BOBBYCAST - Gavin Rossdale from Bush on the Band’s Rise, the Harsh Reality of Being a Rockstar & His Friendship with Chris Martin

Gavin Rossdale of Bush joins Bobby to look back on the band’s rise, from the early days of breaking through to what life really looked like once success hit. Gavin shares the harsh reality of being a rockstar, the parts of fame people don’t always see, and how he learned to navigate the highs and lows that came with it. He also opens up about his friendship with Chris Martin of Coldplay, what their bond has meant to him over the years, and the moments that have shaped both his career and his life outside of music.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
All I wanted to do is not have a proper job.
So I was like, you know, if I just keep
making songs, I'm not gonna have to go do that.
And it's so brilliant because I was so ignorant, because
I had no concept if someone had told me that
all these years later I could be here in Nashville
would be talking. I didn't know if that was a possibility.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm a massive fan of this next guy. So it's
Gavin Rossdelle, the lead singer, the founding member of Bush.
Over thirty years of really defining modern rock like Bush
is still killing it. They've sold over twenty five million
albums Glycerine, Jam, Machine, Heead Jam, Come Down, Jam, sixteen Stone,

(00:47):
that album their dog was on the front of it,
nineteen ninety four top ten to fifteen album ever for Me.
Bush is wrapping up their North American leg tour of
their Land of Milk and Honey tour. Gavin is celebrating
the band's latest album, I Beat Loneliness. They revisited Swallowed,
which is a JAM two and so Gavin's awesome, You're

(01:08):
gonna see this here. Even in his last music, it's
talks about mental health and isolation and resilience, and so
I do want to talk with him now here. He
is really one of my favorite lead singers of all time,
the lovely and I mean that lovely guy. I even
tell him he's hot. Gavin Rosstelle, Gavin, good to see you, man,

(01:29):
Thanks for having me. I've been a fan for a
long time. Like one of the first albums that I
listened to from the very beginning to the very end
when I started to like understand albums was you Guys'
first record Nice. So I feel like I've kind of
grown alongside you guys. Is that at what point in
your career did you start to take that as a
compliment where people would go, You've been a legend to

(01:51):
me for a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Oh my god. It's just such an incredible thing to
hear from anybody. And you know, being in a band,
maybe it's different from stand up, but we're just needy.
There's a needy quality to it, you know, you want
people to like it. I don't go so far as
to do that thing where someone comes in the dress
room video what do you think of it? I don't
do that, but I'm secretly thinking hoping that they really

(02:13):
enjoyed it, you know. So it's just wild, you know,
when you have a career for amount of time, like
you know, as you have had, it's wild to have
that perspective, to think that you've been around long enough
to sort of matter to people on a wider scale
than like I love that song, you know. I mean, yeah,

(02:33):
so it's incredible and just it sort of gives you
that strength to want to continue on, and it gives
a real humility and a sense of devotion to whatever
your craft is, you know. And so it just makes
me want to do better shows and do better songs.
And I find it inspiring, you know what I.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Mean when someone will come up and say they've been
a fan or been consuming something I've been doing for
a long time, and they're like twenty eight and they're like,
I've been a fancais I was eight.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
I'm like.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
That mortality, That's what I think. Mortality I had that,
you know, I have that, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
I someone last night in my dress room, Man, I
grew up in your record was the first trip. When
I got seventeen, I said, you know, when I was
like seventeen, I said, it's so weird. I can't believe
I made it when I was eight. It was such
an accomplishment.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
But you were young too. Yeah, it's just yeah, nothing matters.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
It Just it's funny because from the outside you think
that everything matters. I remember when I turned forty, I
thought that the world was over. I thought I was
going to sign off and be like, listen, I'm on
the gang plank. Now wave to me before I get
booted off. And so you just realize that the what
sustains is quality. You know, that's what sustains, and so
therefore you have a different sort of emphasis. I think

(03:52):
I've gotten better at editing, meaning by that I mean
I don't always think it's great, so I go back
kind to try and rework things that I really have
a sort of a sense of what may work, what
may not work. So I just love being a student
of my craft, you know what I mean, just trying
to I mean Nashville, I was embarrassed at ev Into

(04:14):
Gives a Superstar and the garage there, and I'm intimidating.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
There's all these people playing.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Guitar like I know, everyone's better than me, and this
it's all these old boys playing like these course spread spread,
course I'm just like, I'm just going to touch the
edge of the guitar and move on.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
You know, this town it's wild because I mean it's
the land of giants. And you can go to a
bar and it's not someone who is not good so
they're playing a bar. It's someone that for some reason
hasn't been discovered for whatever element that they have that's special. Yet,
like you have to be so good to just play,

(04:50):
not so good to make it. But this town, yeah,
it is intimidating for folks when they first move here. Whenever,
when did you move to the States.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Well, obviously from the beginning, we spent a lot of
time in America and touring and in and out of
Los Angeless a lot. That's what my label was. But
really when I had when we had our first baby,
how old were you then? That was like, oh I
was mid thirties.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Oh so you didn't live here then for a while.
So why you guys were doing your early stuff. You
were just traveling, just on the road.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
I didn't live anywhere. And it's funny, you know, it's
sort of it does swallow your life up. I think
some people are really good at doing it and finding
the balance. I've quite failed at that, you know, because
I noticed.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
That my poor mum.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
I noticed at a funeral when they had the pictures
at the church when they were doing the service, and
it was a history of her life, you know, and
everyone's at these parties were and this is me. I'm
either at our house or a couple of restaurants we
would go to. And I was like, that has been
the price of it, that you're just always away? Do

(06:06):
you sort of separate yourself from life, from your everyday life,
and you can go back and catch up with people.
But I always miss people's birthdays, I always miss events,
things that are happening.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
But that's just the price of it.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Would you go back and change anything about that part
of it if you could?

Speaker 3 (06:25):
Well, the problem is is that I don't.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
I mean, i'd be terrible to live in some kind
of regret about it. I don't regret it. I'm not
sure there's part this was that much fun. I don't know.
Maybe they were, but I should have been that. But
it's more that I really am. I don't believe in much,
you know, but I do believe in the sort of
order of things and synchronosity. I believe in a lot
is telling you about running into some of the new

(06:51):
the keyboard player that i'd just done NPR tiny desk
with and at a coffee shop on a small town
in Nashville, ran on a Thursday lunchtime. So I love that.
So that's what I think that you also makes your
life easier. You're never in the wrong place. You're always
in the right place, even if you don't like it.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
So do you believe everything happened for a reason?

Speaker 3 (07:13):
I think so, you think?

