Speaker 1: Hello, my friends, this is your PALZ from Warsaw, Indiana
and you are listening to the Surely You Can't Be
Serious Podcast.
Speaker 2: Ye hello everybody, and welcome back to the shore That
you Can't Be Serious Podcast. We are here to talk
about Bush. I'm confused. We were on our ninety four
nineteen ninety four albums. Why are we talking about a
nineteen seventies jazz influenced Canadian rock band.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, not the Canadian Bush, the British Bush.
Speaker 2: Oh oh crap. I did all that research. Well, you
know what they say, one Bush feels like any other.
Speaker 1: I knew the Bush shows that I come.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sorry, guys, we will keep it PG. Thirteen. But
the thirteen is gonna be heavy on this one heavy Bush.
So we've been taed. We've been talking about pounding out
some Bush for the last three weeks. It's it never
is not funny.
Speaker 1: This is gonna get me in trouble. I until already.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm super excited to talk about this album. This
is the first of the nineteen ninety four albums that
I owned the CD in nineteen probably ninety five, yeah,
probably ninety five. Yeah, But I mean, heck, I wore
that sucker out. I still own it. I had lost
the one from the nineties, but I came across it
again in the five dollars bin at Walmart, and I'm like, heck, yeah,
physical media, baby, it's always better.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: You get the full sound. It's not that Spotify one
hundred and twenty eight kilobyte junk. It's the full deal,
and it is freaking awesome. I love this album.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad. This is kind of a new experience
for me. I knew the hits, I mean they were
really unavoidable on rock radio, right, but I didn't know
the sort of off beaten track of songs.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well there, we're gonna have some interesting things
come back up from previous episodes. I'm excited to kind
of blow your mind with some little tidbits. But I
can tell you to start off with, and I'll give
the details later. This British bush really is an American bush,
if you will, and I'll explain that later on. But
you typically when we start these episodes, you've got me,
you give me some info about what's going on in
ninety four, So you got something for me to Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, so not a lot really going on. In December
of ninety four, I can tell you though Friends debuted
that September. It was kind of the hot new TV
show that fall. Yeah, And in December of ninety four,
I can tell you exactly what I was doing. I
took my mom, I took my roommate, I took my dad,
and took my sister. We all went and saw Dumb
and Dumber at the movie theater because that was the
big movie at the theater.
Speaker 2: Well, in December of ninety four, I was dropping out
of college, is what I was doing. I can tell
you that. Yes, I had just finished my first semester
at the University of Arkansas, and I was like, this sucks.
My grades are terrible. I'm gonna go do something.
Speaker 1: Else in my world. In December of ninety four, I
was like, well, let's give business a try, because this
might be my last shot at this deal. So yeah,
all right, well let's dive into this album.
Speaker 2: Yeah heck yeah, let's open it up right now. First
song out of the box. Hey, okay, so okay, you
said let's go, and then you sad.
Speaker 1: Before we jump into the album tracks, I just want
to say this was released December sixth of ninety four.
There's an interesting story. This album was ready to go
in April of ninety four.
Speaker 2: This is the story that I'm excited to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Let's hold on to that. Okay, Well, let's dive in
the first track on the album.
Speaker 2: First track on the album, everything's in Okay, what do
you think.
Speaker 1: Man, first Killer Killer right out of the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is fantastic. And you mentioned just a bit
ago like that. This album was recorded in early ninety
four and was ready to go by April. And there's
a story there and it relates somewhat to these lyrics.
So says, should I fly to Los Angeles find my
toll brother Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow. That's
going to be a confusing thing, right, Yeah, that's okay.
So here's here is the story. I said they were
an American bush because in their home country they were
playing at shitty little pubs like fifty guy pubs and
not having any success. And Gavin Rossdale, you know, we've
talked about this pre episode of you know, he was
in a different band. They had some success, but I
mean it was really like they're scraping along and he's
been doing it for several years now, but they finally
get a break because somebody recognizes them in America. Right
they are they are having no success in the UK, right,
but they have a little bit of a hint of
an idea of maybe this this band can work in
America because they have an American sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they sound like the British version.
Speaker 2: Of Nirvana kind of. Yeah. And there's a there's a
reason for that, and I'll talk about that in a
minute too. But what happens is this guy named Bob
Kahane is with Hollywood Records, Okay, yep, and he recognizes
them as having a bunch of potential. And so Bob
Kahan goes to Disney Disney. Walt Disney, No, not Walt Disney,
the company Disney. This is the nineties. Well, Walt's been
buried under the Epcot Center for twenty years at this point. Yeah.
So he goes to them, and the president of Disney,
his name's Frank Wells. He's like, yeah, I think this
is a good band. They've got potential, sounds great. Keep
in mind, they're playing fifty guys over in the UK, right,
and nobody's ever heard of them anywhere, and so he's
got the backing of the President of Disney, and so
he's good to go. This album is going to be
a greenlit thing. We're good to go, right then. Easter
nineteen ninety four, Okay, the album is finished, hasn't been
released yet. Frank Wells, president of Disney, goes hella skiing
with Clint Eastwood, like they're stop, they're hanging out their buddies.
They're hanging out, I mean President Wow, of course, right,
you know. And so they're out and they've done this
helicopter skiing and the weather is starting to get a
little dicey, and Clint Eastwood leaves and it takes about
an hour before Frank Wells's helicopter is able to leave,
but they leave kind of as the storm is coming
up and they have to land not too much longer
and try to wait the storm out. Well that's what
they do. They wait the storm out. But because of
all the snow fault that happens once they do take off,
the engine freezes up. The helicopter crashes into the side
of the mountain and Frank Wells and the pilot and
another passenger are all killed. Whoa and so now the
guy who was their guy, the president of Disney, saying yeah,
we've got it, he's not backing it anymore. And all
of the executives at Disney, this is what they say.
