The hard lesson rock stars need to learn
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Rock reunion … Bush, fronted by Gavin Rossdale, release new record Man On The Run. Picture: Supplied
Source: Supplied
ROCK reunions rarely recapture the glory days of a band. So Gavin Rossdale knew it was a big risk to resurrect Bush in 2010 after an eight-year break.
While the comeback album The Sea Of Memories was more sledged than praised, the single Sound Of Winter topped the rock charts in America.
It would be the live stage where Bush’s return proved most popular, with the band spending the next couple of years performing on the world’s festival and concert stages.
When he came off the road, Gavin Rossdale went back into songwriting mode, determined to write songs tailor-made for the stage.
The success of the shows despite the album’s performance on the charts and the critics’ barbs validated his decision to keep the band going two decades after they had joined the alt-rock revolution with their debut record Sixteen Stone and its chart-topping hit Glycerine.
“It meant I was justified in trawling Bush back from the underground and forcing everyone to endure it again,” he says, laughing.
“Having been on the road for the best part of two and a half years gave me the confidence to make a record from an informed live perspective. I knew what worked, and what didn’t.”
Rossdale says it was inevitable his desire to create the powerful, heavier sounds that are realised when a song leaps from the record to the stage would rule the sonic direction of new album, Man On the Run.
He achieves that goal most obviously on Loneliness Is a Killer. It may also be the most personal song on the record being influenced by the pangs of separation from wife Gwen Stefani and their three children when on tour.
“Lyrically, it came from always being away,” he says.
“You can do certain things to fix that loneliness. You can go out. When my family is with me, we go to every zoo there is. I am so tired of zoos.
“The day time is often spent wondering what I am doing with my life and the night time is spent erasing those thoughts and thinking this is the greatest thing ever and then you go back to the days.
“It’s a very destabilising way of life and most people don’t like to tour for exactly those reasons, because you lose your mind.
“And when you have children your self-importance is eroded completely. Yet I have to go on the road to make a living.”
Those anxieties currently don’t exist as Rossdale and Stefani teamed up again for the first since the 1995 Bush and No Doubt tour when they started their relationship.
TV stars … Gavin Rossdale wasn’t the producers’ only choice to act as mentor to his wife Gwen Stefani on The Voice. Picture: Michael Buckner / Getty Images.
Source: Supplied
Stefani replaced Shakira as a coach on this year’s series of The Voice in America and Rossdale signed on to act as her mentor.
With an album coming out, Rossdale recognises the promotional potential of involvement with a water-cooler show.
And their sons are excited about their mum’s involvement in the show.
He says that just because his wife was signed to the show did not immediately get him the gig and it wasn’t until he met the people behind the scenes that he signed up.
“It would be a little duplicitous to not recognise it as one of the greatest platforms ever,” he says.
“After meeting everyone there, it did seem a natural process to do this with her.
“The reaction from most people about me doing it has been to try to goad me into somehow denigrating it because it is so antithetical to how I started.
“But when you are in it, it’s a completely positive experience and I’m lucky to have been a part of it, really because the list to be Gwen’s adviser was massive.”
Keep it real … Gavin Rossdale says bands shook follow the lead of DJs in keeping their audiences engaged for a an entire show. Picture: Jason Kempin / Getty Images.
Source: Getty Images
While television may be an instantaneously effective medium to promote music, Rossdale says he also took inspiration from the power of electronic artists to command a live audience.
He tried to channel some of the tricks of their trade into the songs for Man On The Run and plans to also employ their approach to structuring a live set when Bush heads out on their next tour.
“If you look at the way the popular DJs work, people hang on their every move, their every spin. People are focused on everything they do,” he says.
“I wanted to find a way to not to be a slave the traditional arrangements of rock — intro, verse, chorus, middle eight — when those guys just keep it going because that is what everyone wants.
“Those top guys have such confidence and they really know how to control a crowd. Instead of me trying to control the song, I wanted to find a way to keep the song going.
“Rock bands need to start avoiding the 20-minute visit to the bar moment.”
As the band release Man On the Run, they have also reissued their breakthrough debut Sixteen Stone, not so much to celebrate its 20th anniversary but simply to have their early albums available to newer fans who may have come on board with The Sea of Memories.
“I’m not sure how I feel about those anniversary reissues because does that mean we do another one for the 25th or the 30th?” he says.
“It rubs against the creative spirit in me. People love that record and I am thrilled they do and I am thrilled with that record because I owe it my life.
“Just play it again, stream it, buy a new copy, whatever you need but isn’t fun to have a new record which is just as delicious and wide and full of ideas?”
Man On the Run is out now.
