Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Gavin Rossdale

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

This week Emily chats to Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale whilst he's out walking his Pomeranian Chewy in Los Angeles. They talk about rebellious teenage years, fame, fatherhood and Bush's new album The Kingdom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From that night, we just stayed on tour for three years and went from clubs to theatres to arenas within a year and a half. And so it was just the most incredible incendiary rise. That's when I was super famous. That's when I was Justin Bieber. I was Justin Bieber. This week's Walking the Dog is a bit of a special one

because my guest is basically a rock legend. It's only Gavin Rossdale, the lead singer of multi-year-old. platinum selling band Bush, who was coming to me direct from his dogwalk in Los Angeles. I know, we've gone international. Gavin was out for a morning stroll with his adorable Pomeranian chewy, and we had a brilliant chat. He told me all about his rebellious teenage years in northwest London, and he also chatted about what it felt like when his band Bush became this huge phenomenon in America. Gavin's a very hands-on dad to his three kids from his relationship

with Gwen Stefani, and it turns out he's very hot. He's very hot. on table manners. He also told me what it felt like to discover he had a daughter later in life, the model, Daisy Lowe, who he obviously adores. I should tell you, by the way, that Bush have actually just released an album called The Kingdom, which is getting shown a lot of love by the music press, and I can see why. It's a total banger. It's what I call take on the world music. You can have that, Gavin, no charge. If you want to have a listen, The Kingdom is available via BMG on all your favourite music services. I really hope you enjoy our chat. If you do, please remember to rate review and subscribe. Here's Gavin and Chewy.

Gavin, you were just saying, come, was that to who I think it was to? Yes, well, I thought the interview was starting proper, bona fide her, so brought my Rockweiler. Come on, hey, Chewy. So yeah, we go around, we go around my garden. What does they say here? You're the yard. So I want you to introduce me officially to Chewy. I should actually say who I'm talking to because I'm so excited about. this. I'm talking in LA to, I want to describe you as, I won't say rock god, I won't embarrass you, songrises singer, guitarist and frontman of Platinum Selling Grand Bush. I'm with Gavin Rossdale

on Walking the Dog. Hi Gavin. Hi there. How are you? And we're, you're with your dog. You're in Los Angeles at the moment. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah, I'm with Los Angeles. I'm in Los Angeles at home here and I have my trusted sidekick Chewy who is my um you know little pride and joy it's funny I never really liked little dogs or never didn't really think about them and uh he's a rescue um and um I don't know I really like him he travels all around the world with me I he's small enough to take everywhere and he's just he's got so much personality for such a small head I go where do they I mean the brain can't even be that big so Where does the charisma? How does the charisma fit in there? I can't get it. But unbelievable.

People have said that about me, but you know, what can you? Is he a Pomeranian, Tewy? Because I've seen pictures of him on your Instagram. He is. He is. Whenever anyone asks me, I'm always like, he's a pit bull. And everyone does double take. But yes, he's a POM, Pomeranian. And he's really cute. He's like a little little miniature lion. And I just love it because he's just got this great personality. And, um, Doesn't take too much walking. My old dog, Winston, was a Pooley, and that's a sheep dog. So those guys, he got to, like, walk forever.

And that's a whole different job. So this guy, he just needs to kind of do his business and walk around and smell a few other dogs, and he's all good. He sounds like my dog, because I have, mine's a Shih Tzu. He's called Raymond. And people say he looks like tobacco. Although, you see, you are. effectively your hand solo aren't you because you're the chewy is your sidekick ah I suppose technically speaking you've got a point I have I didn't have enough

imagination to go further yeah I want to go back what do you want what do you want your history it's not the bailiffs it's okay you're doing all right Gavin come on you're doing well you I want to go back to sandwiches for life Yeah. To your childhood. Because did you, were you a dog family, Gavin. And I don't know if you know what I mean by that. But when I was growing up, I grew up in North London in quite a bohemian artsy family. And my parents didn't have dogs because I think they represented too much stability, essentially. So I want to know if you grew up. Responsibility. Do you know what I mean? And I used to look at those people with a semi-detached house and a Volvo and a Labrador. And dogs represented some sort of comfort or safety. What was your attitude towards that motion of a dog family? And did you have dogs your family growing up? Yeah, there was one early on that I grew up with called Brandy. And that was a little poodle my mum had.

I'd live with my mum until I was 12 at my family and she left. So we had brandy. And we went out, I remember there was a Christmas and Christmas Eve. And the dog ran out on the road and got hit by a car. can't kill on Christmas Eve. It's like, it's so traumatizing that I can't, it's weird, I can't, I'm thinking now, if one of the animals got killed on Christmas

Eve now, with my kids and how I'd like run Christmas, I'd like, want to shoot myself, I'd be like, you know what I mean? We'll judge ourselves by sort of the birthday parties we throw for our kids, you know, like, how happy are they on their birthday? And I don't know how we really

recovered from that. It must have been a really terrible Christmas after that, you know. It's interesting, the degree of trauma and suffering is so directly intertwined with the degree of how interesting you are as an artist. It seems to really inform things that you just inhabit areas of the most challenging, therefore people at their lowest points

and at their sort of most intrinsically vulnerable can relate. And like I've always had, like, all the people that like are banned and everything like that. I definitely attract like the poets, you know, who sort of, I meet people every day who sort of share their words and share their, or they say how the music gotten through something,

and it's never gotten old, and it just goes on forever, I can't believe it. There's so many people in the world. It just happens, you know, I consider myself a working musician, you know what I mean? I don't really kind of think of, you know, that's the kind of healthy way to look at it and not trying to hang on to, like,

like fame and glory. I mean, I really love the glory, and I do like playing shows and all that stuff. Don't get me wrong. What I mean is it doesn't govern everything that I do in the sense that I look at people like in the mainstream and the really famous successful people, and I just go, that's really famous, you know.

