The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Gavin Rossdale | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Billy Corgan sits down with Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale about Rossdale’s transition from a quiet London childhood and Kings Road punk scene to forging Bush’s blues-free, down-tuned sound. They trace the Pixies’ and Steve Albini’s influence on the breakout album Sixteen Stone, the grunge-era label hurdles, and the craft of matching raw lyrics with arena-sized guitars. Rossdale also reflects on Bush’s upcoming album “I Beat Loneliness”, his cooking show “Dinner With Gavin Rossdale, juggling fatherhood, touring, and mental-health realities while keeping the creative fire alive.  Watch The Magnificent Others on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

My understanding is you kind of get a deal with Disney's Hollywood records, and they just kind of stall you for a while. You kind of do that spin that they would do. Well, what happened is they delivered the record that was 16 stone to them, and that's the story is according to the guy from our label, Rob Cahane, that they had the record, the company, they threw the CD and they said, not only the no singles on this record, there's no album tracks, and threw the record at him.

Everybody, of course, talks about Nirvana, and there's good reasons for that. But really, it was the pixies that I think cracked her heads open. We thought we can be cool and play rock. Yes. It seemed to all kind of mash it together at the right moment.

I was lost. It would be fair to say that I'd... What I'd done exactly that point is I had been in London, and my second band had failed, and I was left looking what to do. And it was the first time in my life I was worried about it,

because before I had like a brazen. and youth like it will come right it will come right and that was just the most helpful sort of um signpost in the in a in a bleak on a bleak mountain thank you very much for being here thank you for having me i'm so thrilled we've known each other now about almost 30 years somewhere in there somewhere around yeah it's crazy and i was saying that i was so happy that so not many things are not surprising anymore i got that call to come I was like, it's so exciting. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so let's start at the beginning. I usually like to start different places, but with you, I want to start at the beginning. So is it true you didn't speak till you were four years old? Yes. I think I had like bossy older sister,

so she took her care of a lot of that and for whatever reason, there seemed to be no point. Maybe I hadn't thought of anything good to say. It wasn't a developmental thing. It wasn't tongue-tied. No, it just was a, um, just a, just, just a feral attribute, early feral signs of life. It's a pretty early age to decide. You know what? I'm just not going to talk. Yeah. I'm just, you know, I have this thing anyway about making music that, you know, there's, because there's already too much music in the world, but not enough great music.

It's like you just should make things when you can improve the silence. And I couldn't figure out how to improve that silence. That's an interesting concept. I couldn't figure it out. And it was, you know, I was a sort of point what I needed. And I think my sister enjoyed. the control over me. So I learned to be controlled by women

at the early age. We'll get to that. I didn't find a lot of information to what your parents were like. Right. Yeah, very interesting. It's sad in a way because when they met, my dad

was doing driving rally cars, was doing rally, amateur, right? Doing rally driving. Or like F1 type tracks? Or, no, road rally. Rally, like way down the thing. But he was in a little... But this is where they go through the villages

and you know, almost rent people over. Yeah, and my mom was from Scotland, from a small town of Scotland, and she'd come to London to be a model and, you know, swinging in 60s or whatever. And when they met, they both, well, he stopped driving and she stopped modeling to sort of like help, you know, I don't know to have a marriage, I thought it was a real shame. They should have, like, continued on. Oh, okay. So they were together until I was 12, and then I grew up just with my dad.

But what were their personalities like? Well, my dad is really, was really, he passed a couple of two, a few years ago, three years ago, four years ago. It's so weird, everything is two years ago now. COVID destroyed all timing. Right? My brain just goes, everything. If it's not now, it's two years ago. It's almost like pre-COVID, post-COVID brain.

Do you feel that? Yeah, BC, literally. So he was a really gentle, really funny, sly, like sushi shit. I feel like cut you up with wit, but very demure, understated. And then my mom was really fun. She was like wanted just to, she was the best out at dinner, like, you know, with a nice cold white wine and just like living the life. She was sort of a, she lived like that.

So it was an interesting balance between the two. So I think I have mostly my dad's characteristics, I think, a little bit more laid back. Like, I'm not the kind of artist that is a room full of people just really wants to play everyone my new song. Some people want to do that, check it out, and then everyone's sort of...

Yeah. I'll do it, but it's not my natural state. Yeah. Why did your parents get divorced, you know? I think my mom wanted a... was looking for just a... that bigger life, and I think that he was a bit more...

not looking for that big life. And so I think there's a disconnect there. And so I felt that she was searching, which I thought was a really good lesson to learn at 12, you know, to understand where someone leaves because they're searching with something. And we reconnected when I was about 20, mid-20s, you know? And I'd see her every year, more or less,

but she had different husbands, boyfriends and that. So it was a bit disconnected, which, you know, which is like really furtive ground for our world. That's really, really good. Yeah. That's really good. But, I mean, is it, you know, it sounds a little bit like the John Lennon's story where his mom kind of goes out of his life.

She's around, but he ends up living with an auntie. Right. You know, so in this case, you're living with your father, and I think an aunt. Yeah, my arm for a while, and she... But was that painful for you, that your mom's kind of, like, around? Well, my aunt, I mean. Well, she wasn't around. She moved out of actually England for a couple of years. Okay.

And then she moved out of town, so she was really elusive. I don't know where she was. Was she just sort of living the gypsy life? Well, no. She just had two or three stepfathers, husbands that she would move with wherever they were. So... Did you feel abandoned by all that, or... Yeah, of course. It was... I think about it most now when I look at my kids that age, and I just think, you know, if I go upstairs and no one's... getting the orange juice out of the fridge and they're like dumbfounded as how to put the

glass of the orange juice together from the other side of the kitchen. All going on tour when I feel horrible when I go on tour and I just, it's easier now because a little bit older but when they were really young, just that guilt, that hollow guilt. So now I reflect on that a lot and I think that wow, because there's no therapy then and no one said to me ever, how you doing? You're all right. I was a very mixed up kid.

I lived in quite a rough neighbourhood. And then went to a really intellectual school. So I had the kind of like the split life where no one trusted me, no one liked me for, you know, they were sort of caught in two worlds. And so that creates inner worlds, you know, and those inner worlds are the reason we're here. That's how we got here. So I knew a little bit about your history in late 70s, 80s music scene,

you know, that you were around seeing some of these great artists that are now considered legendary and influential, but at the time they were just kind of punk rock, or I don't know who you were particularly influenced by. I saw a couple things, but I know that's probably a little bit more specific than that. But I think it was attributed to your sister. Yeah. Kind of turned you on to this.

When you were about 12 or something. Yeah, what happened is she was really very cool punk. So when punk hit, she was really just... Is she dressed punk and was punk? Yeah, it's all the kind of the egg white and the hair, and just right the turn of it. And so it was like a real revolution. I mean, it was a revolution in England.

It was still, I mean, we realize it still now, it's such a watershed moment in music history. Yeah, the Italians were the green mohawks in Piccadou Circus are trying their best to keep it going, but it really had its moment then. Yeah. And so it was exciting to be part of that. So for me, I fit into that role of the kind of the kind of the, the cute young kid who just was go along with him.

Like tagging along. Yeah. And outside my house where we lived, the 31 bus, right outside my house, would go down to World's End. And what we had there was, on the King's Road, we had the punks, would be one side of the street and all congregating around seditionaries, Malcolm McLarenvin, Vivian Westwood Shop. And then you'd have the Ted's who, they were meant to be the, you know, they're all fighting. I never saw them. The mob. Is that like the left-door?

Mards, Ted's, that was the, you know, and then walking up and down. So we'd get a 31 bus and we'd park up there and walk up and down to Kings Road all day, you know, go into, did they have any money, just like the bus money. And then, you know, stuff like that's at the beginning of Public Image. Public Image played on the rooftop of this building. We didn't get in. We were just all in the, you know, on the, you know, just like a 12-year-old kid, you know, just it was all happening.

Amazing. And so that really, what that did is it really shook up the fire in me performance-wise. Like I just obsessed with the Sex Pistols and Johnny Leiden, just his performance. And that whole Richard the third thing, that whole stage thing was just, it was just brilliant. Everything about him was just everything that I sort of wanted to be, even though I was not, I was not a kid in a council estate, I was surrounded by council estates. but it just spoke to me that sort of rebellion and that sort of autonomy.

What about the rebellion spoke to, you think? I just think that making your own way and sticking up for yourself and not make you a brat, but just make you have that sort of tenacity to just follow your own way. Like, for example, I used to go to school every day where they sing Latin hymns, Latin hymns.

And I'm not religious at all, right? But I think that's where I learned my sense of cadence and melodies, because I would hear those things. I always use biblical references in my lyrics, bear it not. And so during that time, for example, I'd sit in the church and I'd see people and I'd be like, because I really did not feel connected to a God, a living God, you know, or a God that people see it traditionally. I was like, come on, we can't all be.