Speaker 1 (07:16):
So I like to think of that, and I don't,
as I say, I'm not particularly I kind of definitely
connect with like Buddhist philosophies of sort of kindness and
empathy and all those things and morality, but I don't
really believe in that. You know, I grew up going

(07:37):
to a school where everyone would sing the hymns and church,
and I would be like, is that really I'd look around,
even as a small child, I couldn't connect to that
being a reality. I just thought it was felt like control.
That was a young punk in me, you know, it
just felt like control and everyone just nodding along to

(08:00):
make sure they're, you know, under the right control. So
but I do believe that we find ourselves where we're
meant to be.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
However hard that is.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
I grew in a very controlled Christian household. My grandmother
adopted me, and so I kind of went from being
Pentecostal to Baptists too, And in church for me was
also a place where they would take care of me,
where I could eat, because I'd pretty rough up upbringing,
and I was taught and like everything is going to

(08:32):
happen because it's supposed to happen. As I got older, though,
I really struggled with thinking, if that's true, that means
I have to do nothing, I don't have to work hard.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Right.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
That means that people are getting things and they were
going to get them the whole time.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
I struggle with that, except you're making conscious decisions to
try and reverse something that you think might happen as
according to what you're taking. So in a way, you're
continuing to follow that tenet of just creating your own thing.
If your destiny was to not create this.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Sort of.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
A big setup that you have, and your destiny was
to just work at the coffee shop I was at
this morning and leave it at that, that would have
been what you.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Would have done.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
I don't know if that's true, but I know the
thing is.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
That you can't.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
It's what you did, is what you did, the path
you chose, whether you wrestled with it or not, it's
what you did and it's where you found yourself. And
this is not easy to come by. This, So the viewers,
I'm not sure they're where. There's more awards than I've
ever seen up here, and it's this Quincy Jones's house
and so.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
You just you, just you you.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Whether you like it or not, you had your journey
and you've been on it and it's incredible. So I
think there's something beautiful in that. It means you can't
something you would let go on. Not something I overthink about,
but certainly when I run into something like that, that
concept of synchronosity Carl Jung spoke about that a lot
does seem you know, you run into people when you

(10:12):
should and it's quite wild how that happens, which which
makes it quite hard on no Sound. It's the only
thing I don't like about LA because I grew up
in London, is there's not enough chance. And I love
that element of chance.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Why is there not enough chance?

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Because traffic, because you're walking. You're not walking everywhere in
your car. And you know, people in their cars in
la literally they cannot see outside the cars. You know,
Tho's windows are like fake. People are not even looking
out of them. They're in their worlds, on their phone
and doing their music and every now and again to
check the lights and then they go back to what
they're doing. It's crazy when you drive their people just

(10:46):
in their own world. So, you know, London, you can
walk around when you If I leave my house in
London and I go to a bar, I go to
a coffee shop, or I go anywhere in the area
that I live, I'm always going to bump into some
one and they're going to say, oh, do you want
to go over there? So you and you just it
just it tags all of that. So that element of chance,

(11:06):
I think is is is alive.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
And well you bring up how you know there's synchronicity
that happens in life and the Buddhist teachings. I read
The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and that
book meant a lot to me in different reasons that
I'm not Buddhists, but I think there's a lot that
I took from that, and mostly I think it was
perspective of if something's going wrong for me in my life,

(11:33):
and I'm like, dang, I'm sad about it, woe is me,
That's okay. But instead of comparing upward, because that's what
we do, we tend to go, man, everybody else is
doing all this and I'm not getting this. It's like,
there are so many people that are We'll just say,
for the sake of the tears, are below you that
have it so much worse. And we spend our entire
life comparing upward and making us feel bad when we

(11:54):
could look and there are people that have it so
much harder than us, and we're not looking at that
lends to see how good we actually have it. I
find I take a lot from the preachings of the
Dalai Lama and the teachings of Buddhism without being a
Buddhist at all. So when you said that, that struck me

(12:14):
in same as me, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Because I mean if you if you eat meat and
you drink alcohol, you are no longer a Buddhist. So yeah,
I take a lot from that too, and I and
I you know, for me, it's very humbling to do
the shows, and there are times when I'm you know,
you feel over work, you feel harassed. You want to

(12:38):
do a great show, but you've had a number of
sort of side swipes in the day. Then you go
and do the show, and I maybe and you'll see
as simple as seeing somebody who's watching the show from
wheelchair I stayed last night is in the crowd is
like three people are hugged in a wheelchair. That's the
simplest sort of example of like you have nothing to

(12:59):
get plain about if you're able bodied and wandering around
compared to people with these wonderful spirits who come there
to what shows and are in wheelchairs. So that's on
a really simple level, is it kind of a It
is a kind of a shock to the system. Having
said that, it's also okay to have some complaints and

(13:22):
to sort of try and have your own boundaries of
things and what would upset you, what would upset most
people are sort of if you're pushed to an extreme
and you're exhausted and you're called left and right, it's okay.
It's just human to be like, man, this is bothering me.
But then, as you say, the perspective is just to
be like, well, here's the other one. You could be

(13:42):
in a situation where no one cares and you're just
at home and you have all the time in the world.
How does that feel. That'd be a lot worse. Yeah,
so I measure it.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
I do that if I'm really tired, because I have
a wonderful job that I've worked hard for. But there
are times where I'm sure, same as you, days not
go and go. You're not feeling great, maybe you're hungry, exhausted, whatever,
and you're like this guy sucks. But if I'm able
to be tired because of something that I love to do,
that is a gift for sure. And I think that

(14:14):
is a perspective shift that I have to look at
sometimes because I'll just I'll be out and I'm like, man,
this sucks. But I do have to shift that perspective
and go, dude, how lucky am I to get to
be tired. That's something that I've worked so hard to
get to do.

Speaker 4 (14:27):
Right.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Do you get on stage middle of a show and
just check out and you're so tired and you're thinking about, man,
why do you go buy groceries?

Speaker 3 (14:41):
I was actually gonna say well I do that anyway.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
I've always doen a grocery list when I'm singing, because
you gotta I need.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
So many things.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
But the one saving grace that I find, I mean,
is that the one place that's like sacricanct sacred is
the show itself. I can you know, it's all a
bit around it, and I'm like Jesus Christ, I know Nebraska,
but I don't need to see it again today. But
then you go and do a show, and that's where

(15:11):
it all changes, Like.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
That moment on stage.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, because it's it's all it's it's quite intense, and
maybe it's the same for you. If I'm going to
be it's really simple. I have a simple philosophy. If
I'm going to be away from my boys, my kids
and be on the road a lot, which we are,
the only only way I can justify it is by
being as wild and as interesting as possible on stage.

(15:37):
And we're to go out and anyway, I've never like
phoned in the show or you know, I sometimes I
look down and gone, Jesus Christ has seventeen songs to go,
you know, I feel exhausted, but that goes away pretty quick,
and I pride myself, and I'm very lucky to have
that in the band. On like every show, it's just

(15:58):
got to be the greatest thing you could ever And
then it makes it interesting because I would think that
if you ever got on stage and you just like
overly separator from the show. I find it very difficult
to not have consistently other thoughts. Whether I have an
adhdal or I don't know. It's just that life is
just like that. I mean, that moment, I'm like, man,

(16:18):
what happened? And then you're all over the place. But
the show is everything, and so without making the show
the priority, So I know, I don't find it there,
but I sure find it when I'm wandering around looking
for breakfast and everywhere shut and I can't.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah what am I doing? You know?

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Are you traveling by tour bus?

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:37):
So you finish the show, you get on the bus.
The bus leaves the middle of the night and drives
to the next How do you sleep on the bus?

Speaker 3 (16:42):
Badly? Badly?