And so I don't know, I think that all those things. So yeah, my dog getting hit by car on Christmas Eve, really helped my career. It really made me more interesting. It was the first step to being interesting. Although I would say, I mean, I always think you speak about this when I've heard you talk about it at any rate, you seem quite resilient and philosophical about it. But you know, I know your dad was a GP, wasn't he? And your mum was a model. Is that right? Yeah, she was early on. I think that she'd given up by the time she had kids and she had a good few years. She came from Scotland, good, heavy Scottish accent and then she kind of changed it beautifully

into like the Queen's English. So she is a beautiful, glamorous lady and... And did she leave your parents divorce and then why did she leave the family home? They divorced. They divorced, yeah, they divorced. That happens. And she moved away. So I never lived with her again.

And then I grew up with my dad, which is also quite interesting and quite different growing up with a single parent workaholic. You know? That's a different. That gives a different set of things. And I had to do some interesting, they asked me the other day, what's the best bit of advice? My dad, you know, you do these like daft video, line of things. What's the best thing you? What's the best advice your dad ever gave you?

I was thinking, oh, it was scratching my head. And I was like, my dad. I had died two years ago. I was trying to like run over in my head like the kind of times where I sit down. He really like just put it all into place for me. And I realized that actually the best advice he gave me was no advice. He never gave me advice at all. Just like let me just be bohemian and free from since I was 12 years old. Stay out wherever I want, do whatever I want. Never had to be accountable because it just was too much work for him. And just me and him. And that's quite unusual, given that he was a doctor. So obviously, you know, he was.

study and academic discipline had obviously been a big part of his life. That shows someone who's quite... He just had, yeah, I think his life was more interesting than my development. And I was just too difficult and too troubled and too much of a handful like a firework, like a, I just really, I don't know, I think there was a lot of work. And he just figured out early on there was just no point. and his whole philosophy was just to let me be and make the mistakes I was going to make. So I said, my best advice he gave me is he gave me no advice,

but he did lead by example. He was really kind to people. He was really quite a gentleman, and he was deftly funny, like really sharp, cutting wit that, you know, very underhand. He's like a sushi chef, you know, on people.

And I think that's what, and he somehow, psychologically, got me to a position where I just wanted him to like me. And so I never was that much of a jerk around him like that because, you know, if we're just looking at you that one look, like, who are you that you just be like, oh, you don't want to be that guy. You want to be like wanting to say something funny to you, having a laugh.

And, you know, so that was really interesting. Because you've talked about, you're saying you were troubled, you were difficult. And I'm someone and I only relate to that because my, dad left when I was a similar age to you and I was troubled and I was difficult and it took me quite a number of years of therapy to connect that my dad leaving to possibly me being troubled and difficult and do you think that might have had an effect just in terms of your stability being rocked you know and just having that change in your life well I think what it made me do it was really intense was really grow up really fast where I was so traumatized the first couple of years

that, you know, I'd get like, could, you know, like, wouldn't go to school or like, you know, I'd be very depressed to go to school and I'd go to school and I'd go to school. I'd fight all day. Like, definitely like, something was not connecting. And then when I was 15, when I went to A levels, that's when I became someone else. I could suddenly morph into this person that was called by my first name and I suddenly discovered English literature and books and smaller classes there weren't 28 kids. And I was like, Rustel, get out.

It's like, he's always in trouble. You know, I could like, suddenly I was a human being. I went to dinner parties and, you know, smoke jitaine and like red marlborough and read Andréjid and be an existentialist. And like talk about the enui and just lost in a raincoat, you know, raincoat and a packet of fags. And just trying to find myself in that way. And so then I was a different kind of, then I really tried to be studious. And then once I was studious really into that side of it, on literature level, you know, on literature reading, that's when I was like I wanted to be a musician, I wanted to write words, and I was lost and, you know, Mr. Bodle-Air is here, and, you know, like, here we go. So that's what I really liked was literary people, then Patty Smith and Alan Ginsberg and Mbekelski.

You'd left, because you grew up in what estate agents would call Swiss Cottage. but you might call Kilburn. I don't know which one you're going to go for. Yeah, yeah. No, I was pure Swiss cottage off the Fairfax Road. And my youth club was the Abbey Road. So that was, and then my first girlfriend lived off the Quex Road in Kilburn. So my whole youth was spent between Abbey Road Youth Club, Westminster.

Westminster boys. We used to call them the Westies. And we were very intimidated by them because they were clever. It's kind of like for people that don't know, I mean, it's sort of the London Eaton in a sense, isn't it? But all those boys there feel quite groomed. Well, no, I don't think so.

I think I wouldn't say that. Well, no, I think it was. Well, no, I think that, no, I, I, it wasn't like for me, it's funny because I'm so, my life is so artistic and yet I had nothing was developed there to do with that literature yet. But no, in the sense of eating, this is for like rich tofts.

