And initially it looks as if Gavin would rather talk about the dreadlocked pooch than Bush's new album, 'Golden State'. "This is going to be good," he says sarcastically (Gavin that is, not Winston - he's happier just to sit there panting). "I never really like to talk about the songs and what they're about."

Great. Happily, once he starts talking, Gavin actually has a lot to say about the new songs he's written, with the rest of the band chipping in to give the stories behind actually playing and recording 'Golden State'. Apparently it's all about love, life and human relationships. Oh, and getting yourself crucified in the name of art...

Dave: "It's a good start to the album. Don't turn your stereo up too loud when you listen to it because you'll blow your speakers, because the guitars come in very quickly and loudly."

Gavin: "It's about the need for solutions and the balance of tension."

Nigel: "I think it's the perfect distillation of Bush. That song is everything we do well dynamically."

Robin: "We probably should have played that song 12 times really."

Gavin: "I think that's out most plaintive tempo. It's got a sense of melancholy about it. I'm proud of how we all together came up with that tempo. It seems to just work exactly right. The ghosts are the different voices of reason in your head that go against your initial instinct to do something or to mess up if you're a bit self destructive. It's about being at your best when you're a terrorist inside. When I wrote the verse I thought it was a bit Breeders-like, and I love the Breeders. It rolls onto itself. It's got good momentum and it'll be one to watch live, because I'm sure we'll be playing it."

Robin: "That started with a guitar riff, and the guitar riff basically became the rhythm of the song. We were quite excited by it, and we had another chorus, and we didn't need it. We had enough song."

Gavin: "That one is about how you can be the most destructive to the people you love. Maybe in life you send a representative of yourself in most situations, social situations and all that. Maybe with the people you love you are at your most real, and sometimes that real can turn a bit aggressive sometimes. We all do it don't we? But we take it back!"

Nigel: "It's very uplifting, a song about reinvention. Again, it started life in a slightly different guise and took on a startling freshness as we recorded it. It turned into something else in the studio, this momentous anthem. It's a joyous chorus and a troubling verse."

Gavin: "It's a combination of two things. At exactly that point of writing that song I was working on music for a short film this guy had shot of this artist who went to the Philippines to be crucified for real, because he wanted to paint pictures of the crucifixion. So he went to the Philippines so he would know what it felt like to be crucified on a cross, with real nails and everything. Really hardcore, he was the first Westerner to have the chance to do that.

"Having done that, the music was going to be for an art gallery, it was an academic piece, so I wrote that song inspired by that - that's why it starts going crucified. I was really impressed and I totally understood why he'd gone to totally absolve himself of himself, and reinvent himself. And gone to purge himself of the stuff he'd been through. So that's what inspired the song."

Gavin: "I think in many ways we all have a sense of that escapism that we're all on the run somehow. I like the idea of it being like a kind of Bonnie and Clyde sense to it. There's fugitives on the run, and just keeping away from whatever it is. Society, whatever you feel holds you back in life."

Dave: "I really enjoyed playing 'Hurricane', I love playing that bassline, it reminds me of lots of my favourite bass players. It's nice having that chunky, heavy sound. There's lots of fun in 'Hurricane'."

Robin: "Dave's been in a hurricane."

Dave: "I have been in a hurricane, but we all were in New York once. It rained for days."

Robin: "I've been in two hurricanes. That's one more than you."

Nigel: "I've been in loads of tornadoes."

Robin: "Yeah, but that's a Triumph Tornado Nige! Or is it Toledo?"

Gavin: I think that really speaks for itself that one. It's a little bit self-explanatory with the 'I'm out of control in a hurricane' lyric. That gives it away."

Gavin: "Sometimes I don't like discussing the lyrics too much because that tailors it. People should take from it what they will. It's pretty straightforward but I certainly think that infidelity is the basis of most trouble in relationships, as we know them. The song was built on the idea of how attractive somebody is that you're going out with that's faithful to you. It's out there, and that's probably as naked and as raw as it gets on an emotional level.

"Through the other songs we've done different ways of doing mellower songs, and we really wanted to make sure we did a song where we all played on it, and that it was a band feel to a ballad."

Gavin: "It's a wicked song 'Reasons', I love it. It's one of my favourite songs. It's so driving and so different and I love the beat, I like the rhythm to the track. It unfolds in a really natural way. I like the idea that sometimes the love that you have can be not as satisfying as it should be. The idea of 'Waiting for this love to bring me close to you' was the idea that sometimes love doesn't bring you closer to someone, sometimes love can keep you separate from someone."

Robin: "This took on a number of manifestations. It was demoed by Gavin and it had to go through some rhythmic changes in order for us all to enjoy playing it. It got there eventually. It was one of the more difficult ones for us to get to grips with."

Gavin: "They have this thing each year called the March Of The Living. All around the world they have it on a specific date to remember the Holocaust. And I thought that was a really intense movement. So the genesis of that became 'The Land Of The Living', and the song was a celebration of life. The idea that there is a karmic return to life, and how you behave is how you get treated."

Nigel: "Short, straight to the point really. It's nice because it's like a melodic punk rock song, which there aren't that many of. It's shouty but in a very melodic way. We played it twice in rehearsal and sort of got it the second time."

Robin: "We tend to not work too hard on songs. Once we've played them twice we don't want to ruin them."

Gavin: "That was actually a poem I wrote, one of my favourite lateral love songs. It's just about really caring about someone. Although it was lateral it had a bit of sentimentality to it, so the best thing to do was play it really fast and shout it."

Nigel: "When in doubt, shout."

Dave: "That was another one where we didn't overdo it in the rehearsal room. I think we did it once actually, and then Nigel announced that was it, we shouldn't do it again! It was the most studio one of all of them."

Robin: "It creates a nice dynamic for the record, a good dreamy song."

Gavin: "That was the only one I wrote in LA. I looked out of the window, and I'd rented this space in a weird mansion where we ended up doing some photos for the album. I went there to write but I never ended up writing that much, but that was one of the songs that was there. It started out with a kind of Fugazi guitar line. It was meant to be this dreamy orchestral guitar line. It was just meant to be a floating guitar line. It's just a good bit of atmosphere for the record, and it suits the record really nicely because it breaks it up from being straight ahead rock."

Gavin: "We thought it was a perfect song to end the record with, because it just leaves you hanging. It was written about the fragility of children and of youth. It was inspired off one painting that I have of a small child floating in space. Whilst looking for inspiration I was turning my head round my bedroom and that appealed to me. The minute we played it together it just really fit snug. A perfect way to end the record."