No singles, no album tracks, and the album is killed
before it even gets started.
Speaker 1: Now, okay, see stop right there, because it's one thing
to say you don't have any singles. It's another thing
to say you don't have any singles. And also there's
no good songs to put on an album.
Speaker 2: What that's really terrible?
Speaker 1: You have zero songs?
Speaker 2: Yes, so that includes bang is that we know and love. Yeah.
So I don't know in timing wise, how they've they've
got this. Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow thing.
But I just feel like it has to be a
reference to these executives going, I don't hear anything good
on this album at all. Like, it's not album tracks,
it's not singles, it's nothing. We're gonna kill it. But
as it turns out, Bob Kahane is friends with a
guy named Kevin Weatherley, and that may be somebody that
most of our listeners have never heard of, but he
was the head of a little radio station called KRO
in La, and so Bob Kahane still has a couple
of these demo tracks, including Everything's in this song we're
listening to now and Little Things I Believe was the
other one. Kevin Weatherley Bob Khayan, another mutual friend, have
dinner one night and Bob Kahane says, here's you know,
here's two tracks from this album, and he gives them
some other artists to listen to. He says, I think
they've got a lot of potential. I'd love it if
you listened to him. Well, Kevin Weatherley doesn't even remember
what other group was, but he thinks, okay, this has
got potential, and then he plays it in his office
the next day, and then plays it in his office
the next day again, and he's like, you know what,
this is good stuff. We're putting this into the rotation
at k Rock in La. I'm so excited to wear this.
This is going right. Okay, Okay, So, because k Rock
is so influential, all of the alternative stations hear this
and they're like, well, heck, if they're playing it, we
should be playing it. And that's when this little magic
thing happens. Now, keep in mind these guys all thought, hey,
we got signed to Hollywood Records. We're finally going to
have a record deal. Maybe we're going to get out
of playing these crappy little cubs. And then they find
out our record deal is dead. They go back to
working menial labor jobs. Levin Rozdell was going to be
a painter. Yeah. For three months, they're they're blue collaring it, right,
that's right, and playing again, playing clubs on the weekends. Right,
you know. It's just scraping by as a musician in
the UK. And so even though Hollywood Records has killed
their deal, the music starts to play, it starts to
catch on, and this guy who I've talked about in
a recent episode happens to hear their music on k Rock.
His name is Ted Fields. Recognize that name?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: No, okay, well I'm going to refresh your memory. He
started off doing Formula one racing and then he decided, Hey,
I'm going to start a company called Interscope Communications that's
going to make movies. And his finances come from the
fact that he's an heir to a newspaper fortune out
of Chicago. And the big hit that he has with
Interscope Communications is a little movie we just covered called
Revenge of the Nerds. So Ted Field, the same guy
who hits it big with Revenge of the Nerds. Ten
years later, nineteen ninety four, hears Bush on k Rock
and says, Interscope Records, my new company that I formed
in eighty nine, which is now a big deal, will
be the one that distributes this album. And because of that,
that's how the world knows who Bush is.
Speaker 1: The same guy gave us Revenge of the Nerds basically
is responsible for Bush as well. You've got it, We've
got Bush. That is fantastic. Yeah, that's fantastic. Hey, I
did find this up. I mean, just to go along
with your story, Bush was featured on k Rock as
Catch of the Day, right, and which that was a
big deal. When you're named catch of the day on
kay Rock, that's a big deal. Do you remember the
last time we talked about a song that was catch
of the day.
Speaker 2: On k Rock? No, I remember talking about kay Rock,
but I don't remember catch of the Day.
Speaker 1: It was how Great White got their big start. Oh yes,
that's right, So there you go. They were originally going
to drop this in April of ninety four. They killed
the record. Then they said, okay, we're going to give
you a January of ninety five release, But because this
song was so popular, they're like, well, let's push it
up before Christmas. December of ninety four.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: I've got something for you on this though. This is
the cool thing. Okay, So this is the first single.
The lyrics of this song reference a David Bowie song
Life on Mars. Tom Waite, do you remember when we
talked about him, I do Jane's addiction. There's a song
called ted Just Admit It where it says her sex
is violent.
Speaker 2: Saxon Vis.
Speaker 1: Smells Saxon, and that's where you get the line there's
no sex in your violence, right Alison Chains's Wood, which
we've broken down before.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, and Elvis Presley is mentioned in that song Fantastic.
Before we move on from this song. In nineteen ninety six,
there's a little band that starts opening for Bush and
they open for him for three months.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: They're called No Doubt.
Speaker 2: It's familiar with them.
Speaker 1: They're going to play a bigger part in the story
here in just a minute. Yes, But the lead singer
of No Doubt, it's this cute little girl named Gwen Stefani. Yes, well,
she and Gavin Rostelle start up a relationship. Yes, And
in order to tease them, the people in the band
changed this name from Everything Zen to Everything.
Speaker 2: Gwenn Subtle and they live happily ever after clever, Yeah,
happily ever after for quite a while. All right, next song,
next song on the album swim. Okay, So this was
not a single, but I gotta say I love this song.
This is very worthy of a number two spot on
this album. It's got almost a jazz feel to the
breakdown of the song, where it's you know, you've just
got the drum and the singing, and then you get
a little blast, like a bluesy blast of guitar, although
this is the heavily distorted guitar of hard rock music.
It's that kind of singing, the snappy little and.
