|
Higher Ground
by Paul Rees
Kerrang! Magazine
August 11, 2001
In the bedroom of a plush house by London’s Primrose Hill, Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale is treating Kerrang! to
an exclusive playback of his band’s new record. It’s their most important album yet. It’s also their best...
“I’m actually really nervous,” says Gavin Rossdale as he fidgets around, looking for the new Bush album. “It’s
going to be a bit strange if you think it’s shit.”
We are sitting, Gavin Rossdale and I, in the former’s bedroom on a sunny July afternoon, waiting to hear the
fourth Bush album. As you do. Titled ‘Solutions’, due for release in October on new Atlantic, and produced by
Dave Sardy (last seen helming Marilyn Manson’s ‘Holy Wood...’; Rossdale initially met with Ross Robinson,
whose scheduled with the new Slipknot album proved unworkable), its 12 tracks are currently unmixed and
haven’t been heard in full by anyone outside the Bush organization.
Rossdale returned him from recording the album in LA a couple of weeks ago. His current routine involves staying
up until 3am waiting to download various mixes of the tracks which are sent over from LA each night. He burns
each one onto a separate CD, gets in his car and plays them while driving around London in the pre-dawn. Then
he e-mails his suggestions back to LA before crashing out. It is, he notes, a “f**king barmy” time.
It takes him several minutes of rummaging around to collect the 12 CDs of rough mixes together. When he has, he
perches me on a set of bedside steps covered in what seems to be black fur (they’re there so his 13year-old
Hungarian Sheepdog, Winston, can climb onto the bed), arranges two large speakers into position, and pops the
first disc into the player.
At this point several thoughts run through your mind at once. ‘This is very surreal.’ That’s an expensive
looking stereo.’ ‘Ooh, that’s a nice purple guitar resting against that huge widescreen TV in the corner.’ Phew!
Winston appears to have farted.’ And ultimately, ‘Christ, what exactly do I say if his album is, indeed, shit?’
We’ll get to the album in a minute. But first, a whistlestop tour around chez Rossdale. A five story house
located on a leafy street in London’s upmarket, village-y Primrose Hill area, it’s the sort of place you wouldn’t
mind for yourself thank-you-very-much were you to win an obscene amount of the Lottery.
Unusually for a rock star, Rossdale hasn’t turned the interior into a temple of tack; he’s gone instead, for
wood-paneled floors, white walls and subtle rather than grand furnishings. In the lounge, a vintage blue pool table
occupies half the floor space and a framed black and white photograph of Johnny Rotten hangs on the wall.
The bedroom is on the top floor. A huge ‘50s American fridge is plonked in one corner of the room. A remarkable
series of three vast black and white photographs of lioness hunting and killing her prey occupy one entire wall,
floor to ceiling. The bed is big but, happily, doesn’t have four posts attached to it. At either end of the room two
sets of doors open out onto two balconies, one overlooking Camden, the other Primrose Hill. After we’ve heard the
album, we go and sit on the second, at a stone table surrounded by plants and oriental statues.
Oh yes, the album...
Gavin Rossdale mentions something about the neighbours complaining about his stereo, before cranking it up to
the sort of levels jet engines reach as they propel planes to take-off.
“It’s alright,” he says over the sound of a guitar exploding into life, “no-one’s home at this of day.”
For the next hour, we listen to ‘Solutions’, Rossdale constantly shuffling his stack of 12 CDs to work out the best
running order. He hands me a book containing computer printouts of all the lyrics, most of which have since
changed, some of which are covered in doodles and handwriting comments. While I’m studiously reading the lyric
to each track, Rossdale paces around the room, mouthing the odd line to himself, occasionally launching into a
bout of air drumming. At the end of each track, he announces what the next one is, what’s it’s about, and whether
or not to listen out for a flange effect on his guitar.
What unfolds is Bush’ best album yet. The first thing you notice is that the guitars sounds gigantic. The second is
that Rossdale himself is singing like a man possessed, minus the ‘cor climey’ Cockney inflections of old. Five
tracks immediately stand out: ‘Speed Kills’- formerly titled ‘The Things We Do’ - is properly anthemic and
destined to be the first single; ‘Headful of Ghosts’ and ‘Reasons’ paint in a big, bold brushstrokes, all angular
guitars and epic hooks; ‘My Engine Is With You’ is a furious burst of noise, the fastest thing they’re ever likely to
do; and ‘Out Of This World’ is a strange, brooding, mood piece which also happens to Rossdale’s personal
favourite.
Half the album sounds less like Bush than Bush have ever sounded, the spectre of Nirvana banished once and for
all. This, as Rossdale will enthuse, is a good thing. Other tracks are more routine, constructed on traditional
verse-chorus foundations. ‘Hurricane’ is another Jesus Lizard homage; ‘Solution’ itself, ‘Superman’, ‘Fugitive’,
and ‘Land Of The Living’ are the first listen alternatively either good or initially nondescript variations on the
same theme.
