three kids, and they all live with me, and they’ll all go and play guitar while I’m cooking.”
For all of the extensive touring and live shows Bush have played since the release of I Beat Loneliness, one immediately comes to mind as the most high-profile. In April, the band appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert for the first time, which, over two months later, Rossdale can’t stop thinking about. “For me, it’s the most interesting thing musicians can do,” he says.
“It’s the coolest show. It’s evolved as this kind of litmus test for quality, and just being able to hack it. I was a bit upset going in, because we did a couple of shows leading up to it, and by the time I got to sing that morning, my throat wasn’t feeling good. I started a bit scared, but then I think it warmed into it, and my voice got better. In ‘Glycerine’, I achieved silence; just a pure a cappella. I was thinking my voice had warmed up, but there’s always the little devil voice saying you’re going to fuck up. It was really nice to have that on record.”
In September, Rossdale and co. will return to Australia for a tour with American rockers Shinedown. Rossdale is excited for the band to return – not least of all because their previous visit was as essentially guinea pigs, being one of the first international bands to tour post-lockdown on the troubled Under the Southern Stars mini-festival with Cheap Trick, Stone Temple Pilots and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
“You can’t see any documentaries where people are wearing masks now,” says Rossdale. “It was just so horrific at the time. You don’t even want to remember all that shit. It’s not easy to get to Australia at the best of times. We’re thrilled to be coming back, though; you have to jump through a lot of hoops, but apparently we’ve cleared them, and we’re on our way.”
Bush x Shinedown co-headline tour dates:
17 September: Spark Arena, Auckland
20 September: Riverstage, Brisbane
23 September: Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
25 September: John Cain Arena, Melbourne
27 September: Entertainment Centre Theatre, Adelaide
29 September: Perth HPC, Perth
Tickets via destroyalllines.com.
