For a man capable of making so much noise, Gavin Rossdale is very soft-spoken, his somewhat guarded reticence being understandable given all that he's been through.
The singer, songwriter and musician is currently enjoying his first Billboard Top 40 hit since the heady days when he fronted the post-grunge band Bush. For a while in the mid-nineties their singles ("Comedown" and "Glycerine") ruled the airwaves, and the band toured virtually non-stop -- with a quaint little Orange County band called No Doubt supporting them.
After the Bush's demise in 2002, Rossdale struggled to keep his identity in a strange La La Land amidst the turmoil of a lost band, a new marriage (to No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani), and the tabloid attention that came with it. Rossdale's 2004 release under the Institute moniker failed to make its mark. It was, "for all intents and purposes, a solo record, it was just a bad marketing decision to call it something else," says Rossdale, who picked himself up and came back with what he regards as his second solo album, Wanderlust, in June of this year.
The lead song, "Love Remains The Same," entered the Billboard Hot 100 at # 76, rising to #27 in October 2008. It remains on the chart for the twenty-fourth week at the time of writing. Rossdale describes the Bukowski-influenced track as a "drinking song -- my drowning of the sorrows song." And it would seem it has done just that, as its success allows him to sate his desire for the road with a full-scale tour scheduled for Spring 2009.
We caught up with Rossdale at his manager's offices in Westwood, CA, and chatted about the album, the song, and the feelings of isolation that inspired the rousing ode to friends, love and libations. But first, in the spirit of friendship, it seemed only polite that we formally thank him for counting SuicideGirls amongst his MySpace Top Friends.
Gavin Rossdale: I love SuicideGirls forever. Who doesn't? What's not to love?
Nicole Powers: So is that actually your MySpace? Do you keep it up, or is it someone else?
GR: I do it. I'm slightly obsessed about it. When I'm doing stuff in the day I always take time out. I keep up. There's a couple of pages now that I haven't answered, but generally I'm on it.
NP: So we're very flattered to be in your Top Friends then.
GR: Oh right, yes, you are!
NP: It's a very socially tricky thing, who's in your Top Friends and who isn't.
GR: It's a political statement. It's amazing, I see that over a million and a half people have watched my video on there. So there's a lot of traffic going through there. And I get some people who write to me and complain, like my guitar player who was like, "Why am I not in you Top Friends?" I mean he should be in my top friends, he's one of my best friends.
NP: It's worse than missing someone's name out during an award acceptance speech. At least now it's not restricted to just a Top 8. It's weird, I noticed one Christmas and New Year, not last year but the year before, that all the Brits were bored around the holidays and joined Facebook en masse. Everyone I knew.
GR: Yeah, I use Facebook, but I only really do it with people I know, whereas the MySpace is twenty thousand close friends who I'm not sure I know so well, but it's fun being friends with everyone. "Thanks for being my friend. Thanks for writing a comment." It's easy to do nice things for people.
NP: You've got a song called "Drive" on the new album. In the press notes you talk about the fact that it's about you being a Brit in L.A. and feeling alone.
GR: Alien, yeah. I've become reconciled, I really love living here. I don't have any problem with it, but at first I was a bit, you know, I didn't really know anyone, I was just here for love, and work, in that order -- because I could have worked somewhere else.
I think a lot about Soho in London, my old stomping ground, and going out in London. It's weird because I have a different life here. I moved here and my life is just different, it's a different style, you know. You kind of go to people's houses more here rather than actually really going out a lot.
NP: Well you can't go to bars, because you can't drink and drive, and you can't get cabs home very easily. It you're driving, a night out is two drinks and that's it.
GR: Designated driver -- or pregnant wife -- sometimes they're both the same person. [laughs]
NP: So you need to have another kid.
GR: No, no, no, I'm fine for now, thanks.
NP: You called the new album Wanderlust, and obviously, you spent a lot of your adult life on tour. Do you miss that? Do you have wanderlust right now?
GR: Yeah, I really miss it. Some people are born to be on tour and take it on, some people get done in by being on tour, and some people get done in by being on tour but love it. I think I'm the latter, you know. It's like it's a form of combat, with your body, with your mind, socially, you're ability to function with the same people in the same bubble. Do they drive you nuts? Do you drive them nuts? How you miss your friends and your family.
It's really tough. That's the reason why Bush isn't working right now, because one of the guys just doesn't want it anymore -- doesn't want the travel, doesn't want the fight. It reminded me of when I first started working on films. I was realizing that, God, it's such fucking hard work that even the crap ones deserve your respect. You've still got to slog it out and turn up for work everyday, and believe in what you do.