Come on, I'd be looking around in the congregation or whatever if I got to. And I'd be, you really? You really, is that where you really feel that? And I've always disconnected from that. And then the biggest irony would be that I got a half-brother who with my dad had three wives, but his first wife he had a son with. And that son went on become like a really successful person in the church. He's like Bishop.

That's interesting. Yeah, so there's a real, between the two of us, definitely a wide range of thing, a wide range, a wide berth. So what were some of the artists that you saw in those kind of early punk? Well, the thing was... Not just punk, too, because I'm more of a goth, you know, new waiver, but, you know, those... Because it's such an interesting period. Yeah, well, at that time I was too young to see the coolest bands that were happening.

What happened for me is that I would... There was a record store at the top of my street. like the 31 bus was there on Fairfax road and then above it was just like 30 feet away as a record store. So what I gave me was every week when I take my pocket money for doing chores around the house, cleaning stuff up wherever I could or not for my dad,

I would get all these singles and I go up every week and I, you know, and so I just fell in love with all these different bands. X-ray specs was probably my favorite. Sex Pistols, UK, well, not the UK subs, but I liked, I like this guy, um, um, um, um, Ian Jury. Yeah. In Jury in the block hairs. It just was Billericay Dicky and all these, and what it happened was and then there was just some reggae thrown in and then all these people around my house all these like punks, they were like a couple years older than me and I just thought they

they were so cool and they lived their life. There were squats with my sister who gave me to the squats. So I just couldn't believe that these, it just seemed like freedom. It was like, you know, they were all like anarchy and freedom and they do the living in squats around the corner from my house and we'd go to these mansion blocks. And I was like, just a token kid. So I like that spirit. So that just transferred and really, the more that I think about it,

even though I'm pushing maybe faster than you want. No, no. That's what got me into that performance of, you know, at a time when I was making music in London, it didn't really, the whole Britpop thing didn't have any performance. was connected to it. There's nothing. What was the shoegasers, right?

Yeah. And I loved my Birdie Valentine. That's one of my favorite bands. But not to go and see, you know, go and see the throwing muses. And it's not a big, you know? And so I like that performance stuff. And that's what I liked about the... I never saw, like, I loved the Gang of Four.

I never saw them live. You know, they were just a little bit before I could get in places. Yeah. So it was really like people like Perry. You know, Perry and James Addiction. I saw at this really tiny club in a Portsbella Road. And that just was just one of those life-changing moments of just like to be mesmerizing.

Like I'd seen Jim Morrison on video and I'd be like, you know, he's got this sinewy way on stage and he's trying to, you know, and I was trying to work out my own stage thing and starting at it being terrible. And it's like, what are the great people do? And that's why often it comes back around, you know. And I think that that's where I love so much about the guitar sound

that was hearing from, you know, from America with James, with Alice and Chains, with yourself. You know, it just was, it was so much, it was exciting to me. You know, I didn't want to be... Now you're skipping ahead of my story. Yeah, so, my bad. But I just, I've been thinking about it, so... No, because what I was, where I was going to go next is,

is when did you pick up a guitar, like, we're in this Arctic, Did you pick up a guitar? Well, I got given a bass when I was 14, and I used to take, you began with that question, and my sister's boyfriend had a band. So what I did was like, just help them move gear around and go to the rehearsal rooms. And you know, rehearsal rooms like I do, it's like, you know,

that stank, squalor, stink, the worst. You know, everything sounds awful. filthy mirrors dirty sink and I fucking love it. You take, I love it. I'm still like I know I just

it just sort of felt that I was there to get something done. Yeah. It just felt like I didn't, you don't want it that everyone would do it. Like if it was like sort of flying first class in Emirates to do a band literally too many people would be doing it

and like the fact you have to go through this right of passage and you have to except the stink. Yeah. So when do you start playing the guitar? The guitar was probably 16, 17, and just getting really trying to understand how people wrote this sort of Dylan, Neil Young, busking. As more you were thinking of it as a songwriting.

All as a songwriter. I mean, it's only much later on that I have. I just was, I started studying much more, and I went to see a great guitar teacher that I still work with today, the legendary Jean-Marc. He's very well-known in LA. And I said to him, because he teaches, was working with my guitar player, Chris,

and I said to him, will you come and teach me? You know, I need to, I'm getting lost around the net. This is ridiculous, you know, I need to get my shit together. And he goes, I said, by the way, I'm really, I'm a songwriter. I'm not, I'm not Chris, you know, don't be, he goes, yeah, be your compositions, oh, awesome. So he was, so, yeah, it began like that. And, yeah, it just began like that.

I think it began much, for me, more lyrically was what I felt that I could offer first, more than being able to come in and being any good at, you know, rearranging four-course. Because there's this, there's a span, you were in midnight, which I didn't know about until I started studying you up. Right. I was kind of surprised. What's interesting to me when I heard it was you sound like you, even then. You're singing.

Right. Your cadence of your singing and your voice is already there. Right. So it sounds like the Gavin that we all know, but basically in front of a synth band, that's a fair. Yeah. Well, what happened is that I, this amazing, because it all comes through ignorance, from my perspective. It all comes through sort of pushing yourself. So when I was leaving school, I just thought it would be so great to be a singer because that really was like...

Never crossed your mind before? Well, yeah, I was in a band at school, but we spent most of our time discussing what the name of the band was and playing jam songs. We did have three or four jam covers. So it just was like nothing was, we couldn't get anything going. And then... Okay, but what period of the jam? down the tube station at midnight yeah right okay because you know

if you're a jam person you got to kind of pick your period right right no we didn't get into the style council even though I did like those records Paul well I think is really amazing really incredible yeah so I had the weird thing about just sing verses and songs into a tape recorder and say the guy I didn't know if I'll be like

you must have a load of chords you no one's given the chance to play and so with people I knew from my school. And I was like, you know, play like, you know, the Stone Roses, you know, it's really happening. I said, what are the, what are indie chords? And I remember the guitar playing midnight going to me. That's just people that can't play very well. That's kind of true in a way, but I was like...

But they work. Yeah, but there's a barbarism to it that is essential that he was missing. That is, that I tuned too much later as I got better. guitar. And all that happened is that then the next band I was in, um, which had a number of names. Throw one at me if you could.

There's the Little Jukes there was. I heard about that. Head with two D's, but then there's another that was the Little Jukes, right? But he was a really good guitar player. He is a really good guitar player, but really super bluesy. Now for whatever reason, the blues don't sit with me. I've never really used the blues apart.

Can I say something I love? Because when Jane's a diction first started breaking in America, there was an article in Rolling Stone, and they were in the rehearsal room with James. And the line that really stuck out in my head was, Dave was playing something, and Perry said, no blues. Because if you think of James, they solved the problem of playing rock without sounding bluesy. Yeah. I mean, I'm just... Right? Somehow they sound epic. They're playing the same chords, but it doesn't sound bluesy. Right. Which growing up in Chicago, go, you know, there's always the shadow of the blues. Of course.

Especially if you do A to D to E. It's like, that's every blues song ever, right? Right. Well, it's just a sound, isn't it? And that's why I never like it. I always bristle when everyone says it calls the Bush rock and roll, because I'm always like really proud of the fact that we avoided all, lots of blues changes.

No, you, it's gross. Yeah, I have a bit in here about that. So like, hold that thought a little bit. Slide, obviously, is bluesy that we did all over the first record and that thing. I think you've completely avoided this. Yeah, yeah, we have. It's just a certain sound. And I'm...

But let me get to that, please. What I try to do when I talk to somebody that I like is I try to think, like, what don't I know? And oftentimes what surprises me is there's a lot of things I thought I knew. I don't know, right? And then when I fill it in, I get a much more three-dimensional picture of what actually happened. Right. You know, I mean? And especially because we were both doing it at the same time.

Right. You know, your memory is like images flashing by in a window. But to slow it all down and go back through it, like, it made me appreciate things about you that I hadn't appreciated before. So that's kind of what I want to get at, but you got to let me get there. So when did you first start hearing, you know, obviously there was things like the Valentine's, My Bloody Valentine in UK as early as I think 89 that was going on. And there was bands like Ride and stuff like that. And then obviously across the pond, as you all say,

there was the Seattle thing. There was what was going on in Minneapolis. Like what part of all that, right? What part of all that first got your attention around what year? The year might be tough. Whenever surf rose, I was obsessed with 4 AD records, you know. Yeah. Oh, that's 80, 88?

4AD. Surferosa, 88 or 9? 889. So what happened was... Is that the album Afterdo, Little? No, it was before. Okay, right. So it was like...