Speaker 1 (16:45):
You know, it's just sort of in the back and
it's bouncing around. I mean again, it's the nicest way
to travel. We're playing with a band, James and the
Cold Gun. They're in a tiny kind of truck bus.
They're loading their stuff in and off the stage. I
watch them every night and I'm just I just feel

(17:07):
for them. I'm so impressed by them working that hard.
You know, I've got text. I walk on stage and
I make the shape of a guitar someone who fell
down dead, you know, but up right, and then they
put it in. They're given the guitar, so they make
it so easy, you know, it's it's they let me
just do the show. So that again, it's all perspectives,
like you say, you know, and I've really learned a

(17:31):
while ago that that my one of my favorite kind
of tenets is that comparison is a thief of joy
because you can anyone could look and see someone else
in their world who's doing better than they are. It's
really easy because the bigger people get, the more that
we see we read about them. So you're like, oh, man,
you know, am I ever going to play a stadium?

Speaker 4 (17:51):
No?

Speaker 1 (17:51):
But you know you're playing arenas and you're doing great things.
So it's it's like it is I suppose this is
one of the secrets to life, is does.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
It remind you of when you guys were traveling around.
I don't know if it was a car, truck, a
small van, like way back in the early early Bush days,
you guys did that too, right of course, what was
that like?

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Well, the voxamp that I had was really heavy, so
it was like all heavy carrying in places. But it
was normal. You know at that point when you're doing it,
you're doing it because you would love music so much
and you have a dream of something. But I was
an idiot. I mean, I'm barely just beyond that now.
But the idea that I didn't know what the future held,
so I was like all I wanted to do is

(18:32):
not have a proper job. So I was like, you know,
if I just keep making songs this, I'm not going
to have to go do that. And that's what I
focus on. Was just like going from one day to
the next. And it's so brilliant because I was so ignorant,
because I had no concept if someone had told me
that all these years later I could be here in

(18:53):
Nashville would be talking. I didn't know if that was
a possibility. I didn't know what that was. I made
that first record and then went back to work. You know,
it was like a regular working guy.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
I just made the record and then had a real
job after you made the record? What was your real job.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Patron decorator?

Speaker 1 (19:10):
So so you know, I can't help walking into places
and comparing things.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
I wouldn't have done like that. I would have actually
in your place.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
How long did you have to work then after the
record was made?

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Four months? Four months? Because yeah, four months. I went
back to work and they will still figure out distribution.
But I didn't understand. Again, you know, I compounded my
stupidity with things like I didn't really know that you
could sign a record deal then you needed distribution deal,
which in the meantime, once we had delivered that record
got rejected by that said distributor, so they dropped us.

(19:45):
So I just thought was part of the course. I
just was I've made a record. It was just the
most exciting thing I could imagine. So when I went
back to work, I was thinking, brilliant. Fuck it, I
made the record.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
I did it. I mean my I didn't.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
I didn't have the perspective of what was possible with
I was in England. You know, in England, people were
in bands and they'd either get in this thing OneD
top of the Pops and you'd have a hit record
and then you do a tour which was like nine shows.
You can do England and you can't do Texas and
nine shows.

Speaker 5 (20:18):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
You said something really interesting that I also subscribe to
is that if you're naive but you will work hard,
that is almost a superpower because you don't know what
the failures are ahead of you. You just know kind
of what you love and you chase it without understanding.
Like some really great things can happen from being naive
and just going for it.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, I mean, you know, like I'm feral, I'm a
federal musician. So in this town, it's ironic because you know,
I would think most of Nashville is better at guitar
than me. But yeah, I found a way to use
my guitar with my ideas and with my vocal melodies
that rises above so much quality just by the nature

(21:15):
of his alchemy, not by the nature of his individual parts,
you know. And that's what I find exciting and I
think is invigorating, especially for people who are forging their
own way, is that you just never know. You just
never know what your alchemy, your own personal combination of

(21:36):
things is going to elicit. You don't know, you don't
know what the opportunities are. And I have a young
boys now, you know, young teenagers or whatever, or older
teenagers whatever, seventeen nineteen, who are now going into life.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
It's a wild time because it's all ver everyone in good.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
I mean, I've got a thirty to twelve year old
who's an amazing boy, and everyone loves him. There's no
perspective because he's just a kid.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
You know.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
It's what's interesting is when you have kids and then
they sort of go out into the world independent of you,
and you sort of you see.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
What they're like.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
You know, how tenacious they are, how driven they are,
what they're fascinated by other people's impressions of them, you know,
because you know, the worst thing any parent can do,
I think is this is having an unlikable kid. Do
you have an unlikable kid that's an unlikable adult adult,
that's a person who's going to struggle immensely in life,

(22:32):
you know, if you're not likable to some degree, And
so I just kept an eye on that. But they're
sort of independent on me. They didn't want my help.
They both took the two eldest ones are really into music,
and I'm like gently try to sort of trail behind them,
like a sort of a vapor cloud, saying do you
want any help with that? Like no, keep away? You know,

(22:53):
and it's beautiful, it's part of its independence. But that's
what I find interesting is that you just never know,
and the only thing you can control is your own
skill set and whatever is you choose to do. So
I just I just can't believe I had the sort
of the arrogance and the ignorance, the kind of the

(23:14):
combination of the two to think I could write songs
when you come to sort of someone in Nashville and
you have the unbelievable writers that you just see like that,
I just I just forged it. I just I just
pushed it through the meat grinder just to see what
would come out, and then you get something interesting.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
I think, my, my, the juxtaposition that's odd is wildly
insecure and like voraciously confident.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
That's absolutely that's the wild. That's the wild kind of dichotomy,
the kind of the confusion. It makes no sense, but
that's so perceptive that that's that's the irony of it all,
that it takes mad confidence to go on. I mean
I was rejected for so long, you know, through two
other bands I was in, and then and everyone left

(24:04):
those bands. You know, it's just like last man standing,
go we can do it, fellas, you know, like we
can not together, we can't. And they all left me.
And then I just was like, oh shit. So I
started to write, started to work with Bush and that
was only two years of since the very beginning of
it when we sign, So that was a healthy thing.

(24:25):
But yeah, it's not about it's really good to have.
The technique is everything. It's really great to have technique
and knowledge, but it really is about sort of just
what happens when you you the science of putting four
ingredients together and just seeing what happens, what comes out
from them.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
I feel like I have a screw loose, but for me,
it happens to be the right screw for what I
want to do. Because to just get into a world
of art, you do have to be nuts because there
is no security in it. You you are, you know,
making your money or you're living off other people's tastes
and opinions like you're presenting it and going please like
what I'm doing?

Speaker 1 (25:07):
Nuts and broken and some some degree of broken, and
that that those breaks that there painful for sort of
to live through. You know, you reference your own struggles
with sounds a lot. Those are the very things that
make you interesting and make people. It gives you a
sort of a truth if you've when you when you've

(25:29):
suffered appropriately, you just have a certain confidence in your
aesthetic because that's what you got, and people pick up
on that. I think we're picked. People pick up. People
can pick that up from you. How you know genuine
people people when else come out you speak? Are you authentic?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
You know?

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Did you grow up really dirt poor? If you didn't
grow up you can never sing a song. You know, well,
it's like, did you grow up with some perspective on things?
And what happens is you it's by writing things. People
find things that are funny or touching because it echoes
their life that no one else has validated, no one

(26:09):
else has referenced. And it's an amazing function of art,
whether it's I mean, I'm a huge stand up fan
and music and it's like you make people feel seen
that the fans of us that whatever we do, it's
because we tap into a real sort of vulnerability within

(26:34):
them that they feel suddenly this connection to and music
is so incredible for that because it's just so malleable.
It can it's everywhere, just in your ears, it's in
your car and you I can have an idea, I
can have a perspective, and when I put it out
there in the world, someone says, this is speak, this
is my language. And you know, like how your favorite

(26:56):
song is your song. It's not the artist's song, it's
your song. And I think that's the that's the crucks,
that's abuse of it.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
You know how you say it was your third band,
Bush was Do you think if Bush went have worked out,
you'd gone to your fourth band, your fifth band, would
you still be performing today in a form?