So being on tour, I love it, and totally miss it. I'll be going on tour soon. Now I've got a new complication because I'm so crazy about my son. I can take him for some of it but clearly not all of it, and that's a bit of a heartbreaker. When I was in Bush, it was all about leaving my dog. That was always the payback. I always used to think, "OK, you've got this unbelievable life, so everything has its cost." There's no free lunches right? That was the price. It was traumatic leaving my dog. It used to destroy me. I'd be silent, depressed, down for a couple of days and then I'd be, "Well, you're a musician, and things are looking up compared to where they were, and so you've got to deal with it and that's the price." So I'm sort of sensing that that's coming again.
It's a bit sad. I've been away on different trips, and I ring home and speak to him. He's just old enough now to speak to on the phone, and he says, "Daddy, get off the airplane." But yeah, I am looking forward to going and playing. I love playing. It's so fun to sing, it's such an ancient job. It's a minstrel. You wander in and you play -- it's just brilliant! The crowds...I mean basically, to be in a band, especially probably singers, you know, such needy people. This need for expression, and large gestures, and connection. 'Cause you're out on the stage, and even the most extreme form of performer, Johnny Lydon, being Richard III in the Sex Pistols, he wanted to hate everyone but at the same time he wanted to do it in front of everyone. It's the affirmation thing -- that you're worthy or something twisted like that.
NP: And being in a band, there's the constant camaraderie.
GR: Or not.
NP: You can hate these people, but you love them too -- it's like you often hurt the people that are closest to you.
GR: It is pretty testing to live at such close quarters with people, but I feel quite lucky. I mean some people you hear talk in bands about how, "Why would anybody be in a band when you could have the freedom?" If you can to be successful enough, you could have the freedom of not having to defer to someone else's opinions, no democracy, you know. But for me in Bush, you know, I really loved being with those guys, it felt very connected. We went through so much together, we didn't really wear it out. And if ever we wore it out between each other, it's pretty mutual and you'd just make it back up. I think if you start out as friends there's a pretty good chance you'll stay friends. So I feel pretty good about that.
NP: Do you still talk to the guys?
GR: Yeah, I mean I reached out to them. Two of the emails got sent back because I had the wrong emails in my Blackberry. But I heard from the drummer, Robin [Goodridge], he's on tour with someone and he's like... You know, I can't really work them out. They're English, you know, weird and a bit twisted -- you know, a lot of subterfuge. I mean they're not ringing me up. They probably know what's going on with my record but they wouldn't be ringing up saying, "That's' great!" Whereas the American friends I have are the kind of people that do that, but English people don't do stuff like that. It's way too nostalgic.
NP: English people tend to resent success rather than be supportive of it.
GR: Yeah, so, I haven't been hearing from them. The more the record does well the less I'm likely to hear from them. [laughs] But that's OK, I understand.
NP: With this record, in a way you've been able to create the best of both worlds, of being a band and being a solo artist. You recorded it almost as a band, in five days with five band members, hired guns like Josh Freeze. It's a choice situation, but you still have the control of a solo artist.
GR: I have and I love that. I've only ever made records actually playing as a band.
NP: In the notes for "Love Remains The Same," you reference Bukowski as an influence. Did you ever get to meet him?
GR: I didn't ever meet him, no. I would have loved to have met him, but never got the chance. When I first began to live in L.A. I'd be kind of [excited], you know, to see the areas he'd write about, and imagine the places he was.
NP: What were your favorite pieces of Bukowski's writing?
GR: My favorite book is one hundred percent You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense that was the one that really nailed it for me. And Play The Piano [Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument] Until the Fingers Begin To Bleed [a Bit]. There's obviously Post Office and Factotum, the novels, they were fun and irreverent, and like him as I got to know him through interviews and footage and stuff like that. But I mainly liked the poetry. I liked the brevity, and how succinct he was, and how he could put a whole world into a page.
It just has a way with it, which is weird, because I also liked [Allen] Ginsberg and Ted Hughes. Ted Hughes is a bit more flowery, like a proper poet, lyrical. "Lovesong" is probably my favorite poem of all time...Ginsberg is completely different, because he is super flowery, super stream of consciousness. I just thought if I had these disparate inspirations it would go to make a more interesting view. If you only had lyrical poets as a backdrop to stuff, like all the Beats, you were into all of them, it would be one-sided. Bukowski to me was so far removed from the Beats, he was much more alcohol and street and flop house and struggle and that side of life.
