For a change, they're taking it easy and enjoying a break from the frenzy of touring and the music business, which Gavin calls "cut-throat." The break really did him good and in a pretty mellow mood he chats about everything that's going on in his life, the new album, his insomnia, his views on art, being a public property, the grunge label, fans and foes, aggression, animal peace and life in general.

What's the new album going to sound like?

You know I think we kind of defined our sound in the past and it would be hard to break away from it. Also we like the sound we're playing and why should we change it? We talked about it, obviously, especially because we were under uhh attack from the media, but as I said, we like our music and why should we alienate our audience by changing our sound when there's obviously no reason for that. You know our sound just sounds like Bush, er, God, that sounds stupid but almost every band has a sound that's characteristic for them. The Stones sound like the Stones no matter what they do, the Beatles experimented a lot but they still had a typical sound, I don't mean to compare us with the Beatles or the Stones, it's just an example, I'm just trying to explain that there will always be a sound that's typical for Bush, but that doesn't mean we're static. Even if we have a certain style, the songs still show a lot of diversity and we want to keep it that way. From the way it looks now it's going to be more in the direction of Sixteen Stone.

Don't you have the urge to experiment a bit more?

I think the people who are looking forward to hear our new album don't expect us to sound completely different. For those who like to have a different sound, Deconstructed should be the ideal choice. Of course the new album will sound different from our other albums, but it will still sound like a Bush album, can't do much about my voice and we all have a characteristic way of playing our instruments, but that still leaves us with some kind of freedom. We're not too limited and we can move around within certain boundaries.

Don't you think it will leave the band and you open for more attacks?

Something like "they keep hanging on to the grunge sound..." Sure, but I think if we would change our sound completely then we'd get attacked too. There's no way of avoiding it, so the only logical decision is to do what we want to do and stop worrying about what people might say. Let me put it this way: We have the choice of keeping our style and getting attacked for it or we can change our style and get attacked for it. And you know what they say, "If something works, don't change it," I think our sound works, it works for us and it works for the audience. Obviously we're not going to play for the people who hate us anyway, so we're going to keep us and our fans happy and that's it.

What is going to be the big difference between the new album and the former albums?

Life just doesn't pass by without influencing you, people change and if you're a musician music reflects it in a certain way. Music is something very emotional, writing music, playing music, even listening to music. If you're in a great mood you might listen to other music than if you're down. There's a line in a punk song "Everyone you love leaves a mark on your soul," that's a classic line. The song deals with the fact that basically everything you hear or see has an influence, everything leaves a mark on your soul, sometimes you're conscious of it and sometimes you're not, but it influences you. We don't want to make just "another album," we always wanted to make good records, something we liked and could be proud of and that's going to be our aim in the future. As for now, I think the biggest difference is the fact that for the first time we could afford to say "We're planning 4 months for the album." It's a completely different set up than it was before, you know Sixteen Stone was recorded when we had almost no experience, Razorblade Suitcase was written on tour. You can say it has the time factor, we're not in a rush.

You don't see "Deconstructed" as a substitute for an album with new songs?

No, not at all. We just wanted to try it out and Tricky and Goldie are friends, so we asked them and a couple of other people if they'd fancy remixing our songs. It really wasn't such a big deal, simply a remix album, nothing more and nothing less. In England remixes are nothing new.

How do you like it? Basically the only things who still sound the same are your vocal parts and the guitar riffs.

That's true but it was very interesting for me see how other people translate our music, which visions they have. In the end we decided which songs will be on the album. Personally I really like the two versions of "Everything Zen." I think they're really cool.

But you're not a techno fan yourself?

Not really, I love hiphop, but I think I'd be the worst rapper in the whole wide world. I'd be shot immediately, but I love hiphop. I also like Reggae and a lot of stuff that happens in dance-music scene. But I hate the whole damned techno rubbish. It seems to be completely crazy and the whole scene...well, it's not my scene. Techno is very....er.... unsexy. I prefer music, who's sexy and has soul. "Iron Lion Zion" from Bob Marley for example.

So you're going to stick with the alternative grunge sound?

That label grunge is becoming a bit old. I think it's rock and the Seattle sound just added another thing to rock. I think it was the most interesting thing that happened musically in the last couple of years. Remember in England and especially London there was that dance craze and Brit pop, so we took our influences from America. We all liked music with a certain drive, the drive rock has. Guitars, drums, bass, a forceful sound with good melodies...

You sound like you're a bit annoyed at the label "grunge"...

