And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 256: Gavin Rossdale (Bush) | "Glycerine" & Surviving the '90s

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Today's guest is the frontman of Bush, one of the defining voices of '90s alternative rock and the "feral," self-flagellating songwriter underneath them, who still claws through every blank page 30 years in and can't tell you how he does it.From a broken home at 12 to painting dentists' offices after he'd already made 16 Stone, Gavin carries three things simultaneously that most rock legends never figure out how to hold at once: the craft of a lifelong student who still writes out scales to get better, the conviction to bet on analog human perspective in the age of AI, and the contrarian refusal to romanticize any of it — "it's a perpetual UFC octagon."This is one of the more honest conversations about longevity, survival, and what it actually costs to keep creating after the era that made you has moved on — and buried some of the people who defined it. When the confidence and the insecurity are the same engine, who do you become?And The Writer Is... Gavin Rossdale!Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. Every week, we go deep with the most interesting creatives in music.Follow us on socials: @andthewriterisA special thank you to our sponsors for making these conversations possible.Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.Hosted by Ross GolanProduced by Joe London and Jad Saad Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to And The Writer is. I am your host, Ross Golan. Today's rock star is a defining voice of alternative music. As from Man of Bush, he helped shape an era of music with songs that are raw, emotional, heavy, vulnerable, and somehow still massive, massive radio anthems all at once. His songwriting became the soundtrack to a generation, including my own. But beyond the success, today's conversation gets into long. Reinvention, Surviving the Chaos of Fame, and what it actually means to keep creating decades into a career. And the writer is Gavin Rossdale. There you go. Love the intro. So I saw you, the first time I saw you, this is great.

It's a 1995 Q101 Jamboree in Chicago. And the headliners were Duran. Duran and Stone Roses. Wow. And, you know, I just remember not caring about, you know, I just wanted to see, I just want to see Bush, man. Thank you. So, so sick to be like, you know, years later to be sitting here. So welcome.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Do you remember shows? Some shows, yeah, for sure. And then so many kind of, I need it sometimes a clue. But those shows at that time, 95, they were so wild because we just sort of effectively began. And I didn't know what was in store for us or what was possible. So when these radio shows were played in these like stadiums or arenas,

I'd be like, I just got a record out a little while ago. How am I going to be playing to all these people? Then you go out and play. I remember, I don't know if I, you know, often play glycary. And wherever the hit was, I'd play that. and that would just be shocking because it was just so extreme from where I'd come from and what I had the expectations. I mean, I was so dumb.

I didn't know what the future held for me. For me, I just wanted to make a record. That was the big deal. I was not smart enough to know the potential, and I just thought that every time I'd go out in London, you'd see someone from a record company or someone who was signed. And that seemed to be everything. that seems to be there. Just how do you get signed?

How do you go over to someone and be like, listen, I could really add to your company, add value. None of that ever happened. So I just was really excited to make a record when I made that 16 stone record. And I thought that was kind of, that was it when I'd made it, really.

Felt successful to have made it. It's weird. I feel like for a musician, you know, when you're a kid, you can kind of judge your years by what grade you're in. You know, you kind of remember what grades you were in. But once you graduate things like high school or college or you're putting in, you're putting out albums,

I feel like the only way you can define your life is through releases or shows. You know, do you have a recollection of, you know, because you're, you know, the, from, from starting to get albums really heard in 1994 till now, do you define your life by releases or do you like how do you figure out what years you lived it is confusing you know i think of it when i'm looking down at the set list you know on a recent tour we've been on just finished up in north america and we were playing like an hour 45 hour 50 which is a lot for us but we just wanted to make sure that we hit the hit many albums and many um sort of styles or approaches and i and i look down the set list and it just

it just it's such a fun journey of evolution you know evolution of writing evolution of ability to communicate uh always a similar human condition human frailty challenges how to get over that for some reason i i love that and um i once tried to be a um storyteller i wrote the song called johnny and mary and it was terrible and it just wanted to be a um storyteller i wrote the song called johnny and mary and it was terrible and it just wasn't Johnny and Mary eight days a week and got no problem life is, it just was terrible

I was just like this is not your this is not your way and it was only when I kind of discovered Ginzburg and that whole city lights the whole that movement

Gregie Corso all those poets I just fell in love with that the beat poets and that's what I sort of found that I could inhabit, inherit that style, sort of broken glass

shards of ideas and concepts and jarring things and putting weird things together, mental furniture or strange phrases that I liked that just turn me on for no reason. And when you're young, you're like, fuck it, I just like it.

Yeah, right. Well, when you sing those songs now, are you singing covers of this, you know, 20-something-year-old version of Gavin? Or are you singing these songs with the wisdom of somebody who's where you're at now? Yeah, I mean, well, it's a bit like, it's very much like, I suppose, acting, you know, if you're doing a theatre play, you do the words, and every night the same words are different because you bring something different to every performance, you know? And so I can't possibly, you know, do somersaults backwards to kind of think of the genesis of any song, but I can just let the moment wash over me with whatever's going on.

So whatever I sing about is very current, you know, the sort of the kind of impetus is, yeah, it's always about being in the moment. I mean, I'm obsessed with the moment, you know, And, you know, we all know that regret or fear, you know, the future, the past. There's a scary places. And actually, when you sit in the moment, life is generally okay. And so I do that with a singing, you know. I sing Come Down. I don't want to come back down from this cloud.

But I have no idea what I wrote that about back in the day. So I just think that. You can't, you don't put yourself, what's the day you wrote, come down? What's that day like? That day was, I had, I, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, really, bluesy, I, really, blues, more traditional. and I kept on find myself trying to sing onto bits that felt a bit like bit too what just wasn't, didn't, music didn't really speak to me. And so I was looking around and everyone basically left.

I've always been the one standing in my first band and the second band. And he said, I don't think it's working anymore. And so he kind of broke up with me and that was the end of that band. And when I was looking for other guitar players, I was like, this is a little weak that you're, you can't write a song unless someone else plays four chords for you. You know, it can't be that difficult. Look at Buskers. You know, now, you know, I granted there's certain people that write with spread chords and interesting stuff like that.

But generally, classic songs seem to be really airing on the simple, you know, which I think is really about the connectivity of it, you know, because it keeps simple. So, come down, which I have said before, so I apologize to repeat myself on your. or great podcast. But yeah, that was the first song I wrote on my own. And then I was like, okay. That's infuriating.

Because it's funny, because I look at you. You told me before we start about you have a bachelor's and music and everything. And then in the side of the business, not just sitting here thinking like I'm a do-for-some, like,

feral. I don't know how I write songs. I just sort of don't have a choice because I said I'm a songwriter, so I sort of fiddle my way through it. I have too much, much modulation because I really disrespect any keys I'm in. You know, people are like, whoa, where do that chord come from?

And I used to find this, when I'd be in the studio, I said, I'm going to get the first note. I'd have to guess the first note between two chords, and then I'd find it. So I'm always trying to get better at it. So when I heard you thinking that, I just imagined you just having like a toolbox of like, we can be here, we can go there, we can do this, we can do that, do that.

And it makes me feel dumb. Well, you shouldn't feel dumb. I think one of the things about being proficient at an instrument is learning how to be simple. It's fortunate that I'm not a great instrumentalist. I just know how to communicate, you know, what I'm playing. And I can hear other people who are much better than I am and be able to say, oh, that's a cool chord that they went to. Right.

But my actual, I am a subpar instrument. instrumentalist, which is probably why I'm a decent songwriter. That's great. You know? But when you were saying you, living in that expression of living, what is it, living in the future is where you have anxiety, living in the past. That's concern, this anxiety. And living in the past is regret.

Not letting go of. Where do you tend to live? Do you live in the future or the past? I'm all over the shop, you know, I'm a basket case, you know. And so I just try to keep myself on an even keel. And I, it's funny because when I went to write, beat loneliness, this record. You know, I was just thinking, wow, 10 records,

what can I bring? What's my point? What is the point? Like, what am I going to say? And I thought, oh, well, you've lived. You lost, you've lived, loved, all that sort of stuff. So I kind of just took a deep dive inwards and just went for that style. And I think that I spent a lot of time with a lot of anxiety.

And I always can trace it to something that may happen, you know, and it's sort of like writing the wrong story to a situation I'm in. Or I may eulogize the past when I forget what someone did wrong to me, but I'll sort of eulogize the good bits. I'll be like, oh, that was so great then. So, but I just try and drag myself into the present as much as I can because it's a good place to be. I mean, it's definitely a good place to be, but to dive deep on an album.

and then release it is pretty vulnerable. Is that hard to be vulnerable at this point? I've always done. You know, I think that there's no point. My career has been a series of evolution to just let my body and mind go and be free. And, you know, I'm English, so we're naturally born like a bit like a tree. You know, we're a bit stiff, you know, as people. So it's like I've just.