Speaker 1: Then this sounds like a great concert song.
Speaker 2: Heck, yeah, so this one is another example of the
quiet loud quiet effect.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, that's definitely right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's because Gavin Rosdale is a huge Pixies fan, right.
That is actually how he and Nigel Pulsford first hit
it off in their conversations where they started talking about
the Pixies.
Speaker 1: Okay, I gotta stop you right there. Do you know
where they met? No, tell me, Yeah, they met at
a Brian Adams concert in Wimbley Stadium in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: Gosh, that's that's right around the time he was with
Tina Turner. Right.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean we covered Reckless just a while back.
But there's at least a one in twenty chance that
they met while Ryan Adams was playing Everything I Do
for You fantastic.
Speaker 2: That is fantastic. Just on that note, he mentioned in
an interview that I was listening to that he you know,
back in those days, people bought albums sometimes just because
of the album cover. And he says he can remember
buying the Pixies album. You know, that dancing woman that's
on the front of it just kind of caught of
his attention and he just fell in love with the album.
And then he said something that I thought was crazy,
Like he first thing he would do when he got
an album was he would open it up to the
thanks page, you know where the band thanks all their people. Yeah,
because he was like, I want to know who they're thinking.
I've obviously have no idea who those are? People are either,
but they're the people who are hanging out with the
people that I want to hang out with, so I
want to know more about them, right, Okay, So then
that brought around the idea of well, who did you
think on sixteen stone? Well, one of the people that
he thinks is a girl named Lindsay, who was his
first girlfriend, Yes, and the love of his life as
he describes it, you know those those first girlfriends frequently
are what he says. And the thanks is giving a
thanks to miss Thurno because he thought that would be cute,
like he took time, he and apparently she called him
up after it and was like, what the hell is
that supposed to me? Really? Yes, he was like, I
don't what why are you mad? Like I thought this,
I thought this was a sweet, sweet thing. And she's like, no,
what the pick are you thinking? Putting thanks and putting
miss Thurno on there, And he says, well, probably nobody's
gonna listen to his album many probably nobody will buy it.
You'll be fine.
Speaker 1: Thanks for letting me sneak and kiss behind the gymnasium
at school.
Speaker 2: My gosh, yeah, there you go. Wow.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2: That's a good story. Speaking of things is happening behind
the gymnasium at the schoolhouse. The first lyrics of this song,
could not believe came here today. Helmet was on you
blew me Away? Houses on fire were naked again. Maybe
all we need is water and friends. We think he's
talking about there, I'm going sex. Yeah, blew him away? Yeah,
good thing he's wearing a helmet. That's right. Okay.
Speaker 1: Next song on the album is called bomb.
Speaker 2: Okay. So this song they wrote back when they were
still under their old band name. Yeah, they started out
as Future Primitive terrible name. It is terrible. It is
a terrible name. And I think I mentioned in an
episode past that I went into guitar center and there
was a couple of kids in there who started playing
guitar together, and I was blown away and how good
they were. Like I'm thinking they're teenagers, and they're like
blowing my mind, Like, hey, teenagers still play music on
real instruments. This is fantastic. And so I'm like, hey, guys,
you have a band. They're like yeah, And I'm like, cool,
tell me the name. I'm gonna go check you guys
out and They're like, it's called Wet Muscles and I
was like okay, and they're like, we know, it's a
terrible name and I was like yeah, and they're like,
but it's memorable, and I'm like, well, yeah, that's true.
So guys, if you are in the Oklahoma City area,
go check out Wet Muscles. Young band playing real music
out there. And it was great because I'm listening to
this guy kill this lead guitar thing and started talking
to him. He's like, actually I'm the drummer. I'm like wow, wow, Okay,
So anyway, yes, great band. But back to what I
was saying on this one written while they're still called
Future Primitive, which is a terrible name, and so fortunately
they decided to change their name.
Speaker 1: It was released as Future Primitive. How about that. Yeah,
So I mean there's a song out in the world
under the name Future Primitive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this song bomb. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, that name is not as bad as sixty wrong Sausages,
which was Weezer's name at one point, right, right, right.
This was on the soundtrack for tank Girl. Okay, there
are three songs on this album that made soundtracks.
Speaker 2: Zack Snyder's Tank Girl.
Speaker 1: Right, I think so I have no idea. I know
Lori Petty is in okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the last song we talked about where
it references a bomb.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was back in her Green Day episode.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, the song having a Blast that we
talked about last week on the Dukie album.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is the one I can remember back
in the day that I was had this album, was
listening to it, you know, chatting up a girl at
the bar or whatever, and she was talking about how
her boyfriend didn't like Bush because they sounded just like
a yeah the band. He didn't like them because they
sounded like a British knockoff of Pearl Jam and Nirvana
and some of these other Seattle bands, right right. And
she and her point, which I thought was very well taken.
She's like, well, come on, Green Day is just a
knockoff of all of the British punk bands, right, And
I was like, okay, well, yeah, I mean even back
in ninety four ninety five people had this idea, but
this song Bomb is one of those ones that really
has a very Nirvana sound. Absolutely well. If you'll go
back to our first season when we covered Nevermind versus Ten,
we talked about how Kurt Cobain also loved the Pixies.
There you go, If the bands are influenced by the
same band, then they're gonna have a similar sound of
their songs.
Speaker 1: Right, makes sense on that subject. There is another thing
that Kurt Cobain loved that also, Gavin Rossdale loves.
Speaker 2: Oh that's true. That is true.
Speaker 1: I forgot about that, Courtney love. Yeah, was shared between
these two men. Yeah, yeah, shoot, that dang, that's right.