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Well, that's like your first your first question about like,
hang on, if I just sat down, what would happen? Well,
you had been the guy that decided to sit down.
That was your destiny. So I didn't know how to
give up. I don't know how to give up. I'm
half Scottish, so it's like, you know, the Scottish drunks.
You have to kill us in a bar, he literally,
otherwise they're going to just find a way to.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
Get back into it.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
So and it's no one's ever said that, but I've
always felt that that you said that, it takes this
wild confidence in this wild coupled with wild insecurity. So
you're insecurity and you you're broken. My for instance, in
the first band, specifically the first band, the second one
in England, the reason that was given was always my voice.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
You know, they always would say, can't really sing?

Speaker 2 (28:01):
You know, the negative was your voice.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, it was always that was my worst thing. And
I was just thinking to myself. I wasn't even smart
to say yet. I just was like, oh okay, no,
continue singing over here. And so that must have said,
you know, the constant rejection that I that I felt
for a number of years, it was always my voice

(28:24):
and then you know, it wasn't that good on stage.
One guy I remember saying, and you know what I mean,
I still remember it and it didn't hurt and all
you can do is just like just prove them wrong
and that's it. And I had yeah, oh right, yeah,

(28:45):
but I didn't. There was things is that I was
very clear that but since I decided to do music.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Since I was seventeen.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
I never worked in anywhere where they could I could
be valuable. I thought I was in danger if I
went to it environment where I actually could be a value.
I worked in a couple of coffee shops. I did
work on building sites, and my one of my best
friend's dad had a building site, so building jobs, so
we would go and work for him, painting, decorating. And

(29:14):
I just never wanted to be where anyone would be like,
do we have to promote you? This company might not
able to work without you. I've made sure that that
was never the case. I just was a lackey so
that it was just about the music. And I never
thought in any other way. And I never had a
I didn't have money, I didn't have or anything made backdrop,

(29:37):
but I thought that was essential, you know everything. At
that point when I was the first beginning, I lived in
an apartment with like five people, and all of us
were saying of friends of us, we're all best friends.
Everything would be like the It was all like Jim Morrison,
Well what would Jim do?

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Now?

Speaker 1 (29:55):
He'd take them all? Okay, you know what would Jim do?
So Jim would never quit and would never think about
he just would like I was obsessed with Bokowski, so
his all of his books were written about from the
perspective of failure and loss. But those everything, all those

(30:16):
poems spoke to me so deeply. I could never use
them in my songs because whenever I tried to be
a storyteller writer like maybe they are really good in Nashville,
I was just terrible. I just couldn't. I was so disingenuous.
It just was awful. I once wrote a song called
Johnny and Mary and it was that was the first

(30:37):
and last of the of the story songs I wrote.
It just was a shocker, but a good lesson in
how to turn left. So whenever I could never use
what Bokowski wrote. But I just I wanted to get
to write lines that would oh that make you, make you,
you know, just get you, just like, oh my God,

(30:57):
disarm you. And Ginsburg was the other end of it,
which was much more more.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
I thing.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
I could totally inherit, that sort of crazy, chaotic, swirly
thoughts that are just sort of pushed together and it
just creates this sort of amazing kind of throbbing, massive
confusion and you know, words that mental furniture and things
that go together or don't normally go together, and have

(31:25):
fed my words, you know, fed into the Bowie thing
that I liked, which was Burrows cut up technique.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
So all of that. But the way the.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Bukowski rode just made my heart sad, you know. So
I wanted to find ways to create that same effect.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
When you said you didn't want to be valuable, were
you afraid of comfort? Because if you were comfortable, maybe
you want to continue to pursue.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
I didn't want someone to be like, yo, we can plainly,
like we can play, pay you properly, and then I'd
be I'd have to be like music, you know whatever.
You know, I just made sure I never had that option.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
The Bobby cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby cast.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
I've often felt like, because I come from pretty severe poverty,
that that was such a blessing for me in my
space because there was never any comfort to go. Man,
I don't know, I don't want to lose this good
job that I have, Like, I don't know if I
want to go backward, because I add nothing. Everything was
shooting at the stars and it allowed me to really
try to shoot for the stars. And I feel like

(32:36):
a bit that's what you were maintaining as well.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
And I had nothing, and as you know, and I
went it was a weird time. And it's so brilliant
to look back and then reflect on that time as
a young person trying to just follow their heart.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
And I just couldn't quit.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
And then I've gone on so long of singing, you know,
like five six, seven years where it was just like
it was like, oh, well, guy still trying to sing,
you know, you know, And but I didn't know anything
else what I could, didn't have any idea what else
to do. And that's the best thing about life and
the greatest lesson to ever in part on anyone is

(33:17):
this whole thing of you never know.

Speaker 3 (33:20):
And people ask me.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Someone asked me yesterday in the car Parker was hanging
out with after the show, what advice would you give me?
And I'm a young musician, I'm an artist. I'm trying
to what was the best advice you can give me?
And I try not to have anything by rote, but
I did say to him, I think that if you
just made the music you want to hear that'd be

(33:43):
that you could that makes you the most interesting you
could be, as opposed to trying to sound like Bruce
Springsteen or something whatever your heart would like. So that's
what it is, you know, you just forge your way.
And it's wild because it's such a modern, such such
an ancient job to like come into town with a

(34:05):
sort of a wagon full of Alexirs and you sing
a song and then you break some hearts and then
you leave and you leave some of your potions behind.
And in this modern world, I'm more scared for my
own kids because I wouldn't know.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
I would not.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
I mean I would like to be twenty one now,
don't get me wrong, but I would. But it just
must be daunting for people to think what can they do?

Speaker 3 (34:31):
And I just was.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
I was just ignorant, wildly ignorant, and just full of
just intention intention.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
So then what was it that with Bush? And what
was the first affirmation that you got? Was it a song?

Speaker 3 (34:44):
Was like? What happened?

Speaker 2 (34:45):
More people were like this band's good.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
I met the guitar player and he through a friend
of mine, and he didn't really want to start a band, Nigel.
He's too busy getting paid, paid, for music. He was
doing for training videos, for corporate videos, stuff like that.
It was getting one thousand pounds a day for doing
that one thousand track, So that is a fortune, you know,

(35:11):
you could make. He could make between three and five
thousand a week, which is for us. I was living
on forty pounds from the government forty pounds or fifty
pounds a day painting, and I was a bit of
a criminal because I would get both. But you know,
it's it's it's not I mean, it's obviously it's not

(35:32):
really about the money. It's just finding your vocation and
what you really feel connected to. And I found that
the money finds its way.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
But like, what song? What song did you guys record?