NP: Some of your Bush material, "Comedown" and "The Chemicals Between Us," referenced chemicals. Are they part of your life now?
GR: No, no, no, no. Just the fun follies of a life well lived.
NP: While you're having the fun and follies of life, when you're busy leading the life, you don't think about the fact that you might have kids, and they're going to read about that life. How will you explain that to them?
GR: Oh, evasive. Evasive, really evasive, really slippery. Just like poker-faced and slippery.
NP: That's your guide to parenting, poker-faced and slippery.
GR: I guess, on that subject. Because anyone I've ever known would have a very shaky leg to stand on if they're trying to sort of pontificate to their children. People I've seen in various states of entertainment. So it's a very tricky point. In fact that's the biggest thing that you've touched on. It's very perceptive, because it's like, it's the one area, it used to be that when you do interviews that would be the one area you didn't give a shit about. You'd let it rip because you want to be just as wild as Jim Morrison, and just as wild as the band next door. You know, if Liam's mad for it, everyone's mad for it, you know, all that stuff. And now it's like, "Whoa! Err? Hmm!" I got asked that the other day and got super slippery about it. Super slippy. Born Slippy. Now there's a great band.
NP: Parents have the stock phase, "Do as I say, not as I do." What do you think was the issue your parents were slippy about?
GR: My parents were evasive in a different kind of way -- busy -- and so that never really came to pass. The generations were so distinctly different. My version of fun and their version of fun, I think, were so separate. I don't think there was ever a case of like finding my dad's stash, or something like that. That never really happened, more the other way around, you know.
NP: You have a song called "Happiness." What's happiness for you?
GR: Happiness. [thinks] Happiness, well, it takes many forms. I mean I take that line of Spalding Grey, the great Spalding Grey. He talks about perfect moments. I don't know whether you've seen Swimming to Cambodia, he's an amazing actor. He's no longer with us but you should see Swimming to Cambodia. It's all about perfect moments. Life is just a series of perfect moments perforated by the fucking drag of the rest of it.
So happiness can be anything from, you know, I experienced happiness this morning when I was on a step at 8 a.m. helping my son crayon on the pavement, and eating toast and drinking coffee. I was really happy. Then I was also really happy last night. I was at a dinner for twenty-two people, drinking in a private room, eating amazing food, laughing and just having a really great time. And when I'm on stage, or when I finish a show; I played three nights ago. I played this party in Santa Monica, and it was so intense because there were acrobats, there were trapeze artists, there were flame-throwers, and all these stalls. I did this acoustic show, and the audience was like this close to me, all the way up. It was a party, it was packed, and I sang a bunch of songs, and it was just magic. I just thought it was one of the most funnest nights. And so I find happiness everywhere.
NP: You seem to have done really well staying focused on the important things: your family and your creativity. And you have been surrounded by a lot of tabloid shit. You got shit with Bush because you were either too much or too little like Nirvana, just by virtue of the fact you hit around the time everyone was obsessed with searching for the next big grunge thing, and obviously the elephant in the room is your marriage to Gwen, and there's that whole tabloid monster, but you seem to have done really well at just keeping your head down and staying focused. How have you done that?
GR: Because I realized that everything is so fleeting, and there's not enough time for the great things, let alone the crappy things. And clearly they'll be times when those outside elements begin to crush you, and the claustrophobia sets in, the shrinking wall of a Terry Gilliam film. As soon as you feel that way I just know the only way out is through, you know. So suddenly, if I realize it's really getting me down, I consider that that's all winning, and I'm losing. I'm just too English or Scottish I'm half English and half Scottish I can't stay down. I get hit down, and then I just get up. I just have to find a way through you know because what else is there to do? What other way is there?
And then the other one is to appreciate what you have. For every positive of course there's a balancing thing that is not as good and is taxing, but I just think that you can't expect to always have it your way. My life is so extreme, that when it's amazing it's shocking, and then when it's painful it's equally as shocking, so I just try to keep away from the pain.
NP: So have there been times when it's been too much?
GR: Yeah, but there is no such thing as too much. The only thing which is too much is death. So it's never too much. You may think it's too much. I always think, let the calendar flip and in a few days with a few nights' sleep...We're durable, we're all durable.