He had a little tryst with her obviously after Kurt's
suicide ninety six. Yeah, So that's interesting that you you
say ninety six because it was in ninety five that
he started dating Gwen Stefani. So that means, oh, oh,
I'm hearing ross here. They were on a break, not necessarily, yeah,
and I think those lines were a little blurry there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Apparently they went out for about eight months in
ninety five and ninety six. Courtney said, everyone gave me
so much shit because Gavin sounded a lot like Kurt. Yeah.
But yeah, obviously that ended and she he got back
together with Gwen Stefani. They got married in two thousand
and two. They have three sons together, born in May
two thousand and six, August two thousand and eight, and
February twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's hold that story for a bit later. I've
got some more stuff for you on that, all right, Okay, okay, cool.
Next song, next song.
Speaker 2: On the album. Song you might have heard of before.
The song's called Little Things the Banger. I love it.
It is banger, and it does sound a lot like
smells like teen Spirit as well. It kind of does, right,
But it's so freaking good. You know, they even recognize
now Pixies are an American band. He liked American music
like he liked that sound, as do a lot of
We've covered so many bands that they're like, the British
guys are pulling from the American side, the American guys
are pulling from the British side. And so I don't
know why these guys seem to get more heat about
it than anybody else. I mean, we talked about bon
Jovi and Richie Sambora sitting on a box of tapes,
listening to the tapes trying to figure out what licks
they're going to steal and what melody they're going to
steal for their next album. Right, it happens all of
the time. But before they had recorded this record, realized
that they had an American sound. They literally picked their producers,
Clive Langer and Alan winstonly because they're British and they
wanted to have a more British sound to their music. Now,
these guys had produced a ton of stuff, including a
lot of Elvis Costello stuff, and that's how the band
ended up going with them. Clive Langer actually co wrote
the Elvis Costello song Shipbuilding, which is huge. He had
done all these Elvis Costello bands things he had composed.
He ended up later on composing music for a couple
of movies called Still Crazy about an old kind of
washed up singer Okay, and this one's great. I really
want to check this out. A movie called Brothers of
the Head. It is a mockumentary about a rock band
whose lead singer is a conjoined twin.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I want to check that one out.
Speaker 2: It looked really good. He'd been a guitarist for the
cult band Deaf School, where his punk name was Cliffhanger
instead of Clive Langer. That's funny, and had played Yes
and had played with Big in Japan, which of course
we talked about when we did our Frankie Goes to
Hollywood Patreon episode, So be sure, guys. If you want
to check out some of our one Hit Wonder Patreon episodes,
go to patreon dot com slash Surely Podcast. You can
sign up for free to see what we're covering, and
for as little as five bucks, which is won't even
gets you a cup of coffee at Starbucks anymore, you
can have access to every single one of our secret episodes.
Speaker 1: So we got a big back catalog too. There are
a lot of great stuff out there. Yeah, Okay, here's
the thing that blew me away. Gavin Rossdale Bush is
not his first band. No, it's not even his first
signed band.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: He was in a band called Midnight Yeah in the eighties. Yeah,
and I listened to their stuff. It sounds a lot
like in Excess to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was even a comment that somebody made about
Bush before Bush had recorded this album, was that they
kind of sounded like a commercial in Excess band.
Speaker 1: They opened for Cindy Lauper and Big Country.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the band Midnight he had started with a
guy named Sascha Putman. Because I mean, we talked about it.
Gavin Rossdale is a very pretty man, right, I mean,
he's a good looking, a good looking guy, and so,
like a lot of good looking kids back in the eighties,
he would go to dance clubs and you know, try
to hook up or whatever. And Sacha Putnam was another
one of these dance club kids, and so they put
together this band called Midnight. Now, Midnight had a not
a successful song, but a decent hit. What was it called?
Speaker 1: That song is called King of the Mountain, King of
the Mountain. Let's listen to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, King of the Mountain.
Speaker 1: That's in excessy.
Speaker 2: It is very very similar to in excess And looking
at the album cover, it looked like he was kind
of borrowing that style as well, just like Michael Hutchins.
He did. He had the long hair, he had the
ear ring. It was. It was very much there. Now,
what's interesting that that band was called Midnight. There's another
song called King of the Mountain that's pretty popular by
Midnight Oil, which I think has to be Wow and.
Speaker 1: Well, you know eighty seven, that's when that came out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Wow. Little Things was such a powerhouse down
great song, such a powerhouse.
Speaker 1: All right, quick word on the music video d This
video was shot in January and February of ninety five
at an old mansion in Long Island, New York and
LA at the Band Studio. Video was directed by Matt Mhurran,
who also directed Everything's In. Did you know that Davin
Ross now goes on to do acting after this?
Speaker 2: Like? He's been in several movies?
Speaker 1: What? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So he was in Constantine. He was Balthazar in Constantine.
Speaker 1: Really Yep.
Speaker 2: He was in the Blame Ring with Emma Watson.
Speaker 1: Emma Watson.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was in an episode of Hawaii five. Oh,
not the old one, but the new one. Okay, he
was in an episode of Burn. Notice he was in
an episode of Criminal Minds. I mean it's he's got
a lot of acting credits to his name.
Speaker 1: Listen, this guy's a good looking guy, keeps himself in shape. No,
he's the product of a a doctor and a model.
Have you seen a picture of his mother? No? Huh?
Speaker 2: She beautiful so interestingly like his she's Scottish. His dad
is Russian Jewish. I'm thinking of Adam Sindler and his
song and his happy Hanika song talking about people you
didn't know were half Jewish Gavin Rossdale because they changed
their name from Rosenthal to Rossdale. Oh how about that?