Speaker 1 (35:43):
I was going to say. The validation was he was
so good. And when I remember he didn't want to
be in the band. He said, I don't want to
do a band, so he said, if you bring me
the songs, and so I was like, I don't ask
me to write songs. The last guy didn't let me
play guitar, was so terrible a guitar. Then I was
like I was like a busker, lower capital busker, you know,

(36:05):
like a few chords, a few Neil Young songs and
when I began to I took some songs to him
and he demoed them up. And I didn't think it
was gonna be successful because I felt that the other
two bands i'd really made an effort to be what
is succes I wasn't doing the music in the band.
I was just singing, and I was singing what makes

(36:26):
it for success? But when I started working with this guy,
I thought, for the first time, we could be interesting.
This is interesting. And all the bands that I loved
were all club bands. I didn't like bands that were
playing the mega domes in the arenas. It wasn't not America.
This wasn't I couldn't go and see Aerosmith.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
You know.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
I was just seeing small bands in small clubs, and
I thought that's what where cool bands played. And then
kind of, you know, your parents' bands played the kind
of megaplaces. So it wasn't interest in that, but it
was just hearing what was possible. I didn't think of success.

(37:04):
I just thought I was like, I finally doing something good.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
I thought you was something good, and nothing really came
of it until I did a TV show.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
I did a.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Battle of the bands and the TV show on Channel
four in England and you send your demo in and
you get chosen and we won. So that the winning
thing was to go on the TV show and do
a live performance like a video. And that's what kickstarted
my career because then that came to a guy in America.

(37:38):
He looked like the video was just the TV performance
of us, and so that was the first time I
was thinking something's happening. And then that took its usual time.
But you know, going to make a record with Clive Langer,
who'd worked with some amazing people with El Costello, Madness,
those were signs that I was going to make the record.

(37:59):
And it was only when I came here and I
went on tour for the first time. I played CBGB's
in New York which is now John Varvatos store, that
the crowd I went to get a you know, sound
check and all that is just a club, And when
we came back, it was packed and I'd never experienced that,

(38:19):
and I couldn't get through. You know, it's like super
cool biker dudes, tats and you know, super hot girlfriends.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
I was like, oh my god, what's going on?

Speaker 1 (38:28):
It that was when I sort of felt something was brewing,
but not to the extent of anything larger than a
really successful, cool club band, because that's all I knew
of what.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Song hit first with fans where you started seeing them
sing it back.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Everything'sen the very first one, so then you one song
and then they didn't know the rest of it. But
we was on tour for so long at that point,
maybe two years. Once I first hit all the clubs
over and over and everywhere we went there was such
a history of all the bands from Patti Smith, the
you know, Television, Sonic Youth, the Pumpkins, Nirvana, Hole, all

(39:09):
these bad they'd all been they were here a few
weeks ago, so you felt you were in the zeitgeist.
And so that felt really exciting.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
You know, after everything's in, well, what happened?

Speaker 3 (39:20):
What next?

Speaker 1 (39:21):
That just that that record sixteen Stone, just yielded a
bunch of singles that did really good and everything we
you know, you'd go and you go and sale and
sell everything out, and you'd bring a song out and
it would do well on the charge you had MTV.
It was an incredible confluence of MTV radio touring.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, you were good and you still are. But like
you were a good looking dude on MTV. That had
to just work so much in your advantage, right, I
mean because you were good. There are a lot of
great bands. Your guys were awesome. I was a massive fan,
but you were also hot. That didn't hurt, right, Well,
it doesn't hurt. Like everything it gets it can get.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
It was also twisted in some ways against me in
some regards sometimes, well you know, you do the cover
of Spin that like, don't hate him because he's beautiful,
like sort of a bit embarrassing. So but I mean, obviously,
if you're in show biz, you want to you it's

(40:28):
it's I.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Never had that problem. I never had that problem.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
You're a very good looking man.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
I mean, I mean, Brad Pitt has had an easy
life because you're the most handsome man in the world,
isn't it. It's like you wouldn't wouldn't have been Brad
without being that handsome. So I don't know, it's just
part of it. People connect with people they are they
think have equal proportions or however you describe people.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
As and British that works too, right, I love your accent.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
What accent?

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, I asked about to order because I consume that album,
I ravage, just ate it up, and I didn't know
the order of songs or singles then, right like, I
just had the album. And so when I'm asking about
the timeline for me, still, I love slow songs because
I can hear the words. And so the first time

(41:18):
I heard Glysearine, I was like, this is my favorite song.
And so I didn't know where that came in the
whole or was that even a single?

Speaker 3 (41:24):
Yeah, that was a single. Yeah, it wasn't so funny because.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
You know, as the singer, and you know, I always
write the top lines, I write a lot of the songs,
and I collaborate on the songs with some of the
band and a couple of other people. But I'm always
so heavily involved creatively, and I've gotten i think, quite
good understanding at how to pace track listing and albums.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
And songs I've done.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
When I look back at that track listing, I'm like,
I like I was on acid or something. When I
do that, it literally makes no sense. It's the weirdest
track listing. But you know, I maybe should have followed that.
Maybe that was the secret source. So the chronology of
that record is really strange if you play it. But yeah,

(42:12):
because I was thinking that people's first song. And when
I get people's records, I love listening to the first song.
Listen to every record I can looking at the lyrics.
I love doing that. I feel a bit as a lyricist.
It's really important to me, and I always think, well,
this is they're telling us, just that this is the
song listened to the first one. So I think orders
really really important. Although I have no if you quizzed

(42:36):
me anything about the order of sixteen stone, I would
I would not have any defense.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
I bought a bass guitar, and I just play an
acoustic guitar now as part of my act. But I
bought a bass guitar simply so I could learn that
boom boom boom, boom bom bom bom boom boom boom,
come down. Yeah, just to come down bassline. And I think,
you know, because there is an art to producing a record,
and sometimes the basis up, sometimes the basis down. Sometimes
the basis is just a part of it. You don't

(43:03):
really hear it unless you done. But that bassline is
so significant in that song, purposefully, I'm sure. So when
writing that song was I mean it was Did it
start with the bassline?

Speaker 1 (43:15):
No, that came after really, because what happened is I
just had the chords doing it and when I went
to demo it with Nigel, when I say I did,
he kind of demoed it up. There's a Billy Cobbham bassline.
The massive attack used unfinished symphony and it's basically that.
It's basically that and I was just like with that

(43:36):
fit and I remember being in my bath listening to
it and I had this you know, I lived in
one bedroom with my girlfriend with me, and then another
friend lived down the other end with his girlfriend. There's
a guy in the hallway and the guy and we
had a brilliant because the I had my record player
and my any music on a doctor trolley and I'd

(44:00):
go up and down the hallway and I'd move the
speakers wherever whatever room we're in if we're hanging out,
everyone hanging out in the bedroom watching TV. And so
I remember specifically having those speakers and being down the
end in my bath and going this is wow, that
could be. So that's what that's how that came about.
The Billy Common baseline.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
So it's such a significant part of that song. Yeah,
like that when I think about that song, and that's
what I mean. Obviously it's the beginning of the song,
but it's a lot of songs don't feature the bass
like that song really feature level I grew up on.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
In England, we have a lot of those sound systems,
you know, for dance hall the West London, they have
a lot of these parties. Were like the speakers the
size of that, you know what I mean, And so
they'd set up and you have these dance hall all
night raves things like that, you know, dances and they

