NB: Here we are in another hotel, this time with Gavin from Bush. Thanks for being with us, the morning after your birthday. But we're not talking age right?

GR: No . . . no need right?

NB: So far so good. Have you had a decent tour?

GR: Yeah, I've had a really good time. It's been goofy really. I've had nothing but a good time; everyone's been treating me really well and I've been happy with the way things have gone . . . really smooth with good crowds. Can't really ask for more. . . . Yesterday on my birthday I was sitting on Bronte Beach for an hour, then I did a whole load of interviews at the beach overlooking the bay. You know, you can live really nicely if you live in Sydney . Where I grew up, it's not so pretty.

NB: And where was that?

GR: Well Kilburn, where I grew up with my dad, but now I live right in the centre of London in a basement. It's really nice. It's a cool place but you never know what to wear because you never know what the weather's like. . . . you kind of have to strain to see out. I'll probably have to go back there to write my third record, otherwise it won't have the same theme.

NB: And you're up to another album already which is out next month . . . sounds great from what I've heard. Are you happy with it?

GR: I'm happy that it's coming out because your record is your voice and I think it's good to have another, later, more . . . . If you consider that 'Sixteen Stone' was done two and a half years ago . . . so I just wanted to have a more up-to-date reflection of us.

NB: Does it seem like it's taken forever to get the second album out?

GR: No, we just recorded it about a month and a half ago . . . it took three weeks and it's coming out next month. So, no!

NB: But a long break between 'Sixteen Stone' and 'Razorblade Suitcase'. . .

GR: Yeah, definitely, and I thought long enough. I mean all we've done is tour . . . all we've been doing is on the road. So for us, the album is a good laugh for the set; on this Australian tour we're playing songs we've never played before.

NB: Let's talk about some of the songs on the album. . . it sounds as hard as ever, as Bush as can be . . .

WE ARE NOW JOINED BY DRUMMER ROBIN.

RG: Hi, I'm Robin; Dave (the bassist) has disappeared so I've decided to drop by . . .

NB: We're just talking about the new album . . .

RG: I suppose we hope it reflects what we've done over the last two years from a touring perspective. It's definitely more proficient musically from a band perspective. The performances were almost wholly a collective performance; in other words we just went in and played the songs as a band, which I understand is quite unusual. Not so much in Steve Albini's work, but in the world of commercial bands . . .

GR: The second record is really fearful. You deliberate for nine months writing it then you spend four months in rehab and then you spend nine months making the record! And then it comes out and it just reflects all that time and all that wrong effort. So what we did was just go bang, and it came out!

NB: Which is very much how you recorded 'Sixteen Stone' . . . on the run . .

RG: Yeah, that was far more financial than spiritual . . .

GR: Yeah, the thing is we had to approach 'Sixteen Stone' differently because it wasn't possible to record like that as a band . . . yeah, we weren't yet that good. So we would use a lot of over-dubs, you know like the drums or whatever. . . But that's not to say there's any particular way to make a record. It doesn't matter how you make it; what matters is what the record's like, I mean it would be silly to limit ourselves. You should just do what's necessary for the record that you want. And for this record to reflect everything, it was best to get it as one.

NB: 'Razorblade Suitcase' as a title seems to conjure up images of being on the road all the time, which is where you've been for the past two years. Is that what it's about?

RG: I don't know - it's Gavin's lyric. Razorblades and suitcases, yeah maybe . . . it's a couple of interesting words.

GR: The main point about it is that whenever you come into contact with someone else, be it professional or private, you and the other person bring along emotional baggage - it's that tension of everyone having their agenda and their past and demons, whatever . . .

NB: You tend to get pretty dark lyrically . . . is that really you?

GR: I think it's me when I'm writing songs and when I think of the massive drama of being in a band - yeah there's that. But I don't walk around in a Goth outfit even though I write about death a lot; I just find that the most finite thing and everything else is just so interchangeable and so unsteady - that's the one absolute . . . so I tend to use that a lot. Hope's in there as well . . . she's in there. The record ends with 'shine' as the last word, repeated six times or something . . .

NB: Maybe you got to exorcise enough demons on 'Sixteen Stone' to enable you to be a bit lighter about life on this one . . .