you know, who aren't necessarily very smart, but they're going to be educating and go to that system. The thing about Westminster that's a bit more, well, more interesting about it actually, has no separate exam. So it's just Winchester and Westminster ones, really high academic standard. You're right. Yeah. Lots of kids like who those landed gentry couldn't even like, you know, get, I don't think they'd be able to get through. So you do get really, I mean, I hated it because, you know, where I grew up was really rough and all the kids were like I was surrounded by all estates. And so it was like that was like the completely other end of the scale, which I think is really brilliant and now I'm really grateful for it because it just provided a completely different

sort of other side of my life, you know, and we've we've all come to learn that we're made up by all these different facets of our life, different components and fragments. And so that, That with like my AVO Road Youth Club where it's full of like skinheads and future armed robbers, you go, this is the most brilliant, like, you know, like I was like Zellick. I literally like Leonard Zellick is like that one minute, I'm sitting and playing in a football team with like, you know, people that like half of them are like in Pentonville and Brixton now. And then I go pop up to school and I'd be surrounded by sort of future judges and lawyers and sort of in city of industry people and probably really rich. hedge funders. So you have all these kind of strands of life that that happen to you and all goes into the melting part of and then out the other side becomes virtual, you know, that's

why I think it's so important as an artist, you know, you find your voice because no one's going to be as interesting and as strung out as you are because you've got the story, you know, so if you stay close to your script, it's such a wealth of information and different different things that happened and I love all that thing. I remember being away with all the Abbey Road. So as the first three years of Westminster's like, I hate everyone, you know, the first day. They make, they make you, well, I just, I was really inverted. I was like, what am I doing here? They do this thing where they call you, you, the first year has to for the 50 of the eight of a year, and you have to make them toast and tea and take it into the the upper room and it's like a sort of little office or, you know, a little den.

And like, I'm fucking what? So I remember there's my friend Shannon Peckham, his brother, who's like, one of the rowers, really strong. Tom Lee Go and Megan's and toes, I just walks up to him just punch him right in the face. Just punch him in the face. Because I was in love with the Cray twins then, profession of violence.

And I'd stay with my aunt at between 12 and 14, and lived in the Pepper Pot pub in East London. So every weekend and every school holiday, I'd go and stay with my aunt. And I loved her. like she was everything to me. And so then I'd have like lock-ins at the pub with like East London and seeing streets of London and all the jelly deals and the Welks on Sunday morning

and driving around with her boyfriend to all the other pubs around East London to sort of check the other pubs out. And so all these different lives coming together, really rich tapestry, like amazing, amazing. You know, I'd go from all gay East to my, to my school was really just along to Westminster, so it was really easy. And so it was brilliant.

And this seismic shift when I was 15 and I went away, I suddenly saw everyone for who they were. What did you mean by that? What I mean is I saw that everyone, I was surrounded by bank robbers and armed robbers and postmen. And I was just like, I didn't wanna do this anymore. And I'd sort of spent three years being really aggressive

to people in England, in Westminster. So suddenly I found myself in the summer when I was 15, kind of going, oh shoot, who have I become? So I, but I did find myself with, in books and in literature, that's what I become really studious. And I really tried hard. Yeah, it was really fun time. I really liked it.

I like, I just, I remember just having that one Mac and cigarette stinky fingers. I would have seen you walking down a North London street and found you so intimidating. I know those, you would have been, because also, I want to mention the in the room. How I would describe you is someone who would be considered to be conventionally touched by the beauty stick. You're not offended by that, aren't you? Wow, that's the most roundabout touched. Brilliant, thank you. So what I would say, that's a compliment at the end of it. It's like it's like it's like a text about an email about a letter you're sending with a compliment inside it. I wonder what effect that has on you,

you know, were you conscious as a young man, Did you look in the mirror and think, okay, women find me attractive and I'm a handsome man? You know, how did you feel about yourself growing up physically? That's an interesting question. I mean, I felt as though I didn't have to, you know, like I didn't feel necessarily insecure about it. Like sometimes if you, you know, there would be times when I'd like feel, you know, you get like some like terrible breakout of skin, you know, and you just feel really insecure because you got like, your face is like covered in like, you know, spots. We get like really terrible spot, right?

Your chin or your forehead, just like, oh, no, it's a big part. You know, and you feel like horrible. And you know, you have to go out and you're like, oh, my God. I know everyone's throbbing and you're really feeling stupid. And you sort of think at that age that everyone's having a meeting the next day and the meeting is called. Let's discuss Gavin Zitt because that's how self-conscious you are. So, and I was very shy. So when I would have that, when I would have that feeling, I felt even more shy.

Like I used to blush up until the age of 17, 18. If someone asked me at the time, even though I thought it was really tough and really cool, I still would blush if someone out of the blue asked me a question. I just, ah, it's so annoying, you know. And so basically I felt, so the way that I felt when I had that terrible breakout, I didn't feel like that. When I didn't have the breakout, I didn't feel insecure about my face.

Do you know if that makes sense? So it was just like, I just felt like you have to worry too much. Whereas I was really good at worrying if I knew I had to be at school. And I knew there were girls in the class and my top lip had a really big red bump on it. Like, what's happening? What is this? You know? And I was growing up with my dad and chasing him out of the door going,

Jim, what can I do about this? Ah, you'll be right. Can't notice it. I look back in the mirror and be like, go, well, on my face, you can't notice it. Because you can. And you had two sisters as well, didn't you? Did you have two sisters?

Is that right, Gavin? Yes, I did. I did. I did. Yeah, I do. But what happened is one sister was living with my mum later on. And then one sister left to live in Spain. So after the sort of 15, I was on my own there with my dad.

Right. And so therefore, things like, you know, bad skin. like he did not have time for that he did not have time what was he say you're dad watch your face better dean watch that yeah watch it with that then he'd leave so there wasn't a lot of time spelt on the the benefits of longcom so I didn't really I didn't overly think about it

but would be disingenuous to say anything less than it was something I could I was like oh that's okay you know I haven't got an eye and I send in my 40 head so I'm okay on that front but you know you don't really like I mean you know I was busy trying to like be much better at playing football and you know I you know I wasn't it wasn't like I you know I was just you know my own kind of you know I lost my virginity at 16 for instance so it's not like I was out like you know it was all the sort of a voyage of fun and like my sister's friends you know it gets snogged around the corner by my sister's punk

friends that was like really exciting moments of my adolescence, you know. Oh, that is, exciting. And did you, so I get this impression of you. I've got you with the Gertan and I've got you with the Marlborough Reds, I'm thinking, in the, you know, in a coffee shop somewhere reading your Jean-Paul Sartre. Yeah. And then passion for music, Gavin, when did that really kick in?