There you go? There you go. Things you only learn
on the Chirly podcast. Ladies and gentlemen. Okay, this song
is incredible, but we have to keep on moving. But
good news. The next song is another banger. This is
the song come Down.
Speaker 1: It just come here, right back down the size good time.
Speaker 2: Okay, Jason, I have to ask you this question. I
think if anybody's gonna be on the same page as
me for this, it's gonna be you.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: When you hear this bass introduction, does it make you
think of any song from the eighties.
Speaker 1: It's a slowed down bass line from Living on a Prayer.
Speaker 2: It's really like I remember back in ninety five hearing
this song for the first time and thinking, dude, they
stole this riff from bon Jovi. But as far as
I know, I'm the only person who's made that connection.
I don't know anybody else who's said that. But man,
unmistakable how close those two basslines are.
Speaker 1: How about that?
Speaker 2: There you go?
Speaker 1: All right? So come Down is to me, this is
the best song on the album.
Speaker 2: Oh nice, Yeah, I love this song.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a banger down down.
Speaker 2: Okay. So in the late eighties, we've talked a little
bit about Gavin Rossdale's life, but i'll go love life.
But I'll go on here a little bit more. Why
not he dated a woman named Susie de Marchi. Yes,
she was the lead singer for a band called Baby Animals. Yes,
they had a hit called Early Warning. Obviously, probably a
much bigger band in Australia where they're from, okay than
they are here, right sure, just again trying to take
advantage of that in excess connection. She ends up leaving
him and ends up getting together with Nuno ben Incourt
from the band Extreme What. Yeah, So this song come
Down is about the end of his relationship with her.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is a great nugget.
Speaker 2: We'll get to glitcer in here in a minute. It's
gonna be the same thing.
Speaker 1: Now, wait a minute. For those who don't know who
Nuno Bettencourt is, he is the electrifying guitarist for the
band Extreme.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Go back and listen to our best songs of nineteen
eighty nine episodes. Yep, Wow, okay, good one. By the way,
I've got a breakdown of Gavin Rosstill's a love life here.
In just a minute, we're gonna go through on the
song ex girlfriend.
Speaker 2: All right, sounds good.
Speaker 1: So you talked about how this song was written about
his relationship with Susie Demarchie. Right. I saw him where
he was talking about how this song it's about her
and their relationship. It's in the context of half regret,
half celebration. It's experiencing something of great euphoria. You don't
want to end, and that, I mean, what a perfect
song and like sentiment in concert to play this one.
It's a banger and you're like, I'm having a ball.
I didn't want this name to end.
Speaker 2: Say what you will like. I think that the people
in the UK thought that this was a manufactured band,
which is pat false. They just were an unsuccessful in
the UK band that happened to blow up in the
US in nineteen ninety six. They played to more people
in the United States than any other band. That's how
big they were. It was huge. But Gavin Rossdale is
a not just a good looking guy. He is a
talented musician and a talented songwriter. I mean, let's let's
do let me just talk the lyrics here love and hate,
get it wrong. She cut me right back down to size.
Sleep the day, let it fade. Who was there to
take your place? No one knows, never will, mostly me,
but mostly you. What do you say? What do you
do when it all comes down? Because I don't want
to come back down from this cloud. That's poetry, bro,
I love it.
Speaker 1: See I'm having a ball today. I don't want to
come down from this. Wow. Good stuff, Yeah, good stuff.
Speaker 2: This to me.
Speaker 1: I hate to leave this one so early. The way
this song ends, it's just repeating that, this pumping chorus
and just I just I could feel this way of
the crowd.
Speaker 2: It is an emotional delivery of emotional lyrics. Great, great song,
definitely worthy of being your favorite.
Speaker 1: On the album, Yavin Rostel talks about how when he
plays this song and concert, it's electrifying to him to
watch people sing his lyrics back to him.
Speaker 2: It's just one of those.
Speaker 1: Where he lets the crowd do the work, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: By the way, this song was in the movie Fear.
I asked you earlier, had you seen the movie Fear?
Speaker 2: Marky Mark before he was Mark Wahlberg again, right, Micky Mark? Yeah,
and Reese Witherspoon. I think I saw it either on
VHS or like in the theater or something, But I
just I kind of remember Mark Wahlberg pound in his
chest because he was this obsessive high school boyfriend. Seemed
like maybe a gender reversal on the Fatal Attraction movie.
Speaker 1: I know my college buddy, Scott Foster, the guy that
did our intro to the Green Day episode last Yeah, yes,
he saw this with him. It was him, his girlfriend
and her parents, and he said it may be like
the most uncomfortable he's ever been in a movie setting.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Oh yeah, I'm going to go to the
movie about a psychotic boyfriend with my girlfriend and her parents.
Exactly great, exactly great. Okay, we ready to move on.
Speaker 1: Moving on to the next song. That song is called Body.
Speaker 2: This is an unstung, absolute single worthy song off of
this album.
Speaker 1: I dig this one man.
Speaker 2: This is such a great song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a fantastic song. This is one I
didn't know before it was not a single, but I'm
on board with you. This could have been a single
and it could have been very successful.
Speaker 2: I can remember loving this song back in the day,
totally expecting it to be released as a single never
was may have been the kind of record deal that
you talked about with Dookie and with the Blue album,
where they were like, some of these songs want people
to go buy the album to get that's right. But
this one is definitely single worthy. Has a Sound Garden
sound to it. It's got a kind of like Rusty Cage.
I would say.
Speaker 1: I saw a magazine said this is the perfect mix
of Sound Garden and Black Sabbath.
