Gavin Rossdale is on his tour bus, heading towards Grand Rapids, Mich. It would be tempting to say something about him being on the road again, but really, despite becoming a husband (to No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani) and father, the Bush frontman never really got off the road. His post-Bush band, Institute and solo dabblings saw him performing, just not as much as in Bush’s heady ’90s heyday.
“I never really stopped being out there — I just operated on a different plane,” Rossdale tells Metro.
“It was a different atmosphere from doing my heavy rock band to my big ballad solo career.”
That is, things got smaller. To paraphrase a line from the rock mockumentary, “This is Spinal Tap,” he found that his appeal “becoming more selective.”
“The whole thing was quite troubling,” Rossdale muses. “It always felt I was in the right place doing the wrong thing. But, if you take away the commercial side — obviously, it didn’t do as well as Bush — it was really rich, musically. I worked with so many people who were so experienced. I had to take it on the chin: This isn’t going to be successful, don’t worry about it.”
With Bush reconvened — joining Rossdale and drummer Robin Goodridge are new members Chris Traynor and Corey Britz — and a new album, “The Sea of Memories,” released last month, things have clicked back into place.
“Now I’m doing this it feels so brilliant,” he says. “This is exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing, exactly who I should be doing it with. That doesn’t happen often, does it?”
Is the ’90s revival upon us?
“The Sea of Memories” picks up where Bush left off with anxious modern rock. “Bands become soundtracks to your life,” says Rossdale. “When bands break up, everyone loses a little bit. We don’t want people to stop; it says to us, ‘Yeah, sorry. Everything fades.’ When bands reform, everyone gets the sense of rejuvenation, ‘Yeah! The party’s still going!’