I love the idea of just being so loose on stage, so loose lyrically, that it's just like, I mean, I've got, I'm in trouble, I need help on this last record on, I think, one other song. So I'm really, I think that if you're not, I'm not prepared to be vulnerable, then you're not interesting. So I'm much more concerned with being interesting than people are like, oh my God, what a basket case.

Is it hard for your, family to listen to their father as being a vulnerable basket case? Well, I'm painting a picture that's maybe a bit extreme. I'm not like a basket case the whole time. I don't think they listen to my music. I don't, I don't, for them, I'm just like, you know, pretty much the cook and the driver and the confident, everything about their lives. And I've, I've seen so. I've seen so. So many people who have kids who lean on their kids for like almost for parental advice on them. You know, and like they stress the kids out with that.

You see that a lot where the kids have to be too sophisticated too early on in their lives. And so I've made a point of never, never kind of sharing my concerns about anything with them, you know? That'd be terrible. I know my role with them and it's not to play me there. not me to play them my new songs or another that i was going to say when uh because you know we were talking about touring and you were doing 140 minutes what was it an hour and 40 minutes set

yeah that is to do a hundred minute set is is really intense but one thing that is really amazing about your catalog is that the songs have aged really well and i think that you could look at some of your peers who have to sing songs that sound like they were written by an 18-year-old their whole life. But songs like, I don't want to come down, come back down from this cloud. And like that kind of lyric is something that you would write now. Yeah. What do you think that younger you had that was so innate to be able to write such sophisticated lyrics? I just, I don't really know. I think that sometimes ignorance is bliss. and you just sort of forge forward.

You know, with mine, I have a really bizarre connection with songwriting where when it's difficult or when I'm not finding it, you know, I have to beat myself up to do it. Like I beat myself up. And, you know, I'm very self-deprecating. I have a punitive super ego. I was told by a shrink once for head of UCLA psychiatry. What is a punitive...

Super ego. What is a punitive super ego? Some is really hard on himself. really hard on themselves for like if you make a mistake, you know, you're going to slaughter yourself, self-flagellation, you know, like regret, concern, you know, over, just too much on that. And then when I string it together,

because to me, songwriting is my primary job, you know, I'm just so thrilled when I get a song and it fits together and you come out of that chorus, and you go back into the verse and it's all happening. It makes me the happiest I can ever imagine. And it's just because I think it's, I've done it for so long, but I revere it, and I think that it's so magical and it's all about the alchemy.

It's never just the chord, structure, the words, or the melody, or the counter melodies or whatever. It's the way that it all sits together, and it takes on a life of its own. I can listen to songs I've written, and I've written so many songs, and I'd be so confused to try and write them again, and how did I get to that point?

And why did I decide to play that? And that's what I love the magic of studios, because you can play something, be inspired, play something, and I love it when I'm tracking the band or anything like, oh, that's so cool, because that's going to live forever. That way, that recorded, you record it, you got it, you don't have to do it again, a vocal,

you just push yourself, and it just open, put your voice throat in a certain way. And you're like, damn. So sometimes I think, oh, I'm so glad I don't have to undo the songs and recreate. And that's sometimes where I get a bit paranoid about my own kind of feral musicality that I sometimes wish I knew more could be like,

you should always write the harmonic minor. You know, I've got songs over, my guitar teacher say to me, ah, you did that because the harmonic minor's reason. I'm like, all I want to know is, how can I do that again? Yeah. How can I do that again?

Because I really like that feeling. So it's interesting. Like I still study and I still find it really fascinating. What do you study? I study. Hey guys, have you ever wanted to get further in the world of And the Writer is? Have you ever wanted to sit in that seat across from me? Well, guess what?

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So come and check it out in the description below. There's a link for you to join you. Join us on Patreon. What do you study? I study just all the chord potentials and all sort of relative major minors and writing scales out, writing chords out, stuff that I'd never used to do. And to see what, so I used to do all by ear, you know, sometimes successfully, sometimes it's not. And so now I've been really trying to turn over a new leaf And to get really

Looking at all there And pulling it together in a way that I sort of never have And realizing what all the modes mean And why they mean that I knew all the modes But I didn't really string it together As soon as I try and be intellectual in the studio And then I'd be like, oh fuck

You know, just smoke a joint and write a tune on something You're fine, you know And that's what I would do but now it's fun so when you said it's me it makes me like go I gotta go back and walk on those flat sixes

that's really what's that flat six for those of you out there is really good for blues and I never play the blues so forget to see I'm wrong already already wrong just saying if you want to know what the flat six is it's really

anyway let's give it guys who wants a music theory class right now Are you a studio nerd now? Yeah, to an extent, I really love it. You know, I think my studio hates me and it knows. It's like an angry dog. It just knows that I'm going to screw it up.

And like, you know, there have been times with the Pro Tools where I got off the grid, you know, up in the top left corner. And I suddenly I couldn't record. I was like losing my mind for like a week going, I can't record in time. And someone's like, oh, you got to go. Yeah, it's one. So I'm getting better at it. I do love, it used to be, I was always being an over-the-shoulder keyboard player.

You know, you have someone coming into program. You'd be over-the-should, go, yeah, try that. So it's really nice to sit, then go through the sounds yourself and just not have to be asking requests of things the whole time. And so I find that exploration really amazing. And then when I, so I am to an extent, I had a, you know, I have a really nice setup in a spare bedroom in my house. I actually, you know, I even cut a hole in the closet door so you've got a vocal booth. You can actually see in the walls, you can see the booth in there.

It's quite a nice little effect. And I've written loads of songs there. Sometimes I write with other people, which I really like. I like just doing the top line. And that's sometimes such a holiday doing just the top line coming in, just singing on music. That's like, it feels like a holiday. Did you ever want to write for other people? Yeah, I did.

I did. When I was assigned to Rock Nation for a little bit, I wrote for Rihanna. I wrote some dancehall songs for her. I got some dancehall singers in. I wrote for this girl that I met on The Voice, who was a really great singer. And I wrote for her. And this whole dream of being a writer. But she sort of tailed off.

She didn't care so much about it. I never heard about Rihanna. The show doesn't help the thing. Yeah, you know, so it didn't really work out, but I had great dreams of it, and I think it's a really fun thing to do. I enjoyed that. You have to be so confident to do that.

I mean, it's a confidence, I think. Says the front man? Well, just the idea that you come into the studio, say, you know, write your song today. Come on, let's do this down. What are we going to start with? nice beat, what are you thinking? It's just sort of, when I think of doing it,

you know, writing for different people, it's just fun to try and hear what they may do. And having to get girls to do the demos, because it's stupid having me, my voice on that. Well, now there's AI for some of that. Yeah, my base is telling me he's got a program where you just write it in and it'll just do the melody, you just put the words, you say the voice and you're, I'm terrified of that.

Yeah. There are a million ways for AI to ruin your life or to whatever you want to say about it. But one thing that is interesting is the idea of, you know, amongst the casualties that AI will bring, it will be for demo singers because you can have it demo your songs now. And it sounds pretty good. And that's a complicated thing. It's good for songwriters, not good for studio musicians. Yeah. I found it really good for, it's really good for me. music theory, though I can get it wrong a lot of the time. I can ask questions because I'm so, I don't have a bachelor's. I can be like, I have these six chords.

Is that bad? I'm impressed. I'm impressed. I always tell, I appreciate that. I tell people that I, you know, I graduated with, I graduated early. I tell people that all the time. I just don't tell people what my GPA was.

It was unimpressive. I just skirted by and got it. Yeah, but you were there. You were there. I showed, I did show up. So that was, that's worth something, I think. Um, speaking of, of, you know, when I said front men, uh, like for, for you to say that you have to have confidence to be a songwriter and I think you have to confidence to be a frontman. What happened to front men? Like when we were, when, uh, I remember seeing you and I saw Scott Weil in and I saw all these guys where it was like their job, you know, uh, Anthony Keatis. I've seen front men that, uh, the showmanship and the full body inhabiting the song and believing in the music, it seems like, you know, the Tom Yorks, that part of music making or music performance has, seems like it's a lost art. Is it a lost art? Am I? Youngblood's doing quite well. Yeah, there you go. I think he's fantastic. So I hear what you're saying. I think that it's different, different culture, it goes in different culture and we're sort of,

sometimes, you know, you do feel a bit of an anomaly to be so enthusiastic at shows, but I have this thing about, I mean, I do love to go and see shows, I'm going to see a hum, a band, I used to tour where they're playing in LA tonight, so I'm going to go watch them. But yeah, I know what you mean, and there's nothing better than frontman. For me, you know, that really kind of galvanizes everything, and, you know, conversely, there's nothing worse. that if the man in the front isn't being the front man, and there's no one to guide you. You need that sort of shamanic figure, I feel,

to be interesting. I mean, for me, being on stage, it's just about, it's like being thrilling and being exciting, and, you know, people have such a history with our songs, we're so lucky, and they're always, always, always, I meet people all the time, and it's always about how the music's lifted them up. It's always, you know, no one's ever asked me where I got my shoes from.