You're talking about the Pixies, so... What the Hell? So what happened is that, like, Erosmith were ruling the world. Or like, hair metal bands, right? Oh, yeah. They're doing rock. Now, when I would listen to those, I'd enjoy ERISMith, which are super bluesy, who are super bluesy.

But only because I just couldn't believe his voice is just the most incredible instrument, you know, one of the greatest voices of all time, I think. So I loved him, but I felt really disconnected from any ability to go anywhere near that style of music. Do you? It just seemed, I didn't have the pants tight enough. So when I played the Pixies,

and I remember the moment, because the most beautiful artwork Vaughan Oliver, who I subsequently hired to do Razorblade suitcase record because I love him so much. If I couldn't get signed to the label, I might as well use their art director, right?

And when I put that record on, and I... Just the Steve's sound, well, it was the sound of the pixies, but actually Steve's sound, which is just Steve's drum sound. And then hearing, you know, Michael, Frank Black,

whatever, singing, I suddenly realized that was that it was possible to make rock music, emphatic music. I think we all had the same realization. I think we all had the same realization in almost the exact same time. Really?

Well, Cobain talked about it a lot. Right. I saw them in that exact same period, and I had the same revelation. It's like, how are you generating this power, but you don't sound like all those other bands? Is that what happened? Everybody, of course, talks about Nirvana,

and there's good reasons for that. But really, it was the pixies that I think cracked her heads open. We thought we can be cool and play rock. Yes. It seemed to all kind of mash it together at the right moment. I was lost.

It would be fair to say that I'd, what I'd done exactly that point is I had been in London and my second band had failed and I was left looking what to do. And it was the first time in my life I was worried about it because before I had like brazen news like that. It will come right. It will come right. And that was just the most helpful sort of signpost in a bleak, on a bleak,

of where to head towards, you know, and then you have to make your way, you know, Kim being the perfect foil for him. There's so many things about it you can't emulate, you can't do. They were unbelievable. But that was where I really felt liberated that there was hope. There was a way forward, you know. You have to forge your own. way. And if you look at, then you get into like, you find Fugazi and you find, you know, who I just

think they're the greatest band. That turned me on to the Jesus Lizard. That's why I was listening to all of all of esteemed. We had a lot of that in Chicago because Jesus was over Chicago. And everybody would come through and play the Metro in Chicago. So we got every one of those bands. I saw Happy Mondays open for the Pixies undue little. Wow. Packed Metro. I mean, you couldn't move. Right. And of course, the Monday. Mondays were an hour and a half late because the lead singer was getting a VD shot. Oh, so the Mondays made everybody wait an hour and a half to start the gig. And when the Mondays came on to play, the crowd boot him out of the building.

And the Mondays being Manchester, right, one of these. And they just started playing. And by the end, the crowd loved them. I've never seen a band turn a hating, growing object crowd into loving them in 60 minutes, like I've seen in that gig. And then after that was then the Pixies doing Doolittle in that moment, in Chicago, you know, with Steve and his whole world there

because obviously the connection. So that was really interesting ground zero moments, you know. Saw Sound Garden same time, you know, louder than love, that tour. Yeah, that was, you see, that for me was just the record because I was stuck in London, so I would hear that record when I heard that loud of love. I just, I just, I feel that confusion of like one.

What is this? Yeah. Like, I remember the first time I heard them, I think, I couldn't tell if they were taking the piss. And actually some people I knew were like, oh, it's a joke. They're not really playing heavy. They're pretending to play heavy. Right. But then you'd listen to Chris singing.

You'd think, I don't know if they're pretending. There's no fucking way you could sing like that. And of course, Alison Chains. Oh, great. Fantastic. And that man in the box was a, you know, Dave Jordan. It just was like there was hope. It was just sort of, it felt like that was when it made sense

that I began my journey really focusing on the words and thinking that other people were doing the music. And inadvertently, people weren't doing the music. So when my second band, the guy would let me play, I wasn't, you know, he didn't want him to play guitar because he was a really, really good guitar player. But the point about it is, as we know, it's not about being the best guitar players,

having the right chords to support the song. Even the feelings. Right. So to support the song. And so it just unlocked something in me. But it's interesting because, but what about with you, where did you start playing guitar?

Because you're so musical that must have been in an early journey. You didn't know like a ragamuffin like me coming in late with, you know. My father was a professional musician. So, and he was a really great guitar player. So I started playing about 82, but I wanted to be a metal guitar player.

So all my early playing was all shredding. Right, of course. Bing Bay Malmsteen, Richie Blackmore, Eddie Van Halen. That's all I did for the first couple years. And then I had a disabled brother. I still have a disabled brother. Because I had to take care of him a lot, I would be stuck inside the house.

So I would play the guitar sitting on the bed and I would think it was so boring just to play chords. It sounded so boring to me. So I started playing that style where it would sound like two guitars at once. I'd never heard The Cure. And the first time I heard the Cure,

I was like, wow, somebody plays like me because of that Dean, Susan the Banshees, or whatever that style is, that open style. And that's when I started to merge this idea of metal, you know, and this idea of like, let's call it alternative guitar. Right, right, right. You know?

So it's a long time of California. chop. Hey, that's my thing now. I mean, I was doing that stuff in, I actually I had a band called the Marked that played in Florida that played that style in 85. So I was combining Sisters of Mercy and Metallic in 85. Wow. But the band wasn't very good. So I gave it up.

And then I picked it back up when Jimmy Chamberlain joined the pumpkins and that's when we started playing rock. So we were playing rock by 88 in earnest, and then we'd see bands coming through, like, Soundgarden, and jains and stuff like that. We opened for janes, and so we start to see this, like, there's this other thing happening. So that's kind of where that all came from.

But it all came from having played metal first. Right. Not New Wave. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great thing. It's like working where I work with Paige Hamilton. Yeah, great. I'm pretty sure we either opened for them once,

or I saw them once on that, on the famous album. Right, meantime. Oh, are you kidding? Yes. Because nobody was really playing down tune then? Yeah. So when you heard it live. Yeah.

And it was a place that held like maybe 200 people. Right. Yeah. So good. We did it. I did a, you know, I always wanted to do it, you know, you were somewhat chasing, especially in a younger, like chasing and I thought, I know if I do a side project, it's going to look really creative and look this really cool when you do people with side projects. You know, on touch and go, they do side projects in like four weeks and then we go back to the event.

I was on Interscope, so it took me a couple of years of Jimmy I've been making me write hit singles. I'm like, this is a side project. I'm just trying to be on, I'm going to be on Matador Records. You know, what are you doing to me? I want to go back to my other band afterwards. And, you know, and Paige came in to produce us. So it's just for context. You're talking about...

Institute. After Bush broke up. You do this record. They took a break, and one guy had the guitar player fell. You know, he wanted to spend more time with his. kids and I said I want to do this side project so I always thought it looked cool and people do side projects you know and for whatever reason I thought it would be a fun thing and but so I had a few songs and de-tune songs was really fun dent down a C-sharp and page said you know I love to

do the record and he goes we're leaving the meeting goes out all the songs are C-sharp right it's rolling dropped I was like yeah absolutely I hadn't written I hadn't written them I was like yeah of course they are went off and just wrote a whole lot yeah and so get into that whole de-chews things are really fun. I'm obsessed with D-Tuned guitar now. Yeah. It's the whole world. Just, you know, I have a new guitar model that's tuned D-to-D.

Wow. So it's the whole, normal guitar dropped a whole step down. And then if you want to drop it, then it's C. The dad guy. Yeah. No, no, it's the whole guitar's D, G, C, F. It's normal guitar. It's a little slightly longer, and it's pitched for downturned guitar.

I've got to get you one. I've got to get one. It's good. It's really good. You make it with? Reverend, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. I've done four signature guitars with Reverend, so this is the fourth.

Wow. People love it. It sounds incredible. Chef's kiss. Really? I'm sure, chef now. All right, so let's go back. You got to keep you on my little timeline here.

So you meet Nigel in 1991, somewhere on there, Future Primitive. Yep. I didn't know that was the original name. So was your intention with Nigel, okay, I want to do this type of music? What happened with him is that I met him? We, through a friend of us, and we had, like, a long night together, and we were just playing, he loved the Gun Club, birthday party.

And it was just really exciting getting to know someone who could play. You see, because I'd been limited to the musicians, I knew the last guy was too bluesy for me. So it was like, every time we do solos, be like, why, what I mean he was, is that blues sound? It was just not good for me. It was just like, you know, if John Mayer, who's a, amazing blues guitar player, but if he played on my stuff, it was something like that. So I try to convince

him to do a band together, you know, and he said to me, look, I'm doing these training videos for clients, and they were paying a thousand pounds of time. He was maybe doing a couple of weeks. He says, so I can't really afford to take the time out to write songs at you. If you have songs, why don't I just demo them for you? So that's interesting. That's where it all began that I I wrote songs on my own. So I went and I was like, I sat... You never really wrote songs on your own before? Never.