_______
The singer, songwriter and musician is currently enjoying his first Billboard Top 40 hit since the heady days when he fronted the post-grunge band Bush. For a while in the mid-nineties their singles ("Comedown" and "Glycerine") ruled the airwaves, and the band toured virtually non-stop -- with a quaint little Orange County band called No Doubt supporting them.
After the Bush's demise in 2002, Rossdale struggled to keep his identity in a strange La La Land amidst the turmoil of a lost band, a new marriage (to No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani), and the tabloid attention that came with it. Rossdale's 2004 release under the Institute moniker failed to make its mark. It was, "for all intents and purposes, a solo record, it was just a bad marketing decision to call it something else," says Rossdale, who picked himself up and came back with what he regards as his second solo album, Wanderlust, in June of this year.
The lead song, "Love Remains The Same," entered the Billboard Hot 100 at # 76, rising to #27 in October 2008. It remains on the chart for the twenty-fourth week at the time of writing. Rossdale describes the Bukowski-influenced track as a "drinking song -- my drowning of the sorrows song." And it would seem it has done just that, as its success allows him to sate his desire for the road with a full-scale tour scheduled for Spring 2009.
We caught up with Rossdale at his manager's offices in Westwood, CA, and chatted about the album, the song, and the feelings of isolation that inspired the rousing ode to friends, love and libations. But first, in the spirit of friendship, it seemed only polite that we formally thank him for counting SuicideGirls amongst his MySpace Top Friends.
Gavin Rossdale: I love SuicideGirls forever. Who doesn't? What's not to love?
Nicole Powers: So is that actually your MySpace? Do you keep it up, or is it someone else?
GR: I do it. I'm slightly obsessed about it. When I'm doing stuff in the day I always take time out. I keep up. There's a couple of pages now that I haven't answered, but generally I'm on it.
NP: So we're very flattered to be in your Top Friends then.
GR: Oh right, yes, you are!
NP: It's a very socially tricky thing, who's in your Top Friends and who isn't.
GR: It's a political statement. It's amazing, I see that over a million and a half people have watched my video on there. So there's a lot of traffic going through there. And I get some people who write to me and complain, like my guitar player who was like, "Why am I not in you Top Friends?" I mean he should be in my top friends, he's one of my best friends.
NP: It's worse than missing someone's name out during an award acceptance speech. At least now it's not restricted to just a Top 8. It's weird, I noticed one Christmas and New Year, not last year but the year before, that all the Brits were bored around the holidays and joined Facebook en masse. Everyone I knew.
GR: Yeah, I use Facebook, but I only really do it with people I know, whereas the MySpace is twenty thousand close friends who I'm not sure I know so well, but it's fun being friends with everyone. "Thanks for being my friend. Thanks for writing a comment." It's easy to do nice things for people.
NP: You've got a song called "Drive" on the new album. In the press notes you talk about the fact that it's about you being a Brit in L.A. and feeling alone.
GR: Alien, yeah. I've become reconciled, I really love living here. I don't have any problem with it, but at first I was a bit, you know, I didn't really know anyone, I was just here for love, and work, in that order -- because I could have worked somewhere else.
I think a lot about Soho in London, my old stomping ground, and going out in London. It's weird because I have a different life here. I moved here and my life is just different, it's a different style, you know. You kind of go to people's houses more here rather than actually really going out a lot.
NP: Well you can't go to bars, because you can't drink and drive, and you can't get cabs home very easily. It you're driving, a night out is two drinks and that's it.
GR: Designated driver -- or pregnant wife -- sometimes they're both the same person. [laughs]
NP: So you need to have another kid.
GR: No, no, no, I'm fine for now, thanks.
NP: You called the new album Wanderlust, and obviously, you spent a lot of your adult life on tour. Do you miss that? Do you have wanderlust right now?
GR: Yeah, I really miss it. Some people are born to be on tour and take it on, some people get done in by being on tour, and some people get done in by being on tour but love it. I think I'm the latter, you know. It's like it's a form of combat, with your body, with your mind, socially, you're ability to function with the same people in the same bubble. Do they drive you nuts? Do you drive them nuts? How you miss your friends and your family.
It's really tough. That's the reason why Bush isn't working right now, because one of the guys just doesn't want it anymore -- doesn't want the travel, doesn't want the fight. It reminded me of when I first started working on films. I was realizing that, God, it's such fucking hard work that even the crap ones deserve your respect. You've still got to slog it out and turn up for work everyday, and believe in what you do.