(44:57):
had rave as well. But so I've always being into
that side of life. All my basslines are sort of
reggae basslines because I just love that that insistent bass,
So I or every all of our songs have that
I like and I like a loud bass.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
You know, did you ever have a complicated relationship with
those early songs in what way in that after a
decade or so, maybe you just don't want to play
them anymore for a while.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
I mean, you know, there were certain times when I
kind of rest certain songs if I've had a little
bit of burnout with kind of maybe not the premiere
tier that we have played with the secondary ones that
are kind of optional. There are times in our rest
songs for a bit, but it you know, in order
for those songs to make sense, I just let them

(45:52):
reflect where I am on that very day. I don't
try and pivot back to where I them or what
I was thinking about, because that's exhausting, and so I
just go through and I'm just really present in the songs,
and you know, the songs will give me everything. So
I don't have that thing of I'm a friend of

(46:13):
mine who has a band, really good band, and maybe
they should be bigger than they got. But I saw
him a little while ago, well, and he goes this song,
this is the rent Payer, and this is his best song.
I was thinking, that's so cynical, and I don't think
it's good on a universal level, on a Buddhist level,

(46:34):
to say that about your song, because the song is
the only reason he was there.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
The song.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
Literally, if he didn't have that song, which is his
only kind of semi hit, then then what it wouldn't
even be in that bar.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
So I have a mad.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Gratitude to my songs, like a deep gratitude that I don't.
So if I just get what happens to me is
that as I write more and more music, I keep
them getting heavier and heavier. I just think it's much funnier,
much more ironic. I'm not taining off into the sunset
with some yacht rock stuff and some acoustic driven music.

(47:12):
It's a super de tuned really much heavier, And so
sometimes I can't play too many of the old songs
because they just they don't represent who I am of today.
So I just pepper them, and in that way, because
I'm singing them, there's a consistency in them.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
But I.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Just don't like to give too much of that old
style a consistent run in the set because it's not
really who I am. But I'll always play those songs
and they're just great kind of cornerstones in the.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Set that.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Sort of lubricate people through the songs they maybe don't
know so well. And I never play a whole load
of songs people don't know well or anything like that,
and the audience is so now with streaming, people still
know all the songs.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
It feels like whether they don't know all.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
The words, like if I catch their eye, because I
always catch people's eye, and so they just feel the
need to like they don't just mouthing any words at
me because they don't want to seem like they don't
know the song.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
It's like you clearly don't know the song. Nobody says
monkey in this song.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Okay, Do you have any of their original like manuscripts
from when you wrote songs from twenty thirty years ago?

Speaker 1 (48:30):
Yeah, I have a bunch of things. I have a
few things. I'm a bit of a bit of a hoarder.
I do like to keep as much of that as possible,
So yeah, I have a bunch of things.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Like that's museum type stuff, right.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, I suppose I don't know what museum. That would
be little shop of horrors.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
No, come on, you know, did you guys have any
bands that you ran with in that time that all
came together that you ended up being really good friends with,
like that blew up around the same time that you
guys blew up.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
Yeah, well, differing of different successes to some extent. But
like I was, there's a band called hum out of Louisville, Kentucky,
and I just had a wonderful time touring with him
quite a bit in the nineties, and they've had a resurgence,
they come back to playing, and so I'm excited about them,

(49:23):
and they've become a sort of a treasure amongst young
people rediscovering, Like my son is in love with them,
and they kind of went their own way. Now they're reforming.
And then there's then there's Coldplayer. You know Chris. I
love Chris, and then he went to he just plays stadiums.
So we just have a text relationship now.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
But did you guys know each other way back in
the day Chris.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, well, at the beginning of when we're both starting out,
yeah to the not not before the bands had records,
but as soon as we got introduced, he's like funniest,
sweetest guy, really English, really dry. So I really enjoyed
his sense of humor. And when we were both married
to American girls, it was a great sort of.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
What's the phrase.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
It was we could totally connect without saying a word
with the English culture by being English and together and
just hanging out. You know, there's something really good about that.
And so we stayed friends, and he obviously went stratospheric
and harm of being on a different path. Both great people,

(50:36):
both great bands.

Speaker 5 (50:38):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Could you listen to music and not be competitive with it?

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Well, anyone that says well means yeah, there's there's your answer.
I do think of music like sometimes I'm like, damn,
why don I think of that? That's so good because
I I I The magic of music and songwriting for
me is that if you can imagine, you know, when

(51:18):
those those steel things, all the steelballs, and you push
your face in it, and you suddenly see your face
appears to me. But on a mathematical level, songs are
the same, and so you have to sort of like
you know, square shape and the song you have to

(51:38):
push out the right you to get the shape that
you want. You might get the wrong. But that's how
I see it, that it's music, art, words, whatever, they're
all waiting to be discovered. They're in there, they're in there,
They're in that whole square, and it's just the Our

(51:59):
job is to just pull push the relevant highlight the
relevant part that go to make a song. So when
someone someone says something, you know, I remember when Biddie Eilish,
who I think is probably the most talented with her brother,
the most talented musical entity probably outside of Radiohead. You know,

(52:21):
she comes out with the type where do we go
when we sleep? You're like, why ah, it was right there.
Of course we all know those words, but no one
put them in that order. And that's what I think
is the magic of creativity and what keeps it inspiring,
that you just got to hang and just keep trying
to push the right the right pieces out, you know,
for you to find the funniest the joke with the

(52:43):
greatest punchline. It's all waiting there. They're not new words,
they're just a new order.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Sometimes people will say something and I'm like, oh, I've
almost had that, Like I've had the thought, but I've
never said it exactly like that.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
And when people distill things into just saying the right thing,
he's like, goddamn. And it's always invariably simple and it's
never complicated, and it's just so that's the only side
that's competitive. Like, god damn it, I die. I had
that big boarder. I just didn't pull those words out
in that order.

Speaker 5 (53:17):
Fuck.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
I keep records that are super important to me in
this room, and I have Beastie Boys, I've Been Folds five,
I've got you know, Steve Martin Weezer. For you, if
I were to say, like, what are three albums artists,
but specific albums from an artist and they're really shaped
you musically, Like what albums would you list?

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Surf for Rosa the Pixies. That was probably the biggest
pivotal moment because I was really trying to find my
voice and the band was in before Bush. The guy
was an amazing guitar player, but really more blues based,
so he was very more traditional like rock and roll.

(53:59):
But when I looked at those kind of bands, whether
it was like even whether it was you know, Sabbath
or with a Aerosmith particularly, it was so enjoyable. But
his voice was so otherworldly that I was like, I
never can have an Axel came out in Guns and Roses,
but going back specifically to the Surf Rosa, it showed

(54:21):
me that you could go into a post punk world
because I grew up on punk music and what could
I do that still have the expression? I mean it's
probably Surf Rosa the Pixies. The sound of that style,
the quirkiness of it, the quiet, loud thing and just

(54:41):
the raw power of it, which is why I worked
with Steve Albini on second record, because he was recorded
so fantastically.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
I'd have to say.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
The sex Pistols, never mind the Bollocks, because that was
just the most perfect record, the perfect band. You know,
it confused a whole nation where I grew up, where
when punk music came out, it was like the national
outrage was like akin to a war. You had more
coverage of the beginning of punk than you do to

(55:15):
the war that's going on now. It just it was
like a blanket cultural disgust at these the youth, and
so of course if you're young, it's like the greatest
thing you've ever seen in life. So I always think
that Johnny Leiden is the most interesting figure, and those

(55:36):
lyrics were incredible. And then the other record, probably you know,
to go somewhere off peace to not be so like
you know, obviously there's Boie and obviously there's the Beatles
and the White Album. But there's a band called X
Ray SPECX who had this record called Germ Free Adolescence.