Well, that really kicked in when I was 12, 11, 12, because what happens in my house, my aunt lived there with us as well. And so she was really exciting and would be out all night and come back. I began off of school and she'd be coming in from a club or something and my mom would be always like, oh, you know, couldn't control her sister. And then my mom and dad would be fighting about like,

because my aunt was crazy. But I thought she was the greatest person in the world. She introduced me to Bowie. She'd play all these records before she'd go out and I'd sit and watch her getting ready to go out for another all-nighter. And she was just really, really, really, inspiring to me and so she gave me music as a as a real refuge a real sanctuary I

mean like everyone I grew up with it was into Faroes and Gabici and Pristrice Russian and jazz funk and doing up their brothers to do up the courtinas and so I was the only one was interested in punk I was the only one in my whole neighborhood and but because that's who I grew up with that's what I had to do right that was my scene And so it gave me a real sanctuary. And I also grew up, since you know that area, when you up the road from Finchery Road, on the Finchery Road, there used to be a shop called Manseys,

which is a record shop. And so super, you're the first person I've ever done an interview with it, the first person I can verify it. So all these things, much like Malcolm Gladwell talks about these confluence of many different strands that go to make somebody. Like without that, without that,

Bill Gates having the access to the computers at the University of Washington through a childhood friend. Maybe he would have gone into, you know, aeronautics, something, you know, building spaceships. And it seemed so fascinating, like growing up with the interesting art, giving me music, needing music to the sanctuary away from a sort of a very depressed childhood, you know, the whole thing of, and at my school at Westminster, you know, at six-form. It was brilliant. You've got the coolest girls, these beautiful girls. You're talking about Channing.

I know the, I know you, and I know your type and the beautiful, you know, come into our class. You did three years of like terrible 30 people in the class, be shouted at called by your name, the surname. Suddenly, girls, and that's when it was traumatizing when you get the Zit. Not if not your friends sit next to a class, I don't care. But I love to be girls from Putney, Putney and Barnes are like, you know, know, really cool, like really, and they'd be reading like Zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance

and like, oh my God, I'm in love, you know, and sway, swayed shoes and just like really weird vintage, vintage jackets, you know, just blew my mind. And then the music thing kicked in and you were, did you start by playing yourself or songwriting or how did, do you remember in a moment when you sat down and thought, right, I'm going to do this? Well, it was just when I had the opportunity to leave. like I ran out of school. I just couldn't take it. The last couple of years, I just,

I just was hungry for the world, you know, and I had begun my last year at school to sort of start going out, discover clubs. And, I mean, now I regret it from a point of view of education and knowledge because I think that that

education and knowledge are just most beautiful concepts ever. And that's how we've, you know, it's called pro, based is what we base progress on. So but I was in such a rush and and I didn't want to leave London. I don't want to be at the heart of it. I mean, it should have gone to St. Martins or something. So I started a band and I thought what am I going to do now and I started a band. I met my friend

Sasha Putnam and we started a band together and I just used to like this is my arrogance. I sometimes think about this. I took a microphone and I would sing songs from words I'd written like no music, just sing a song top to bottom and be like, yeah, put some chords on that.

And I do like 12 of them. I was really being like, I was really always really, because of my dad and seeing that example of like, you know, you get nothing for nothing. You'd get out what you put in.

I just always really worked at it. And even though I was really crazy and everything we'd base on what would Jim do, what would Jim Morrison do? Be like, yeah, do four more tabs. That's what he'd do.

You know, finish it. That's what Jim would do. Eat the whole worm. Get two worms. You know, everything was what would Jim do? And but I still would do, I'd still then be up trying to figure my way of like pushing my terrible voice through the grill of experience and the through the prism of other people's work and how can I make myself sound?

What's this person doing? You know, what's the good about that? And learning how to be free, really, like, learning how to like take off all the layers of artifice and defense mechanism that I built up through the years of self-preservation. Because I didn't take it on my, it destroyed my sister. What did? You're my, just the whole, there I'll be getting, yeah, that sort of, that thing. You know, like, she's amazing, my sister, but, you know, it was very taxing for her.

For me, I found it liberating and wild that their adults could do this. And like, the world was a cold, mean place. but it gave me a like a backbone and a steel. I mean, even if you get your vulnerable, you find yourself, I'd never want to, oh, woe is me and like, I need help. I was like, nah. It's just like everyone's like everyone's out for themselves, really.

And you just got to find your happiness and find your modes to survive because it really is Darwinism at its finest. And so I'd sing those. songs into my dad's high-fi onto a cassette. Be like, give these poor, my poor band, like, you know, here's our first record, you know, 12 songs, you know, probably one note, probably about the range of three notes within like 12 songs, you know.

And just you learn that the only way of which is by diving into it. And just, that was it. And so I can't believe I still get to do this. You said something which I really liked, and apologies if I'm misquoting, because I appreciate it goes on. So correct me if this is wrong. But you said words to the effect of I believe great singers become great singers. And I hope you said that because I really found that interesting. What do you mean by that? Yeah. I mean that that first off is twofold. First of that lovely quote by David Byrne who says the better someone sings the less he believes them. And so this is that. That's brilliant, isn't it? There's a kind of a there's a professionalism to sing. to singing that goes along with the talent shows where you go,

wow, that's an amazing set of pipes. And then, you know, wow, look at those runs. That's really impressive. And then, but, but music and art that I care about is not about being impressive except in a way that triggers something in people. That's what's impressive. And so you, you, I mean, for me, I really did it the right way, which is I absolutely began terribly.

