Gavin Rossdale is not one for sitting still. In fact, he’s the extreme opposite. Anyone at a Bush show lately – and he’s done a dozen or more in New England alone in recent years – might get the sense they’ve been transported three decades or so back, as the frontman is not only a moving target onstage for the bulk of the gig, and then some. We’re not talking a lean over the guardrail to slap some hands, either. The guy ventures deep into the sea of post-grunge devotees, making his way through the audience and often to the upper reaches; the bigger the venue, the farther he goes.
“Before COVID, I used to have a coterie of security and personnel,” Rossdale tells Vanyaland ahead of the Bush gig Sunday (April 12) at MGM Music Hall at Fenway. “After COVID, everyone’s like, ‘Fuck that. We don’t need it.’ So, I’m just left to roam alone, and it just ups the ante, the energy of the place. You don’t want to disappoint people who are like four rows up, reaching for you, then you see everyone who’s bought all the merch. You’re like, ‘Oh my God, my bro, thank you so much. You look great in that sweatshirt.’ You give them a hug. Someone’s brought their kid, high-five the kids so they remember it, hug them, just whatever. I’m just looking to elevate the show and elevate people’s experiences all the time.”
Currently, Bush is on tour for their 10th album, I Beat Loneliness, which, as the title suggests, is heavy on the inner workings of human emotions. It’s also another indicator of the remarkable consistency the band has demonstrated since Rossdale resurrected the group in 2010, even more impressive given his forays into the world outside of music. Fans are still clamoring for a revival of his Balthazar character in the rumored sequel to the 2005 film Constantine, while last year, the long-gestating Dinner with Gavin Rossdale television project finally debuted via the platform Vizio. The latter sees the singer cooking for and sitting down to chat with fellow famous people, but it has been anything but easy to get made.
“It’s nothing convoluted or anything like that – it’s so straightforward,” he says. “There’s got to be a place for [the show] in this world where people want celebrities. How have I got a celebrity show that is hard to sell? That has Serena Williams, Brooke Shields. I mean, these are world icons.”
A couple of summers ago, Rossdale sat down with Vanyaland for his first 617 Q&A (Six Questions; One Recommendation; Seven Somethings). Any reservations about there being little to talk about this time around proved immediately unfounded. From his recent run-in with Keanu Reeves to how he’s dealing with Chilean smash-and-grab gangs and becoming a dog handler, there was no shortage of topics to delve into.
:: SIX QUESTIONS
I’ve seen you so often live over the past several years, and I never fail to hear someone nearby in the audience say along the lines of, “I can’t believe he’s got so much energy.” And then I see them looking up your age on their phone, and they turn to their friends, they’re like, “He’s 60 years old!” So, my question is: When exactly did you turn into a vampire?
[laughs] Yeah, it’s just weird. I don’t know what it is. I think that it’s kind of enthusiasm and desperation all mixed up, rolled into one. I have an incredible life, but I just feel that we’re at the level of a band that does really good, but the fight is never over. It’s always a fight. It’s never a shoo-in. So much goes into it, whether it’s to prepare for shows, whether it’s to do press for shows, whether it’s to find the shows, tour where you want. I feel like we’re always being tested. I feel like I’m in the UFC of music. I can’t just slide in and just stand there. And I always feel like I have to earn my place in this pantheon of music. And so I’m just possessed with that fire to just do a great show.
I’m guilty about being away so much. I miss my kids a lot. I miss my life. And so consequently… I can’t then do a crappy show or sort of like, half it. It has to be full on because the cost is already so high. So that’s the only way to justify it by being as good as possible. It’s funny because I see bands on stage, and some people can stand still and be mesmerizing. It’s quite incredible. I don’t like it when people just sort of walk around, amble around the stage with no intention. It feels like a lack of intention. So, for me, just being on stage, every square inch, there’s this opportunity to be someone and something interesting for people to look at as a spectacle. We are a spectacle. It’s a spectator sport. I’m just driven to be like that.
And you rarely, if ever, “amble.” You’re always moving, or you’re jumping, or you’re doing something.
To me, that’s what being on stage is: You have to create this aura around yourself, or else you’re not that interesting to look at. You’re on a stage. You’re on a stage. I don’t care whether you’re doing something quietly or doing something loudly; you have to be aware. I mean, sometimes I’ll go to the back corner and I’ll perform in the back corner because [another band member is] doing a big moment there, but I just know that when everyone’s looking at me, I’m not like standing there and losing the flow. I never lose the flow because then you lose… Then you break the spectacle for the audience. They have to be like, “Wow, what’s happening?” The whole time. That’s how I feel about it. And so, it follows through. Yeah, it just follows through. I don’t know. Also, I’m an idiot. [laughs]
***
One of the highlights of your show for a lot of people is when you go into the crowd each night. I’m curious as to what’s going through your mind when you’re doing that. Are you just trying to be present with the audience, or are you like, “Wait, where do I turn here? How do I make sure I don’t get lost and somehow end up where they’re selling hot dogs?”