There's nothing like that. It's always your song saved me when I was lost. You went through a really hard time. You either soundtrack to my life. And so it gives me that confidence that when I'm doing it, like, I just want to be thrilling. Like it's a thrilling thing that they, some people have been dying to see you. We've got these tickets to come and see. So I love that responsibility.

Plus, I hate being away so much, and I've been away my whole life. So the only way I can justify it is to be as good as I can be when I play. Because if I was to kind of phone in a performance, I'd be so ashamed. And I just wouldn't not want to – if you're going to be away, at least make it worth it. If you hate being away, why do you go away? Oh, because I love – because I don't have a choice. choice. Well, I do like playing shows, you know, maybe the days, the days are long and slow waiting to go play. But it's the nature of what I do, and I've done it for so long,

and now my kids, they've grown up and they're like, they're used to it so much. So it's fine, like I just left them today and I go away tomorrow and I go to Europe to do festivals. And so I just like being in that. But I also probably overplayed a bit the last couple of years. It just feels like some time to be home would be really, really good. How many shows do you play a year? I mean, lots of people do more, maybe 150, 100. How do you take care of your voice? You know, it's a real dilemma.

I'm just really boring, like I just shut up. I just don't say much. And I shut it like a clown. All day long, I'm pretty sloth-like, do my thing. I feel guilty of my girlfriends with me. if my kids are with me, you know, because they want to go do things, they want to, you know,

but I have to just be really careful with my voice. And just, I've been okay. I've never a lot, I've, you know, maybe once or two. I'm never in Bush, if I canceled from a, from bad. But, but, you know, there's also certain nights where you don't sound as good as other days. I was recording just down the road the other day, and I was recording with my friend and doing a song,

and I was just thinking, I can't keep doing this first, first over and over. I've definitely got the first few lines. We're only trying to get lines four and eight. Can we just do lines four and eight? Because it's just, you know, it's like finite. You know what I mean? It's running.

Usain Bolt is only fast for so long, and then he's not. So I'm just really diligent. I warm up madly. I warm up like four hours before, then three hours before, then the last two hours, I'm warming up scales, my body, then I'm singing songs.

as a whole, because I like coming out and being clear, having a clear voice on that first song. I used to, of course, never do that. I'd be like, I'd be on point by about song three. Yeah, of course. My voice would be asleep for the first two. But it doesn't matter. The sounds crap anyway, so they're just trying to figure the sound.

So the first two songs are like aborted for like any quality. At least they're loud guitars or there's an audience who can make up for some of the noise for the first two songs. Yeah, you know, but the thing. The thing is that with a sound guy, we have an amazing sound guy. It's got a caram. The blessing and the curse of an amazing sound guy, so he'll also show you how good you're not.

Well, because he likes really singing on the mic. Oh, nice. So, you know, it's nothing worse than singers of doing that, and then the mic goes here, and suddenly like, well, so I have to be really diligent. He's worked with some great people, so I love, you know, checking with him after the show and what it's like. Like, for me, it's like a bit weird.

I just love to try and outdo the people. previous show. It's the only thing that makes sense of it. You look at, you know, change the set. What could I do? Because then it's that you're involved and it's intriguing and you have an intention. Like just doing the sets, you know, like I have this thing. I don't really, I'm always full of intent. I don't, you know, certain people walk across the stage with no intent and I just, I just, I'm just, I'm just thinking to myself whenever I watch that show, I'm like, don't, that's, that's, you're in the exalted space. You're like floating on a magic carpet.

Did someone ever teach you? Were there people along the way that were like, hey, this is how you command the space of being on stage? No, I wish I had done, you know, no, no, no. It doesn't, well, you know, you obviously read reviews that could be skewed or not, but you kind of go sense. No, no, no, you know. I guess sometimes my manager sends me some if they're really good, but I just don't, um, to think it's better to not, you know, it's better to just like, do it. it separate from that and just do it based off of applause.

When you say that touring is, you know, it's hard to be away, what has fame and touring given you and what has fame and touring taken away from you? It's fame and touring, or the touring, let's say, has given me everything that I have because obviously people don't buy records anymore. So it's given me the ability to travel, literally travel the world. I sound like Miss Universe now. Travel the world, be interesting people. Help animals. I mean, it's given me everything. It's given me my life. Music has, it's just extraordinary to have been done it for so long and still have people that want to come to the shows. And now, because we've had all these successful songs at radio, you know, as of recently, you know,

as of this last record, the audience is so brilliantly mixed. And there's a really whole young contingent throughout the audience. And then there's the people who are the OGs who heard it from the beginning. And the brilliance of streaming, or the one brilliance of streaming, is that people can just go through your catalog. Back in the day, you know, when I was growing up, you know what I mean, you kind of had to just get a couple of records, and that was good of each band. So it's hard to keep a whole thing going. Yeah, the discography is hard to keep up with. in any previous era, it's impossible to explain that.

But so let's go to that. Your childhood, you know, you were born. Tell me about your childhood. Well, it was a pretty regular childhood. I think that I just grew up with my dad when I was 12, so that was provided interesting, sort of very jarring, troubled, you know, come from a broken home.

What happened? Oh, my mom went to live away. She met someone and moved out of the country. So she left. So that was, we reconnected, and I was really close with her later in life. But the first, that's, you know, that's sort of quite intense. So you just have a different view of the world. You know, you heightened emotions, but nothing that you can explain.

There's no therapy. There's no sort of help. So it was a very tumultuous time and full of like a lot of, yeah, just, I mean, that to me is the breeding. That's what made the fertile ground to write. It's a really terrible cliche, but, you know, the worse, it's unfortunate because in a way the the worst, the background, the more interesting things you have to say, the more interesting your perspective, because for me it was like all I saw was the frailty of people. You know, I took that as like everyone's frail.

Everyone's frail. My mom's just looking for something. You know, that's the main thing. I live with my aunt for a bit. And she was incredible. But, you know, my dad, it's just an interesting checkered childhood, like so many people. And I think that's why people can relate to the words.

I have this firm belief, right? You write songs. and then people inherit them. People hear them, and it just makes them feel seen. They don't, that's what it is, and they take those songs on. And I've been so lucky to have so many songs that have just been magnets for people. They just hold on to them. What were the songs when you were a kid who's living with your aunt and your dad,

and what are the songs that were that for you? What were the songs that changed your childhood? Yeah, Bowie. You know, I grew up through punk music, which was, of course, it was so great because it was like a revolution so that was like pretty nihilist against authority against adults you know

just against society and that I thought was really liberating I thought it was the most exciting thing and your high school era in the UK is like the epicenter of the clash and I mean what's that life well I lived you know very Malcolm Gladwell

esk I lived down the road from a record store. It was like the closest shop store was a record store. So I could go in every weekend and get, take my pocket money and get single and get a, you know, get a, you know, and then they would be, they'd say, you know, the rivilloes are kind of cool, but, you know, do you want to try, here's the doors,

here's, uh, here's, you know, here's the stones, his, you know, so that was an interesting time. and where I grew up was like my neighborhood was pretty rough. So all those lot that I grew up with were like into decorating their Ford Cortina cars, like doing paint jobs and all that sort of stuff, and listening to sort of what, basically jazz funk. And it was all like that.

So I had this kind of clandestine secret relationship with like Bowie, Ziggy Stardust, Lou Reed, all those things, because you'd get like, you know, if anyone saw you listen to that music, they didn't like it. So I was always like, and we had a youth club, we used to go to the Jewish youth club, I think it's called Maccabies, and, you know, it'd be like you just wait out for the punk songs and you'd have to sit out all the kind of top 40 songs and the pop songs, you couldn't like that. And then I fell in love with reggae, fell in love with reggae, reggae music, dub music, some roots, but really like the dance or stuff.

And so in London, there'd be lots of sound system parties, you know, with like, you know, huge speakers and going on. And so that's why I had that bored, that whole love of rhythm. All my rhythms are wannabe dance or bass lines. That's really funny. They still are. Come down. I mean, they all are.

You know, singing when you grow up in an area that is rough is like the, antithesis of a place that's rough. Like, when did you start realizing you could sing? I, you know, I really, it was really about trying to avoid life. You know, I just was like, suddenly I was coming to the end of my high school. There was, you know, did I want to go to college? Do I want to go on with my life? And I just, I had a thirst for life, you know. And my dad was an amazing man, but he was a sort of workaholic. So he was working. What did he do? He was a doctor.