So being on tour, I love it, and totally miss it. I'll be going on tour soon. Now I've got a new complication because I'm so crazy about my son. I can take him for some of it but clearly not all of it, and that's a bit of a heartbreaker. When I was in Bush, it was all about leaving my dog. That was always the payback. I always used to think, "OK, you've got this unbelievable life, so everything has its cost." There's no free lunches right? That was the price. It was traumatic leaving my dog. It used to destroy me. I'd be silent, depressed, down for a couple of days and then I'd be, "Well, you're a musician, and things are looking up compared to where they were, and so you've got to deal with it and that's the price." So I'm sort of sensing that that's coming again.
It's a bit sad. I've been away on different trips, and I ring home and speak to him. He's just old enough now to speak to on the phone, and he says, "Daddy, get off the airplane." But yeah, I am looking forward to going and playing. I love playing. It's so fun to sing, it's such an ancient job. It's a minstrel. You wander in and you play -- it's just brilliant! The crowds...I mean basically, to be in a band, especially probably singers, you know, such needy people. This need for expression, and large gestures, and connection. 'Cause you're out on the stage, and even the most extreme form of performer, Johnny Lydon, being Richard III in the Sex Pistols, he wanted to hate everyone but at the same time he wanted to do it in front of everyone. It's the affirmation thing -- that you're worthy or something twisted like that.
NP: And being in a band, there's the constant camaraderie.
GR: Or not.
NP: You can hate these people, but you love them too -- it's like you often hurt the people that are closest to you.
GR: It is pretty testing to live at such close quarters with people, but I feel quite lucky. I mean some people you hear talk in bands about how, "Why would anybody be in a band when you could have the freedom?" If you can to be successful enough, you could have the freedom of not having to defer to someone else's opinions, no democracy, you know. But for me in Bush, you know, I really loved being with those guys, it felt very connected. We went through so much together, we didn't really wear it out. And if ever we wore it out between each other, it's pretty mutual and you'd just make it back up. I think if you start out as friends there's a pretty good chance you'll stay friends. So I feel pretty good about that.
NP: Do you still talk to the guys?
GR: Yeah, I mean I reached out to them. Two of the emails got sent back because I had the wrong emails in my Blackberry. But I heard from the drummer, Robin [Goodridge], he's on tour with someone and he's like... You know, I can't really work them out. They're English, you know, weird and a bit twisted -- you know, a lot of subterfuge. I mean they're not ringing me up. They probably know what's going on with my record but they wouldn't be ringing up saying, "That's' great!" Whereas the American friends I have are the kind of people that do that, but English people don't do stuff like that. It's way too nostalgic.
NP: English people tend to resent success rather than be supportive of it.
GR: Yeah, so, I haven't been hearing from them. The more the record does well the less I'm likely to hear from them. [laughs] But that's OK, I understand.
NP: With this record, in a way you've been able to create the best of both worlds, of being a band and being a solo artist. You recorded it almost as a band, in five days with five band members, hired guns like Josh Freeze. It's a choice situation, but you still have the control of a solo artist.
GR: I have and I love that. I've only ever made records actually playing as a band.
NP: In the notes for "Love Remains The Same," you reference Bukowski as an influence. Did you ever get to meet him?
GR: I didn't ever meet him, no. I would have loved to have met him, but never got the chance. When I first began to live in L.A. I'd be kind of [excited], you know, to see the areas he'd write about, and imagine the places he was.
NP: What were your favorite pieces of Bukowski's writing?
GR: My favorite book is one hundred percent You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense that was the one that really nailed it for me. And Play The Piano [Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument] Until the Fingers Begin To Bleed [a Bit]. There's obviously Post Office and Factotum, the novels, they were fun and irreverent, and like him as I got to know him through interviews and footage and stuff like that. But I mainly liked the poetry. I liked the brevity, and how succinct he was, and how he could put a whole world into a page.
It just has a way with it, which is weird, because I also liked [Allen] Ginsberg and Ted Hughes. Ted Hughes is a bit more flowery, like a proper poet, lyrical. "Lovesong" is probably my favorite poem of all time...Ginsberg is completely different, because he is super flowery, super stream of consciousness. I just thought if I had these disparate inspirations it would go to make a more interesting view. If you only had lyrical poets as a backdrop to stuff, like all the Beats, you were into all of them, it would be one-sided. Bukowski to me was so far removed from the Beats, he was much more alcohol and street and flop house and struggle and that side of life.