I'd always been sat with someone. Yeah. So then I was like, oh my God, I was like, you're such a phony. Like, you say you're a singer, like, write a song already. So I sat down and started writing songs, and I was like amazed that, okay, oh, okay. And I found, it was like this liberation. And so I'd write and I'd take him, like, the first song I took him was Come Down. And he demoed it up so good.

And I was like, oh my God, this is incredible. And I felt so free because I felt constrained by the other bands because I had no control over the music. I could say what I liked, but I wasn't physically playing it. So it was a bit limiting. And by writing the songs myself, and then he plays on the top, he's doing all the Joey Santiago, all the semi-tone stuff, and everything's all happening.

And he even did, when we did, that was when Billy Cobham had that safe from harm. The Massive Attack had that sample out on their record on safe from harm. And that fit, it's similar. So I remember sitting in my bath

in my apartment in London and thinking, that's it. It doesn't matter. I'm just now in a cool band. I'm never the most successful, but the point is, this is cool. Yeah, you're finally cool. I was, because every time I'd play demos

people and they would be like, They look at me like it wasn't cool, and I'd be thinking to myself, I know it's not that cool, but there's this terrible disconnect. So this is the first time he'd be playing stuff. I'd be like, oh, my God. And he was a master, Nigel, of finding the right notes. Just he could find the right notes. How ever simple they were.

I mean, the machine head, the intro, it's just these octaves. It's nothing yet in that moment, in that time, on that, in that, so the alchemy of those two notes of his chords, brilliant. Yeah, it's just so good and he always would do it. He'd always find those notes and elevate whatever I did. So then when I go back to him and say, I take the pressure off now, so finally can we write together? You know, now we'll go back to normal.

He says, none of this is working great. I'm making my money and you're bringing me good songs. So once we built up a repertoire of, say, 12 songs, he said, let's try a band. rehearse him out. See what's like. So I had a friend of mine who was a screenwriter, is a screenwriter. He subbed in the drums for us for a while, and he was a really, he was a jazz drummer. So he was really fun, and he was on heroin at the time. He really had a laid-back good feel, right? And we had this bass player, Malcolm, who's lovely Swedish

guy, Malcolm Pardin. I thought there might be a problem in future, the other bass player called Malcolm Pardt, but it was a really amazing bass player. He laid a great. He laid a left. And then I got this drummer called Amir, who's Iranian jazz drummer, because I love jazz drummers in rock, you know. Is it because of the swing in it? It's the feel. Yeah. I mean, I would consider like Jimmy has that feel. Yeah. Matt, Matt from, you know, Sal, there's an internal swing. Yes, as opposed to much more. It's weird when you play with the guy who's a great drummer, but doesn't have the internal swing. Yeah. Feels a little too. Yeah. Yeah. It's, that's, that's, that's, that's a lot.

most rock drummers for me. So then he left to join a 12-piece jazz band just before we signed our record deal. I was so sad to lose Amir. He was brilliant. And then we got Robin, who's a great drummer, but much more straight, straighter. But he did great for us.

And then now these last few years, I've got a drummer who's much more in the middle with a great, with a lot of jazz-y chops and vibe. So Nick Hughes. Walk me through this. I mean, we wouldn't have to go too long. But my understanding is you kind of get a deal with Disney's Hollywood records, and they just kind of stall you for a while.

You kind of do that spin that they would do. Well, what happened is they delivered. They deliver the record that was 16 stolen to them, and that's the story is according to the guy from our label, Rob Cahane, that they, at the record, the company, they threw the CDM and said, only than those singles on this record, there's no album tracks, and threw the record at him.

Because Frank Wells, who'd signed us, got killed in a helicopter crash. So we're being reviewed by the team there, the subsequent team there, you know? And they dropped us. Was Frank Wells killed in that crash with Stevie Revan? I don't know. No, I don't think so the same crash, but it was just a helicopter crash. So I was just so confused, you know, because I did the record that I went back to work. You know, I was back painting.

So I was like, well, can you made the record? I had no idea what was possible. No one told me what was possible. I didn't know what was possible. I was living in London, you know. And you're dealing with American record company, right now? Yeah. So I didn't know what, you know. Was there not interest in you guys in the UK?

There was interest to rock. There was, that was the height of Brit Pop, right? So that was, that was, people were looking for like the next pulp. Yeah. And the next oasis. and our style, I suppose. So I was well known enough to the whole community to get demo time.

So I could always afford to go and make the demos. I've never heard back what they thought of the demos, but I quietly was building up the repertoire of having the real band. Because Nigel would do the stuff at his house, and then we'd go in. And so all those recordings were paid for by all the different labels in London.

Yeah. So we're just like, okay, thank you. three days in the studio and you just try and do, you know, you do four songs, you know, that sort of thing, and you cram it. And so then when I got this, then I did a TV show called, it was the midweek show on Channel 4 for a TV show. And they always showed an unsigned band. And they did a video.

So that worked as a video for us, went to this guy in America. And then we had all the songs. That was all 16 stone. Wow. And they go, oh, that's the ring. They said, he's like, oh, yeah, we'll sign him. And then everyone was like, don't sign with a guy in the valley. They, he's crazy.

And I was like, or do what? Or do what? Sometimes it's life you've got to jump. So we just decided to jump. This is Interscope? Well, no, that was the trauma. So we did the record. Then they said, oh, distribution's falling through.

What does that mean? You know, we're dumb, young. What does that mean? well there's no one to distribute the record yeah we can put it out but no it's going to yeah there's no one to take it from store to store literally can't distribute it oh what do you do by that don't worry

just leave it with us so then I got the you know it was working and I was doing 11 dentist offices I've said that story so very Kafka because there was sort of large offices painted in magnolia color so it's very weird which is this over and over and over a note

yeah and but I didn't feel bad because I sort of felt quite excited that I'd made a record that I was proud of. I felt good. I felt like, okay, so where's life going to take you now? You're a musician, you have this record. My aunt, who I grew up with and was like my second mom to me, like you brought up to me.

She knew this guy called Colin, and he'd made one record, and it was just coolest when he came around, because he was on a record. He was like sort of a, he did sort of a yacht rock, early yacht rock stuff. I don't know what it was, but it's just like, he had a record, she had a record with Colin on it. He had a record. And he came around. the house and I just, because she lived with us, you know, I just thought, that's so cool.

So I like, I've done it. I've got a record and now let's see what, you know, you're young and just bouncing around and getting on with life. And then when they said, oh, come to, you have to come to L.A., K-Rox playing your song. It's a hit on K-rock. I was like, that's amazing. Did they know, did they even, did they even, did you know what they were even putting it out? No.

No one even told you? No. That's such a record label thing. Yeah. So what they probably did is throw it at the wall to see if it would stick. Well, no, what they did is they had got the interest from K-Rock. Kevin started playing it. Then Ted Field heard it.

And he owned me from his car on K. Wow. And so then he said, come to America. I remember it was in the mother. Come to America. The record is really taken off of K-Rot. And we needed to come out here. So I came back out.

And then they took me to the record company to see Jimmy and Ted. And now I'd been to all these labels before and been rejected a hundred times. So I was like, what am I flown all this way? I don't understand. I thought you were my record deal. I was so, I was just an independent label. Yeah, we don't have the capacity to distribute the record. We're just signed to us.

Okay. So Interscope wanted to basically do a deal with trauma because of your record. Yeah. So they did it. They did the distribution. And that's how then. And then that's when, no doubt, he'd been languishing on the five years, you know,

making their record. That's when they got picked up. Jimmy said, go with this guy. Look what he's done with this band. And that guy did it for them as well. That's how that worked. That's crazy. So, that's how it worked.

So that's how that, yeah, that was it. So isn't it amazing how life is like these, just like a knife edge of things, like these things, they were. It could have been, it could have been that one day that somebody decided now when you, we wouldn't know who you are. There was no feeding frenzy. There was no feeding.

Yeah, well, we got rejected 20 times, you know, before we got signed. And even then, they were kind of like, okay, we're going to give you this little side deal. So I know that feeling. You're like, you're waiting and waiting, you're like, what are we waiting for? Is it either a yes or a no? I feel like I'm still waiting. Waiting for what, though? Well, that's the thing.

Just the next step. Just what is it, you know? To just, you know, how are the wolves that really at the door? You know, I think that some people have it a, I don't mind it. I sort of feels quite, it feels solid to be always in a situation where you are making your own way. Okay. It feels like that. You know, like, I don't know what it feels like for you, but it never stops being a fight, never stops being a, it's to convince people of this, I want to do that.

It's never, nothing's easy, nothing. Of course. What a great idea. Let's help you do that. You know, it's always a bit like a bit challenging. My thing is I finally realized the fight is my, with me. It took me about 40 years to figure that one out. Right.