He was really amazing and helped a lot of people. And I was like, what can I do to avoid work? So I just thought, if I could just be in a band, that's got to be the answer. And so I just, again, that confidence thing, like, it's brilliant. I would like take cassettes and I would just sing from my first band. I would sing melodies into a cassette. I don't know what I was doing. I don't have had more than three-note melodies or variant.

I don't know what I was doing. But for some reason, I just was like, this is what I'm going to do. And set out to do that. And it was really unusual because there's no one in my family who's, you know, it's like, there's no lovely story of, you know, someone playing piano with me, force me, do those lessons, Harry. It's going to be pay off in the end, you know. There's none of that.

It was like, just sort of quite feral, just left alone. to do your own thing. And my sister's, my sister had a boyfriend who's in a punk band called The Nobody's. So I used to help their, you know, load their gear, you know, in the transit van, stand outside. They're kind of shitty pubs they play and I was too young to go in. And I was like the token punk kid with everyone's like three, four years older than me, all the squats around my area full of punks and sniffing dudes. and butane, sniffing butane, and just a wild, wild life.

Sort of Larry Clark, but in London. It's pretty funny. I mean, when did you start thinking, I kind of want to write poetry or actually, I mean, like, I could write a song. The weirdest thing is that, is that, you know, began as sort of a way of avoiding life, was to write and try and be in a band, whatever that meant. Didn't know what it meant? Yeah.

But I did find that when I began to write, it was actually really cathartic. It was really nice to put the darkness on paper and like to admit to it. It was fun to admit to it. I was like, ooh, okay. And it felt better to shed. It's like shedding skin that I didn't want and I could put it in words. And so not that I was any good, but what happened is that when I'd get it right, it would feel like a pressure vow was released.

It just felt like good to like get it out. And so I think that's why I've written forever about effectively the human condition and not just about love, just about living in life. I think that's why it's always been like, they say that songwriters have one song to write their whole lives, right?

You've had that. So you write one song in different forms and different tempos, but it's always the same thing, you know, going back to no good at stories. I once met Tom Waits and I couldn't believe it.

I was just like, how does you, how do you do that? You're just lying all the time. Must be aggravating. He'd riding down the road. I'd headed down Laurel in my Chevy and I'd kind around the corner, I'm at Coenga. It's like, what happens? It's so detailed.

You have to keep the details coming all day long. And he was funny about it. It does it with his wife. So, Kathleen Brandon. But, yeah, so that's what I basically, effectively it dedicated my life to, I suppose. It's been my style. The human condition from the perspective of a kid who's

loading in a punk band's gear to, you know, being somebody who has adult children or borderline adult children, you want to, you judge an adult. But, you know, that's a different thing. What do you think the struggles are that you didn't see then, you know, that you would, what would you write about now if you were, if you were in their shoes. If I was at the, if you were in your own shoes, like, you're that you're, when you were first starting to write, you were your kids age now. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's the,

what's the song that you would write if you were your kid's age right now? Well, you know, I think that life is so exciting for them. I mean, I do look at them and it was, it's pretty scary, must be pretty daunting, uh, kind of all avenues. So many out of you, avenues closing and so many things being overtaken by technology. But it's just exciting just to get away from being told what to do and being told everything about your day and the complete freedom. You know, one boy has left school and he decided not to go to college, he's recording songs.

And it's just really fun. All I've said to him is that he doesn't want to hear anything from me, by the way. It's just don't know advice. It's like I can't give him advice about anything. He just does not want, yeah. It's so weird. Yeah, what do you know? Yeah, what do I know?

So, no, the main thing is I just tell him that this one thing that ruined me at the beginning was my friend's dad talking about Tim Pan Alley and about how, if you're going to dedicate your life to this, you just can continually work on your craft. So I say, you know, you want to be a musician, you want to be a singer. It's so hard, and I don't know how you're going to do it, and good luck. But by the way, sing a lot and play a lot of guitar and take lessons because might as well be knowledgeable about what you want to do. Yeah. So that's it.

So I think about the freedom. Freedom of life is exciting. You know, like when you're just not tie down to your parents, like reliving their lives through you. Score that goal, Johnny, just like I didn't. Just like I didn't. NMPA is our lead sponsor yet again. What is the National Music Publishers Association? What do publishers have to do with songwriters anyway?

Well, unlike artists who can be unsigned artists, there is no such thing as an unsigned writer. You can be a self-published, a co-pubisher, a published writer. Publishers only make money if songwriters make money. So, NMPA goes and fights for you. They go to Congress, they go and support the community, they fight DSPs to get you paid more. That's what they do.

They fight for you and they fight for this podcast. So thank you for fighting for songwriters NMPA. Thank you for fighting for us too. You were saying how that weird, you know, that when you grow up with, whatever the expression is, or the harder your life is growing up, the more you have to say,

whatever the version is, we had David Foster on the podcast. And afterwards we were talking, And he was like, you know, tied to me and Joe. And he's like, the one thing that we'll never be able to do is give our kids nothing. Like, they just won't have the experience of having nothing. And if they want to do music, they can't not have some connections. Right.

How do you parent in this era when you clearly have, you know, especially for kids who want to be musicians, how do you parent that? How do you stay out of the way? Well, you know, that's been obviously discussion. There's been around a lot, and people talk a lot about nepo babies and stuff like that, this whole nepo baby thing.

You know, no one gave a shit about Jeff Buckley being a nepo baby. This was so good. So I think that being good at stuff is the great equalizer and is the great thrust in the, to whatever you're doing. It's just about the quality. Like if the quality is lacking, then yeah,

that's an easy jive and stuff of that. But, you know, if someone's undeniable, such as Jeff Buckley, um, none of us care where he came from, where he's going,

just give us another record, you know? And so I think that quality wins, technique wins, knowledge wins. And then you just got to be really, really, really lucky

and then really work hard. So I don't like you to be, too much about the hard work, but the truth is it is a graft and a grind. And it's a perpetual UFC Octagon. I don't believe it ever goes away. You know, I feel like I'm always proving myself, working, you know, doing these shows. I just played a, you know, bottle rock. I played a stage coach. You know, I'm not closing those shows. So therefore I'm kind of additional to the main thing. So is that strange?

It's normal. It just is like no free ride. You just got to like get out there and fight. That's what it is. And so I've accepted that. I'd be, you know, obviously there's many things that we do, many times we do headline. But there's a lot of festivals we've been playing recently

or I'm going to where we're not. And so you just got to go out. And you're so good to see your friends there, other bands you love. That's my favorite thing about festivals. But you still want to slay and be the greatest band. You just want to. It's just human.

If you don't want to be, it's a bit odd. You're a bit weird. What's the difference between Woodstock 99 and Bottle Rock and Stagecoach in 2026? Wow. The years. I mean, that seemed to be that Woodstock kind of descended into the sort of like the beginning of toxic masculinity, right? That was the first toxic masculinity.

First toxic event that we know of, you know, outside of gladiators. So I, I, just a lot of people willing to hear some great music. So they're pretty consistent. I think they obviously learn some hard lessons from Woodstock, and that deteriorated so heavily. It's unfortunate, because I had a great show. I had a great time. The brain video is incredible, man.

It's so, it's epic. you know, it kind of was ruined by, well, anyone committing those heinous crimes would ruin the knife for anyone. Yeah, right. I just remember in, uh, I couldn't afford, it was on pay-per-view. And I couldn't afford it, but you could still get like this, that image, you know, of Lissie to it.

And then getting the DVD version of box set version of Woodstock. But at the time, you could like, if you had a crack, like, cable box you get a fucked up image of what that performance was, but I definitely saw it. Let's talk about Bush. I mean, you have this, obviously, you know, it starts with you going through this whole childhood of figuring out who you are. And then, you know, what's the, what's going from being, okay, I like this poetry, I like this, I like the catharsis of writing.

What's the journey from that to starting Bush? Slow. Very slow and incremental and just endless rejection and endless nose. That's just how it is in the arts. I think whatever you want to do, you know, if you're a painter, an actor, photographer, it's just tough. and it separates those that really have it as a vocation and those that fall away from it, you know? So I just, I didn't know how to give up.

I'm half Scottish, so it's like, you kind of got to kill me in a bar. If you want to get some, yeah, you've got to kill the Scott, else he's always going to try and get up and continue the fight. So, I don't know, just being tenacious. I'm always struck by that kind of brilliant dichotomy in your life of like being really confident or really insecure, being really sure about something or being really unsure about something,

taking rejection and being wounded by it, but stitching the wound and getting on with it and not letting that finish you. And it's just a life lesson, you know, I mean, to what David Foster was saying about, no, no, kids won't know, his kids, or my kids, won't understand what nothing is.