I was terrible. had no voice, had really no right to have a voice. It was just like a really unusual shape. I just know what it was. It was like this model, like a boot. I don't know what to do like a mountain, like a rock. And it wasn't through the years shaped with my aesthetic, the words, and also actually weirdly, because it sounds so weird because it's so obvious how it sounds,

like how to work with it so it sounds right. Now it's just like second nature to me. It's as natural as my speaking voice. I mean, I love this other phrase, Banksy said, it's amazing how many artists are prepared to suffer for their work, but so few are prepared to learn how to draw. And I do think you should know how to draw before you're an artist. So I think they go hand in hand,

and then you just have to be an interesting enough person that you can convey an idea that for whatever reason, and the reason is irrelevant, it's just the fact it does, there's a connection, that's all, you know? Yeah. That's so interesting. And do you think when, you know, Bush, obviously, you had a name change and you sort of, did you, when was the first moment when you started realizing, okay, we're going to be pretty successful here? Well, it wasn't, you know, I went back to work after we made the first record, 16 style we made in Shepard's Bush.

And then I thought we're going to, you know, world domination. And then no, it was 11 dentists surgeries along. opposite Miss Selfridge and I just paint them in Magnolia because the deal fell through and I was in this Kafka nightmare and literally 11 massive offices, really big units, 11 of them. So it was just like, I wanted to kill myself. And then when it went to the radio here, they said, are you your songs on the radio's on K-rock, which is a massive radio, very so influential radio in America station here in LA. And that's what kickstarted our career. So it wasn't that moment, because I didn't really know what they meant. It was when we came out on tour later that year.

It could have been February of 95. And we played our first show of CBGBs, which was the place where television, Blondie, the Ramones, Lou Reed. It's so legendary punk club. But it used to be this legendary punk club. And we played there. And we, you know, I was decent in Camden.

Do you know what I mean? I played the pubs and did a couple of shows and all that. nonsense but when we walked in that club it was so packed and all I remember was like the hippest you like everyone you want if you threw your your your best life party do I mean everyone were like artists from Brooklyn you know it's like beautiful tattooed girls beautiful girls rockadoos everyone you want to hang out with and yet you haven't met yet you know because I just started you know and I was like I couldn't get to the stage so many people and that's when I was like wow and then that's when that's when that from that

night we just stayed on tour for three years and went from clubs to theaters to arenas and within a year and a half and so it was just the most incredible incendiary rise and every week it just was climbing the charts and 50 000 records a week and just you couldn't believe what was happening so it was like that and mtv was so videos all over mtv that's when i was super famous that's when i was justin biba i'm I was Justin Bieber. I was, that was it. It was like, you know, so fun. Every hotel, you know, hundreds of people outside the hotels, all that nonsense, all that stuff.

Was it enjoyable, Gavin? Did it feel overwhelming at any point? Did you feel? Yes, it was overwhelming at certain points, but also disingenuous to be. There's one point where I was struggling and I was really lost. And I remember seeing this doctor. I was in a suite of the four seasons. I was like starting to having panic attacks.

I'd been on a flight just coming from Japan. And I really felt that I just felt overwhelmed and really like broken and just done in and spread so thin. I hadn't been home in three years. And I'd broken up with my long-term girlfriend. It was just before I was meeting Gwen and before I was falling in love. And I was like, I just was lost because nobody. could prepare you for that and I was lost. I couldn't leave the hotel. It was really madness. I remember this doctor came to the hotel to see me and I just was like, I just wanted to get

drugs really because we were traveling and like, oh, I'm so strong out, Doc, help me. He says to me, look, he goes to me, I'll tell you, I play in a jazz band once a week around the corner from my house in Brooklyn. And on a good night, we have about 15 or 20 people come to see us. Just here's my number, here's my cell phone. If you ever feel like swapping places, just give me a a call. So I was like, oh, shut up, you like, dumb cliche. Just enjoy your life. So I just ordered more room service. So like, you know, got some, I don't know, some vodka and some caviar. I would say about that doctor, he sounds very much like what Mr. Ross, Dr. Rossdale would have said to you. Yeah. From what I know of him. And I wonder if that's why you responded, because it felt like,

yeah, I understand what you're saying to me. I can do this. Yeah. it. I, so I gently, I gently put the, put the dummy back into the cot, put the pacifier, picked it up gently, wiped it, you absolutely right, you absolutely right, put it away in a drawer. And do you know what I mean, just like got on with it after that. Just was like, just enjoyed it. I mean, I really do try and enjoy it. I think life is really to be enjoyed. And now at the point I'm in, now my life, you know, I have to really accept that if I had 20 amazing summers left where I'm before I'm a burden. It'd be incredible.

It's just so important to live now and just to enjoy and relish every moment because we all know that around every corner there's a little bit of trouble, a little bit of a challenge and a little bit of a dampener on your day, no matter who you are and what you do. And by the way, you see people with like all these unbelievable wealth, billionaires, And millionaires, what this poor Steve Bing, he's 55 years old, threw himself off a building. It's like, if you're born a billionaire, you could never be depressed, I would think. I'd be happy the whole time.