NP: Some of your Bush material, "Comedown" and "The Chemicals Between Us," referenced chemicals. Are they part of your life now?
GR: No, no, no, no. Just the fun follies of a life well lived.
NP: While you're having the fun and follies of life, when you're busy leading the life, you don't think about the fact that you might have kids, and they're going to read about that life. How will you explain that to them?
GR: Oh, evasive. Evasive, really evasive, really slippery. Just like poker-faced and slippery.
NP: That's your guide to parenting, poker-faced and slippery.
GR: I guess, on that subject. Because anyone I've ever known would have a very shaky leg to stand on if they're trying to sort of pontificate to their children. People I've seen in various states of entertainment. So it's a very tricky point. In fact that's the biggest thing that you've touched on. It's very perceptive, because it's like, it's the one area, it used to be that when you do interviews that would be the one area you didn't give a shit about. You'd let it rip because you want to be just as wild as Jim Morrison, and just as wild as the band next door. You know, if Liam's mad for it, everyone's mad for it, you know, all that stuff. And now it's like, "Whoa! Err? Hmm!" I got asked that the other day and got super slippery about it. Super slippy. Born Slippy. Now there's a great band.
NP: Parents have the stock phase, "Do as I say, not as I do." What do you think was the issue your parents were slippy about?
GR: My parents were evasive in a different kind of way -- busy -- and so that never really came to pass. The generations were so distinctly different. My version of fun and their version of fun, I think, were so separate. I don't think there was ever a case of like finding my dad's stash, or something like that. That never really happened, more the other way around, you know.
NP: You have a song called "Happiness." What's happiness for you?
GR: Happiness. [thinks] Happiness, well, it takes many forms. I mean I take that line of Spalding Grey, the great Spalding Grey. He talks about perfect moments. I don't know whether you've seen Swimming to Cambodia, he's an amazing actor. He's no longer with us but you should see Swimming to Cambodia. It's all about perfect moments. Life is just a series of perfect moments perforated by the fucking drag of the rest of it.
So happiness can be anything from, you know, I experienced happiness this morning when I was on a step at 8 a.m. helping my son crayon on the pavement, and eating toast and drinking coffee. I was really happy. Then I was also really happy last night. I was at a dinner for twenty-two people, drinking in a private room, eating amazing food, laughing and just having a really great time. And when I'm on stage, or when I finish a show; I played three nights ago. I played this party in Santa Monica, and it was so intense because there were acrobats, there were trapeze artists, there were flame-throwers, and all these stalls. I did this acoustic show, and the audience was like this close to me, all the way up. It was a party, it was packed, and I sang a bunch of songs, and it was just magic. I just thought it was one of the most funnest nights. And so I find happiness everywhere.
NP: You seem to have done really well staying focused on the important things: your family and your creativity. And you have been surrounded by a lot of tabloid shit. You got shit with Bush because you were either too much or too little like Nirvana, just by virtue of the fact you hit around the time everyone was obsessed with searching for the next big grunge thing, and obviously the elephant in the room is your marriage to Gwen, and there's that whole tabloid monster, but you seem to have done really well at just keeping your head down and staying focused. How have you done that?
GR: Because I realized that everything is so fleeting, and there's not enough time for the great things, let alone the crappy things. And clearly they'll be times when those outside elements begin to crush you, and the claustrophobia sets in, the shrinking wall of a Terry Gilliam film. As soon as you feel that way I just know the only way out is through, you know. So suddenly, if I realize it's really getting me down, I consider that that's all winning, and I'm losing. I'm just too English or Scottish I'm half English and half Scottish I can't stay down. I get hit down, and then I just get up. I just have to find a way through you know because what else is there to do? What other way is there?
And then the other one is to appreciate what you have. For every positive of course there's a balancing thing that is not as good and is taxing, but I just think that you can't expect to always have it your way. My life is so extreme, that when it's amazing it's shocking, and then when it's painful it's equally as shocking, so I just try to keep away from the pain.
NP: So have there been times when it's been too much?
GR: Yeah, but there is no such thing as too much. The only thing which is too much is death. So it's never too much. You may think it's too much. I always think, let the calendar flip and in a few days with a few nights' sleep...We're durable, we're all durable.
_______
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
cudnovati:
i was a huge Bush fan back in the day, thanks for this interview Miss Powers. i look forward to the Jonathan Shaw piece.
genxgina:
Gavin is a cool guy, very well-read, and a talented songwriter and musician. he also has a very kind heart. thanks for this interview <3