This Is London
"Still Beating About the Bush"
October 2001
Written by Julia Llewellyn Smith


Tread carefully around Gavin Rossdale. Don't imply his band Bush are Nirvana clones. Don't ask why, if they're so huge in the States (20 million discs), no one in Britain can name one of their songs. Don't ask about his girlfriend, the equally peroxided Gwen Stefani. Don't question his age or comment on the fact that you and Rossdale went to the same school.

Rossdale's bleached blond hair and alpine-white teeth may make him look like an extra from Baywatch, but, in fact, he's the sensitive type. Yet he has much to celebrate. He's the richest British rock star under 40 (at the last count he had £11 million in the bank, compared with Robbie Williams's £8 million.) Half his time is spent with Gwen in LA, the rest in his five-storey house in Primrose Hill. In America he plays to huge stadiums and is escorted everywhere by minders; at home he can enjoy relative anonymity.

Yet Rossdale will not relax until he has convinced his countrymen to like him too. Which is why he has chosen to spend the day holed up in the penthouse suite of the Metropolitan Hotel, persuading us to buy Bush's fourth album, Golden State.

"We've been the terminal outsiders here," he says, stroking his dog. "We are so non-Establishment because we are a rock band. I'm a Scot from the McGregor clan and, to me, it's like Rob Roy. We're camped, hiding in dead cows, up in the Highlands, waiting for our moment to descend on the English. But on an artistic level, it's really healthy. Most people in our situation would be forgiven for losing vitality, but we haven't been allowed to do that."

So why has Rossdale been unable to convince British critics that he is more than an inferior Kurt Cobain? He blames his former record label, which, he claims, did nothing to promote Bush (as in Shepherd's, where they met) in their native land.

The other culprit is the media. "To me, the cult of celebrity in this country seems such a mystery. We are a good band and we write good songs and we perform them, but that doesn't count for much here. There's no particular pride felt that we are the biggest rock band since U2 in terms of reaching globally."

Rossdale comes across as a likeable, but emotional, man, who seldom makes eye contact. Although he has the reputation of a Lothario (he's been linked to Natalie Appleton and Andrea Corr), a previous love affair led to a nervous breakdown and fame has not been easy.

"When my success first happened it was a really difficult time. People were so fucking vile, so mean, so disgusting and shitty. I've learned to deal with things better. Now I write letters to people which I don't send. Before, I'd post them or leave an irate message on their machine."

Rossdale grew up in Kilburn. His parents separated when he was five, and he and his two sisters were brought up by their GP father. Exactly when Rossdale turned five is open to question. He tells me he is 33, but those who remember him from the clubbing scene of the early Eighties (he hung out with Marilyn and Boy George) insist he is at least 37. And I went to the same school as Rossdale - Westminster - but can't remember him, although he should have been in the year above me. Later, contemporaries confirm he was five years above me.

At the mention of the posh public school, Rossdale turns pale under his tan. "The rock press hate the fact I went to Westminster," he sighs. "It's absurd that people are so mean about it. Anyway, I was such a fucking outsider there, it was just grim. I grew up in a really rough area and that's where all my friends were. But my Dad thought it was important I should have a good education. I should have told him I was going to be a rock star. In the end they tried to get rid of me. I left when I was 17, literally ran out of the gates."

Yet Rossdale did get something out of Westminster. "When you're surrounded by such intelligent people, it does make you articulate," he admits. Certainly, he's the only rock star I've met who discourses on Michel Houellebecq and James Joyce. Which is not to say he isn't a party boy. In fact, he's a bit of a fixture at the opening of envelopes - in the old days he used to escort Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.

His five-year relationship with Stefani, however, has been kept under closer wraps. It's been rocky in the past, owing to extended periods apart, but now the couple are making a big effort to be together as much as possible. "It was just getting stupid," he says. "It was like, 'What's the point?' So we both made the effort. But we've kept to ourselves. We haven't done a Hello! cover."

Did Hello! ask him? "Well, no actually. If they did they'd probably put Vanessa Feltz on the cover and then me inside. How sad is that?"

Golden State is released on eastwest records on 29 October.



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