I'd be like, I've only met one rich person who's the happiest guy I've met. All the other richer people I've ever met are so, they have this sort of scorn and worry about them. They don't, they're not rich enough. So that it's really like a weird thing where I do realize now that even though I, you know, I make, think that I live this eternal Peter Pan life. The truth is, is the experience that I'm bringing to it inadvertently without thinking about just by living and breathing every day and taking up space on the planet is that it really comes down to your perspective on every single thing

that happens and how you deal with it. And it's just the only regret should be the things you haven't done and the way you don't live your life to the fullest. I agree with that. It's very Buddhist and I mean I like that notion because there's a phrase I learned everyone is guilty no one is to blame and I say that to myself every day yes and I love you saying that because the reason why I call the record the kingdom was because I imagine this place free of self-righteous judgmental people and I thought if you could just find a sort of a space like that that's everything that I mean I I love that that phrase about forgiveness and there is no blame and things are you know like you just find yourself

exactly I mean I I I'm not a Buddhist because I my whole life has spent craving just non-stop craving and it's our downfall right but I'm a craver but I do really connect myself to so much of that common sense and so that's what that's what that whole thing of you know being around people and the two specific people that just were I was around that I had to have dealings with. I just was like, oh, you're so shamefully self-righteous. It's like, I want to put and bite my fingers off.

You know, like, can you hear yourself? You know? And it's really interesting. You're so blamie and judgmental. Yeah. And when you let go of that, when you don't know that stuff, we'd rather just not finish that point is that you, makes you a better person because you're freer.

Like I actually don't, I really don't hate anyone because it's such a, Like hating someone is the same thing as blaming someone. It's like you're attaching an emotion that's self-defeating and drags you down with jealousy. You know, jealousy is just like, it's such a dumb emotion because the person you're jealous of cannot feel what you're feeling. You're just hurting yourself.

You're denigating yourself. You're elevating them probably further than they should go and you're draining your own battery. And so when you can identify those behaviors that are so self-emolating, self-destructive, that it's such a much easier, lighter life when you don't carry those burdens. Tell me about the album and the process

and, you know, sort of the conceiving it all and recording it all. Well, I just had been on tour. I used to make records once every three years, so that's when they come out. I'm making them all the time. But every three years, they're ready every three years.

It's a very, I wanted to make a record that was super stand alone. And, you know, basically you'd expect, I'd be totally forgiven for making a really lackluster, mid-tempo, acoustic-based, self-satisfied, disconnected record, possibly about, like, my time is Sequoia Forest, or the movement of the ocean just on the tip of Mexico. know, it really got me. And instead, instead, I feel like we made a really vital record connected to the heartbeat of

of where it's at. Flowers on a grave is the isolation song, the Lone and the Song, The Kingdom, which is a, like, comical rock song to lift up the peaceful protests, you know, I'm not into the looting stuff. the peaceful protest and the uprising and the defense of the racial injustice here in America and of course around the world, you know, it just feels like, wow, how did we, how did we write a record that if you want to be on a surfboard, listen to rock music? This is the track to play it to, you know? And so it feels really connected and really vital. So I love the idea of doing everything wrong. I love the idea of being from England and doing a rock band when Britpop was

the biggest thing going on and we do a rock band and I thought oh here's the end of my commercial life oh well before I die I'm going to make a band do a band I love and I did it bush and I did it all wrong and then it went all right and I should still shouldn't be doing it now you know I shouldn't be everything I shouldn't be on paper doing everything and I love that because all those laws all those shoulds the list of shoulds who wrote those I mean no one should go to westminster and have this life this is not the life means Amy McGowan Well, also, it's interesting. Shane McGowan.

He's the only other guy that went to Westminster, you know. He didn't go to Westminster. Yeah. Yeah, really? Yeah, shame again. Yeah. But isn't that interesting? That tells you a lot, doesn't it?

I look at myself then, and I think that was a judgment on my part. You know, because I look at me and think, why did you go to Westminster? And I'm making an assumption about who would have gone there. But that's fascinating. Me too. I'm super judgmental at other place. Yeah. I judged it.

I judged it every day. First three years, I wasted my time. When I went back, many years after I left, 10, 15 years after I left, I couldn't believe how fancy it was, and it was all like the establishment. It was the establishment. But it wasn't, you know, with the big difference that it wasn't the kind of lumbering, entitled establishment.

And it's funny, isn't it? Because at first, when you're young and growing up, I was so insecure about going to, you go to public school and if you're English, that's the end of it. I used to walk around, pie, par, thinking, is the end of me. I've got no future. even if I think of a tune, even if I write a song, everyone's going to hate me forever. And they kind of did. They kind of did for it as well. Did you think they did?

Well, slightly. It definitely played into reasons to hate me. You know, record sales, you know, didn't get hit with the ugly stick and went to Westminster. Oh yeah, if you're an NME, that's the end's like, that's like, it's enough to kill you. Hang to draw and core to that fucker. Yeah, we're going to bleed him dry. you know, the NME, melody maker, even sounds back in the day when I was a kid, they were just like everything that I based my life off of. So when we came out and we got so beaten up by the NME, I was like, I'm getting smacked around here.

You've got three kids, haven't you? And you'll put a hands on, Dad. Well, you've got four in total because you found out you were dad later in life, which I love as well. And did you... Yeah, I've got beautiful Daisy. So Daisy I'm really close with, but she's obviously fully grown and fully perfect.

So I'm just there as a good sounding board. And we have a wonderful relationship, but I have the three boys that live with me half the time. That are really, I don't know how to do it. I didn't read any books. So when I, and I'm really lucky with my life, that I can really fashion it around them. And so when I have them, I really work less.

If I'm not touring, I work around them. And I'm, you know, I don't go out when I'm with there. and just hang out with them all the time. And so it's really close and healthy and sweet. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I think that there are too many people in the world. And if you're going to breed, the least you can do is making good people.