But I think it's quite hard for people to bounce back from no. And, you know, too many noes in a row and people were going to change tack. Whereas back then, no one cared. Like one of the lessons I said in my son, when he's, you know, going into this effectively adult life, I was like, the most important thing for you to understand

is that people just generally don't care. You know, because we, when our kids grow up, like, you know, every need is met, everything they, you know, oh my God, are you thirsty? I'm so sorry you have to wait 48 seconds while I was going to get you that juice. And then when they go out in the world, it's like everyone's slow because they're worried about themselves and they just don't care. And that transition, I suppose, from childhood into adulthood must be quite hard for people to, for them to realize, you know, for my son to be, you know, seeking answers from, you know,

a distribution company or labels and just one week, two weeks. And then three weeks, I got the songs, I can't wait to listen. What? And then another, you know, it's just very hard. But I love that. That duality is what makes it interesting or makes us people, you know? Yeah, I mean, you can only gain that with a little bit of perspective. And it's just impossible that you can tell people all day, but they're never going to get it.

You get a record deal for Bush. How does that happen? By the skin of our teeth. My whole history has always been, I've never had whatever incarnation of Bush, the TV shows for, it's never had the bidding war thing. I've never had that exalted space.

So having been, I used to, I was in a point in London with Bush where I could get, I knew everyone at EMI, at London, Warner, so I know all those people, and I could go in and could get demo time. And so I'd make songs, but generally never hear back.

Just never hear back. And it's really, really hard. Because not even being criticized. It's literally done. Yeah, it's just nothing. Done. You just don't exist. Yeah, and you know what happens

is you do these mixes, and you're trying to cram three songs into two days of demo time. and then the evening nine o'clock sounded really good by 2 a.m. Everyone's agreeing and you play it. You get up in the morning, you play, you be it up all night, get at 5, and you play it and you're so excited, and it sounds like shit. You're like, what happened?

It's all over it, and like, what went on? So, nothing ever turned. I did this cool thing. There was a TV show in England called The Word on Channel 4. They had a mid-week show, and they had a battle of the bands, so you send your tape in. and we won the Battle of the bands. What that meant was you go to the studio

and you sing your song. You play the song live on TV. And it's really fun. And that served as like a video for us. And there's a DJ in England called Gary Crowley. There's always one person, one thing, one opportunity. And he knew of this one guy who'd managed George Michael. And he was starting a label in the valley.

Like I didn't know what the valley was. I now live in the valley, but I didn't know at the time what that was. And so he offered me a record deal. And the best part about it was that there was no other offer. So whilst we baby spruce stuff a bit of the deal, we just, there was no option. It's like if you want to continue on. So we signed that deal with him. And that was the label responsible for 16 Stone.

and they did such an incredible job with that, you know, that's why I'm here. But yeah, so it was, again, by the skin of our team, this guy, Rob is a real character. He's a wonderful man, very crazy, but very great. And we was recording in Halston, which at the time was the biggest ghetto in Europe. It was like this drug-dealing mecca places, and this guy had a studio in there, and we were going to record there. And so along comes this guy in a sort of chauffeuvre-driven Mercedes. is, do you know, it's like that, so it's like a guy Ritchie movie that, like, there's no wheels. The wheels are taken off the car, you know, like that.

And in came this LA guy, and he was managing Morrissey at the time, I think. And he'd, he'd, apparently he was managing Morrissey. And then he came over to see us. And, you know, all those demos were 16 stone, you know, there's all those songs. And he's like, this is fantastic. And so we signed this deal. We did actually lose the distribution deal. Like there's a famous story of Hollywood Records being a distributor.

When 16 Stone was delivered, apparently they threw the CD at Rob and said, there's only no singles. There's no album tracks on this. This is bullshit. And so we got dropped. And the guy Frank Wells had died in a helicopter action. So for four months, I went back to work. So after 16 and son, I was back painting dentists' offices.

I've told this story, so I apologize to people I heard before. But yeah, I was back painting. I had a day job, you know. But I felt really good. Like, I'd made the record. I was like, I felt good about that. I was like, I never expected my aunt, Maggie, near this one guy, Colin Scott, who had a record.

And I just thought it was the coolest thing. He actually made a record. She'd be like, look, this is his. Oh, brilliant. And so I made that. I had very sort of minimal ideas of where I could go with music. thought making a record was just seemed so elusive for so long that just to finish making a record with artwork and stuff like that. I was like, well, this is great.

And so I go back. So I went back to work and it was only like a few months, four months later that the record got on K Rock, which again is here in the valley and that's where it all began. Yeah, I think the first goal for a lot of writers is I want a record deal or I want to record an album, you know. And when you achieve that, it's amazing. Then you're like, well, what do I do next? Like, what's the thing? You don't realize the amount of work it takes to, you know,

that's getting drafted to the pros. You have to, like, play your career out if you want to have a shot. And you still have, not every game, you're not an all-star in every game. You're not, you know, you don't make the all-star team every year, you know, but you might come out and be rookie of the year and then you go through like this whole process. Oh, good, now I've got to repeat this. Now I've got to evolve. do all the things as, you know, as a professional.

But you had to kind of learn on the job. And Come Down was the first song that K. Rock really played, right? Everything's Zen. Oh, everything's Zen. That feels like, that lyric feels like it's about 30 years ahead of people talking about Zenness, even in L.A. Right. Where did that idea talking about...

Well, it was also, I'm not on that subject. I am probably playing testosterone on... this tour, we haven't played that for a while. And it's complete toxic masculinity, that whole record, that song. Yeah. It's all about, it's all about those dudes, those maxes. Yeah, the maxing. Yeah.

Glissarin's one of those songs that you had the opportunity to probably record that in 30 different ways. When I wrote that song, um, I wrote, there's one of those really, you know, there's ones who you'd write in two goes, like it's just the first half, second half, and I couldn't believe it and it came out. I was convinced it was someone else's song because it felt more sophisticated than anything I'd done. When I played this to my band, they kind of, they've all ignored it. They were like talking amongst themselves. I think, you know, it's in a terrible rehearsal room in West London, Haldon, in Paulsbella Road,

and Cancel Rise. But what was interesting about it is I only had one guitar, one amp, one pedal. And so when I recorded it, you know, some people would probably put a clean guitar on it at least, if not an acoustic. But I just played it with my sort of quite heavy sound. And we were going to put drums on it, and then we decided not to. And that was it, me and Clive Langer, I suppose. You know, I can't remember what that conversation was. It just was, well, I never was going to have drums on it.

But I remember actually recording the vocal at West Side Studios, and it was so weird because I didn't have any drums to play just at the click. So that was a weird, I've only been in, you know, it's really pretty inexperienced. You know, I'd record it a lot for like five, six years of songs, but it was so weird not having drums in there as a sort of a guide. But, yeah, that song, you know, that song has given me life. It's crazy. Gwen's been on this podcast.

You guys have obviously had a very public relationship. You meet, you know, the bands are at their height when you guys meet. Did you find that was there ever creative competition of, well, we as a band want to, you know, we're going to work on doing the best album we can do. You guys are working on your album doing the best you can do. Was there creative competition? Is that, because both of you guys end up having these, like, epic runs all the same time? Yeah, I'm sure there still is.

Sure, there still is, you know, subcutaneously, you know, a little look at what's going on. And they're doing amazingly. She's incredible. I mean, come on, she's first woman to headline the sphere. It's phenomenal. It's very incredible. She's a force of nature. There's competition with everyone, you know, with yourself, with everyone, you know,

be the best part of yourself, be friends with everyone, but then write the hook that changes the world. You know, like, so there's an artistic competition, just wanting to kind of solve the riddle. Like the way that I see songs and the way they see music, it's like, do you know those things you used to put your face in?

They're all the metal things, and you put your face in, and you put it out, you see the shape of your face. Do you know what I mean? You see the other things? Yeah, sure, of course. To me, music and songs are like, you have all the notes at your availability of all the words, and you just got to push out the right bits, pull the right bits out.

And you could go wrong, you could go right, the good songs go right, the bad songs go wrong. And that's what it's all about. It's like, it's right there in front of you. Like, I notice it when I hear sort of other bands I like and I hear a song, and I'm like, oh my God, da, da, da, da, da, da. It's brilliant. You know, was it Bring Me the Horizon? That song, can you feel my heart?

It's like, hold on. Da, da, da, da, da, da. It was right there all along. It was just staring at me on the keyboard. So I think the biggest competition is with yourself and getting the best out of that impression, pushing out the right things to make a song. Razor Blade, Two-Ks, obviously, you know,

when everyone talks about sophomore slumps, that's not a sophomore slump. Did you feel like it was easy? Well, to be honest, I felt a bit unprepared because we'd been touring so much. There's no languishing, now go write a record, take some time. It just felt it was really like, now you've got to go and, you know, doing it with Steve, which I'm so proud of now, Steve Albini, you know, he passed away a little while ago. So it's, for me, that record is just like, is Steve and all my memories of him.

