Luke’s Diner: Don’t Let the Days Go By

with the one and only Gavin Rossdale. Gavin Rossdale as you know, lead vocalist, guitars founder of Bush, sold twenty four million records so far in the US and Canada, earning the Ivor Novella Award for Songwriting with twenty six consecutive top forty hits, including number one singles like Listening and The Sound Winter.

going to be everywhere. He's now starting a new project, Dinner with Gavin Rossdale, which premieres February thirteen on videos free streaming service watch Free plus a new episodes come out every week. Gavin, Hello, thank you, and welcome to the show.

kings of London Nightlight got out. We were but I mean we would go regularly out to all different clubs. Had no money. I'd never bought a dream, I didn't have any money. It never really bothered me because there's never any perspective on that being anything peculiar or you know. So it was just somehow we did it. I can't believe it. And I was in two other bands before Bush, and I think that they were really helpful. And I meant I was the last one standing in both bands,

because that's my nature, right, I don't give up. Other people give up before me. And so twice I was left standing left of the altar of music or whatever. And it was weird because my second band, you know the guy Emil Lovely Lovely Emial Lobo, and he was amazing guitar player, but more of a classic rock kind of guitar player. So I went from a guitar player in my first band who was a bit more sort of pop oriented. I couldn't do the Gang of Four stuff that I liked as clearly don't yeah, my I

just would suggest music. Then I wasn't. I didn't. I wasn't playing well enough. I sort of was like a played busking chords, you know what I mean to get through a Dylan song, but nothing, nothing you'd call like a more like a real songwriter style of limited guitar playing. So and even the first band, I didn't play it

at all, So I had to ask for things. And I love Public Image, but that the band didn't ever sound like Public Image, but midnight at the first mine and in the second band, I wasn't He wouldn't let me play guitar, didn't want me to play guitar, and which is sort of fair enough because it's really accomplished guitar player. But the problem is is that, you know, especially in my line of work, it's not like it's nothing to do with the quality of your guitar playing.

In order to write a song, he's had to know enough to give it the framework. And I was really really lucky to then be blessed through two incarnations of Bush with two phenomenal on guitar players, both of them. So I've been really lucky. As my foils, they've been great and and and what happened is that I got forced into writing songs because I couldn't find anyone to

work with. And before I had done that. I just thought it was a bit embarrassing to say, you devote your life to music and being a songwriter, but you couldn't write your own song and you're always waiting around for someone else to write a song with. I thought that was weak, you know. So that's why I began writing songs on my own. I mean, I'm perfectly collaborative now, and I work and I write, you know, with my band or the producer, and so I'm really open to that.

I like that, and Tyler Bates I've written with a lot. I love that. It's a whole different It's just a different way of approaching it. And I think that no one cares if I wrote it or I wrote it with someone else. Really, so I always write the top line. I always write the words. So and so those years were wild, and we're all we ever lived by was the ethos of what would be like if we ever had a die lemma about which door to go through, We'd say, where would Jim Morrison go? Where would so

we always went through gym right to the liquor store? Yeah, yeah, whatever story, We totally we lived. We did not not as much liquor, but more the other door, but we definitely went through that door. So we lived a wild life and much in the sort of you know, in that tradition of just saying that sometimes you can go. It's the Bill Hicks concept of like, you know, like not wanting to give drugs a bad name. You know, you can have a recreationally, you can enjoy yourself and

have a furtive cool time. Now, of course that's all over because fentanyl ruined everything for anyone, so now you

can't be like that. But back in those days it was just sort of London was really permissive, really open, really free and really wild, and I thought it was really about living the full life, so that you know, immersing yourself in the culture of songs and writing and living and being and you know, not sort of having a fall back not having money or fall back job like I did menial jobs at that time you were.

You know, stuff was going on. It was just pretty bare bones apartment, but really fantastic beautiful and we would go out all night and or stay up all night whenever, you know, the combination, have real fun. Stand in this kitchen. The kitchen was like covered in graffiti, with like one single cooker. I always remember it, but it was just great.

It was like we'd get these big vats of pasta from the from the deli and King's Cross five pounds of five bucks worth of this massive thing wheels and pasta wheels, and so every day we'd have any kind of combination of these pasta wheels. Because my friend Alex, he grew up at a restaurant, so he was always really nifty at putting an eggplant parmesan together or doing stuff. And he came from an Italian background, so we those pasta ways were great. So it was it was an

amazing time. I was really pleased when you know, I found the lightning, bolt of success and all that stuff. Of course, you know what I mean. I felt like a much more belonged in a place where I could just be productive and not be sort of always hit a creative wall. So no one can you can I make this record? No can I do this all? No can I No, just endless nose, And so you just keep going until someone says, yeah, you should do that.