It's strictly with me. I've been fighting me the whole time. It's worked for you. Yes and no. Okay, so I love that you've explained all this because it does help me understand because, of course, you know, I'm just in a band and hear you guys come and suddenly you're on the radio and all that stuff. And as you know, I was very critical

the time of what I perceived as second wave bands bandwagon, you know, suddenly like, oh, now everybody wants to do grunge, you know what I mean? Everybody's sad. Sure, you know, A minor to eternity. So how did you... Because you're telling a beautiful story, which is like, you know, it just kind of... and I had faith and I found the right guy and we did the thing and here we are and it looks like nothing's going to happen and suddenly it's happening at

I'm in LA and Jimmy Iving wants to talk to me. Yeah, you know and then boom, you're thrown in the, you're as red meat into this culture award that was going on in America about authenticity about who sounds like who and who has a right to play loud guitar and all that. How did that, how did you feel about all that? Well, it was like bursting is the best party ever and then you're naked. You're very good looking, so it wouldn't be such a bad fact. I just mean the idea that you, you know, I think that before I found a way to connect with people that like the band, I just always felt out of place, really out of place. Like I just knew that there was something. I even had this weirdest thing when I was a kid I used to dream about Los Angeles. I had no reality, no connection or no justification for that.

It just seemed to be some sort of Xanadoo, some place that could save me, and some place that I just wanted to get away from where I was. I was desperate to get away. It seems so gray and dark and dour. And I just couldn't. All I could think of Los Angeles, but I had nothing tangible that would justify that. It just was a notion and idea.

Yeah, like a Shangri-La, right? Yeah. So, but I just want to persist in the question a little bit more because I remember this very acutely, and you and I talked about it around those times, but I want to hear your impression now. It's not an easy place to be if you're being held up as the example of something, you know, especially, and I learned to know this about you over time. I didn't have that impression at the time, but over time, I gained, I think, what is a more refined impression of what you were doing musically.

But it couldn't have been easy to kind of be given a certain amount of stick about it. Yeah, it was so, like, it was as if when I got going and was selling the records or having people come to the shows, I felt suddenly I was in the right place. I said where I should be. This is why I was like hanging on to the rope, wouldn't let go through all the things going past me. So therefore, it was disappointing to not be, you know, to have that disconnect for people. Yeah.

Because it was like, in our journey, it was like, damn, I don't know, we just wrote these songs. And like, everyone said, no, for so long. And then somehow we got in, we snuck in the door and suddenly we're inside the building. and people like it, I don't know. So we were sort of vilified for that. But yeah, it was, I think it was hard.

So the biggest disappointment was from contemporaries. With journalists, it just was sort of, it seemed part of the course. One of my favorite things I ever did was interview Markey Smith. The four were massive band for me. I love the four. Great band. Just amazing.

What a brilliant, the brilliant lyric. Yeah, all of it. And when I did it, I did an interview with him once for Q Magazine, and we were interviewed by the same journalist. And I've never seen anyone terrorize a journalist better than Markey Smith. It was just unbelievable. I was just so naive and not good at it.

And I always, you know, I kept to think, I should have been more cynical, I should have been more, you know. That's not your nature, though. No, it wasn't so. But it didn't serve me well because I just would go into these interviews and these situations like kind of gormously and just open and then just be, and then just kind of be a savage. Well, at least you understand maybe a little bit better now why I was the way I was then.

Right. I wouldn't take that. Yeah, the thing is, I wasn't savage in the moment. I was, it was. So they would come at me in the moment. Oh, right. No, I was never, I would have, I would have preferred that because it's not like, you know, it's like I grew up in a major city.

So I'm perfectly good with confrontation. It's sometimes easier because then I know, this is where we're at. Just, yeah, just as we're out on the table. When you're just sort of, when you're naive and waffling and just full of youth and nonsense, that could be just like, you know, tailor-made any way you like. I did have a guy come up to me at, actually at Sasha's house that my ex-drummer guy helped me out, a guy from Rolling Stone who had said to me, he said, he waited until other people had gone into another room, there's a whole big dinner,

and he wanted to talk to me on my own, and he said, I want to really apologize to you for my review of Razor Blade's Suitcase. There was an editorial slant when I was told, and Steve Albini had said, you should listen to this band, you must listen to this band, don't count this band out. They're much more interesting than the thing. He said, he said, I wouldn't do it, and I savaged you. And I just want to apologize for that.

I said, well, I sure hope you feel better. Yeah, to give some context to what you're saying, I've met journalists through the years, and they would turn in a review of our records, and the editor would say, you need to go back and rewrite this and slag the band or even lose your job. Is it so weird because I don't think of you like that. I think of this pumpkins is such a...

Oh, we got horrible. We got horrible reviews in the time. Horrible, yeah. You got too much... You got kids, but we got horrible reviews. Horrible. Especially in the UK. The worst reviews we got was in the UK.

Right. That doesn't really make sense to me, but I was completely unaware of that. That's a... Well, it always looks... It always looks rosy. I mean, I think I've done, I don't think you've quite had your fair accolades of the devastating place you have in music. The musicality that you brought to rock is your, there's no one who's done it like.

Oh, go push. I do think that. Thank you. And it's funny because my son is so in love with your band that we basically, I hear more pumpkins than anything else in my life. It's my great revenge on you. No, it's no problem. So I absolutely, it's devastating. And it occurred to me.

It's funny that when you're young, you know, we had that lovely talk at the MTV Awards, I think it's in Europe, where you said to the science of things. You said, I'm finally a fan. He said, I'm finally a fan. I listened to your record, and I'm finally a fan. It was the third album, and I was like, and then I remember you said to me, we were talking, and it was really fun for me to talk to you.

I sort of respect you, do you so much to that point, as I do now. And I said to you, you said, yeah, you know, I mean, you had your MTV moment, and I was like, I did. I did. God, I remember leaving there thinking, God, I guess I've had my moment with MTV. I'm terrible. You reminded me of the first time we ever really talked, and I love and respect this about you to this day. We were somewhere at something, you know, God knows where we were in the 90s.

And I saw you and I thought, oh, God, you know, because I'd said dumb shit about you. And you came up and you said, why are you saying these things about me and my band? You know what I mean? And we had this kind of conversation where I was very honest with you about my impressions. And you said, okay. And I was like, oh, he's a good guy. You know what I mean? And that began a, I don't want to say it's a relationship, but we've had this, like, beautiful kind of connection ever since then.

It was like the first time I saw he's a real person, you know, not a construction, not a record company fiction. You know? And then because of that, then I started paying attention, and then I became a fan. And now, because I know I was going to talk to you, I went back and listened to everything again. And so much of the stuff holds up so well. Thank you. It's aged really, really well, well-produced, well-sung, great lyrics. So you proved me and a ton of people wrong.

And, I mean, I figured out in the 90s that you were part of us. because it, you know, it was hard for us to even earn, you know, even one quick thing because you worked with Steve Albini. When Steve passed away not too long ago and it was obviously a sad thing and way too young, people dug up all these quotes where Steve was slagging us off, like way, way back in the day. And I said it on one thing, but nobody really caught it. I talked about how Steve and I got to know each other. And Steve was amazing with me. He would lend us gear.

He saved my ass a couple times with, like, studio stuff. I recorded it electrical. He was a fucking great guy. So it's this idea of, like, that, you know, red team, blue team. You know what I mean? So I made the same mistake that Steve had made with me, you know. Right. He's there.

I'm over here. You know, and I'm here and you're over there. And then eventually you all figure out, like, no, we're actually all kind of in the same club. And we kind of come at it from different ways. And in a good way, I'm appreciative of Steve because Steve was, if you're going to hold people up on the, let's call it the Integrity Olympics, Steve was the integrity Olympics. He was that guy. He was the guy who'd record a band for $500. He was the guy who lived it.

And he wasn't just, a lot of those people are fake, as you know, the indie people, right? Steve was the real deal. So if Steve held you up to that mirror, you kind of had to look at it and say, okay. hey, why am I really doing this? So, anyway, the point I was trying to make is, you know, I think it's really cool that it's all kind of worked out. I don't know if you feel that, but I feel that now. Yeah, I mean, I think that, um...

I mean, you guys are doing big tours and... Yeah, it's... It's beautiful. Yeah, it's... Yeah, and I think that's... I hope it just comes down to just the eyes always been on the right thing, which is just to be as great as possible. And like you're saying, the battles with yourself. For me, in our world, the better the song you write,

the better the performance you give, the easier your life is anyway. Do you know what I mean? And I just feel deeply at the wheel of my creativity. I don't feel like I'm phoning in any records, any songs. I'm not a resident, you know, I feel very, very in control and like the best at editing. myself I've ever been. Well, what's interesting because I went back and listened to the, to the,

to the, to the, to the catalog recently. And from the first to that third album, there's this kind of figuring out that goes on. It might have been the touring. It might have been confidence. But, but when you hit that third album, you've, you've, you've arrived. Like, you sound like you, it's your world, it's your music. And people can't see that about you, I think, including myself, and it took me a hot minute to do it. It sells what you did short. And I think, I think, I have this whole rant that I've been doing lately, but it's essentially like this.

