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There's an aching familiarity about Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale's voice - it instantly calls to mind Kurt Cobain's smoky rasp, but there's also something deeper and more velvety, a bit reminiscent of Peter Gabriel.The fragile looking Rossdale speaks with a calmness that belies the cynicism behind most of the lyrics on Sixteen Stone , Bush's debut album with Trauma Records.
Rossdale grew up in North London, cutting his teeth on late '70s British punk bands like the Clash. But, by the '80s, there was little left in the music scene that interested him. He hung out, spent some time in New York, partied and played, with no thoughts of a career in music. A couple of years ago, however, Rossdale met guitarist Nigel Pulsford, bassist Dave Parsons and drummer Robin Goodridge through a mutual acquaintance. It didn't take long for the four to become Bush.
The band did rounds in London's pubs for several years. It looked like they would go no further, until they caught the ear of someone at Trauma, and were signed in 1993.
The label wisely decided to circumvent the British weekly music press' antipathy for rock music by whisking Bush straight off to the U.S.
"Being signed to an American label, it seemed obvious that this is where we should start," Rossdale says. It hasn't been a hip little promo tour, either. The band has hit every major U.S. city, and many smaller ones, in a tour that has lasted more than two months... two months in a van, sleeping in strange hotels and battling with unsanitary bathrooms.
Rossdale, is speaking from a "brown hotel room somewhere in Kansas."
"It's just great," he says enthusiastically, despite the hardships.
"The places we're playing are sold out- sweaty and steamy. We could have got a support on a big tour - we were offered Page and Plant - but his is much better, playing three or four hundred people who are there to see you."
The response to Bush's music, which mixes both soulful rock and dirty grunge with a touch of British roots punk thrown in for good measure, has been incredible. Billboard recently featured them on the cover, along with The Stone Roses and Oasis, as being part of a new British invasion. That's no mean advantage for an unknown band, but Rossdale refuses to take his press too seriously.
"I didn't think anything of it. It's nice, but I'm not going to get into the media thing. What was really thrilling was seeing us at No.69 on the album chart," he says, respectful of the the fickle nature of success.
During one of Bush's U.S. radio appearances, Rossdale did an impromptu Q&A session with the station's callers. One 14-year-old girl, in particular, sticks in Rossdale's mind.
"After hearing Bush, now I've got someone to replace Pearl Jam with," the young woman said.
Rossdale responded, incredulously, "You can have more than one CD in your collection, you know."
But the young woman missed his point completely: "Yeah, now I can stop mourning Kurt Cobain." Rossdale shakes his head at the memory. Sometimes the whole thing just gets really silly.
It's probably going to get sillier, too. Bush is about to return to Europe for the next leg of the tour. After that, they'll return to the U.S. to play the larger halls that they could just as easily have filled out.
The members of the band aren't in a hurry, though. They're just trying to keep body, soul, and sanity together. Without a doubt, these guys are in it for the long haul.