So he's just not the kind of person. The only thing I never understood about Steve is that he thought it was really strange to experiment in the studio. And like the idea of the beach boys from him was just like in an athlete. Why he's spending a year working on pets? Well, because he's so, he loved the blue collar thing of like you record by the hour, you go back to your day job. Record the Jesus Lizard or Fugazi. Everyone's got day jobs and like it's sort of like a... It's like a badge of honor.

to like... Yes, and so I always remember like you could only do overdubs if it was compositionally intended. Yeah. I'm like, Steve, just let's make a fucking record. What's going on? But how you guys were able to have a band

that filled up so much Sonic in a space is, you know, it's insane. Like, because now I feel like we're, every little space we're trying to fill in with some sort of sound or some bubble gum thing here, some not so bubble gum thing here, whatever it is, but there's a wall of sound all over the place, but you guys managed to do it with, you know, just the band. The overdubs thing wasn't really something that you guys got too far into. He wasn't, he, I mean, we did with other,

everyone else, but that's not how he saw it. And, you know, there's something about it that I thought we'd be on the road for so long, a couple of years straight, two, three years straight, that I thought, no one's better to capture us. And when I remember going to the control room and hearing the drums, and I was, I loved the Pixies so much, you know, the Pixies,

Surfer Rosa was such a big record for me, that I was just so happy to hear Steve's drums, which was just brilliant, because they're just flat. There's no, his trick was he didn't really EQ anything. So you'd get this. So while everyone else is EQing,

the frequency is that, trying to get his sound by EQing, when in fact it's like, flat EQ and mic placement. And I thought that he'd be running around the studio, you know, that he's so blue collar that we're like, oh, got to get back to work. So he'd be running.

But he was, I loved him because he was abrasive and cutting and dangerous some of the time. And other times he was really kind and warm and open and patient. And, you know, that's not what was seen of him because he's his acerbic writing, his, you know, destruction through his writings of so many bands and so many people as a tastemaker. But he was just fantastic and then just a wonderful person to work with. And I deeply regret. I wanted to do some kind of stripped record with him, almost revisit. You know, the greatest hits things was cool, but I avoided it forever.

but I was like, it's just lazy, you know. Can't we just re-record all the hits in a stripped way and have a dual CD so that people can have those songs, but we just let's put some effort to that. And I thought Steve would be the perfect person to do that. And nobody expected him to pass whatever it was, you know, whatever Avisual was. He had done in utero, you know, that came out the same year. And that year is just like,

I mean, look, the way you think of punk music in your high school and that sound, like, I'm a sophomore in high school during these albums. Like, this is, like, prime. Like, I'm in a cover band. I know all these songs. I know all of it, you know? This world of alternative music seemed, you know, when you'd see the movies, the singles, the reality bites, you know, we've talked to Billy before.

or some of the, you know, so of you, what is the competition like between bands and what is the relationship with the other bands in that circuit? Well, I think we were a bit annoying because we sort of appeared out of nowhere and got a lot of attention. So people were, to some extent, where I was, when I did Billy's podcast,

he apologized to me for that exact thing. And he traced my, history, you know, through the sort of 4-A.D. record label, throwing muses and then falling in love of the pixies. And he, on the podcast, he's made up his mind. He's like, that's it. I knew it. You're one of us. I mean, I'm good friends with them now, so it's fine. But I think we were probably a lot to take because, you know, the terrible tragedy of Kurt shooting himself and that void. and then nobody having that void being quite a precious place. It's like nobody wanted to build on the sort of the gaping wound in the scene.

But then they've got to play something on the radio and they've got to show something on MTV. They can't just have a shutdown. And I think that was probably a bit a lot for the traditional, whether it's, you know, that sort of whole Pearl Jam Soundgarden, pumpkins, Alice in Chains. I mean, since then,

you know, I've become, I'm really friendly with Billy, you know, it's reversed. I, you know, was respectfully friendly

with Chris, um, from Soundgarden. And, you know, all turned around, but I think at first, it just was like,

we did take a lot of attention and a lot of airspace and airtime and shows. And so, we were, probably a lot to swallow. You mentioned Allison Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana, later even, you know, your bands like Lincoln Park come in towards the end of the 90s

and a lot of these front men are not with us. You know, obviously even blindmail and go through like there's a long list. Did you feel the pressure, drugs or suicide or any of the depression that went along with being a front man during that era? I you know where I grew up in London's super druggie you know growing up was was pretty crazy um we used to have this thing where I lived in my apartment with like five five other people four other people so it was always what would Jim do what would Jim Morrison do it was always like you know do the acid you know go out take the mushrooms don't come home for the weekend but

there was always a distinct two sides to it um the kind of recreational fun you know you were always you're obviously always soothing the pain, but the soothing the pain, having fun and the soothing the pain with the darkness with the sort of heroin and the crack, that stuff. That stuff to me was just, I was too interested,

I am too interested in life, and the sunshine and having a good time as well as sort of being mortal, and, you know, I like that sort of both sides of life. So I never wanted to do anything that would be, you know, that would take me away from my love of life. And I've always loved life, you know, and even in my sort of darkest times, like, all my songs have degrees of hope in them. There's nothing sort of nihilist and just like, that's it.

We're all doomed, full stop. Kill me. I don't have that. I worked with Chester during the last Lincoln Park album, and we had a song that we wrote together. and I just remember him sending me the lyrics. And I think foolishly, I was like, well, I'm just here to help make melodies out of these lyrics. But when you look at the lyrics now, it's so heartbreaking. What song was it? We'll have to cut this out while I try to figure it out.

But it was... Because I sang... Let me see you. I sang at the memorial for him. the Hollywood Bowl. And I sang what was effectively a, I sang this song this felt like a suicide note.

He had a very, very hard life. He went through an awful lot of abuse. And it's just so sad. You know, I'm not obsessed about suicide, but I'm so intrigued about it. And I just love the idea of making music that has been not the reason why people have because people talk to me about it all the time,

but just some form of comfort in people's darkest times. And the difference is that I see that in a lot of metal. I love metal. I don't always like the vocals and the scream, but I love the music. I love the power of the music. It's infectious to me.

But there's often no way out of those. This is sort of like you're in a cul-de-sac of pain and suffering and torture, and everyone's maimed and we're all due. I like the realistic thing of like, this is tough, we're going to find our way, this is where we're going, try and worry less. You know, it's going to be all right. So you acknowledge the darkness, but you don't dwell in it.

I mean, everything's then. It would be hard to write that song and not internalize who that is. You toured through, you know, just nonstop off these albums. And somehow you found time to do, you know, an album and, you know, the new album in 99. But from, you know, releasing that Razor Blade suitcase, you have like three years of nonstop touring. And it's during the height of, in a way, the height of MTV or it's like the last height of MTV. And it's also a time of no internet. what is touring like for a rock star in the 90s,

which feels like the last time rock stars were rock stars? It was brilliant. You know, what a life. Just so liberating and wild. And, you know, you play these massive places and they sell out in a minute. And you're just like, you're on fire. you know you're like Justin Bieber

something like that you know what I mean but with guitars and uh it was just brilliant I mean you asked me earlier about that I brought you not about what it's been like the good side of it the flip side is that it does cost you

you don't participate in life as much because you're always away so you just you know I figured that out that I just missed so much stuff that the cost is really high, you know, because you don't think about it when you're just in it and living it, but when you reflect and you look on it, you know, you go to someone's, um, you know, you, you go to someone's

funeral and you think, when was the last time I was with them? What was I doing? And you, you, you miss, you've missed, you've missed the, so, you miss so much, I'm not complaining about it. It's just a consequence of it. And I think that, um, I've never been, I haven't been that good at finding the balance, because even when it's not right, I'd still try to work through it, you know. I wish I'd sort of take it some times off, more time off through my career. I was, when I was thinking of the rain video, the MTV Spring Break video, that's the one, not the, you know, that's like a legendary image. I've played in the rain before and in the snow before, and I always fear execution of like electrocution. And like, I'm going to be standing there just like, this is, like, this is.

But you're so calm and it's like this moment where the audience is just like really feeling it. Do you go back and watch videos ever of you throughout that touring era? No, what happens is that if I see it on my feed, if someone posts it, I will look. But I don't actively look into it. When that happened, I remember thinking, am I going to die? am I going to die? And nowadays, if someone sneezes, they shut it all down, the winds are coming, not going to happen. They're very cautious now, but back then it was like, I'd be right.

So I do remember playing, and I just remember the rain on the guitar neck, because I remember thinking, I'll play the shapes, but I cannot believe this is still computing as a guitar tone, because it's just literally holding it, you know, underwater. This is the weirdest thing. But yeah, you know, we just played stagecoach, and that was, or they'd shut it down when we finished. And those winds, the palm trees were like literally at 90-degree. Yeah, we were there.