GR: Mmmmm, there's plenty of demons, but the point is, it's nice to have those songs to play every night so you can get it out and then get on with the rest of your day.

NB: Has all the success of 'Sixteen Stone' and the singles held you back from moving into this new album?

GR: No, but it is a little stifling in a creative sense because you're playing so much and you're not back into a studio. But what a mad, brilliant experience - no-one can ever take that away from us. They are the kind of experiences that are instrumental in the best part of your life. Stuff that you can never imagine would happen. I would never want to trade that, and now we're back on the cycle of having a whole new record; it is alright but it's just about patience really . . .

NB: What about the sex symbol stuff? Does it bother you and get in the way?

RG: He looked at me when he said that!

NB: I'm just trying to share it around . . .

RG: Yeah, I wish someone would!!

GR: It's always trying to be explained why we are successful and why six million people world-wide like us and it's such a one dimensional view . . .

RG: There's not always a reason or a quantifiable one. It could be fifteen small factors that create something as phenomenal as six million album sales. I don't understand it either . . I'd go mad trying to work it out and why others do, I don't know . . .

GR: I think they do that to undermine us. It's not written about in a particularly complimentary way at first. It may come out as a sound bite, but the fact that it comes out as a journalistic piece about my cheek bones - which I don't think are that good - that's the most embarrassing bit because it's like a pressure for me to be something that I'm not. You know, no-one stops me in the street desperate for me to advertise their gear, all these years of walking around. So I don't have any delusions about the reality of it.

NB: As a British band though, you've come out with a sound that's unexpected . . . .

BOTH: Yeah, fashionably unfashionable. There was that whole Britpop thing and they didn't want anything else to exist and they succeeded with maybe eighty percent of the youth culture in England. But there was a percentage that thought, 'I like the Beatles but I don't like the 1990's Beatles' . . . 'I want something that's more relevant to the way I live' . . . and hence we had some success in England and much bigger success in other places.

NB: So how hard was it at first to convince, say, ticket buyers in England, and then the critics, if you bother?

RG: They didn't need convincing in England and we got no help from the press, except 'Kerrang', which is very much a rock magazine. They were the only people who wrote about us and their readership is by no means huge compared to 'Melody Maker' or 'NME'. And we also got a few newspaper articles because there was a quirky little story about an English band that had been in America for a few months and had sold more records than whatever . . . .

GR: There was an excuse for everyone to wear their Soundgarden and Nirvana t shirts . . . out in public! At any town we would get like two thousand people, so I figure that's a pretty successful underground band, right? And then we'd leave and lined around the place are all the Jesus Lizard t-shirts etc . . . .

RG: Yeah, they don't get a chance to wear them. No-one in England is playing that sort of music. It's kind of this big thing, they get to see a band that plays the music that they like. Which is good for us.

NB: Do you ever get mistaken for being an American band, purely because of the way you sound?

GR: Not anymore . . we have gotten over that. But maybe over here, there may be a little bit of confusion due to guitar sound . . .

RG: What about silverchair, what do they get mistaken for?

NB: A Newcastle, England band!

RG: I don't understand - it's such a xenophobic thing that music is based from a sound, isn't it?

GR: I mean, Zeppelin, the Clash and the Sex Pistols - they had a pretty full-on guitar sound going with it.

NB: You like the Sex Pistols, don't you?

RG: Oh, who wouldn't? Anyone would be a fool if they said that they couldn't get that particular band . . . they were very influential.

NB: We have to wrap up, but first Gavin, last night you played REM's 'The One I Love' for an Australian girl . . .

GR: Yeah, it was really weird when I did it. I didn't mean to segue that . . .

RG: He played the wrong order . . . we were meant to do 'Everthing Zen' and then 'The One I Love' . . . but he got it wrong anyway. (laugh)

GR: I change some songs around. People adapt! Maybe it was my subconscious speaking. But anyway I do love that Australian girl; she totally got this band together and I love her without the band getting together .

NB: Thanks, I just wanted to get to the bottom of it.

GR: Yeah, right , when I said it I felt like a bit of an idiot really, 'cause then we went into that song. But whatever, of course I love her . . . .

And there's something to ponder over....

© 1997-2002 gishgirl@rocketmail.com