So it's like the ultimate bad manners is to have kids and just leave them to be feral kids that have no input like, a bit like I was really. I was sort of feral but under the watchful eye of my dad is really calm. So I had this like ability to be bit of both and always secured by the fact of that I just wanted him to like me so much that I never was too loud too much, you know. And it was, you know, whatever. And with your kids, are you, are you keen to sort of, are they quite British or American? And are you keen to sort of introduce them to British culture and, you know, or is that something that?

Yeah, we have a very, very English, I call it European, even though we're obviously out of the, Europe now. I suppose we're not European, but I give them, I give them that lifestyle of where we sit and eat together. We break bread together every night, every, you know, whatever lunch, you can mess around wherever, but take a bit of food here and there. But I have this cultural thing with them where we sit down to eat every single night. And that creates a bond and culture. You know, I'm obsessed with them reading books and teaching them stuff and showing them things. So therefore I make my kids think about things. Everything you know is wrong. Everything, you know, think about things or these disinformation books. They tried to get them to read Catherine

the Rye but the 14-year-olds like, no, they told me not reading it to high school. I was like, perfect. You'll know it really well. What's your problem? Read it. You know, I'm bored. I said, well, look, there's so many things you don't know. Like read this book. The people have like laying the ground for us to be more interesting. And so that kind of stuff that- Are you hot on manners, Gavin? And I imagine you being quite hot on that kind of stuff. We go to a restaurant and there's an old, like, bus boy man, you know, like the older guy, you know, pouring water. If they don't look him in the eye and thank him, they get like the spitting through the side of the mouth like that.

You look at you know what I mean. That's the only time I get really. So what I do find is that when they go and spend time with other people, they're flawless, their manners. Because my mum, it's like they kind of elbows on the table. They got to shake people's hand. looking people in the eye, thank you, please, all that stuff. Like even though I'm super art, like that stuff, how they, because I say, if they're funny and they're polite, they'll go far.

That's all you've got to be, funny and polite. And then everyone's going to love you. Your life will be easier. Don't be either of those two and life's going to be much harder for you than it should be. Even when I got divorced, there was obviously I could have considered a way to move back to London and to not be a, you know what I mean, be more of a deadbeat, more of a standard dad and I had a girlfriend at the time who couldn't believe it. She's like, oh, none of my friends, none of the fathers, you know, just don't have your kids all the time. We'll live in London.

We can live in London. And she's really beautiful. And I was like thinking, I said to, yeah, and you're really crazy, but I do love you. So I will visit you in the mental hospital. No, I'm never leaving my kids. Like, you idiot. So I never thought of that. Like, I think when you have them, I mean, I just, that's it, you know. And I have this really weird life because I have two lives. Like it's a my selfish life where I can talk about myself and go on tour and sing my songs. Or I can be here at the house. There's no one here.

Or I'm with them, like the last two weeks where I got the 6.30 with them and with them until 10.30 at night. And I go out a little bit. Two weeks I went for one dinner. and I got a call half with the dinner from my 14-year-old dad what time you're coming back and shall I put the jacuzzi on I was like back a little bit put it on so we had a like I came back at 10 and we're like and sat in a jacuzzi with my 14-year-old for an hour and then the 11 year old leans out over the balcony above he goes can't come put me down I was like yeah sure so I go and put

him down then we work up in the morning and I forgot to put the chusie off so I get in the chukesie at 7 a.m. till 8 with a 6 year old and then we're shooting the breeze in the jacuzzi there and just in listening to your kids talking and letting them talk and give them the space to be heard and talk about anything they want and be creative. It's just amazing when you let kids they're comfortable and relaxed and they're talking. It's just like it's magic. What I like is you're now reached a stage when you're getting calls from someone asking you to join them in a jacuzzi. It would have once been the Playboy Mansion back in the 90s. Now it's your 14 year old. Hurry back.

The water's getting cold. Yeah. But do you think as well with your kids, that's interesting. In terms of fame, which is a difficult thing to handle by any stretch of the imagination, and I think your fame is tough as well for all sorts of reasons because it's complicated and people think of you in certain ways. You know, they apply a truck, he's this, he's that. And I think, do you think with your kids that's something you've been conscious of is,

because it must be weird when your kids turn around to you and say, you're on telly, you're on the poster, you're on, you know, Is that something you've navigated? Yeah, it's been really tricky. Sometimes we'll be at the supermarket and, you know, you'd be on the cover of a gossip magazine or a picture in a gossip magazine or, you know, his mum's on the cover getting married and we're like standing with a shopping and I'm like,

should I stand in front of it or, you know, what should I cover? It's just sort of, you know, I mean, the most important thing I think is to have a sort of ability to, it's very English, which is to just compartmentalize things and never take yourself so seriously. And, you know, I'm just so conscious that there's other people that are so much bigger stars and bigger fame and bigger selection of photographers.

Sometimes it's annoying because if I go for lunch with someone or me up with anyone, I'm dating them and I'm with them. And the danger of that, of course, is often true. And so you're like, it's just annoying because it's just like, oh man I don't know what this is. I'm just finding out if I want to get meet him again. Don't sort of say I'm with it. I don't know. It's somehow it's really invasive. It's like, hold on, I didn't say that yet. You know, and he really likes her. I didn't say that. The main thing is that with all through that, you know, and all the terrible stuff. I just thought it was just I could never, I would never talk about my private life per se all my, you know, deepest stuff. I talk with my kids about it all. But I, I've never, I would never say anything derogatory. about their mother.

I would never criticize her. She gave me three children. The matter what my perspective is, I would never do that. It just seems she gave birth to three amazing kids and any, I think she has a lot of trouble with me, but that's her own trouble.