We all grew up in the shadow of the baby boomers. You know, all we ever heard about was the Beatles and Pink Floyd and the stones, and they're still going, right? We had to kind of fight as a generation to kind of say, this is who we are. We have a different way of doing it. And in a weird kind of way, because we grew up in a baby boomer system, It pitted us against each other.

We had to kind of fight to be on MTV or fight the, you know, what you mean? Because the oxygen for rock bands at that time was very, very limited. So I think there's something sort of beautiful about, like, almost like when soldiers reconcile after a war. It's like we all survive that. Those magazines, what they cared about, don't matter, but our music has endured. And the fact that we can lovingly respect, like, wow. what you did and what I did and what Steve did and what the Pixies did, we can all step back and say, wow, that we did anything at all is a miracle.

And the fact that 30 years later, that people care, particularly young people, that's the most, like, humbling thing. So when you say that your son loves my band, it's like it hits me right in heart because... He is really, really... He's also a tea drinker from our... So, yeah, he's... Oh, my God, that was the best day of his life when he got that package from Cloud. He just thought it was a great...

My wife loves you, by the way. It's just so you know. She said to say hello to you. So since we were talking about Steve, talk a little bit about working with Steve, Abby Road last the year, 1996. You remember 1996? Yes, I do. Well, I remember going for lunch with him because I got one of my, the greatest letters

from Steve, one of the great letters in my life. So I went for lunch on a, you know, when we were on tour, We're just playing clubs, but we had a day off in Chicago, and they said, you know, doing new record, who do you think of work with? Now, that's when I loved, obviously, the Pixies, but also PJ Harvey's record that rid of me had just come out. That was Steve?

Yeah. Oh. And that was my favorite record of hers. It still is. It's just, and super bluesy, but really. But even the way she, to be fair, I don't know, I don't know her. I don't know, Polly, but somehow she made the blues sound fresh. Yes, because she's so fresh, but yeah, for sure.

But so when I heard that record, it just filled me. I remember this when we actually were making 16 stunter, I remember, and I said it, Clive Lange, can you make it more like this? He goes, you've got to write the songs like that. So, whatever, when I was going to make a record, I just thought, oh, my God, Steve would be amazing because we've been on tour now for two, three years. We'd gone, actually gone from clubs, theaters. We were playing arenas on that one record.

And so it was like, basically, you know, maybe there's Dave Jordan I'd spoken to, but I went to have lunch with Steve, and I didn't know what it would be like. I remember I met David Yao for the first time at Ross Kilda. And I said to him, I was so naive and an idiot. I was like, you know, I can't wait at me, Steve. He's, you know, he's so pure, he's so real.

And Yao goes, yeah, yeah. He's really real. Lund's like, I knew then I'd like, I'd like, you know, it was not a good poker play. But then I went there, so when I had lunch with him, and I went to lunch with him and Heather. We went for a Greek restaurant, Greek town in Chicago. And I just... Which, by the way, Pete Katzis, who works with you and I've known Pete for 35 years. His dad used to run around that very part of Chicago.

Yeah. They paid him. Nick the Greek, I think, was his name. Yeah. Okay. Protection money. So we go for lunch and we're just talking, whatever. And then I got this great letter, paraphrasing the letter.

And he says, dear Dave, who's our marriage at the time, I've been around so many people in the music business that I'm almost not in new to the bullshit that surround me. Heather, however, has an excellent detector and has found Gavin in front. fine form. And so therefore, I'm more than happy to extend my services and work with Bush for their upcoming album, what details to follow. And so it's a great moment. And, yeah, we did, first off, we did a little bit in the countryside at Trevor Horn Studio. And it was funny seeing Steve in a domestic setting with like the birds chirping and a wonderful old Tudor home. And it sort of didn't seem right, you know.

And then he had to go back to do something. And then when he came in, he had a problem. And we ended up, he said, we canceled that place and we're going to go to Abbey Rose. We did Studio 2 where the Beatles worked. And he did everything live. Like, it was just so wild. The tracking was live. Yeah.

He didn't really believe in much overdubs unless it was compositionally intended. If you said, like, you know, I did this. I said, Steve, you know, this is course. can I put a harmony on it. So he's like, okay. So I come back at the other track listing, Pointless Harmony. The album, what does it call the album, Pointless Harmony?

That's a pretty good time. I should have called it. I should still, that's something. I'd still use that. It's so good. Were you happy with the way it turned out? Yeah, I think that what happened is that I kept on forcing him to say, I know you're not a producer, but Steve.

Just, what should we do? Help us. Because I would edit it a bit. You know, I think that we've gotten so extending songs to play, to accommodate playing live, to play an hour and a half. I just don't know why I thought it was,

talking about Glenn Branker and Cycle's repetition. I don't know why it was so necessary to stay so long before I'd start singing or something. I'd be like, it's not, these two chords are not that good. Things like that I just get. Wish tea just moved me long a bit. Yeah. But, so that's kind of it.

But what I do get from it is a capturing of a band. Which one I wanted. It was also, it was somewhat suicidal in the face of the criticism with Nirvana and the fact that. I was going to ask that, like, it's running into the rotor blades. Yeah, but it's like, I just like, now you'll see the difference between the bands. I was like, this is exactly how you'll find the difference between the bands.

And I was already on a losing streak on that thing anyway, so it was kind of a you. It was like, no one was gonna, the people that wanted to hate me at that point, for those. Well, it was a number one albums, guessed right. Yeah, Jimmy Ivan was like, you know, you took a chance. You were right.

That's a good Jimmy. Yeah, he's the only, is one of the few compliments. But yeah, it was just such a seismic moment. If you can imagine we go back to the conversation about the Pixies, to have been in a very much inspired to do music and to find my direction through the Pixies, then to do a record with Steve Albini and with the same artwork. And the way that I listened, look at the, don't you remember the artwork? The Matador girl, the gold cover, the monkey. I just was like, this is so

beautiful. I couldn't believe it. And it was, you know, it wasn't Prince. It wasn't Erasmith. It wasn't what was happening. It was this new thing. And those records were larger than life. And so for me, I just was like, well, those people kind of hate me anyway. What am I going to do? I'm not getting over anyway. But not, what am I going to, how am I going to get them back? Why was it three years after that record before you guys put out a third? A lot of touring? A lot of touring, two years of touring, and then that was the science of things after that. That was the one that, because I got Clive Lang and involved with us that I really want to do. It sounds ridiculous now.

I mean, nine-inch nails were obviously doing it, but I was like, I want to combine this, I wanted to combine more of London. You know, I've, what happened is that I, I was taking the criticism and I was trying to sort of work out what would sidestep it, what am I missing? And I was like, are you having, do you have enough of England? Do you have enough of London in your sound?

Oh, interesting. And London was all remixes, dance. And a drum and bass time. Drum and bass time. Drum and bass, everything like that. So I was like, why don't we incorporate, just get a bit of London, maybe they're right. You know, you don't want, if someone criticizes you, most of the time your instinct is like, yeah, yeah. And then one bit they're like, what was that you saying about that?

Was that? So you go, because you tick it off if things are fair or not. And I was thinking, well, on a place level, they might have a, they might have a point. So I thought that, so what I did is I said to clap, we're going to have this hybrid thing. We have Johnny Rockstar, who is our amazing programmer. I was so high. He just would take ages on everything you're programming.

But I'd say we combine it. We do, we have these rock songs, but then we've got like chemicals between us, which is like much more kind of tricked out. And then we're going to have the straightforward rock song. Yeah. But we're just going to create this thing where we get people used to, you know, that feeling and

that was where it began wanted to experiment really and that's what they did and then the next one was with Dave Sadi that we did make in America to just then it was like it was like making it in America yeah like I was saying before

I think that's the record where it all kind of came together did you feel that at the time yeah just you know just every record I make is an opportunity to learn something different I mean even up till now the song

I put together, I play a song, I love it, I say, it's so great, and I don't know why I like it so much. And then I realize it's the harmonic minor scale, and I realize that really speaks to me. Yeah, yeah. Really, I just love all those changes. And then I try and, so every song still remains a voyage of discovery. I'm not sort of good enough to be like, oh, I'm just going to do this one again.

I'm always like, wow, what goes on to do that? And what I find really intriguing is because I have my studio, and I can engineer myself enough, and I can do play the keyboards on it and make a lot of soundscapes, dreamscapes that people add to or subtract to, whatever. I'll put things together that the alchemy of music is still so magical to me.