Speaker 2: Nice. Nice, Yeah, that one. I love it. I love it.
Will you come again? Will we stay friends? Oh you paralyze?
Speaker 1: Oh you paralyze?
Speaker 2: I love this song, man, It's really good.
Speaker 1: A great song. D hit stop on your tape, play
kick it out, flip it over for side too, and
we start off with Machinehead.
Speaker 2: Well we've reached my favorite song on the album.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is your favorite?
Speaker 2: Gosh. I love this song. My band used to cover
this back in nineteen ninety five ninety six. Loved covering
this song, loved doing that guitar intro. I mentioned this
to James Buckley a couple of weeks ago, and within
a few days he sends me a video where he
and Hidden Tracks are covering this song and they did
a killer job on It's such a great song, such
a great cover, that guitar intro and then him coming
in with the breathe in, breathe out. I mean, it's
just intense.
Speaker 1: It's like a very heavy metal version of aerobics.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of funny. I don't I have nothing
that tells me that there's some inside information on what
this song is about. I'm just guessing. This is a
total guess for me. Do you have info I've got.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's vague when he talks about what this
is about. I mean, machine head is a guitar item.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what it is, Okay, So just
to simplify as best I can, you probably have seen
on the bridge on the top part of the guitar
where the tuning are sometimes there'll be a little like
metal piece that goes across there. The reason that metal
piece is there is because when you use the whammy bar,
it bends the strings and it'll make him go out
of tune. But if you have that little metal piece
on the top, it keeps them from going out of tune.
And that little metal piece is called a machine head.
He's got a machinehead there you go, it's better than
the rest Green to Red.
Speaker 1: I did see him say that the song is about
survival and triumph. It's about the Maverick spirit and energy
and refusal to be compromised.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of vague terms like that.
Speaker 1: I don't care. It's a great song.
Speaker 2: So at this point, like he's been doing this musician
thing for several years, right, he's he's no longer twenty one,
twenty two, he's now twenty four, pushing twenty five and
play in these clubs in the UK that are small
and wondering, you know, did I make the wrong career choice?
So he I mean, if you just look at these lyrics,
I spin on a whim, I slide to the right.
I felt you like electric light for our love, for
our fear, for our rise against the years and years
and years. Like it sounds to me like this is
his kind of disappointment at the performance on stage going
on as long as it has in him not seeing
any success, Deaf, dumb and thirty, starting to deserve this
leaning on my conscience, wall Blood is like wine, unconscious
all the time. If I had it all again, I'd
change it all, Like I think he's feeling regret in
this song with his music choice. It's just odd that
it turns out to be an absolute smash hit for
the band.
Speaker 1: Well, and keep in mind these songs were dead. He
had no idea that this was going to be a hit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: By the way, This was the fifth single, released April
ninth of ninety six. I told you. It peaks out
at number forty three on the Billboard Hot one hundred
on May fourth of nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: Happy birthday, Yeah, my twenty third birthday. Yeah nice, May
the fourth be with you.
Speaker 1: In the video, Gavin Rossdale's dog Winston, makes an appearance.
Speaker 2: I have a cat named Winston. Yes, you do game
after Winston Churchill. There you go. We're all a little British.
Speaker 1: I guess I did hear how when he wrote this
song he would take walks and he would try to
imagine lyrics and kind of think about and he had
the riff in his head and he was like walking
around Park which is in England, and he's like, holy crap,
that's good. That's good. I gotta remember this. I gotta
remember this. And he said when he got back, he's like, Okay,
you got something good. Don't screw it up by messing
up the lyrics. And that's why I do think it
is a little bit vague about what it is actually about.
All right, let's move on from that one. Let's go
to the next song. The next song is called test Toosterone.
Speaker 2: Another single worthy song. Man, it's good, It's so freaking good.
Speaker 1: It's good.
Speaker 2: So the intro drum on this I saw that their drummer,
Robin Goodrich, he said that he was using inspiration from
Peat Best and John Bonham from led Zeppelin. The intro
drum beat to this is obviously influenced by when the
Levy Breaks from led Zeppelin, definitely very which is MY
favorite intro drum of all time, of all songs. So
I was very happy to hear it being used for
something new and exciting in this one. And then I
love I mean, he's challenging the MAO machismo. I got
a big gold gun, got a big gold gun that
is prevalent. Now it's interesting that he should make that challenge.
As we mentioned, this song came out or the even
this album came out in December of ninety four. Yes,
in nineteen ninety five, when this album was huge, Boy
George released a book, Yes he did. Interestingly, he made
some allegations in there that were initially denied. You got
the story on this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so boy George said, Gavin Rossdale, take it like
a man. And apparently a good friend of boy George
and a good friend of Gavin Rossdale a person named Marylyn. Yeah,
Peter Robinson is his given name, but yes, who goes
by Marylyn. And I guess Gavin still had a sexual
relationship with this person for like five years.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Initially, when when boy George's autobiography came out, like
you said, it's called Take It Like a Man, he
mentioned this and the initial reaction of Gavin Rossdale was,
that's George's take. He doesn't know me. There's a queue
of people going to their lawyers about the stuff in
his book. I hope he manages to sell some books
by putting my name in there. But but a little
later on he confessed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so boy George is like, oh, yeah, well assume
me then if it's wrong, you know. But apparently, Gavin Rossdale,
you know, your your career's taken off. You're in the
you're in the rock world where it's pretty heavily mail.
You don't want to scare off anybody, and so he
denied it, and he asked Marylyn, who he was still
good friends with, hey, can you bury this for me?
And later on he was basically forced to admit that
it happened.