We were there. Really? Like, well, yeah, it's amazing. It was so fun. I love extreme weather. I like, I like Storm Chaser, that show. I can't believe people do that. It's super fun.

Those are really fun shows to watch. It is a weird thing when you're like, how close can I get to this microphone before I hear, like, feel like a... Right. Well, with stagecoachs particularly, I just, as per my sound, and anyway, I thought if I come off the mic too much,

it'll be like whistling, the wind would be going through it. So I really stayed so close on it. Like, this, I didn't want him to say to me afterwards, stay on the mic. So I think that really helped to make it clear, because apparently our stowed, our stage had a good sound.

I couldn't believe that as well, because often with a wind, it really can mess it up. You know, throughout, without going through everything, even in 2011, you have, you know, the sound of winter,

big song, you know, you keep releasing big songs, and even, you know, a few years ago, you have flowers on a grave. You've, like, these, you keep, charting on songs. What keeps you relevant? Whereas some of your

I think aren't able to continue to release songs that audiences move to. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I love it. I think it's, I, like I say, you know, like, the comparison stuff

is, it's no good because it just does you in. Thief of joy. So I don't think about that. I just think about, I'm really inquisitive, you know. I love learning about new music. I love being inspired by what's happening. and then putting my own twist on things. It's fun to, after the kingdom, the record,

which was about three, four records ago, I realized that every time I played any big festival they didn't know me, I'd be feeling insecure, so I'd play all my detuned songs, so that they'd be tougher. And then I was just like, I did a side project called Institute. I did one record, which was all detuned with Paige Hamilton produced it.

And I decided then, in 2020, I brought out a record called Black and White Rainbows that was really bruised. It was after a terrible time I got divorced. This was horrible. And every song was more depressing than the other. And I vowed after that to just write heavy records. I was like, so much more fun to write heavy records. So it's me, I'm still on this voyage of discovery.

So I think my being inquisitive about things, curious about things, accepting my limitations and just trying to push myself forward, has served me well, you know. Like I'm definitely never treading water because I'm always learning how to be interesting, you know, with the D-tune stuff, whether all the drop things, but then finding interesting chords because it's all quite difficult. And then you've got riffs and you're trying to put melodies on riffs because I love melody. Like I'm...

Melodies are the greatest thing. I love. Of all the heavy bands, I like, I never like the screamo bits. Of all my favorite bands, I mean, I love the deaf tones, but I like the tunes the best, you know. How cool is that? They're like, you know, it's an instrument that we all have, and you're still sitting there being, like, inspired to sit there. What song from I Beat Loneliness should people listen to first? Oh, I Be Loneliness, the title track. Yeah. that really sort of set that up and it's just one of those tracks and like you must feel it as well

you know you write songs you don't really know how well you know how because you went to school we've been through that i didn't go to school so i don't know how so i just see that song it's so it's so funny i'm just doing it in the spare bedroom of my house that's got um i have a stephen slate um actually um play back so i got it looks really fancy it's just the two input, two output, whatever input, Apollo. So it's very, very, with a laptop. But I've got it, looks like super cool because it's on the two big screens.

And it just, it thrills me to have these ideas. You know, who's it, what's his face talking about, about you write for yourself and you don't write for audiences? Yeah, Rick Ruben says that. And I love Rick. He's incredible, man. I haven't seen him sometime, but he's incredible. But it's not how I feel with that.

It's not how I feel. Like, I really picture the people that I know that I see at all my shows. I think of them. When I'm writing the song, I'm so thrilled if I've gotten it right. So when I did, I'd be lonerless. I'm like, it's undeniable. If you like this band, that's an undeniable track. And it's magical.

I don't know where it really came from. And I'm fascinated. by this idea that every idea is just one idea. It's just the idea you had there and then. Like any other day, any other hour, I may not have played that riff. I may not have played the chorus part. I may not have chosen those chords.

But I did in that moment. And I remember walking out the room being like, this, I got this riff, is so cool. And I walk through the doorway of that then going downstairs to get a drink or something. And I was like, I'd be loneliness. And I was like, oh my God. And I was like, I never would have thought of it.

ever since, either side of that. It just was, that's what I thought of. And that's the, I think that's the magic of the magic of writing. And it goes back to the whole thing of Tin Pan Alley. You know, you want to be a songwriter. You do your craft, you just write songs. You know, it's no good saying, I'm waiting for inspiration. It's, you just sit in that room and a lot of the time, nothing's happening.

But you just work those few hours and then you have the moment. Like, I often write words. they're kind of pretty terrible but I just let them come and I know that by 10 lines in I'm going to start like everything inside starting to work starting in shells suddenly I'm like oh these are way

better to get rid of those and here you have your magic and I love that I have some moments of inspiration where I'll write things down but I think the hardest part about being a writer and you said it earlier is that professionalism of just whether you write songs, books, poems, paint pictures, whatever you do, you just have to be in your place of work, trying to do it, and often failing, but just not being deterred by that, you know? To saying this is part of it. Like, if I can't think of something, I'll intentionally write something terrible. I'll be like, well, just write something terrible. What's the worst thing you can write? And so I'll do that. Of course, I have my own...

If you're going to write something bad, write something bad really well. Yeah, because you start to like, you know, like as I say, there are 10 lines in, start to pull his shit together and you like have some self-respect and you want to like, you know, build it up, then you get rid of what's weak. And I find like Dylan said this thing is kind of cool. There's no line as good as the best line of a song and there's no verse as good as the best verse of a song.

And so I love that whole thing of trying to just like, be responsible for every line that could be isolated, could be held up, this represents you, you know, and you just have to make it. I talk about fireworks, you know. I like lyrics that sometimes I write, and I like, oh, God, it's just words. That's just not words.

There's nothing interest in those four lines. They're literally just words. So you need something electric, something colorful, technicolor word to elevate that line. And that's what I was trying to do. I've definitely got better at editing. I used to rely on that Jet Karak thing of first thought, best thought. I've dined off of that forever.

But it's not good. Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. It's so cool to just like change things and getting them and be like, and really honest, like say, what is this about? Is this about enough? Am I saying enough to myself? And I don't believe that it has to always be meaning things, always be based in.

I know Ed Shearer and I read that he said, He's never written a line that he hasn't done, it isn't true, right? But I don't know if that sounds exhausting. Sometimes you need your imagination. You just write certain things. You can't write black and white rainbow if you, you know, if it has to be something you've done. Right, yeah, that wouldn't work, but he hasn't been there.

But I think one thing that people don't realize, and when I've worked with Enrique's of the world or Pitbulls or Salines that these people have 10 albums you know have that kind of thing it's interesting when you're sitting down starting from okay what haven't you said before like you know and how do you

or what's a reference to something that you said in album two you know what is the way to tell a journey and to keep the journey going and it's an I think people don't realize how complicated it is to keep releasing music that ups the ante you have to use your brain

a lot and keep being aware of. Like the amount of, I would imagine you have a lot of songs that are on the cutting room floor and some that are probably pretty good. What happens is there for some bits that are good? And then it was some bits that are good. But it goes back to the editing thing. Like I really try and stay in a song until I think it's worthy.

Like I had that recently, I was writing a bunch of new music, and I had the engineer coming in. Basically, I get it all together, and I can work pro tools, and I can put everything together. I don't do my own vocals. I sit with my voice recorder when I've got the music there. And I get my engineer, and I have a great engineer who comes in and just sort of, but when he comes in, the six tracks I've been working suddenly become 36 tracks.

I'm like, what happened? Where's the simplicity? Where did it go? And just working stuff through is really, really, exciting to sort of edit yourself. I've just definitely gotten better at editing because I don't believe that the first thought is the best thought anymore. I think the first thought is a wonderful stepping stone to where you're going. And I do think that, you know, because band members get it easy, they appropriate what you've already thought of. The hardest thing is a blank screen.

It's really easy to come in with something that's formed, working, or not working, but formed. Oh, try this, try that, try that. The hardest thing is nothing. You know, you've done that. We'd like, sitting there. It's just like the page is like, okay. And weird things when you walk up to a blank screen with an ego, you're like, today I'm going to write something sick, then you're going to sit down and you're like, nothing. It's like, or I've heard this before. This is, it's like, it's like, it can be a really humbling experience once you, you know, you go in the opposite way and you might be like, I don't know what I'm doing, but you, oh, that's actually pretty good. And it might inspire you to finish the song the other ways.

