K E R R A N G ! A P R I L 2 5 / 9 8
THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
BY PAUL BRANNIGAN
Hi-Lites:
"You're going to love the new stuff, man," Gavin Rossdale enthuses. "I'm pretty excited about it because it's got everything I wanted, and I think it'll be another wicked album."
"The weird thing is, I haven't played it to the band yet - but I think they'll agree I've got a couple of good bits here and there. We'll probably have huge fights in the rehearsal room - but that's okay, some creative tension is good."
"I promise that the people who like us won't be disappointed. It's exactly what I wanted to do. I didn't sit around with my head full of coke unable to concentrate. I got on with it and I'm really happy I didn't fuck things up... There's still time for that, though, I suppose."
"This time I want something a little more produced and big-sounding," Gavin reveals. "I would like to work with... Steve Albini again at some point, but not on this record. The last one was great because we were just off tour and didn't want to make a manicured record, and he's the best person in the world
at capturing a band playing raw. But we have to keep trying out different things."
"I really did like Deconstructed, even if there was some confusion about that. I consider it our third album, even though I didn't really do that much work on it. But our fourth album is really going to blow you away."
Gavin is also quoted saying that he's written 15 songs, recorded with Irish engineer Barry Nolan. He hopes to release those
demos sometime after the album is released.
Whole thing:
To the old men down his local pub in Skibbereen, County Cork, he's just
the polite and charming big English guy who joins them every night for a
'lock in', sipping Murphys and listening to the local fiddler players
and guitarists whipping up a traditional music session. But the kids
know better. Every couple of days, another gaggle of excited teens from
the town will gather outside his garden gate and yell,"Hi,Gavin!-Sing
'Swallowed' for us."
Gavin Rossdale, vocalist/guitarist with Britain's most successful rock
band Bush, waves at them and then disappears back into his beautiful
rented house, where he will quietly begin picking out some new riffs on
his guitar. There will be a big smile on his face. After years of
struggle and anonymity, it's nice to know that people care.
"If some rock musician moved in up the road from me in Kilburn when I
was a kid I'd have been well into it," Rossdale says, laughing down the
phone from his temporary home in the Irish Republic.
"It's cool that people will get excited about bands rather than getting
all worked up about the latest video game. It's that excitement that
makes people join bands in the first place."
Gavin Rossdale couldn't be more laid-back today if he was unconscious.
Having had a few months off, he's not really in that familiar interview
groove; his speech is a little more hesitant and thoughtful than usual.
He concedes that he's thinking about nothing else other than music at
present.
He is chatting to Kerrang! on a mobile phone from his garden, whilst
simultaneously flicking a football in the air(22 toe-taps is his current
mid-conversation record) and smoking a fag. His constant canine
companion Winston, the Hungarian Puli immortalised on the cover of
Bush's debut album 'Sixteen Stone', is snapping playfully around his
heels, no doubt trying to impress the female dog lolling casually on the
lawn beside him ("I've got to let my boy bring his chicks around," Gavin
chuckles). His mate David Yow from Chicago noisemongers The Jesus Lizard
has just sent over a copy of their new album, 'Blue', and he can't wait
to start listening to that properly. Next week, his girlfriend, Gwen
Stefani from No Doubt, will be joining him in Ireland.
Life is especially sweet for Bush's frontman right now. Paticularly
since he's just finished writing and demo-ing all the songs for his
band's next album. But we'll come to that later...
This month, Bush release their first long-form video, 'Alleys and
Motorways'. An 84-minute visual diary, it features behind-the-scenes
footage of Bush at work, rest and play, in addition to collecting
together all their promo videos to date.
Directed by Rossdale's award-winning mate Peter Martin, 'Alleys and
Motorways' follows Bush from a packed club gig at The Monarch in London,
through increasingly large U.S. tours, and up to a riotous launch party
for their 'Razorblade Suitcase' album at New York's Virgin Megastore and
their triumphant appearance at last year's Reading Festival, in
entertaining and fairly candid fashion. Rossdale, guitarist Nigel
Pulsford, bassist Dave Parsons and drummer Robin Goodridge negotiate
their way through countless inane interviews with the world's media and
chat openly about their impressions of life in a hugely successful rock
band.
"I've always documented our career," Rossdale explains, "shooting
footage and taking photos everywhere we go. Otherwise, everything would
be a haze. It's nice to give fans a little peak into our world. It's
also been cool for us to watch the videos and look back over everything
that's gone on over the last few years."
Most of the behind-the-scenes footage on 'Alleys and Motorways' was shot
in 1997, the year in which Bush proved beyond doubt that the success of
'Sixteen Stone' was no fluke. Their second album, 'Razorblade Suitcase'
sold two-and-a-half million copies in its first week of release in the
U.S. and went straight into the Top Five in the U.K. The 'Swallowed'
single was a Top 10 hit here, and the subsequent U.K. tours in February
and October of '97 were both sell-outs. For Gavin Rossdale, these tours
were his personal highlights of last year.
"Touring is where you realise how much your music means to real people,"
he says. "Seeing the reaction of kids to the songs you've written makes
all the critics' analysis irrelevant. Both the U.K. tours and the
Reading Festival were brilliant for us as a band, and they were the most
important things for me. Touring the U.S. and Europe is amazing too, of
course. But when I play the U.K. I can totally relate to the fans and
that buzz of excitement and anticipation, because it reminds me of all
the nights I spent around London watching my favourite bands.