Speaker 2: So Yeah. Two thousand and three, Maryland had a single
called hold On Tight that he dedicated to Gavin Rossdale,
exiting you the years of their passionate relationship and featuring
a photo of him and ross Dale on the cover.
He said they had been together for five years and
referred to him as the love of his life, the
love of his life. But hey, he's shocking. Yeah, he
had several loves of his life. Apparently he did, he
really did. We will go on to talk about those
just a moment.
Speaker 1: Next song on the album is called monkey.
Speaker 2: Okay in my opinion and I love this album. This
is the first skipper on the album for minute, Oh okay,
how do you feel about it? Just kind of noisy,
It's not it doesn't grab me. Yeah, I mean, the
lyrics don't make any sense to me. The music isn't
super great. But here's an opportunity to talk about the
fact that they couldn't release this album in Canada. Because,
as I mentioned at the intro of this episode, there
was already a Canadian band called Bush. They were a
nineteen seventies jazz influenced rock band out of Canada who
like opened up for Three Dog Night, I mean just
hadn't really wow. Like Three Dog Night kind of threw
them a bone Pardney right there by giving them a
B side on one of their singles. But they just
never really had much success. But they were still around
and they still owned the rights to the name when
Bush tried to release sixteen Stone, so if you got
the album in Canada, the name of the band was
Bush X.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, I have not heard this story.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So ultimately they were like, well, guys, we got
to find a work around here. And according to Gavin Rossdale,
and the lead singer for the Canadian Bush, they were
agreeable to like work things out. They're like, let's do it,
but the lawyers, you know, stupid lawyers get involved, everybody's
fighting about stuff. What ends up happening is they agree
that if like all all of the band members, all
four band members, donate twenty thousand dollars to the Starlight
Children's Foundation, that they'll allow them to use the name
in Canada. And I mean that's a no brainer, right.
Your album is selling millions and millions. It's easy to
give up eighty thousand dollars, especially to a good cause,
to get the right to use your use your name,
to use your name.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: By the way, you know where they chose the name bush?
Speaker 2: I do, but you can tell us the story.
Speaker 1: Well, so there's different stories. Yeah, I think bush is
kind of a short and memorable word like kiss might
be right, right, But apparently there's a place in and
around London called Shepherd Bush, Shepherd's Bush, Shepherd's Bush, which
is where they're from. But I'm not sure that there's
not a double entendre there.
Speaker 2: Well obviously. Yeah, Okay, so we know how the band
got its name. Now you're gonna have to stay tuned
to find out how the album got its name. That's
been a mystery for a while. But I think I
may have the answer for you.
Speaker 1: But before we get I don't know that information for you.
Speaker 2: I'm going to give it to you. I'm gonna give
it to you, but you're gonna have to wait. You're
gonna have to wait. You're gonna have to keep stay
tuned in for our next song on the album Glycerine,
a beautiful ballad again dedicated to ex girlfriend Susie Marchie.
Speaker 1: How many people lost their virginity to this song in
the mid nineties, Ah.
Speaker 2: Man, I mean it's just if you know that this
is a song about a breakup, it just tears your
heart up. Man. I mean everything's gone white, everything's gray.
Now you're here, now you're away. I don't want this.
Speaker 1: Remember that, I'll never forget where you're at. Don't let
the days go by. He talked about when he played
this for the band. Initially he said it was I
was like a conduit. This song was bigger than days.
Speaker 2: Kisser rain, gisser.
Speaker 1: You know we've talked about how some artists believe they
download the song right from the heavens. That was this
song for him. Yeah, by the way, I loved I
love this little nugget.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: Desmond Child when he heard this song for the first time,
he thought he was saying kiss the rain, Oh right,
really instead of glycerin, instead of glycerine, kiss the rain.
And then when he found out he wasn't using the
words kiss the rain, he started writing a song called
kiss the Rain for Billy Myers, and it became her
first single to hit the number fifteen chart in the US.
It's crazy, how about that?
Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Also, there's a reference to the song Strawberry Fields Forever
Yep in this song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, strawberry Fields is a place in the UK. I mean,
it's like Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields are Paul and
John's songs about the place that they grew up, right right,
Strawberry Fields being where John Lennon grew up in what
they call the place in Central Park now where he's
got a little altar to his presence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that line says, we live in a wheel where
everyone steals, but when we rise, it's like Strawberry Fields.
This was the fourth single released November of ninety five.
Speaker 2: Okay, this one is too sad and too beautiful and
too wonderful for me to disturb with what the meaning
of sixteen stone is. So we're going to have to
be bop on to the next song. Okay, let's go
on to the next one, all right.
Speaker 1: That song is called Alien.
Speaker 2: This is a song that I can totally see in
concert being the if you will come down of you know,
like we've just banged and thrashed ferociously to machine head.
Time for us to chill and just kind of bob
instead of banging our head, We're gonna bob our head
and just kind of live in the moment. It's a long,
it's like over six minute long song that's very chill,
very atmospheric. Almost.
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you. I read online a lot
of people mark this as their favorite song. Yeah, it's
not mine, but I think you have to be.
Speaker 2: If you're gonna be listening to this on the album,
it has to be that situation where you're really just
listening to the album, like you're laid out on the couch,
you're totally vibing. You know, the lights are dimmed, you know,
you've got something to drink or some something enjoyable going
on in the room where you're just able to just
soak it in. But listening to it in the car
on the way to work probably not so good. Yeah, okay,
here's the story sixteen stone.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, all right, I'm ready for this.