I don't know how you do it. I just wait for inspiration. So any part, I have to start with drums because I used to always ended up, everything like 16-s-one was written with the drum machine. Because I used to have this problem of having my chorus and verse in different tempos, you know, because you don't play with that. You just sort of, if you sit in your kitchen and you play on an acoustic,

you're like, what sounds really good for the chorus is really slow for the verse. You're like, oh, I know. So I had to get into using the drum. drums. And now I just love to, you know, I'm not that, I try, you know, I'd love to program and, but find things, you know, I might find loops, I might find, there's lots of things that you can use and just something that just is exciting enough to play a bass and that's fun. And suddenly, so I just build it up until I'm just, and the luxury of doing that on my own is

that when I write with Tyler Bates or written with Eric Ron, I go in the studio and I'm writing a song in an hour and a half. And it's just, it's like a race. Well, that's the joy of a co-write. It's different than struggling by yourself. Right, yeah. I like that.

And I think that the records benefit to have two different approaches, like, you know, more than machines. I write with Eric and Chris, they do the music, And I go, that's amazing. So I take the music and I'd put it in my studio and I just write a song on it. And that's just a fun, that's so much easier.

But I don't want to do every song like that because I think something comes from, you know, I would be so sad to not have I beat Lowness or any of the, you know, whatever number of songs on that record that I wrote on my own. As my friend, Savin says, writing to tracks is like writing a screenplay to special effects. And so, I mean, you know, when you're trying to write

and that's just like, well, now I have to figure out how to make this work in these parameters. And, you know, that can be tiresome if that's the only way you write. So, yeah, I think it makes sense to go and try a thousand different ways to write. And whatever inspires you that day is good enough for that day. Let's go through some rapid fire. Name three bands right now that you think are great.

Sleep token. poppy echo vandal are 90s crowds better than modern crowds? Well it's a really interesting one because to some extent there was like a wild abandoned that I miss

but then you see turnstile shows and you go you know what I just made me on the wrong tour and then you have incredible crowds like we've had recently this last tour so yeah maybe it's slight less wide but then you go to South America and it is the 90s

so they don't care I mean like go to Chile and play it's just insanity the enthusiasm the reckless abandon of the audiences but yeah so there's a bit of that but you know then that comes down to us to get it right you know if you build people up into a fever good things happen

If Bush started today, would that band break through? I hope so, but I don't think it would be able to be so well known because it's more of a genre-specific music now than the zeitgeist, than what's going on. And we were lucky enough that when we came up between Radio MTV and touring, plus it was the culture. That music was the culture. Now, if you reference what the culture is,

you're probably more likely to think of Kendrick Lamar, you know, more so than like, you know, I think bad omens are a fantastic band. But it's hard for rock. I mean, everything that I came from was counterculture. So it was just weird that we went through this spell of where it became the mainstream. And now, to an extent, it's sort of back to off-kilter. But the show is, I mean, you played a 60,000 people. these festivals. So it's not like it doesn't have an audience, but it's just... No, and I would bet money this is where music's going. It's going to be analog, analog,

and, you know, it's going to be cool if you can actually play instruments, and it's going to be cool if you can actually record without using AI, and it'll be cool if you can do... But it goes back to what you're saying about front men or front women, you know, what AI can't do is live the life that you've lived and have the person. perspective that people have. And that's why I think that performance and people in bands will always have a place because it's a shared human experience. And, you know, whilst the machines are phenomenal, technology is incredible in so many ways. It's quite astounding, right? I think we all agree. But it cannot replicate or identify

with the struggles that people have lived through. And so that's why there'll always be a place for people to connect with people that are leading bands, which again goes to your point why it's really good to have from people, because it's like a ship. You know, you need that person to galvanize an audience, galvanize the band, and that's infectious. You know, people want that. People want leaders.

People want that people want that figure. Nick Cave. you know. What's the least rock star thing you've ever done? The least rock star? You know, welcome building sites. Into dentist office. You know, painting.

No offense. That can actually be a pretty rock star thing. You know, give in acquiesce, agree to do too much, you know. It's kind of, I don't know. What's the most rock star thing you've ever done? Oh, the most rock star thing, I suppose, is just flying on jets to massive shows. It's the, you know, I'm always like, can we keep touring till the jets, not even a question? Yeah.

Enough bus already. You said your kids don't listen to your music, but what's one song of yours that you want your kids to remember you by? Well, I've got to just one quick caveat. I was in my room doing once. We were doing so they did, we did do a, some remixes of the songs when we're doing the greatest hits loaded. And my son, who's an amazing guitar player at Zuma, really, really good. I decided, I said to my management, I was like, we're getting all these people, can I try a remix? If it doesn't work, we just won't use it.

But like, I've got the studio, I've got enough things, I think. Let me have a go at it. And so I had a go doing the song. so I did a remake, he's a machine head. I actually felt really proud of myself. I said to my son, he came in from school, his bedroom was opposite that room. He came in.

And I played this in. And I was proud of myself, which is already a dangerous position to be in, for the ego was already pumped, you know? And he goes, you're not going to release it, are you? I was like, what you don't like it? He goes, that's machine head. The song's legendary.

Don't really start. So it was this weird compliment because I was like, he really thinks that one of my songs is legendary. And I was like really fucking it up by doing this remix. So it was kind of a reverse compliment about the other song. The remix didn't get much love. But the original song did and I was so sweetly. And sometimes I hear him playing it.

Oh, that's amazing. Which is a wonderful feeling. The other one is way too. the Kingston, my oldest one, he's like too, he's too cool to let me know he might be playing. Like he loves the pumpkins. They play every other band.

Yeah, yeah. They don't touch any bush. Yeah. You know, they keep away free. It's really funny. There's sort of a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, sort of a board around the band. But, so, yeah.

That's really funny. What's advice you'd give a guy who's in a band right now, who's in London, who's got, you know, who has like a dream to be in a band. What's advice you give that kid? I think that with people starting out with music, I mean, it's so simple. I think it's really important to just make the music you want to hear. make the music that's missing from your collection

you know put all your favorite bands together and make the hybrid of them because other people don't know those four bands put them together you know and just make the music that you want to hear and that's definitely going to be the best you can be yeah yeah right you know what I mean and then then then you're giving it the best shot possible conversely if you

try and sound only like someone else. There's always a sort of, it's just a bit empty. There's an emptiness to it. You do your own thing, always about you, what you feel, there's a consistency, and that's what I would, I would suggest to anyone making music. I think that lyric thing, you know, and you're talking about somebody saying that they write about their own life, or every lyric has to be something they've experienced, and you're trying to find a word or a phrase that you've never heard before or something that gives it fireworks. You know, that...

How's that Sharon saying that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's such a simple thought for you to have, without it, it's what you hear as fireworks. Right, yeah. And so then people on the other side, you know, the reason why people remember a lyric like glycerine off the top is because I don't know how many songs have that title. Yeah.

And with, you know, sung in that way. And it's like, because you naturally just heard it. Yeah, for me, us, Glistrin is like Semtex. It's like, it's a blowing plastic explosive. You know, and then I came here and it was like, soap. I was like, oh, okay, there you go. There you have it. Yeah, I think, you know, it's really about...

Everyone here thinks it's about something totally different. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't matter. Was that weird? Is it weird to travel around the word, world and have people consume a song like that with a totally different meaning because the word means something different? Well, like I said before, you know, it's so incredible when people inherit and covet the songs. You know, if you have a favorite song, I have different songs I like of people. You know, I put my arms around that song and it's something that I connect to. And so

that's what's all about. It's just finding, and that when you write things that satisfy your self. The chances are they, you know, like I've said it before, like, um, in going as far down inside yourself as possible to find your own truth of what you think, you know, you come across more universal truths than if you try to stay outside of the mind of yourself and to say, what can I say that's universal? Like that'll never work. Yeah, right. Say, what, what's, what am I really why am i why am i pissed off why am i frustrated why am i scared what is that i'm scared of and when you can write that and you can extract that from the the the the potentials in front of you that's when you start to kind of find something that's for me you know that's my feral way

well thank you for doing this podcast uh you know when i don't know right now it's it's hard for me to listen. I hear so much music and as part of the job and the Grammys and all the different things that I'm involved in where you just have this just a ton of music and I

listen to it with respect to like this is quality composition. I like that. That's really cool that they chose to do that. But the magic is hard to find in new music for me because I know how the sausage is men. But when I listen to

songs from my childhood. When I listened to songs from before I moved out here, before I got a degree and it, before I had a record deal, all that stuff, it just feels like, how was this written? How did this happen? What was in the magic of that moment? Like you were saying, when you record that one thing and you capture that moment, that audio recording, you're like, ah, man, I got it. That's special. and so many of your songs are part of this soundtrack for me, as cliche as that is, but fit in this place that I can't help but smile. My wife knows that if we're on a road trip

and she's going to put on for some element of time, she's going to put 90s all rock music, and I'm going to play every single part on the wheel, I'll know every single part, it just feels like, it still feels like magic to me. That's great.

Thank you. You've been part of that. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for being magical. Thank you so much. There you go.