Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale lives in London's posh Primrose Hill district, the proud owner of a five-story townhouse decorated with hunter green carpets and seven paintings by twisted British expressionist Francis Bacon. The place cost about a million and a half U.S. dollars; he said the sellers jacked up the price when they found out a rock star wanted it. But he definitely got his money's worth: The top floor is one huge bedroom, with a balcony at either end. One of them is large and vine-covered, the other has a panoramic view of the city. There's a pristine oak floor and an enormous black bed surrounded by guitars and a heap of CDs. As Rossdale takes a seat at a stone table on the larger balcony, a fuzzy black mop of a dog--a Hungarian sheepdog named Winston--curls at his feet. "I didn't know places like this existed," he says. "I'm a lucky fucker."

Lucky Fucker might be the perfect title for a future Rossdale autobiography, but the Bush frontman prefers I Taught You Everything I Know and You Know Nothing. That was the parting shot from a Latin teacher at his high school after he announced he was dropping out at 17. Now Rossdale often laments that he's ignorant in such subjects as Greek tragedy and geography. "I'm a bit of a retard," he says cheerfully.

"Are you any good at math?" I ask.

"Your money or my money?"

"Do you know the square root of 121?"

"Nine?"

If Rossdale seems unperturbed by his mathematical failings (the correct answer is 11), maybe it's because he has plenty else going for him: an internationally successful rock band (Bush, which also includes guitarist Nigel Pulsford, bassist Dave Parsons, and drummer Robin Goodridge, have sold about 17 million albums worldwide), a chiseled face, an equally beautiful blonde girlfriend (No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani), a new record, The Science Of Things, and, according to Q magazine, a personal fortune conservatively calculated at $12 million. That makes him the 72nd-richest rock star in England, in a dead heat with Brian Eno and Jamiroquai's Jason Kay.

Rossdale may not have a diploma, but he has a quick mind. What he doesn't have--and has always wanted--is cred. When they first arrived on the alt-rock scene in '94, Bush proclaimed their devotion to standard-bearers like the Pixies and Nirvana but were compared to grunge clones like Candlebox. Rossdale complains that Pulp got far more press coverage for 1995's Different Class than Bush did for their second album, 1996's Razorblade Suitcase, despite his band outselling Jarvis Cocker and Co. a thousand times over. Of course, Pulp were routinely called "brilliant"; Bush reviews were generally peppered with phrases like "Nirvanabes"; one magazine cover featured the line "Why won't anyone take Gavin Rossdale seriously?" (perhaps because he was photographed in bed biting his thumb). At times, Rossdale's self-deprecating streak seems like a savvy defense move for someone who's suffered one too many critical lashings; by putting himself down first, he takes the piss out of it for anyone else.

But Rossdale is learning how to shrug off perceived slights, taking solace in his band's enormous popular success: Razorblade Suitcase sold six million copies in the U.S. on the strength of radio hits such as "Swallowed." Bush aslo went on a sold-out 14-month tour that concluded in November '97 with a trek throughout Southeast Asia.

Just a few months later, though, trouble broke. Bush's record label, Trauma, split with Interscope Records, the heavyweight major label that owned a half stake in it. Trauma was hyped on the commercial fortunes of its two star acts, Bush and No Doubt, and wanted to reclaim total ownership. But although No Doubt were broken by Trauma, they had been originally signed by Interscope, which reclaimed them. Then Bush hit Trauma up for a substantially improved deal, but the two parties couldn't come to an agreement. In return, Bush refused to turn in their already finished third album. Trauma filed a lawsuit.

"The larger principle was protecting our own interests," Rossdale says. "When you sign, you get a certain kind of deal. When you sell 14 million albums, you think the deal should change."

"The fight was about us saying that we didn't want to go to bed yet," he continues. "And they said, 'Yes, you must go to bed now.' And we said, 'No, we will stay up.'" Says Trauma general manager Jim Martone, "There was a communication breakdown between records, and in hindsight I wish we wouldn't have let it obfuscate things. But luckily we were able to lock down a deal in which everyone's a winner far into the future."

The Science Of Things was originally set for a May '99 release; the stalemate continued through early summer, which meant that the band didn't have the record on the shelves, as they had hoped, by Woodstock '99, where they headlined the first night. Details of their new contract have not been released, but Bush seem happy. And Rossdale might be even happier now that No Doubt's record, once scheduled to drop at the same time as Bush's, has been pushed back a few months: no need to introduce any additional competition into the relationship.