It's not my trouble. You know, so I just, I just look at it through my kids. I'll tell you another way of looking at people always say to me when I first had kids, the ones I knew about, as you said. I didn't put it like that, Gavin. There you go, it's my turn of phrase for you.

They go, you know, do you write any songs? You write any songs about your kids. And it's like, I think Daisy and I think of my boys in the same way. No, they just inspire you to be better because I want Daisy Kingston. I want them to be their friends, play their dad's new record and not be embarrassed. I want to be like, wow, this is wild. You know, check this out. And so all they did is they raised the bar.

for your quality of everything that you do much in the same way that the reason I don't I don't care about being photographed with a beautiful friend or a beautiful girl that I'm seeing or whatever I what do I care there's corona people are dying it's a fucking picture who gives a shit so I don't care about that what I care about and I really don't like it is in my heart's things when it happens because I don't want my kids to get the example that I'm just like you know it's a bit too relaxed. I want my kids to know that it's like that you know they say to me why didn't you get a girlfriend is it's not like I don't have a you know see a date in between I'm with them but what I don't do is I bring brought one girl around them in five years and that's a girl I have for two years

and the rest of I'm sort of dating and getting to know someone or maybe even spending time with someone and that's a big big step before I introduce them to my kids because I still want to be so you know, so frivolous for them because it's just not a good example. They've got to see solid on that front. And that's why I don't really like that intrusion. Outside of that, isn't it my job to be, you know, to have, you know, some pictures with someone who's a beautiful girl. It's not the end of the world. I do think with Daisy, though, who's your daughter and you didn't find out until, I guess she was 14, wasn't she? And you were like, oh, okay, I've got a kid. That's something that takes time. And that must have been a big shock, but to get to that place is brilliant.

Yeah. It is really good because, you know, she really was really in need of the stability of her father and the person that she thought her father turned out not be and turned out to be quite a difficult person in her life. And, you know, she's been on her own journey and I think that to have found me and me found her for us to be effectively reunited, you know, daughters love their dads, you know, really a lot. So we have an intrinsic bond that is, you know, I don't have that with my three boys. It's a different thing. And obviously, she's an adult.

So we have a beautiful, beautiful connection that's really nice. In fact, if it wasn't for Corona, we'd be on holiday right now in Sardinia. We'd be doing this interview from Sardinia. And then there'd be pictures of you in the paper saying, Gavin Rostell pictured with stunning brunette. Someone would say, no, it's his daughter, you idiot. And they'd be, oh, Scott. I actually was estranged from my dad and it was difficult. Similar thing he left when I was young, you know, a bit like your mum.

And I just sort of reunited with him when he, on his deathbed really. But I look at what you've done and I think, yeah, but I think that's amazing because your mum left you and again, none of us are guilty, none of us are guilty, no one is to play, everyone is going, but you've done, I think your legacy is that you've righted that act somehow because you've come into Daisy's life and given her a dad. That's how I see it. Right. And, um, thank you so much. And I have a really beautiful, beautiful relationship with my mum. Really, really, really close. And, uh, you know, I speak to her two, three times a week, you know, ring her all the time and keep an eye on her and Corona's been really hard for her.

Luckily, I came back just before, um, in March. I was in London last time. And, uh, no, you know, she's, she's amazing. And I never, ever, ever, ever. harboured any grudges or blame or I just thought it was like okay thanks I was like almost like being catapulted it was being catapulted into adult life so whilst there was teething problems I just got like I really took it like oh that happens people just aren't happy and in fact the last two years of her living with us she was so miserable that it that it was miserable and so So when she left, even though it was awful, suddenly there was none of that tension. And losing that tension was like a really, was a powerful, powerful thing, but it just had all

the other side of it. And it's probably, you know, so it makes you, I don't know. We need to finish by asking quickly about Chooey, because Chooey is a star of this before we go. Of course. What are Chewy's plan? Do you spoil Chooie Gavin? Do you cook for chewy and puree food and what is your dog parenting style like? It's pretty, I'm a feeder.

I am a feeder. So I don't puree. He still has teeth, so I don't puree anything. But I definitely chop it within the good bite-sized pieces. But I usually, you can buy these like rotisserie chicken for the supermarket. You can, Gavin. Those people buy them for humans. But anyway, carry on.

Yeah. But the thing is that you can go and you can buy that caviar stuff from Fortnham and Mason. No, no, oh my God. No, I mean, I mean, I put it on sandwiches for the kids, the kids eat it. I don't eat that. I don't eat that much meat. Stop backpedaling, Rossdale. I know. I know. I know. So is chewy a lad on the bed, by the way?

Oh yeah, of course. He's going to get washed today, actually, reminds me. But yeah, he's totally allowed. on the bed. Just basically allowed everywhere, but all within reason and all within reasonable hygiene as well. So I like a nice, you know, a clean, chewy gets close on the bed, but he doesn't, he's not like sitting around, you know, desperate to be. He kind of has an independence. I want his own space as well, you know. Oh, well, I'm, I'm imagining you in Chewy having a night, you've done your walk now, so you're all set up for the day. Yeah, I want to go to train now. I'm going to play tennis now in the heat and it's nice and hot, so I'm going to go and play tennis

of it in the deep valley. Oh, don't make us jealous. I'm stuck in indoors with my smelly Shih Tzu. Oh. We'll give him a bath. I've loved talking to you. You've been brilliant. And I really love the look of Tewy

and I'll continue to stalk Tewy on social media. Please do. And loads of luck with the album and I don't think you'll need it because I think it's brilliant. Oh, thanks so much. I really appreciate that. Bye, Raymond.

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