Interview: Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale on mental health, making music that matters and his 'weird career' in the UK
Bush are back with their 10th studio album, I Beat Loneliness, here, the frontman gets candid about life's struggles and the ups and downs of his music career.
Struck by the grave numbers of suicides happening daily across the globe and the countless fans telling him Bush's music had saved their lives or got them through dark times, frontman Gavin Rossdale felt compelled to write a record that would make the "isolated" feel less alone.
Enter, I Beat Loneliness, arguably the most urgent and deeply personal record by the post-grunge rockers. "It's not wallflower music, it demands attention," Gavin says.
Contact Music: You’ve talked about drifting before Bush. What was life like before things clicked?
Gavin: I mean, for so many years I didn't know what I’d do. I drifted for so long before I sold records, before I was in Bush, drifting for so long that it didn't seem like much was possible. I mean, it definitely was a mystery. I love the f****** arrogance of youth, the brilliance of innocence, because I didn't know what I was gonna do and it did not seem like music was really working out for me. And when I did Bush, my sincerest feeling was that that was the height of Britpop. My sincerest feeling was, I love the way you're going down in flames with this music thing, and you just do it. I thought, if I was lucky, I would have signed to [indie label] Rough Trade and I'd f****** play the [now-defunct London music venue] Mean Fiddler regularly. And, be one of those bands I read about in the fifth page of NME.
Contact Music: And yet here we are, decades later…
Gavin: When I was starting everything, I used to walk around Hyde Park with my dog and, like, I just had been in bands for a couple of years, and nothing had worked, and I used to walk around that park and just torture myself with worry about, how's it ever gonna happen? What was ever gonna amount to? And I tortured myself. And weeks later, I got an Ivor Novello Award for International Songwriting. My whole speech was like, 'It's so wild why I'm getting this award because my mind is burned.' I tortured myself for years at the very park out that f****** window. And so now the other end of the scale of it, no, I have so much joy and gratitude that I stuck to it and found a way to get better or get good enough to make records. All the people that knew me that wouldn't sign me and give me the opportunities, I just wasn't really good enough, you know, fair play, I wasn't even in the band. It was like different musicians. It's just two bands that failed. So therefore, I was a sort of bit written off, you know, very written off. That's it. So it's just wild then now, later on, all these, like 30 years later, to have the opportunity to go make records and really love being in space of making music.
Contact Music: You've said this record isn’t just about you — it’s about connection?
Gavin: I think that's it's helpful when you make records like this, because people feel they're not alone. And I get so much inspiration from all the people that I meet on tour. You know, I do these meet and greets and I meet people or in the town that I'm in, wherever I am, you always run into people, because if I'm playing in the city and around the area, chances are when I go and get coffee, I'm going to bump into someone who's coming to the show. And I had these conversations with people, and they are really nervous, and they sort of often kind of bluster through what they want to say, but it's always connected to their mental health, how they were in a really bad place, from suicide to just sort of depression to whatever it is.
Contact Music: Your music is needed more than ever...
Gavin: I could be forgiven for thinking, All right, enough is enough. Come on, make some room for the youth. Just shut up. But I love writing songs. I love my perspective. I mean, my perspective doesn't change. So it's just when people say that to me, it's such an amazing compliment. And the wild part is, is that they come up to me thinking that I did a lot for them when I'm just like, you gotta realise what you've done for me, to realise what you've done for me, because you give me life by connecting with me and even caring when there's a world of choices. It's a really great symbiosis, you know, living together and so that's why I wrote that song, I'm Here To Save Your Life. That was literally after a night of a conversation I had with someone, and I was such an incredible honour that someone can bestow on you.
Contact Music: This album is for anyone struggling and feeling alone...
Gavin: I was struck by the numbers of suicides in any country around the world. Globally, it's just staggering. If you think there's 1000s of suicides a day, if you take a snapshot of that, if you were to do a flash of all that, it's staggering that's every f****** day. I've never done it. I never will, but like, I didn't make records about yachts or summer holidays or like the Cannes Film Festival. You know, the after party or something, none of that. It's just all this thing of reaching part of life and accepting that in order to get to the good stuff, there's mad sacrifices to be made, and the struggle never ends. And of course, that struggle is everything that it is to be alive. But I think it's important for people who feel isolated and really alone.
Contact Music: What do you want your legacy to be?
Gavin: Songwriter and father. If I can be remembered for that, that's a life well lived.
Contact Music: You're relationship with your homeland has been interesting...
Gavin: I mean, I have quite a history there, but there you go, it's funny to have had such a weird career. It's funny.
I Beat Loneliness is out now.