Which just leaves the closing ‘Float’ (“That was inspired by the painting on the wall behind you,” notes Rossdale,
nodding at a picture of a white figure, well, floating) and the ballad ‘Inflatable’ (“Sentimental Central,” offers its
writer). The former is undoubtedly a grower, its melody seeping out gradually through its meandering lines. It’s
equally clear that the latter is the weakest of the 12 songs by some distance.
It is, though, an intense sense of relief that you can tell Gavin Rossdale that, no, his album isn’t shit. In fact
it’s very good.
Largely written in the room in which we’re sitting, ‘Solutions’ is an important album for Gavin Rossdale and the
other members of Bush (guitarist Nigel Pulsford, bassist Dave Parsons and drummer Robin Goodridge). The
simple facts are these: ‘Sixteen Stone’ and ‘Razorblade Suitcase’ sold many, many millions of copies in the US;
third album ‘The Science of Things’ didn’t, it sold a million, a perceived failure of reasonably catastrophic
proportions.
“I was obviously sad that it didn’t have the chance to be heard by enough people,” says Rossdale. “I don’t consider
it a turkey in any way. What happened was that I was stuck between two places. Confused about how rock bands
could come to make their third records and where to go.”
Rossdale, who’d be hanging out in London with mates listening to and working on lots of dance music, wanted to
integrate this into the Bush sound. The others didn’t. The two parties ended up camped in different adjoining
studios; Rossdale and an engineer adding programming and beats to half of the album’s songs, the others and their
producers ensuring the other half were meat-and-potatoes rock with no fancy nonsense.
“I came back from London really positive and tried to get everyone to embrace this thing,” says Rossdale now,
concluding not entirely necessarily, “and it was a disaster.”
He has other reasons for why he thinks the last Bush album ‘failed’- stuff about the label and a terribly misguided
US touring itinerary, which he’ll patiently outline but which is nevertheless “all boring, it’s bollocks and fans don’t
need to hear about it.”
The end result of it all is that ‘Solutions’ has a lot riding on it shoulders. In the background, Bush have new
management and a new label to help it on its way. But the ultimate responsibility for its success, or otherwise, rests
squarely on Gavin Rossdale’s shoulder. He, after all, writes all of the songs. Which would be enough to keep most
sane people awake at night.
“It’s only when I’m asked about it that I really think about it,” he insists. “I guess I must like it, I don’t mind
the responsibility.”
He stops, fiddles with his hair, and decides to say some more.
“Sometimes I do feel like I’m too much the point person. At the moment I’m spending four hours a day
dealing with the art-work, but no-one really comes round to help. The others pop in now wand again to go yes or
no- often no- and then everyone leaves.”
“Everyone does what they want. If people wanted to be at the studio more often then they should just be there. The
fact is, they don’t I just want to get it to a point where I can present it to them. It’s just really hard, getting five
people to sit there and decide where an embryonic idea should go. Can you imagine how laborious that is? We have
a really good way or working, though, and everyone’s really happy.”
We’ll come back to this ‘everyone’s happy’/ ‘no I’m not chuffed, actually’ contradiction in a minute, after a few
observations about Gavin Rossdale himself.
He is, as Harry Enfield’s randy old ladies would note, a very, very nice man. He also is quite sickeningly good
looking, but hardly ever makes eye contact - he stares at the table, his hands, the bumble bee buzzing around his
head, anywhere, in fact, but at you. His speaking voice veers from well brought up English to broad Cockney to
trans-Atlantic phrasing within a sentence. He swears more than anyone else I’ve interviewed, but never sounds
entirely comfortable doing so (he says “c**t” in a way that suggests he’ll instantly be slapped).
He was brought up by his father, a doctor, but also has a “great relationship” with his mother, who moved abroad
when he was a teenager. Both parents are “brilliant”. His best memory of childhood is the freedom of “having a
bike and staying out until 11 at night”. The worst experience was the car accident his Aunt Maggie was involved
in when he was 13, which left her permanently brain damaged.
“There were plenty of traumatic things,” he says quietly. “But that was the most residual. It still reverberates
today.”
His favourite new band are At The Drive-In, whose guitarist Omar Rodriguez popped into the studio while Bush
were recording. He’s also on speaking terms with Puff Daddy (“I take the piss out of him all the time”). The only
two times he’s been bowled over by celebrities were when he spotted veteran glam-rocker Alan Stardust and
England’s World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore when he was growing up.
For the record, he has spent all but 10 days of the last nine months with his girlfriend Gwen Stefani.
“It was just getting stupid,” he says of the extended periods they had frequently spent apart. “It was like, ‘What’s
the point?’. So we both made the effort. I’ve seen her more than I’ve seen anyone.”
If there is an underlying tension in Bush it is surely in Rossdale’s role as sole writer/focal point, and the
extent to which both he and his bandmates accept this. Read what Rossdale has to say about the situation over the
next 15 minutes or so and make up your own minds just how rosy things are in the garden.
Do the band find it difficult waiting around for you to finish writing?