(55:57):
I got on one as a kid, and it was
like one of the first albums I bought and They
had songs like genetic engineering could create the perfect race,
create an unknown life force that could uss exterminate, or
he's a Jeffrey adolessent, cleans his teeth ten times a day,
scrub Away, scrub Yes sr Away, which is a toothpaste

(56:18):
in England. And that was like this rebellious, free living
punk band. But I loved melodies. So the melodies of
those bands, all of them Pixies melodies with the X
ray specs, those were massive records for me, Sex pistols,

(56:41):
and on a performance level, I just always loved.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
I always loved.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
I went to show Seep Jane's Addiction when I was
young and got into Acclam Hall, which was a tiny club,
and I watched Perry on stage and I just was like,
that is performance.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
That's mesmerizing, that's mesmerizing.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
And so that's all I've devoted my life to find,
trying to find a way to be mesmerizing on stage.
Just you know, those early moments that you get they
define you, you know, and and that's why you know.
I when I Bush was coming up, it was brilliantly
anti commercial because that was the time of britpop. So

(57:24):
we had the Great Oasis, the Great Blur, you know,
wonderful brilliant bands, but no performance that I overly connected to.
And the music I wanted to make you needed like
a I like feedback, I love sonic youth. I just
like chaos. I came from chaos. I came from disorder,

(57:46):
so I wanted to do music that had elements of
disorder in it, and chaos and everything was sort of
on fire, and you know, it was just as much
fun to break something as it was to play it.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Then was it odd when the anti commercial sound that
you were definitely making got so popular that it started
to be mimicked and then commercial.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Yeah, that was ironic.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
But that was super ironic because those songs were written
in such an innocence of with an imagined ceiling on
our heads. I didn't have any I was not smart enough.
I was still not smart enough to consider what the
potential was. I just wanted to sort of do something

(58:30):
cool and interesting and be someone that everyone knew when
I walked into the club. You know, that's really basic
kid stuff. I remember going out and be like, if
you saw someone either who's from a record company, he'd
be like side eyeing change my life. If only he
knew how fucking talented I am. But they never found

(58:51):
out and had never asked me, and they never signed me.
Or you might see someone that say, I say, is that, Oh,
that's you know Fred from I remember my girlfriend at
the time.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
There were two bands.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
That were rivaling in our sort of social group, and
it was like two bands, and then she goes, oh,
I'm going to get this band, Circus Circus Circus to
play on my birthday. I thought it was so mean.
It stayed with me forever because they're signed, like a signed.
Of course they're signed. That's the greatest thing. We weren't
even smart enough to consider what that entailed.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
What does that mean?

Speaker 1 (59:29):
I mean in the beginning of your career and you're
still pushed around and you don't get records, don't come out.
But just the idea being this was so over. It's
like the Berlin Wall. It was like the other side.

Speaker 3 (59:40):
You know.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
We were like in East Germany just trying to just
get signed, and so it was like this band, they're signed.
That's kind of all we wanted to be. It's just brilliant.
It's like, I love dogs, and the best thing about
dogs is live in the moment, and when you're young
and really stupid, you just live in the moment. You
can't see beyond tomorrow. This is what is, you know,

(01:00:00):
worried about the future, and.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
To come to America exciting or intimidating.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Oh my god, I lost my mind. I still actually
lived near the hotel. It was a Hilton at the
one on the one on one. I just couldn't believe
there's there's somebody got a hotel room for me because
I was on a visit to see this record label.
So I had a couple of friends that were in
LA I was like, you're come and see my room
at the Hilton. I made them come. It was exciting.

(01:00:32):
Look this is my key, come in. You know, not
that exciting, but it was for me. It was just
it was just I just couldn't believe it. I still
can't remember that trip. I played in ahead of our
time because we were very, very cool. We played at
a place called the Dragonfly, which was a trans trans

(01:00:54):
and then it was a drag club, so it wasn't
trans like they came now, but it was the sort
of like So there was this like wild club on
Santa Monica where we didn't know. We just were told
to play there and the power went out three times
because only had like a couple of plugs in the
wall for the whole band. So I thought that this
great moment. I thought we'd blown it because we went

(01:01:14):
and played the showcase for the radio station power kitt
on going out. But it was exhilarating to come to
America and play just I felt like it was a dream.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
You play tennis, Yeah, I love still Yeah, pretty.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Good, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
I mean, I'm all I care about is being stylish now,
so I hit a nice ball. I really don't care
about anything apart from hitting nice and clean. So yeah,
I love it. I'm still a bit obsessed about it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
Do you find matches or places in cities that you're playing.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Yeah, wherever I go.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
I generally I don't really do matches because I don't
want to.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
I've got to go and do a show.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
So it's not me like killing myself to get to
that ball and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
I go out and I go to.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
I call either I know a lot of tennis players
and back in the day, yeah, so I just basically
call up. I call cold and I say I'm a
musician coming through town and I want to can I
hit with your pro?

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
And I go hit with the Pro. And then I
always call yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
You call yourself and you just say you're a random musician.
You don't say I'm Gavin Roster on freaking Bush.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
No, I come through and I say I'm coming through
and I put my name. So if they choose to Google,
it always costs about fourteen tickets. It's usually that's the
price I'm going to play whenever I play the Pro,
plus fourteen tickets, which I'm always thrilled to give. You know,
I love that making people's day with giving them tickets

(01:02:49):
they were not expecting to go. I'm all about that.
Whatever I do, I go shop and get a coffee.
Starbucks today was four tickets. I was so happy as
I went into Starbucks not you know, and it was great.
I had to be I'm so sorry I got give
them these edibles last night and I looked so asleep
in these pictures. But let's do them anyway, you know,

(01:03:11):
like Deputy Dog, you know, like my lids were like
I just couldn't get my shit together quick.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Some ice is like throwing ice in my eye.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Do you have any professional tennis player. Friends that you've
ever hit against.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Yeah, loads, you know, it's a quite small world. So
I've done a lot of I mean you I don't
know if you know, but you touched on it. Like
I'm mad tennis player. So I know a lot of
tennis players now in this generation, I don't know the
new a lot, but I've used to be know everybody,
a lot of people because I do a lot of
pro ams.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
So I play with the pros.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
I train with a lot of pros because they get
they can't believe that someone like me, like I'm way
better than people than you think I should be.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
But I'm not.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
I mean, there's a million people that can beat me,
like I can meet beat a million people. So tennis
is wild and you never know, but I'm definitely it's
that people that aren't expecting me to be quite so
hard working and focused. I'm not sort of, you know,
it's quite measured because I'm a bit obsessed by it.
So I have played, I've played with I've been so lucky.