Right. I might have a bite. I just love the shock and awe of when you go in the crowd, people… What I like the most is the people who are completely rational, regular, good people, [who] kind of lose their minds. They kind of lose their minds, and they depart from who they are normally, who they are in the morning, who they are at work. They’re just frenzied, and it’s so great. I love it because people can’t believe you’re going to do that. And then they see you close up your face, like right in their face. And to me, it’s just magic. I always think, “Stop doing it,” because it becomes formulaic. And then whenever I get to the point in the set where I can do it, I go, “Ah, come on, it’ll be so fucking fun. Let’s do it.”
And I try and go as far as I can so that, because it’s a dilemma for me as a performer to be on stage and consider people up in the bleachers on the back row, thinking that they’re kind of in it, but they’re not. They’re kind of there. They’re not. And for me, it’s like, “How do you involve all these people?” So, I always go to the back. I’ve done it a few times where we run out of spotlight, which makes no point and is too quick. I sometimes do think about it in terms of, like, how much longer I can be like that, but definitely the next few years is fine. But like, fucking hell. In 10 years to rethink it, Dylan doesn’t do fucking anything onstage, just walks on and sings, and he’s a genius. Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see. We really will see. [laughs]
Since relaunching Bush, you’ve been pretty consistent with the new-record-every-three-years cycle. Is that a groove you can see yourself continuing?
Yeah, I’ve written a bunch of songs for the next record already. So, I know that there’s a record. I’m already eight deep. So, I know that won’t be a crazy long process. It’s just… music is so fun, and I’m enjoying the exploration of it because I’ve been learning on the job, really, and there’s still great mysteries in music for me, which I’m trying to eradicate by learning more and studying more. And the ceiling is, I mean, you only got to think of like, I don’t know, like Radiohead or The Beatles or Stravinsky, and you go, “Oh, we’ve got loads of headroom, tons of room to improve. [laughs] We’ve got tons of room to improve. It’s music.” Just keep being interesting or keep being interested in things. And I’m very excited for the new material that we have, and then that will go through a different process.
Springsteen fucked me up because I heard that he’s always got five or six songs ready to go. I was like, “Thanks. Thanks.” [laughs] So, I’ve always feel that it’s better to have… like, I had nothing in the song bank. I didn’t like that feeling. It feels fraudulent. And now I have a little bit stashed away, and that’s for the rainy day of a new record. And that feels way better than… I was wandering around with literally nothing in the bank for a bit, the last few months, at the end of last year. And I was like, “This doesn’t feel good.”
I took a peek at the Reddit AMA you did the other day, and I was surprised at how much love Razorblade Suitcase was getting. Did that surprise you at all?
Everything surprises me to do with love. Everything surprises me. Love is surprising. So yeah, I kind of have a sense of disservice playing the shorter sets through the years, where you don’t play enough of those songs. So, we really try to redress that balance and rehearse from a larger pool of songs on this run, and the reaction’s been great. I’m always about pushing forward and not playing the same songs. I think Metallica is sort of amazing for that ability to play two completely different sets. And there’s something cool about that. Very cool.
We had a sort of a [band] thing the other night, there’s a bit of a disagreement, things got changed, and then, “I don’t mind…” “Well, you do mind…” “Should we put that in there?” And we ended up doing a really long set, one hour, 45. We never do that. We don’t want to do that only because I don’t want to bore people. I don’t want people like, “Jesus fucking Christ. Enough already.” [laughs] So I don’t want that, but we ripped through it. And when we came off, I was like, “Oh my God, we’re turning into the Grateful Dead.”
Dinner with Gavin Rossdale finally, finally came to pass last year. You had told me before that it was like, “Seven years of no.” How happy were you with the final product, and will there be a second season?
Well, yeah, what an incredible journey. I’ve forgotten about that. “Seven years of no.” It feels like a production company I should have. [laughs] So good. And I think that maybe part of the appeal is that I talk all the time, whether it’s my mental health struggles or career struggles, it’s just never easy. And it’s important that people see that it’s true for us because I hope that gives them some kind of comfort in their own journey, because life makes it hard. And so yeah, I was really happy with the show. I couldn’t believe we got it made. It was the best blag of all time, like the biggest hustle ever to get it made. It’s quite staggering.