If I was, if I go backwards and I'm asked to recreate that, I'm at a loss to know why it was so nice that those two awards together. What that counterpoint was, all these beautiful accidents that happen in music, you know. You know, harmony is the understanding of harmony, It's just, you can, it goes on. Did you ever study?

You ever study it? Yeah, I've been, I have, I have studied for years. Yeah. To play, and I studied piano, which I haven't been playing recently, which is really annoying. And my son, always, well, the other year, do you know that Billy also, he's as good at piano is a guitar?

That's not true. And I was like, I said to him. I wish it was true. I said to him, you go and play. Why do I never hear you play? You've got a beautiful upright here in the studio. So if you were that inspired, do it. Not sure. I play piano terribly.

I'm not going to tell them that. I call it panda piano. It's like how a panda would play like this. There's, of course, one more record. But then was it the end of the 2000s, the dissipation of the record business, was that the band grew stale? What was the general condition that led to the band sort of stopping there? You know, I think that one guy had missed the one kid growing up,

because he'd been working so solidly. And I felt a bit, I wasn't sure where I was going, and that's why I did the Institute record, you know, I thought, this is going to just pet me up. It did, I worked with Page. Yeah. I said it's done, drop records from then, you know. But I did a record with Page, and I loved all the songs,

and I thought, why are they not all? And then I went, then I went back to the band and said, we're going to get it back together again, and they said, still not ready. Ah, I didn't know that. I was like, and, and, and, I really listened to the worst part of my ego, and I thought, I'll do a solo record.

Nobody wants a solo record from a singer in a rock band. I have been a similar. Jerry, Jerry Cantrell, aside, because we love him and we toured with him in his solo thing. But I just think that people, they want us in our bands. That's for me, they want me in the band. Yeah, there's something that happens when you go out of your band. They're almost like mad at you.

Yeah, it's so not even almost. Everyone was mad at me. I was like, it's not over my fault. They don't want to do it. I shouldn't, they don't want to hear that. And then what, the weirdest thing happened to me is that then I got, was the most collaborative on my solo record. Then I was told

I got to go and work with everyone, so I worked with Dave Stewart, I work with Linda Perry, I go and work with songwriters, I've never been in a room and jamming with someone. Because I told you that every song had written on my own, I take in, they amend and change and do stuff like that. I work with adults, so it's like, it's a democracy. But, you know, the better the presentation of the song, the less they're going to change,

unless they feel intrigued or desire to. So, you know, I think. We don't do gossip here, but you did marry a famous person. And what struck me about it is you've had these periods in your life. I don't even know if I can be succinct about it, but it's like maybe the simple way to be put it is you finding yourself or you put yourself in this bigger circumstance and somehow you've got to kind of find yourself

throwing yourself into the celebrity maw of L.A., particularly as a celebrity couple. How'd you feel about all that? Because I don't know, you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I know what people do to kind of smile and work with it because it's an energy and like a bullfighter.

You've got to kind of, you know, there's an advantageous and a disadvantageous and the disadvantageous, and we all are, where what the disadvantageous part of it is. But it struck me as interesting that suddenly now you're in the heat of this other thing. Yeah. And it's not musical, per se.

It's celebrity-driven. Yeah, it's so simple. I just... Um, really... You know, when I met her, it was just magic. It was instant. And so...

Which is a pretty magical person. That's... Yeah, she is. And so that's all that I met, that's all that, you know, she changed me so much, you know, she sort of softened me in so many ways, you know. She comes from such a wholesome life that there was some taming qualities to it that was incredibly special. So I prioritized that feeling over any interpretation of it. I was, again, I was moving so fast at that point, so many things were going on, you know, from all angles that, you know, from all angles that, I don't, wisdom wasn't, wasn't one of them.

And reflection wasn't, wasn't one of my qualities at the time. I just was extremely, um, just thought she was amazing. And that's all that mattered. And everything else was a consequence of that. You know, it wasn't, um. Yeah, that was it. Why the dabbling into acting was like a curiosity or was it an opportunity because you're kind of in it?

Um, I think it was just the desire to, do something creative that I didn't have to think of first, you know? Like, show you where to stand and I'll... Well, I... Makes sense? I don't mean it in a demeanor. No, no, no, no, no. I just mean that, you know, I think you're the same. When we go to work, you know, you start with a blank screen or a blank bit of paper. And like I was talking... That anxiety is something I think most people don't understand.

Well, it's just right there. It says it's just a blank bit of space. Silent screen looking at you saying, make me good. So I think there was something about, because I love words so much, that I think that it was inspiring to, and I never did so much of it that it took away, because whenever I did a movie, all the crew would be like, you know, I don't know, I was the next rep, mad at me, you talk about doing a solo record, try doing a movie.

People are like, what fuck you doing you doing? Yeah, we don't care about being active. But I like that process, and I do, it was inspiring. It did always make me run, back to doing music because I was like, I know, I know, it's my main thing. But I thought that Tom Waits, who was an incredible artist, one of my favorite artists of all time, the way that he just

showed up in movies and would be amazing. You'd be like, why is he doing it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just thought that was an interesting thing to do. And it was just creative and I didn't, yeah. And it didn't, I was poised at one point after Constantine, it was like I did have a massive massive agent and I was poised for a whole different life that the universe said,

mm-mm. No. Was it signs or was it something you just didn't, weren't feeling? Oh, stuff I didn't get hired for. I just didn't work out for me in a way that I thought. Stars didn't align. Stars did not align. I turned down, we turned down the transporter film.

We got offered right after Luke Besant and that would have, until there's something better will come along and nothing did. I see. Nothing better came along. And then I did that classic one. I had this manager who wasn't really helping me. Asked the said big agent, hey, do you think Gavin should still be with you?

Or, you know, like just sort of rattled his cage a bit. Now, he should have said, no way, I'm going to step it up. And he's like, maybe a small agent. So that was the end of that. So I was like, wow, those are the height of, you know, I was like, okay. But I don't feel regret. It's brutal up there.

Yeah, but I don't feel any regret about it. I mean, I still do some auditioning. I still fail some things. And there's something that I get. You know, I was in Sophia Coppola's movie. I was in this movie just before COVID. So they come along. I like them, you know.

It's a fun thing. The reason I ask is, is in the last few years, maybe since the pandemic ended, you seem to have found like a renewed musical kind of wind or energy. It's not just the fans rallying around you in a new generation that wants to hear your music. You seem to be kind of entering into a place of commitment.

Yeah. And I know you decently well. Not great, but I know you decently well. And even when I see clips of you, like your whole, your energy on stage is somebody who's convicted and you're present. Yeah. That's something I think maybe we as performers you can kind of read. Like, does he really want to be there? Right, right.

No, I really want to be there. I can feel that. And I'm happy. And by the way, I'm happy for you because, because you're, because you're really, You deserve that. Thank you. I think that it's just an exciting time. It's such a cool time.

Yeah, isn't it? An exciting time. I have the freedom to make records. People still want to come. I spoke to my friend the other day, and I was feeling a bit blue because I have the, I have deep sort of conflicted emotions when I'm about to leave for a long time because I feel very guilty. I know that when I'm out there and I'm doing it, it makes sense.

But before when I'm, and I just feel like I'm very. betraying every single entity person, my kids, my dog. You know, they're all like counting on me being there. And it's like, by the way, I won't be here. So I have this quite, it's quite hard for me. So I was told my friend the other day, my oldest buddy from England, and I was like, yeah, you know, it feels heavy. He goes, oh, what you mean is?

It feels really hard to travel around the world for five months and people wanted to see your songs, wanting to play live, the songs you wrote, they must be awful. What a terrible feeling. How do you cope? And I was like, all right, I know. But you know what I mean? I just feel a bit blue. But do you feel the same way?

I mean, you have young children, so it must be really... I don't feel that way. No. One thing that we've done, my wife and I, is we made the decision when my son was a baby that we would just include them as much as possible. So I'll take my kids on the road, just me and them, no nanny. So when the band's rehearsing, they're on stage with, like, the gun range headphones on. Right.

But how... Okay, but when they go to school, that's a bit hard. No, they're homeschooled. Oh. Yeah. So I would do that. So they go with your ever. Yeah.

I mean, not all the time, but I'm saying is we live a life where it's totally modular. Yeah. Yes. So if I'm going on a six-week run, my kids might be out for two or three of the weeks. Got it. And then by the time they're done for three weeks a tour, they're like, I want to go home and see my cat. They're happy to leave me. Like, you enjoy your tour, dad.