"Are you hungry?" Rossdale asks. "I'll make you a proper sandwich." This is how Gavin Rossdale makes a proper sandwich: He slices a baguette in half, chops off the ends, and bisects the bread. He rubs a clove of garlic over it, then does the same with a tomato. He further primes the bread with a few dashes of olive oil. Now it's time for the meat: turkey for me; prosciutto for him. He sprinkles sea salt and pepper over this creation and adds a few sliced leeks. He finishes things off with lettuce and a careful dab of mayo. "I'm not even getting out all of my different pastes, the weird stuff like chili-and-anchovy sauce," says Rossdale. "What I love to do, outside of music, is cook and buy people presents."

As Rossdale eats, he's interrupted by a phone call from British Telecom, offering him a savings plan for his frequent calls to the States. Unsurprisingly, most of those calls are to theStefani residence in Los Angeles and often run upward of two hours. Rossdale says his girlfriend of four years is much more considerate about the eight-time-zone difference than he is; he's always waking her up at odd hours. They visit each other whenever they can; this summer, Rossdale spent a month in L.A., sitting in a corner of No Doubt's studio as they recorded their album. "It was frustrating for me," he says, "because I just wanted to fucking do it myself. But I had to keep my mouth shut."

A long-distance relationship felt almost normal when they were both on tour for months at a time, but afterward, neither wanted to relocate from their hometown. The strain leads to periodic breakups. "It's, it's..." Rossdale gropes for a way to express the situation. "It's harder than getting a record deal," He sighs. "My stepfather used to say, 'Sometimes you've got to let the calendar flip.' I panic and worry about everything, but it's draining, and it doesn't help the situation. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone--except she's cool. Sometimes I think, 'Could you stop being so interesting to me? No? Fuck.'"

What does Rossdale like about Stefani? "She's so nice to people," he says. "She shows genuine warnth for them, which is not an English thing. She says things like 'I'm so happy for you,' which is a phrase of hers that I've nicked. So I've learned tolerance from her, and how to be kinder."

Tolerance, however, does not extend to musical tastes. Rossdale favors the Breeders, Air, the Jesus Lizard, Asian Dub Foundation, Shellac, and indie noise in general. Stefani is more geared toward pop like Sting and Cyndi Lauper. Sometimes when he's in L.A., Rossdale will get into her car and find that she's been listening to some lame CD--which he'll promptly throw out the window. He enacts the scenario.

Gwen: Where's my Sting CD?

Gavin: Oh, gee, I don't know, honey. [Sotto voice] Out on the 101 by Mulholland Drive, that's where it is.

Last year, Rossdale went to Ireland to write music for Science. He lived in a white house on top of a hill stocked with crates of Murphy's Irish Stout, two hours away from the nearest city. "I was like Dylan Thomas with a guitar," he says, and then the pretentiousness alarm goes off in his head--he doesn't want to imply that his work is of the famed poet's quality. (Nor did Thomas have a sound engineer, a gofer, and a personal chef.) Rossdale brought along stacks of books by the likes of Nietzsche, Proust, and Baudelaire, which he hoped would be a part of his self-administered adult education. He never cracked their spines, but he did return to London with two dozen songs.

After a dalliance with noisemongering producer Steve Albini (PJ Harvey, Nirvana) for Razorblade Suitcase, Bush returned to Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, who helmed their first album, 1994's Sixteen Stone.The resultant of Scienec has both the polish of the debut and the energy of the Albini effort, with a mix bolstered by the occasional drum loop and electronic effect to make it sound a little more 1999. Rossdale says he initially considered making an extremely muted, ballad-eccentric record but decided it was better to play to Bush's strength: a big, brash rock sound. "The Chemicals Between Us," tribute to lust with percolating synths, has one of Rossdale's extremely hooky choruses, as does the very hummable rock-stomp "Warm Machine."

But with rap-metal and boy bands currently emptying teenage wallets, Bush's post-grunge sound could seem dated to many ears. "Two years ago, you couldn't get on the radio without having a pop song," Goodridge says. "Now it's all hardcore again. But it'll get to the point where there's sub-versions of Korn out there who aren't as good but who sell a million, and everyone will say, 'Fuck me! Where've all the songs gone?' You can't outrock Korn at the moment, so we've decided to keep out of the way and not worry about what the scene is. 'Cause scenes change, but good bands do what they do and people like it anyway."

He may be right. Right after Woodstock, modern-rock stations began playing a live, bootlegged version of "The Chemicals Between Us," which was scheduled to be the first single off the album. Then an early mix of the song was leaked to L.A. modern-rock leader KROQ, which played it till the station was served with a cease-and-desist letter. Soon the official version was added to the playlist of every major rock outpost. "Gavin was confident he could still connect with people," Trauma's Martone says. "I think good rock music will always have a place."

Gathered for the first day of recording The Science Of Things, Bush and their crew are eating Thai food and downing numerous bottles of wine at Hook End Studios, a converted country house two hours west of London. Discussing this afternoon's rhythm work, Goodridge says, "I got onto a Cypress Hill tip."