And then it came out on a platform, Vizio, they own TVs, and they were doing programming and bought by Walmart for like seven billion. So we’re like, “This is the new Amazon, this is great!” And they weren’t ready. For example, we released it in March. They didn’t have a view on demand until August. So, it was like two departments, and everyone’s like, “This is great. Where can I see it? ” I’d be like, “Uhhhh… this is a very good question.” So most people saw clips of it on my website, on my Instagram, and that’s it. And now we’re presently in talks to do season two and then… we’re in the second window, and when you sell season two, they’ll package season one with it, and then people will end up seeing it. We’re in the process of [being] in another UFC ring called reality TV, which is unscripted TV, which is… I didn’t know that everything was always so difficult. It’s just… everything’s difficult. Everything’s difficult. And I suppose it makes success even sweeter, but that’s just how it is.
It blows my mind. Again, I remember when you said the “seven years of no,” I was like, “How is it even seven seconds of no? This should be huge.” The concept of it is amazing. I can’t be the only one who thinks that.
Well, it’s annoying. You know who loves it? It’s incredible for a man, for a woman, everyone, anyone who’s not in the business of programming these shows. Anyone in those departments are like, “Oh my God, I don’t know my job, and I don’t know. ” And then I’ve had meetings with people actually before when we were doing the Vizio deal, met a lot of people. We had meetings with people. One month later, that department did not exist anymore. So, you really are really up against it with a lot of things.
***
People went crazy this week when they saw the picture of you and Keanu when you both were on the Today Show. How long had it been since you’ve seen him, and what did you talk about? I’m hoping you were cooking up plans for Constantine 2, but…
I had seen him because I did in John Wick 3, I got the song in there, “Bullet Holes.” So I went to the [2019] premiere, and it was really funny – it was so pathetic – I was back in that life, that glamorous A-list, big movie, the thing, seeing the producers and all happening. It was fun. I was used to doing that and being in the movie, but it was great to see him there. And in fact, the other day at the Today Show, I hadn’t seen him since then. And then I just saw him and had a really nice chat. I don’t know why we managed to – at eight in the morning – just stand there for like 20 minutes just chatting. And I was just asking him about… Obviously, I asked about Constantine, and I’d kept in close contact [by] writing Francis Lawrence, the director, annually, saying, “Hey, just… don’t forget me!” [laughs] Very Hollywood of me to push myself on him. I think Warner/Marvel was not into it, not into that. So, they either rewrite the script or take it somewhere else, but apparently, they can’t call it Constantine. So, again, a fist fight.
People ask me about that movie – I shot it like 20 years ago – every day someone asks me about that movie. Every day. It’s the most extraordinary thing. And I would just run to that film set, but I got to just wait for them to win the fight. It’s not really my fight. By the way, there’s no guarantee that if they did Constantine 2 that I’d be in it.
:: ONE RECOMMENDATION
Well, since we last spoke, I became a dog handler. I had a security issue breach at my house. They found cameras. Well, we found a camera in a tree opposite my house with green duct tape on it. And they’re doing it because they’re robbing sports people, musicians. They see the schedule on your Instagram, they see things when you’re away. So, they were looking to rob my house. But the problem I had is that my son lives there full-time. My 19-year-old son lives there full-time. So, I was completely petrified that he would be there and they’d go around. They have guns and everything.
They did lots of break-ins in the area where I live. And there’s been reports of guns, and it’s just awful. Smash-and-grab gangs, right? Kids from Chile, they come over on a tourist visa, so they’re untraceable. They’re in the country. They’re there for three weeks. Someone sets the cameras, and someone else just robs the houses. So, I had to get an armed guard for a minute because I was like, “I can’t leave. Then there’s people coming around with guns to rob my house.”
And then we decided to get a dog because that’s the greatest deterrent. So, my son chose this dog from the pound, which looked like a fierce black shepherd, a German shepherd, but in fact, it turned out he was a fierce Siberian Husky mixed with Belgian Malinois. So, I’ve [laughs] become a dog handler and just have to work with this dog every day, and walk him, and train him, and have him with me, and just… it’s revolutionized my life. I did a campaign for PETA about “adopt, don’t shop.” I did this Best Friends Animal Society – I did a whole 12 days of Christmas about adopting.
So I’ve become like a, it feels like, a dog spokesperson for rescuing animals and not some breeders, going to shelters and giving these dogs [homes]. They euthanize these dogs all day long, and healthy, beautiful dogs… these ignorant people get these dogs, and then they realize that they’re an ongoing source of focus and needs. I was already out this morning for an hour. I have them with me on the road now.
***
:: SEVEN OF SOMETHING
Give me seven dream dinner guests whom you’d like to cook for; they can be alive or dead.
Wow. Okay. Let’s go with the people that aren’t around, I suppose, because then it’s kind of awkward, because if I mention anyone’s famous, the chances are I’m going to be trying to find them to be on the show. [laughs] So I don’t want to preempt it.