I'm going home because I want to see my cat. That's a great. So it's beautiful because it sort of balances out. Yeah, very lucky Chloe, obviously, is a perfect foil for that. Jesus. If you, you know, if I was with, you know, someone who has a job that can't leave

or a job that takes into places, then you get that disconnect. No, it's difficult because it's ultimately there's a form of selfishness in it. Do you know what I'm saying? All artists are selfish. It's just the nature of the beast. I must go somewhere and be with my own

thoughts, and by the way, I must share them. And not only must I share them, I need you to buy them. There is a selfishness there, but I think once the model's been proven, and in your case, you know, over 30 years, it doesn't matter what the wellspring of the thing is anymore. It exists for a reason. There's ultimately a healing or a larger message at play. And the thing I try to tell my children is we're involved in something that's bigger than our family, and we're a show business family. And so what we do is we entertain and we put smiles

on people's faces. So you're part of that process. So when we're here, we're doing this and when we're out, we're doing that. And that's just the way it goes. It's not to say they don't have agency in the decision-making process because when they say to me, I want to go home. I'm like, okay, I'll put you on a plane tomorrow. If you want to go home, you don't have to stay out here with dad on tour in Helsinki. You know what I mean? It's kind of up to you. And so we're We've kind of found this interesting balance, but I realize it would, it's not for everybody. It would, it's a difficult, because there are times where, like, my kids don't give up where the hell we are. They're tired and, you know, they just want to watch TV.

And I'm like, you know, we got to go to the gig, you know. And they're like, do we have to? Can you skip the gig today, Dad? I thought to ask you this one thing because it's very rare that people, people, you know, people. have a common experience that most people wouldn't understand. If you talk about this or I talk about this, it sounds a bit, you know, having a go. But I like the idea of having in this context. When you have success and you have a catalog and then bands come to see you play, what's your, because you've put out four albums, it's the band reformed in 2010, is that right? So what's your, what's your vibe on, like the expectation of the audience, the hits versus new material? Like,

How do you sit on all that? I think of it from my own perspective when I go and see a band that I love. There are certain songs that I do want them to play and things I don't want to let me down on. But as long as they still put their, you know, foot to the floor when they write these songs, then they should play whatever they want.

I don't think they're obscure. Like I often think of sets. in tempos. Okay. You know? Just what you might want. If, you know, I'll be fully aware if I've had like, you know,

two or three similar tempos, then I know I'm going to have to pick it up. Yeah, yeah. So I'm always just trying to avoid that lull, three-quarters of the way through the show. I love the low. Someone offers to go buy the drinks. I mean, because the lull, you pay the beautiful song,

you do something, but I'm just always thinking that people are spoiled and they want to be, they just want to be, to be blown away by you. This is ready. It's like it's sort of a best man speech. People come to your show, especially with us when they have the history of the band. They want to have a great time. So you've really got to get up to fuck it up. So in that case... I'm laughing because I so enjoy this process. I make sure on a skeletal level, we never veer too far away, too long away from footholds

they would know to keep them in there. You can't satisfy everyone, especially when you do an hour set or like a lollapalooza, we did an hour. So there, hour and a half, I can give a nice spread of, don't let you down, this is new. But nothing, you know, in those spots where you maybe extract something they might know, you're going to make sure it's up, it's driving, definitely going to be detuned. Yeah. And it's, people make sense. Right. So that's, that's what, that's how I do. And I try and change it up. You know, every, what I do is, I have slots or like the skeleton set, and then there'd be a space where that could be one of five songs

can go in there. I always wanted to do that thing of where you do the completely different sets, but we just tried that and just didn't, it was too confusing. We played with you somewhere, like in the Far East or something. I don't remember it was somewhere. And I watched about half your show, and then I went back to warm up, but I could still hear you playing.

And you put so much pressure on the set that I was playing, because you played such a great set. Because it had an up-tempo feel. Maybe does it make sense? Not that it was always up-tempo, but it had up, the energy was very up for your show. Yeah. And I thought, oh, motherfucker, I got to go out.

But we should. I look forward to the day when we tour together again. That would agree. We played in Portugal. I remember Portugal was that warm night, and I just thought that we just, we fit really well together. I was like. I love, anytime.

Love to tour with you. A couple last questions. I feel like the wheel is finally turning the right way with you, and I'm happy about that because I really think, you know, our ranks are thin. We lost a lot of great people along the way. And I like it when all of us collectively, not that we're all friends, but I like it when we're all strong. I think we actually all win more if we're all strong.

I agree. So what do you want the people, because you've survived, you know, whatever the bull was, and the 90s was its own bull, and there's the downturn in the music business, and there's the classic, you know, greatest hits kind of mentality of 2,000 audiences and stuff like that. Where do you think the band's landing now? And I don't mean in the present tense, I mean, if people are looking, a 20-year-old kid is looking and they don't care about any of the politics, anything, and they look like, okay, this band was there, this band was there, what do you want them to understand about your band?

Well, I appreciate everything you're saying because it's very, it's concisely putting a sort of an elephant to bed kind of thing. Yeah. It's a very, very welcome. We appreciate that. I think it's just to do with, I believe, in rock music. You know, I think that it really, it's, it's, it has. You like your guitar. I love guitar.

I love the emphasis, and I like the way that the combination of, a lyric, a sentiment, and what a guitar can do either softly, gently, you know, mayonnaise, you know, or what a guitar can do aggressively. Either way, I find it really expressive. Yeah. And so for me, anyone who's doing rock records, I'm so in awe of and I'm proud of, because I think that exactly to what you're saying, the funniest part is that we, it was a ruse all along. They made us, it was like the, we were just like fodder for the, for the Roman Empire and the people, because people want, I would rather have five great records than one great record.

So there is no competition. The competition has always been within the band, within ourselves, to be the best we can be. And then everyone rise up and, you know, your extraordinary band with you, an extraordinary sound garden at Nirvana. It's just all these incredible pixies, Fugazi, Jesus Lizard, all these incredible bands. And isn't it beautiful? They co-exist the death tones that have also been, you know, really, obviously one of the greatest bands, but really kind of endured and just the same, like a... Chino just...

Because he's such a great singer, and it's such a great band. They deserve it, that's what. But it's gained gravity over time, which is really cool. Yeah. Sometimes the only time helps you understand that. Basically what the deptones do and what they represent has gained energy and almost like, I don't know, it just feels like it's got more weight to it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Or like with what Jerry does, Alice in Shades, always had that gravity.

But I think also, you know, what's interesting is that, I mean, I try to allude to this on this record. I'd be alone in it. And you have, these interviews aren't particularly time sensitive. We call them evergreen. But I know you have a new record. Well, I have a new record. What I mean is that I think that it's a really important discussion around mental health, people's mental well-being, the truth about the melancholy of people, the disconnection of people, which in fairness, we've been singing about forever. That's what we've been doing.

Well, that's why we have a thing with Chloe called sorrow is the family business. That's what we do. But you can now see it in the world, in the culture, that people. that people are talking to it. We just use guitars with that. So I just like it when great bands are making great records. You know, it was fantastic. You know, I'm happy to see all these bands doing well.

And I do like these younger bands coming up. I think that the extraordinary kind of post-metal sound, the sort of bad almond sound, the poppy, just the records they make, it's just like the next level of, like, it's good. It's healthy. Yeah. Okay, last thing.

Gavin the chef. Take me into that. I wanted to find a way to stay home. And I also wanted to find a way to get my voice back. I felt that I had been in this world for so long, the show business as such, you know. And I had only been, this was before, you know, before, obviously podcast and things like that, people now get a sense of what the people like in an extended way. But before then, we were always at a, um, uh, a, a, um, a, um, a, a podcast. sort of exactly sort of, at the mercy of the editor of how they, how we, you know, the cadence

of how we speak, what we prioritise, interesting things. And that's like, now when we go on TV shows, we, you know, we're not the actors, so we know, no one asks us anything about how we're doing or what our day was like, we just played the song and fuck off. And so I thought, I've always had this ability, weirdly, to put food together. I don't know, just being able to put food together. People say to me for years, you should do a TV, a cooking show. I'll be like, doing what exactly?

And so what I can grill a steak, big would we do. Yeah. And then I just came across this thing of trying to create a way of staying home, not leaving to work so I could be around my boys more. And I thought, do this interview show and I thought it'd be so easy. That was, it was like a seven-year process of making the pilots and then showing to everyone and people, like, this is amazing, except for anyone who was a combining editor.

No one who made the reality TV or non-uncript is what we're called. Nobody knew, would sign me, we know what to do with this. It was just like my music. I was like, that's a world of no. But then you say yourself, is it a world of no? It was slowly working our way towards yes from someone. Nice. Like it was in music.

I just needed one person. And in this, I got one person. and that seems to be my fate and gives me effectively my truth because that's how it is. That's what life is like. There's no copyrights, even though people would assume there are. Yeah. All right. Thank you, brother.

Thank you.