“I don’t really know. I think they just enjoy their lives. We finished touring last summer, and then I started
panicking. It’s not really a restful time for me because I think I should write a few songs before having a break. So
I write from September to November, and then we start rehearsing. Even though it seems we’ve been away for a
while, for me it’s an ongoing thing.
“They probably have the holidays that I would have had. Then Nigel has his solo record. He’s got a studio and
he’s been doing some really guitar-heavy music. A lot of Nigel’s songs are really good, but they’re better when he
sings them for himself.”
A Pulsford song was ear-marked for Bush a few years ago, but Rossdale insisted the guitarist should sing it
himself. He refused.
“That was the last time anyone offered anything up,” Rossdale says. “And the other two, I don’t think they really
care. I don’t know what they do - they have a nice time.”
What’s the process once you’ve finished writing?
“Well, four of the new songs I did demos for, but the band hate me doing that because it excludes them from the
original idea when it’s first committed to tape. I understand; they want to put their character on it.
“So we go through these laborious rehearsals where everyone’s trying stuff out. They want it as bare-boned as
possible from me - I bring a chord structure, my parts, and a drum machine. I tried to be as open as possible on this
record, because I got in so much trouble on the last one by demoing it up. This one was, like, ‘Okay, we’ll go the
long way’.
“It’s really hard in bands, because if you improve and get better you want to be more autonomous. It’s ironic, but
you get less collaborative as you get better at what you do.”
How difficult is it to let go of the songs and turn them over to the band as a whole?
“It sort of works....In knowing that everyone is so good and trying to get the best out of them. No-one is shy about
saying if they don’t h think something’s good. There haven’t really been many instances of...Nigel, as usual with a
lead singer guitarist, wishes he could mix a record with his guitar only and have the rest of us slightly in
there.”
You’d talked of a solo album a couple of years back....
“Every time I think of doing it... Sometimes you can get tired of the band process. You have to write the sons and
rehearse them, and its six months’ work. And I just had this overflow of stuff. I’d love to one day make a chill-out
record, where I don’t have to be all-out rock. It’s that thing of wanting to escape from who you are for a minute.
But there’s no plans right now.”
Are you confident about the new record’s chances?
“I think it’s the best record we’ve done, I know that much. But it’s a weird position to be in, because I don’t know
who our contemporaries are in England or in America. Most of the bands we came through with are gone. There’s
not that many alternative acts.”
“People have been playing me different bands... You know that band Cold? People played it to me, and it was
weird hearing how much they sounded like us. The good thing is, it’s not badly done. My girlfriend heard them on
the radio and thought it was me! That’s a funny feeling.”
A couple of hours have elapsed, and Gavin Rossdale has a photo shoot to do, a dog to walk, artwork to approve and
more mixed tracks to wait for at 3am. We decide to close with a handful of random questions.
What makes you laugh?
“The banter in the room when it’s going good with the band. Ali G. Woody Allen. And somebody sent me a
video of ‘Trigger Happy TV’. ‘I’m on the mobile!’. That really made me laugh my f**king head off.”
And what make you cry?
“I don’t know about exactly crying, but always leaving home or going away from here. leaving my dog makes me
depressed for about a week. I just feel guilty and shitty. The irony of my life is that I like living in one place; I’m a
home-bod, and I’m never in one place for long. I like to be in London hanging out. To be a musician and not want
to travel is a difficult dilemma.
“Like any Englishman, all those typical world injustices. I went on a trip for Jubilee 2000 (end Third World
debt campaign - Ed) to Tanzania. I witnessed stuff there and a level of poverty that was devastating. We went
to this one hospital a children’s ward, and as we walked in this little girl died of malaria. I don’t know about
sitting down and weeping about it - you just feel really shit. I was only there for 10 days, but I felt so guilty because
I couldn’t wait to leave. I couldn’t deal with that degree of poverty.”
When did you last get roaring drunk?
“There was an absinthe night recently. That’s mania stuff. After the third one I don’t remember anything, but I
think I had a good time. Apparently, I was really funny.”
What’s the worst chat-up line you’ve ever used?
“When I first did a video before Bush, I went up to this really cute girl and asked her if she wanted to be in my
video. I can’t remember what she said, I just knew I was being a sleaze bag by asking her.”
What do you dream about?
“When I’m away I dream about my dog and where he’s at. I’ve got a really healthy sense of persecution, so I’m
always dreaming about running and escaping or being chased. I don’t know what that means, and I don’t intend to
go to a dream analyst to find out.”
Fancy a spot of word association?
“Sure, go ahead.’
Sex.
“Magic.”
Death.
“Yes.”
Love.
“Full.”
Evil.
“Everywhere.”
Guilt.
“Yes.”
Cheese.
“Sandwich.”
Marriage.
There is a pause of many seconds. Then he smiles.
“Rings,” he says.
Anything else to confess?
“No, nothing. I’m a blameless individual these days. I hope.”
Bush’s new album, ‘Solutions’,
|
|