Speaker 2: So there was He didn't elaborate on what the meaning
of this was for quite some time, and there was
talk that somehow it related to his that he liked
math and numerical things and spiritualism and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Math and spiritualism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, but as you pointed out when you were like,
what is sixteen stone mean? I don't know, and you're like,
it seems like it'd be a measurement or weight of
some kind, and okay, So he had a buddy. Apparently
catfishing was a thing before we had social media and
all of these other things. You could catfish somebody back
in the nineties through classified ads. Oh wow, remember I
mean like the Pina Colada song, right, you know, like
he was right reading the ad let's meet up, all
this other stuff, and you toy somebody, right, you would
toy somebody along pretending to be somebody who you were not. Wow.
Apparently Gavin Rosdale had a buddy who this happened to.
He got catfished, and this song is a reference to
when he found out that she was not the slim
model esque person but instead weighed sixteen stones, which translate
to two hundred and twenty four pounds deuce deuce and
a half. He was catfished by a heavier chick in
the in the classified ads, and so that apparently is
where we get the name stone wow or spiritual numerical
blah blah blah. No, it's I like this story much.
Speaker 1: Better catfishon Ain't Cool Kids? All right, last song on
the album songs called ex Girlfriend.
Speaker 2: That was rather quick. Here's a forty four second song
for you, I inspired via we count off in German.
And then the only lyric which is repeated over and
over again is you only call me when you're down.
Speaker 1: This sounds like a hidden song. It's not hidden, right right, Yes,
this deserves to be like unnamed at the end of
the album.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this one's called ex girlfriend. And we've talked
about when Stefanie who's who got herself to ex wife.
Actually there's a great story with that, but keep going, okay.
And then we've talked about Susie Demarchi yep. And we've
talked about Marilyn Yeah. And we've talked about Courtney Love.
Yeah that's four right there. And I know that he
had a child with someone back in the late eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah he did, So I've got a kind of a
breakdown for it, okay. Yeah, And we already talked about
how Gavin Rossdale doesn't have any trouble grabbing the ladies, right, right.
So he had a child with a lady named Pearl Lowe,
who is an interior decorator. She had a daughter named
Daisy low Right that you may have heard of.
Speaker 2: She's a model.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they had to go to court and they
found out that yes, she was actually the love child
of Gavin Rossdale. And Pearl Lowe was also a singer
in a band for a while, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: He also, I think we kind of need to get
into the Gwen Stefani thing here. So he was married
to Gwen Stefani for fifteen years, long time, long into
the relationship, like twenty fifteen, maybe thirteen years in nanny
discovered an iPad that was hooked up to his cell phone,
and a nanny noticed that there was inappropriate texts coming
from a different nanny. Her name is Mindy Mann.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: She was sending sexually suggestive texts along with intimate pictures
if you will, Okay. And of course that was a
big betrayal because you not only did Gwyn lose her husband,
but she also lost a friend and a trusted employee,
and that was kind of the big scandal there in
the mid twenty and tens for.
Speaker 2: A little bit. Absolutely Thankfully Gwinn ends up with Made
of Oklahoma and Blake Shelton.
Speaker 1: Yes, she comes down to tishuminga quite a little bit. Yeah,
but I do have a list of Gavin Rossdale's ex girlfriends. Okay,
are you ready for this?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Go for it? All right.
Speaker 1: We already talked about Susie Demarchie. We've talked about Courtney Love,
we talked about Prolo, we talked about Marylyn. But he
also dated Gwyn Singer. You know that is no majors.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: You know who Natalie Golba is, no majors. Okay, you
know who Sophia Tamala is, no majors. All right. His
current girlfriend is Zoanna Zenetti, majors.
Speaker 2: Like I said, he is all right. He's a handsome
man and given the kind of breadth of his love life.
I'll give you another short little tidbet Now, I mentioned
that Rob Kahane was the guy from Hollywood Records who
first discovered Bush. If you will, they're playing in these
flea pits. They weren't getting any attention from any of
the UK record labels, and in ninety three, a guy
named Gary Crowley of Capitol Radio. It was a disc
jockey for them. He gave a copy of their demo
to a friend of his who was on the American
label Trauma at the time, and that friend was Rob Kahane,
who I talked about being from Hollywood Records. Right. It
was very fortunate that Rob Khan had gotten this album
because he had just stopped working with the guy who
he had been managing for several years, who we've covered
a couple of times, a guy named George Michael. Really yes,
and so had George Michael not dumped Rob Kahane, we
might never have gotten introduced to Bush.
Speaker 1: Oh fascinating.
Speaker 2: That's good stuff.
Speaker 1: There you go, all right. That brings us to the
end of the album.
Speaker 2: YEP.
Speaker 1: I got to ask you real quick, real quick. We've
covered Weezer Weezer, We've covered Dooky by Green Day Green Day, YEP,
and we've covered sixteen Stone by Bush yep.
Speaker 2: That's three.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to ask you to rank them, but
what's your favorite one we've covered so far?
Speaker 2: I'm not telling you. You have to tune in for
the next two episodes and then I will give you
all five ranked in order. Guys, just hit that follow
button on your podcast app and you could see if
you agree with me or if you agree with Jason,
or we're both idiots. But tune in next two albums.
We're going to have a couple of guests host with us.
We've got Brad Moore coming.
Speaker 1: In and we've got Dayton Johnson coming in.
Speaker 2: They are going to Brad Moore is going to help
us cover Live Throwing Copper, which is another album I
had at the time and absolutely loved. And Dayton Johnson
is going to help us cover Collective Soul at the
Blue album Yes, which I'm excited to talk about. That
one is well, that's one of your favorites. I know,
I love it.
Speaker 1: Yep, it's gonna be fun. We'll see you guys back
here next week.