Yes. The whole grunge thing has been such a handicap, there's so much more to it. People confused grunge with Nirvana. Nirvana was a great band but there's more to grunge than just Nirvana. Grunge is often confused with teenage angst, I write a lot about alienation and isolation but it's not a new theme, a lot of other artists - musicians, poets and authors - wrote about it too, it's always been a theme throughout history and it wasn't geographically limited to Seattle or limited to teens. Or the stuff that we're British therefore we have to be grunge wannabes. Feelings are not limited to nationality or a certain age.

A while ago you said that nobody ever came up to you and insulted your music to your face. Do you think you scare people?

Do I look scary? (pulling a face) I don't think I'm a violent, dangerous character, I can take care of myself but I'm not a Terminator with a short circuit. I tell people to back off if it gets too much and apparently they realize that I'm serious. I'm not looking for fights but I wouldn't run away from one. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I almost regret that SOME guys never had the guts to insult me to my face, but on the other hand they probably wouldn't even have been a challenge. OK, I smoke too much but I think I'm in a pretty good shape and it looks like a couple of guys realized that too. I'm perfectly capable to be a real bastard, to be difficult, angry and dangerous if the situation requires it, but not just for the sake of it, I'm rather well behaved and amicable.

What happened to the angry young man?

I was never that angry, but I always liked that song. But you know, according to the song there's a place in the world for an angry young man. Sometimes the young man outgrows his anger. But it's true, I mellowed quite a bit, I'm under less pressure and I let less things get to me. Not exactly like water on a ducks back, but a lot of things you have to shrug off. There's simply no point in trying to please everybody, it just can't be done and you get torn up trying.

Are you a moody person?

Err...I have my mood swings, true, I also like different moods, it would be really boring to be always in the same mood. Yeah, I guess I'm moody, I go through phases, but I'm not the moodiest person ever. Different moods, it's like er, discovering yourself, discovering different sides. When you're in different moods you discover different things, see things different. There's a difference between having mood swings and being fickle....

You can be quite sarcastic...

I discovered that sarcasm can be a great weapon. Instead of getting upset when somebody tries to slag me off with some stupid comments or bitches about our sound, I rather make a comment that shows how stupid their claim is. I'm proud, in fact we're all proud of the fact, that none of us ever walked around and bitched about other bands or bad mouthed them. We never started a feud, other bands didn't show so much decency. We answered if we were attacked but we never took refuge to a certain gutter level or called them names. You can't expect us to sit still and be victimized. A lot of the bands who put us down, or tried to put us down in public, don't have the success we have. Of course a lot of them claim that they don't want it. It's easy to claim you don't want it, if you don't stand a chance anyway. Isn't it? Of course success isn't everything, but why mock somebody just because they're successful? To me it looks like the green eyed monster of jealousy.

Hard to imagine that you were shy as a kid. You've definitely outgrown that!

It would be hard to be shy on stage, playing for thousands of people. "Shy singer/guitarist hides behind a box while performing," I don't think that people would really like that. But I'm not the most confident person on earth. Being very shy was just something I went through when I was much younger. I'm still not overly confident, the fact that I have trouble sleeping is an indicator that I feel insecure pretty often, I'm not a shrink but that explanation makes sense for me. But amateur psychology is probably the worst anyway. As an adolescent I was very shy, I went through a blushing phase, started to blush violently if somebody spoke to me. You know how it is, the more you're trying to hide it, to control it, the worse it gets. It was all part of the "lost" feeling, you know not fitting in. It was frustrating, I was torn between feeling lost and being shy and to a certain degree it made me aggressive. I tried to vent it off but I only managed to alienate myself more and more.

Any plans for a big tour this year?

I don't think so, maybe we're going to play some festivals, but I don't think we're going to do a real tour. We're going to do one when the new album is out but we've been touring almost nonstop for 3 years. It's a bit hard to be a band on tour, you start feeling homeless after a while. Sometimes I feel that I'm not at home anywhere, unrooted. Being on tour is nothing like living a normal life. I think we deserve a break now.

You basically got almost every award a band can get. Are you jaded or are you still excited when you get another one?

It's very rewarding. It shows that we're doing the right thing. I don't think we're the kind of guys who grow jaded, it's not our nature.

When can we expect the new album?

I don't know when it's going to be released, later this year I guess. We told the record company that they can expect the new material in September.

Keeping the tradition of releasing albums in November?

I don't think it's a tradition, more like a coincidence, actually now that you say it, it's true we always released new material in November... After we released album number 20 in November I think we'll call it a tradition. We still have a long way to go.

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