(01:04:17):
I played a lot of people that are really good,
and it's very zen. They're all so much better than me.
There's no pressure, you know, no pressure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
One of my best friends, who was grooms in my
wedding a few years ago, is wise a professional tennis player.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
And and I've played with Andy. I've done his I've
done his events. I sang his events and a couple
of shows with him I did. I don't know if
I just really hit with him. I love that guy.
He's always on the move. He's never he's never actually
stopped for me that much's we have conversations while he's
still moving. He's got a special art about that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
See, you know him completely, that's him, But he's his
podcast is incredible. His insight, I love that guy's incredible
tennis player. What are his insights? I mean obviously he
does his own show, but I mean he could be
doing any commentary.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
Well, him and I did a national sports show together
for a while too, there was All Sports. So he's
a wildly intelligent guy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Yeah, he's incredible, cutting, funny, yeah for sure, and self
deprecating very much. So self deprecating, no, I you know, yeah,
I know Andy, I know that all that. That's my
generation of players that I know, Mardy Fish, the Brian
Brothers for the Americans that I knew.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
You know, yeah, I was.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
I've been really lucky so a lot of those players,
and you know, I was just the idiot musician hanging
out at so many different tournaments, so he Andy would
always be very gracious to me. But this sort of
rebirth of his commentary in his podcast is just he's

(01:06:09):
got best insight out of anyone you want to listen
know about tennis listening to that guy.

Speaker 5 (01:06:14):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our
sponsor and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
I did a deal with him for Sports Illustrated at
once where I was convinced that I could return one
of ten sers, just one, just get it back over
the net. He could have hit a thousand. I wouldn't
have returned a single one of them. Yeah, no, there
was no change. I didn't play tennis growing up, but
I was a decent athlete and I thought, surely I
can just return one.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
Yeah, it's people have to talk about that as a benchmark.

Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
Tennis is cruel.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
You know, you'd need a little bit of training and
focus to get that, so you wouldn't be alone and
most people, I mean, the funny thing with his serf,
you just have to guess one side, and you know, I.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Got hit with the ball a couple of times, just
like smacked with the ball because it was coming out.
It had an incredible sir, you ever play pickleball?

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
For me, it's I know, Andre Agacy is a genius
of that. For me, it's like the white flag of sports.
I don't like it. I don't like it. I mean,
of course, the people they want to do it, I
would never I'm an artist, so I'm very about people
doing exactly what they want.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
I just just it's not for me.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
It's I found tennis so difficult, it's so elegant, and
it's just it's enough to just try and get my
shit together with that. So that pickaball and the sound
of it is enough. Just the sound fuck it. I
just hate it. And it's so popular. I go places.
I go places, and like anywhere you can get tennis court,

(01:07:55):
you just can't get on the pickleball court. I mean,
I'm talking about so many places around the world I
have gone.

Speaker 3 (01:08:02):
And there's a guy I went to in Germany.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
I caught up a club, but turned out it was
quite expensive, so I thought it was a good sign
to go and hit with the pro one in there,
and there's this guy Michael Berringer who's like forty in the.

Speaker 3 (01:08:15):
World German players.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
So we had a Then I ended up hitting with
him three times there. Then he just sent me on.
I know Tommy Hass from that period with Andy. So
Tommy set me up with someone in Munich, where he's from,
and wherever I went, there'd be a bunch of pickleball players,
loads of pickaball players, and very few people playing tennis.

(01:08:38):
It's so hard tennis. You know, people want to look good.
And that's what I said reference first. You know, I
when I knew Andy better, I cared so much about tennis.
I think I was probably kind of terrible because I
was so I wanted so bad I was. My arm
was like this mic thing. It just was like so tight,
which is the enemy of sport. Now I kind of

(01:08:59):
care ten to fifteen percent less. I'm so much better,
so much more fluid, and he's going so when I play,
all I want to do is play someone who's really good.
So they just keep the ball going. They're not screwing
us up, you know, let me. I want to if
if anyone's gonna screw us up, can it just be me,
not both of us. This is gonna be a nightmare.
So I like to play people that don't miss that much.

(01:09:20):
And a lot of colleges I've played at the you
know out here, a lot of teams, a lot of
players on college play, you know, and they all, of course,
they can't believe that a musician is going to come
and further, not just come and play, but really work,
like you know, to train properly with them, and everyone

(01:09:41):
gets sweat going. But I would never want to play matches,
and that'd be a waste of time, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Final question, because you're on the back side of this tour,
what's the energy like when you get towards the end?

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
A bitter sweet feeling of not wanting it to end
even though I'm I leave here and I'm going to
tour next week and then I got to Europe. But
still my brain is like with this, with that I'm
playing with Mammoth and the band James the cole Gum.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
There's a little bit of sadness.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
You know, if there's a not quite sad like not
tears sadness, but it's sort of sadness like, oh man,
you know, I got into the ID, got into the
routine of it. I know the people, great energy backstage,
everyone's friends. I check out, they're doing good. Watch Mammoth

(01:10:32):
a little bit. You know, it's just a nice energy.
So you just know the world you're in. So I
missed that, And you know, the end of things is
always is. What is the end of things? And it's
wild because I'm someone that doesn't like change, and yet
we live in a world of being in a washing
machine where it's we're rattled around with constant change. But

(01:10:55):
changes is beautiful and all things must change. I even
wrote a song about it that says, well, things must
change a lot in the song is.

Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
A song all things must change?

Speaker 3 (01:11:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
Yeah, I thought so, yes, yeah, And it literally it's.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
One of the songs I always remember that song John
Meg saying say what you mean to say? I never
heard of he said what he meant to say because
he just says that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:16):
Over here. I was like, do I need to listen
to this song again? I think I missed it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
What do you guys do as an encore? Do you
have a song?

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
We we generally we didn't do any set the same
on this tour. We change a set every night. We
have a pool of forty songs, so the same songs
will appear. But although we just did it in Europe,
we didn't do it with the song come Down that
based on you're talking about, we figured out a way

(01:11:44):
to do it that it just seems to have edified
into the song to end the show with and we
can't get away from it. So's it seems to be
the closing song. And I don't know if that's a
good thing or not. Do you think it's a good
thing of a band is known for the song that
end with. I don't know, so so come Down is
usually what what what we end with and then ending

(01:12:07):
else in between is sort of bets are off. We've
I think we haven't done the same set on any night.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
My final final question, if you're playing Glasserine, can you
stop and just let the crowd sing the whole song?
Does that happen?

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
Yeah? And I do?

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
I like doing that and I do they I'm pretty lucky.
Certain songs you can do you can let that happen.
Not so many verses don't do it on a verse.
That's that's a cruising for a bruises chorus only especially
all things must change that goes down really well. But yeah, yeah,

(01:12:42):
that's that to me is the greatest moment people sing.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
You know, we do that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
We have a breakdown section and come down when they
sing that back glycerine. I can let it go and
let them sing. So yeah, there's certain songs where they
will will sing and which is incredible. It sort of
makes sense of my my work life is not to
sound too earnest, but it's like the reaction of the

(01:13:06):
audience is what gives your work life meaning. You know, wow,
I really did. I have found a connection. And now
it's such a fragmented world that you know, you can't
expect anyone to know what you're doing. You know, I
can be away for six months on tour, my next
one neighbor will see me the next one. Hey, what

(01:13:26):
we've been up to? You're like Jesus Christ. I've been
killing myself every night, haven't you seen the news?

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
Gavin? Thank you for coming by again. Have been a
massive fan for a long time, through all the different
iterations of Bush and your solo music, and so for me,
real treat Oh yes, have an awesome show tonight, and
ah that's all. I'm just super pumped.

Speaker 5 (01:13:50):
It came by great thank you, thanks for listening to
a Bobby Cast production.