I did a great book podcast recently, and they asked me to be talking about one of my favorite books that sort of shaped me. And it was The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster, which is this book [holds up a worn paperback copy]. I’ve been rereading it. I realized that it came at this incredible time in my life, where the protagonist in this book is going through a lot of loss, and change, and identity. And it’s a very, very moving book. And I hadn’t realized how… This is when I was still on government welfare and painting and decorating and rehearsing in the evenings and living a life of real, a true working musician, like a working man, working kid. So, Paul Auster, he recently passed away and it struck me, like, because I always have these plans of reaching out to certain people that have inspired me, and I don’t know how I never reached out to him. I’ve read more or less everything he’s ever written, and he was a well-known figure in Brooklyn. And so, Paul Auster would be the first guest that I’d be really interested in.
Who would be fascinating? I think Marilyn Monroe. Well, because I feel the society was just sort of… It was a very, very tough time then to be a strong woman. And so, I would find her fascinating. What was she really like? Where was she at? I think that would be really incredible.
I think that David Bowie, because I just would like to have him back, and if my dinner’s the excuse to bring him back to us, momentarily, that’d be wonderful. He’s a great man and so interesting. So he would be one.
There’d be probably the painter, Francis Bacon, because he’s my favorite painter. So you got my favorite author, favorite painter, favorite musician, Francis Bacon, because he just… I’ve read these books when there’s this guy, David Sylvester, who does interviews with him. And it’s just so fun hearing people talk about art, who are amazing artists, and just the rules and what works, what doesn’t work, why things are great. “Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.” He would be great.
My mum then. I would love my mum. It’s like… I had a very torturous life with her. In fact, it’s funny because in the [Paul Auster] book, which I hadn’t mentioned, his mother dies, gets hit by bus when he’s 13. And my mum left our house, went to move to a different country – I didn’t live with her ever again – when I was 12. So that sort of seismic kind of like… I mean, I have a 12-year-old son now I don’t like being away from. We obviously were in contact, and when she came back to England a couple years later, I would see her once a year, but we really, really connected when I was 27. We started to get much closer again, and we’d see her more. And because she’s my mum, I totally forgave her. I love her. I adored her. And I just took it as, like, I didn’t take it personally. I took it like she just wanted a better life and didn’t think the life was with us. And that was a wild lesson because it wasn’t in the years of therapy or anyone’s help. You just would be crippled on the inside. And I didn’t take it as anything to do with my fault. I took it as, like, adults have problems and are fucked up too. That’s how I felt it. Because I knew that she loved me, but it must have been a lot for her to be away from me, and she must have had her reasons.
So as she was going through the dying process, I really hoped… I’ve heard that some people go for complete closure and they investigate everything. Other people just do not. And my mum was so worried about dying, that we never had discussions about her dying because it was always about getting her better. Even though it was obvious she was dying, the vernacular was always about, “let’s get you better, got to get you strong.” I spent the last five weeks, and I cooked for her every day. I didn’t want to hassle her in her house. She lived like 40 minutes from me in London, about an hour for me. So, every day I would cook at my house. I’d do, like, Meals on Wheels. I would package it all up, really useful stuff, beautifully packaged. It was really nice. Everything I cooked went into clean, brand-new pots. And so it would arrive like a sort of bespoke lunch.
I’d go and sit with her for 10 minutes and have lunch with her. And then I’d talk to her for 20 minutes, half an hour. And then people who are not well, they don’t want people around a lot. Her husband was there. So, I would leave. It was exhausting, but it was wild. And I hoped there was some closure there, but she wasn’t into that. She wasn’t into that. But I wouldn’t have her around to recriminate her. I forgave her a long time ago. I just would be intrigued, like whether she felt she got what she wanted. She didn’t. She sort of bounced around and three stepfathers and all that sort of stuff. And so one didn’t really work out for her. It was really sad. But yeah, so my mum would be an amazing guest.
Well, I mean, I have to have my dad because I can’t have my mum… and I grew up with my dad. So my dad was the really, really solid one. So he were there, but we’re losing your viewers now because no one cares if I have lived with my dad [laughs], but I really love that. My dad.
And on a final note, this Rob Reiner was a really terrible, tragic situation. Mental illness. I mean, I have heard that no one has been to see [Reiner’s son Nick, who is charged with the murder]. I read in the paper. Gosh, just so unwell. The thing was that I’ve dealt with a few people in my life with schizophrenia, and I don’t quite know what he would be suffering from, obviously some psychosis as well, but what a great man, what a great director, what a funny man, and brought so much joy to so many people. And you know that he was obviously struggling with his son and did everything for him and tried to support him through all of his trials and tribulations.
And then this tragic, like horrific ending to their lives, just makes me think of him. I started thinking of people who were gone, and that was just a terrible situation. So he’d be an amazing dinner guest for all the good things and all the good times and all the things.
BUSH + MAMMOTH + JAMES AND THE COLD GUN :: Sunday, April 12 at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, 2 Lansdowne St. in Boston, MA :: 7 p.m., all ages, $35.95 to $131.85 :: Event info :: Advance tickets
