BUSH

“Nothing is better than doing what you love,” says Gavin Rossdale, and the Bush frontman knows from experience. For nearly three decades, the musician has been a perennial presence in the annals of rock music — an intellectual and emotional, albeit occasionally misunderstood creative, forever with a hard-charging rock n’roll heart.

“I’m on the playing field of my life right now. I’m at the driving wheel of my creativity,” Rossdale says of having cooked up Bush's most recent album "The Kingdom," one of the most hard-hitting, heavy and powerful albums of his band’s career. What sets Rossdale apart from many of his rock-icon peers is a supreme humility -- an awareness not only of his place in the music world but as an overall global citizen. Rossdale is nothing if not a fighter and, to that end, he says “the biggest achievement we’ve ever accomplished” is Bush’s longevity. And one needs to look no farther than their continually selling out large amphitheater’s and sheds across the world as to their sustained popularity. Most important to Rossdale, Bush have gotten to this place, he says, “by doing everything our way and not doing the things on paper that would otherwise make sense.”

“Every time you strike up your creativity it’s basically like new leases of life,” the singer says of the inspiration that came pouring forth when writing and recording the new LP. To him "The Kingdom" delineates a new period of time in his career. He says of the 12-track LP, which features bruising lead single “Flowers on a Grave” as well as “Bullet Holes,” the band’s momentous signature track which featured in 'John Wick 3:Parabellum,' “There’s nothing forced about it. There’s nothing disingenuous about it. There’s just such real emotion.”

The album features some of the most potent songwriting of Rossdale’s career, highlighted by the pummeling “Flowers on a Grave,” as well as the noise hurricane “We Are Quicksand” which finds him showcasing a vulnerability like rarely before. And then there’s “Undone,” a heart-wrenching ballad written in a burst of inspiration that he describes as “very pure” and untainted. “I’m really proud of that song,” Rossdale says. “It has none of the pressure of outside forces and white noise. I stayed true to it.”

Rossdale has been around the music business long enough to know it’s about steady growth and sustained creativity. Not long after the band came roaring out the gate with towering back-to-back smash albums, 1994’s epic six-times platinum debut, "Sixteen Stone" and 1996’s triple-platinum "Razorblade Suitcase," “I took away all the expectation and pressure from my career,” Rossdale explains. To him, ever since, it’s never been about “fitting a sound or fitting a moment. I just don’t feel any of that. Maybe in the past,” he concedes. “But I feel like we’ve always had to work for what we have. We don’t take anything for granted. We’ve never had any kind of particular free ride. That’s a healthy thing.