'Razorblade Suitcase' proved that we were in this for the long haul,"
Gavin continues. "People always put down hit records by labelling bands
'One Hit Wonders', but no one could do that with us after that album. I
still think record company could have done better in Britain. We could
have got more airplay, for instance. Radio here plays so much shit and
it's not as though our stuff sounds like Napalm Death; people aren't
going to run away just because they hear an electric guitar. It's
disgusting how many great bands are still ignored in favour of shite
Euro-disco pap on Radio One. Still, it was brilliant when 'Swallowed'
went Top 10, because doing 'Top Of The Pops' means you've really arrived
to most people."
One complaint you could make about 'Alleys and Motorways' is that it
doesn't really give much insight into the personalities behind Bush.
There are only glimpses of the human beings behind the poster boy media
images. During a radio phone-in, Nigel Pulsford is asked to explain the
difference between 'Sixteen Stone' and 'Razorblade Suitcase'; with his
trademark sarcasm he replies,"the cover". Livewire drummer Robin
Goodridge threatens to disprove his 'tiny penis' t-shirt by waking Nigel
up with his dick some day. But for the most part you don't really learn
much you didn't already know about the band. Gavin Rossdale is aware of
this.
"I wanted to make a really cool documentary," he admits, "kind of like
that 'The Works' programme we did with the BBC, but there wasn't enough
footage. This is more about compiling the promo videos for fans. We'll
bring out an 18-certificate version of the truth behind Bush someday!"
Last year, Gavin famously told Kerrang! that Bush's remix album
'Deconstructed' should have been titled 'No Big Deal'- then
back-pedalled furiously a matter of weeks later.
"God, every time I'm in Kerrang! now it looks like I'm slagging off our
own stuff," he groans. "I'm not really. It just would have been cool to
do that other project..."
The best section of 'Alleys and Motorways' follows Bush onstage and
backstage at last year August's Reading Festival. In addition to seeing
a ferocious live version of 'Little Things' and hearing Marilyn Manson
claim that "Gavin likes to perform fellatio on me-it seems that Gwen
can't satisfy him enough so he needs a little taste of the Manson cock",
we see Rossdale chatting to James Hetfield and later telling Stefani how
cool the Metallica frontman is-before noting:"The drummer (Lars Ulrich)
was just the twat that he is."
"Lars keeps seeing Gwen everywhere now," Rossdale giggles, "and he's
always asking her 'How's Gavin?'. That comment was meant to be a
joke...but at the end of the day, Lars is a twat."
The Reading footage concludes with Gavin telling a journalist: "Next
year we're going to make a record that will shock everyone and turn them
on so much that they won't be able to function without it." Which brings
us right up to date...
"You're going to love the new stuff, man," Gavin Rossdale enthuses. "I'm
pretty excited about it because it's got everything I wanted, and I
think it'll be another wicked album. The weird thing is, I haven't
played it to the band yet-but I think they'll agree I've got a couple of
good bits here and there. We'll probably have huge fights in the
rehearsal room-but that's okay, some creative tension is good."
With his bandmates currently scattered to the four corners of the
world-Nigel in Nashville, Dave flitting between London and Paris, Robin
in France ("With butlers," Gavin adds mischievously)-Rossdale felt that
the seclusion and serenity of the Irish Republic would be the perfect
place for him to work on the follow up to 'Razorblade Suitcase'. He's
convinced he made the right choice.
"You wouldn't believe how beautiful it is here," he sighs. "I'm
surrounded by water and rural life. But don't worry, I haven't tried to
become Wordsworth or Sean O'Casey, although the lyrics are a bit happier
than in the past. Maybe I don't feel like such an underdog now, but I
think it's more that I just don't give a fuck about other people's
perceptions of me or the band anymore. I've written 15 songs and
recorded them with an Irish engineer called Barry Nolan, and I'm so
happy with them. In fact, after our album is released I'll hopefully put
out these demos at some point; kind of like PJ Harvey did with her 'Four
Track Demos' album or Bruce Springsteen did on 'Nebraska', when the
songs are just low-key, raw and direct."
So now you're downing pints of Murphys and listening to traditional Irish
music, can we expect a new Waterboys/Pogues direction to be unveiled on
the album?
"Fuck off!" he cackles. "But I promise that the people who like us won't
be disappointed. It's exactly what I wanted to do. I didn't sit around
with my head full of coke unable to concentrate. I got on with it and
I'm really happy I didn't fuck things up...There's still time for that,
though, I suppose."
After Stefani has spent a week with him in Skibbereen ("Things are going
great between us," he gushed, "she's so cool..."), Gavin Rossdale will
be returning to London to settle into that one million-pound house near
St. John's Wood for the first time since he bought it three years ago.
There, he will listen to the new Fugazi and Jesus Lizard albums. He's
planning to hook up with David Yow when the Lizard play London's LA2 on
April 23. He also hopes to watch his beloved Arsenal march towards the
Premiership and FA Cup double. After that, Bush will begin rehearsals
and pre-production for their third album.
"This time I want something a little more produced and big-sounding,"
Gavin reveals. "I would like to work with('Razorblade Suitcase'
producer/noisemaker general) Steve Albini again at some point, but not
on this record. The last one was great because we were just off tour and
didn't want to make a manicured record, and he's the best person in the
world at capturing a band playing raw. But we have to keep trying out
different things. Actually, while we're on that subject, I really did
like 'Deconstructed', even if there was some confusion about that. I
consider it our third album even though I didn't really do that much
work on it. But our fourth album is really going to blow you away."
Before our interview commenced, we were given a quick reminder of just
how far Gavin Rossdale and Bush have come since the days they'd hump
their own gear to pubs like the Half Moon in Putney. Gavin's 'personal
assistant', Bones, calls us to apologise for the fact that Mr. Rossdale
will be speaking with us later than originally scheduled. When he does
call-two hours late-we feel it our duty to take the piss out of him for
having a peronal assistant. "What can I tell you?" Gavin Rossdale
laughs. "You should see my chef..."