Pulsford looks surprised. "What, you smoked lots of ganja and didn't do anything?"

Rossdale passes the liquor and says he wouldn't mind having his vocals mixed a bit higher. There is general assent around the table, although it's hard to tell whether it's sincere or tactful. Then Pulsford jokes. "Not as loud as Liam [Gallagher], right?"

Everybody laughs, including Rossdale. If he's Bush's resident rock star, Pulsford is the band's musical scholar, Goodridge its court jestor, and Parsons its silent anchor. Goodridge has somewhat different perspective: "Gavin is the conductor, Dave is the janitor, and I'm the boiler-room attendant. Nigel is the accountant."

At 38, good-natured Pulsford is Bush's oldest member, and the one who shuns the spotlight -- literally. On one birthday, when Rossdale ordered the stage lights turned on the guitarist so that the crowd could sing him "Happy Birthday," he stepped backward, trying to hide in the shadows.

Nevertheless, Pulsford spent six months in the woods of Tennessee recording a solo album, Heavenly Toast On Paradise Road (which is available on the Web at www.collectingdust.com ). The sound of the best song in announced by the title "Rock Type Thing"; another fun track has only four words -- "Sounds Like The Pixies."

"Why don't you write any of the songs for Bush?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Gavin doesn't want to sing anyone else's songs. For a long time I was annoyed, but it means we have a more cohesive sound. We dealt with it a long time ago."

After dinner, Rossdale offers a tour of the grounds. What he really wants to do, however, is break down our London conversation -- he's having second thoughts about some of the things he said. After a transatlantic phone date with Stefani, he's worried that he talked too much about her and asks if I could de-emphasize that material. He also regrets mentioning the drug scene a decade ago at the London club Taboo: "I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention that I used [two specific drugs]," he said. "I'd hate it if somebody [consumed specific drugs] because Bush was their favorite band. I mean, I did [large amount] of [one specific drug] back then -- not that I want to brag about it -- and it's not the coolest thing these days."

Rossdale's efforts at stage-managing his image are awkward, but it is too hard to calculate what's behind them -- beyond the simple desire to look good in the public. Alt-rock's cred fixation may have gone the way Courtney's original breasts, but he is as obsessed with it as ever. Bush may never get as much respect as they want -- Rossdale's fashion sense works against that, as do all those years of screaming teenage girls -- but they're getting much more than ever before. Unlike Britney and Backstreet, they write their own songs and play their own instruments; unlike certain rap-metalheads, they don't demean women or incite mosh-pit mookishness. As their music evolves, they sound less and less like Nirvana. And their continued success relies on one undeniable fact: Bush know how to write hit songs. "Everything Zen" "Swallowed" and "The Chemicals Between Us" may not be classics, but they sound great coming out of a car radio.

Not that Rossdale isn't worried that his fans might have moved on. "I don't think that anyone gets given an audience." He says that he would like to make at least five more records with Bush, and he knows he's very lucky: Even if one of his albums flopped, he would still get to release others. If he was dropped from his label, he could afford to put them out himself. It might even liberate him to carry out his less-wise dreams: "I'd really like to do a reggae album."

At the time when "Show us your tits!" is the rallying cry of too many rock fans, Rossdale is the kind off guys who takes off his shirt first. Bush are playing an impromtu club show in New York City, after a two-year absence from America. As Bush launch into the crunching '94 hit "Machinehead," the audience immediately forms a moshpit. Rossdale doffs his sleeveless black T-shirt and works all of his rock-star moves. When he jumps into the crowd at the end of "Insect Kin," hormonal female fans promptly pull his trousers all the way down to his ankles. Rossdale is forced to strategically position his guitar until he can hike his pants up, but his grin reveals that he's pleased the crowd cared enough to disrobe him.

A couple of weeks later, Rossdale is cooped up in his SoHo hotel room while a thunderstorm rages outside. His hair is short and glows with a bright gold rinse. "It's the bastard son of David Bowie's Low cover," he jokes. His mood is chipper despite the bad weather-- he's glad to be playing shows and making videos again. "I feel like I've been fucking locked up, and I'm hungrier than ever," he says. I ask him what he did during his enforced vacation that he wouldn't have otherwise.

He ponders for a moment."Learn what 'desposition' means."

So what's the "science" of The Science of Things?

"I was thinking about anthropology and how cultures work on the cusp of the century," he says, the words rushing out of him. "People are really formulaic: If you distill your life, you will find logic in your process of choices. For someone who's lived off instinct their whole life, that's an amazing way of looking at things. The whole world is crazy, but everything is explainable." He catches his breath and pauses. "Everything except love."

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