You know, let's put all these songs together. Like when I was signed to Epic with Midnight and muff Wind would sign me, it wouldn't put make it, let us make an album, would make a record. You know, we had a couple of singles, and I'm sure we weren't good enough. I don't even singing about like a year. It was like, it's crazy that I could even get a deal. But I think that because I was forced to go to church every morning to listen to sometimes Latin hymns and sometimes It's hymns, I had a real

sense of cadence of that. And you know, I am I'm complete atheist, but I use Biblical language the whole time because I think it's like so beautiful. Lots of the words that you associate with the Bible, you know sin you know, such an amazing word and stuff like that. So yes, it's a weird mixture. But I think that time was was was incredible, and I don't look at like a time of failure. It's just like a time

of growing and trying to sort of find myself. And the best thing about creative life is you can keep on growing. There's no really no reason why you should fall off. I think I've just made the best record I've ever made, or right up there, it's really really, really good. Not the best road I've ever made, that's stupid, but definitely continue, really proud of this record full stop.

used to have I had the music. I had my Hi Fi on a trolley, so you'd take the speakers are really long wire, you know, so you'd take the speakers at either end of the apartment wherever we were, and they'd be stationed and then wheel the trolley and then you play your records or there. It was a sprint, so because often we'd be wherever we were, we were three places to be my bedroom, which is always about a TV because there's only one TV, so it'll be crashed

there watching the football or hanging out whatever. And then the kitchen where mainly we'd hang out. And then in the front room, which is the sitting room, which is where you're meant to hang out. We would hang out once Alex Alex folded the better way. It wasn't a bed, it was the sofa, so he'd bansally put the sheets behind or bang behind it, opened the window and got rid of him and light the candles and then that

then we put the speakers in there. So it was a really it was a sort of When I think about it, it gives me a lot of pleasure to think about all those things. Because it was desperate or die. It was just youthful and vibrant and just so ignorant and brilliant, you know, amazingly ignorant. Like I didn't know what I was fighting for. That's the best thing about

being young. You fight, but you don't know who you're fighting or what you're fighting for, right, you know, I was just a I wasn't rebellious like I. One was getting in trouble and steaming cars, but I was in I was rebellious psychologically.

of you? I was always wasn't sure if I'd come across writing interviews, and then as time went on, you know, when definitely, when press receded and no one gave an interviews, no one really cares that much about read. That was all the social media and podcasts, you know, now, So I just thought, if you know, I wanted to stay hung because I wanted to be with my boys. I don't have to always leave to make a living that, by the way, haven't achieved. I still have to leave

if you want to make a living, you know. And this food, sure, this present time is more than a labor of love.

like my music career, no one will sign me. So to have to hang on and continue to try and evolve and not take it personally. Don't take no personally, you know. That's what I was trying to do, right And you know, I had three production companies three, probably maybe four. The first guy failed, then three subsequent Yes, actually this is the fourth production company that needed another production company to finalize the deal. It's like TV blow

your brains out. It's just a fucking madness. So apparently I needed another producer to go with the fourth producer. I had to make it happen. But you do what you need to make it happen, and you just like, yeah, so, I just it's it's a weird one for me. But I you know, I've always had this ability a bit to cook. I don't really know why, you know. I don't do many things, you know, it's music, my family,

my girlfriend, music, tennis, I don't know. But cooking I love, you know, So I I have a real passion for it. And I love that and I love that you cook. I just like a dude at his house who cooks for people he loves if they let you know, you know what I mean. That's as convoluted as it is. And you know, the food is not really the central thing of the show. It's really secondary. It's like a subplot. It's not a cooking show at all. I just happen

to cook. Just that's the sort of the backdrop. That's the that's the subplot in there.

I'm like because all the way along that my achilles heel about the show from the get go was did I could I figure six interesting people that would agree to do the show? You know, that was the biggest challenge. I knew I would always show up. I knew I could cook all day long. You know, it's gonna be fine, and I knew Jesse, who directed it, is going to you know, make it look beautiful. But we didn't have is the assurance that you could commit to people, because

you imagine getting people's schedules aligned. There were people that said, yeah, sure, they'd love to do it, but they couldn't find a date. So people said yes, but deferred, you know, to another season.

So yeah, that was the challenge. So that to me, I sit in awe and gratitude that I feel like I got away with it by you know, I hope that if we get to season two, it's easier because people see the format and see what it looks like, and it's just basically a way for also those people to be heard and listened to in a way that I think because I'm not a professional interviewer obviously, you know, you know, it's just me beingquisitive about how they how

they get to where they who, you know, how they become, who they have become, and whatever their journey is.

I try not to repeat myself. But one thing that's orders consistent when I go back to is a full English roast. So that's with the Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, the rib of beef, some crazy demiglass sauce, crazy vegetables, and I'm going to make some desserts, I mean just recently, which is a bit skined of going to be getting really into making desserts. So I never really used to be into that, and in fact, the show made me

sort of get more focused on that. But I justn't be worried I'd be like the size of the house if I became too proficient. Look, I guess I made you to me like seventeen seventeen. I guess against and meanwhile, I'm like blowing up like a michelin man. You know.

say this. They would have been you know, the TV show would have been huge, The record would have been huge. You know, it would be my legacy. But he did all this and he died and so at least he left us this TV show in his last record.

he never got back on the bus. He never drove a bus again. He retired there and then he said I'm done. He said, I'm so sorry for the danger I put you and your family in. And I never saw him again. He'd quit driving. He never drove the bus again. They came, someone picked up the bus and we got on the band bus and we're like, wow, we just literally escaped death. Well we went on the wrong way on the freeway with the diver's sleep. It's crazy.

we get England. We call them cafe CAFs. You know, so I grew up and you always have two eggs, well done, bacon, chips and tomato. Guy, I would say, would you like any sauce for that? No, no sauce one time out of maybe. I know, we used to go there fifteen years straight now before I got successful, and we'd eat there like a couple of times a week.

Is very you know, ten dollars breakfast. And one time I've veered off the menu and I got the special and I didn't get the bacon and eggs, and I still regret it.