In a new interview with the JJO Discover New Music Podcast, BUSH frontman Gavin Rossdale spoke about the title of the band’s tenth studio album, “I Beat Loneliness”, which came out on July 18 via earMUSIC. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Yeah, it’s just a really powerful phrase that was probably one of the first things I thought of when I began writing for the record, and it just seemed to sum up what was important.
“Everyone has been talking so much about mental health, which is a much more healthy, open dialogue,” he continued. “I’ve been trying to talk about it for years and in some ways that’s been synonymous with the band. And what is meant to people is the kind of lyrics they can connect to, whatever the songs are. So I always find this thread between people that I meet with, with what we do with the band. And so it really gave me confidence to go write a record where I could try and just be as incisive and honest as I could be when I would write. And everything was as base as possible, like ‘I beat loneliness’ or ‘we’re all the same on the inside’ or ‘everyone is broken’, ‘I’m here to save your life’, ’60 ways to forget people’ — all these things were different daily mantras and things that I was going through and different confessions. It’s very confessional. And let’s see how that pans out. But people are connecting to it.”
Regarding how the writing and the recording process for “I Beat Loneliness” was different to the band’s previous records, Gavin said: “You hope that as you go through life, you get better at what you do. So for me it’s all about editing now. It’s so wild. When you first make a record, like when I made [BUSH‘s debut album, 1994’s] ‘Sixteen Stone’, I didn’t even know what a horizon was. Now when I make ‘I Beat Loneliness’, I go, ‘Okay, maybe you have a few good records left. But what do you got? Better make it good. Don’t screw this up. And don’t put any wasted tracks, no filler.’ And it was really fun that each song, it was a different journey into some kind of musical experiment. I kind of put myself in an environment that in my studio, now I got better at engineering, I can just create these worlds and be in those worlds to let those words come out. And that’s what I like to do. So for me it’s always staying curious, trying to learn stuff, accepting that I’m at least 25, 30% ignorant of music and just let that blindness be the magic.”
Produced by Rossdale and Erik Ron (PANIC! AT THE DISCO, SET IT OFF, BAD OMEN),“I Beat Loneliness” marked BUSH‘s tenth studio album — a powerful testament to the band’s enduring legacy and continued evolution.
Rossdale previously spoke about the lyrical inspiration for “I Beat Loneliness” in a separate interview with Baltimore’s 98 Rock radio station. He said at the time: “Well, I think it’s like a snapshot of my life. I’m at a point in my life where I can look far enough back and remember when I first made records. I had no horizon, you know what I mean? And I didn’t know what was happening, and the road was just infinite and open. And then, obviously, as you mature, you get older and you see what the lay of the land is and your time around, you gotta go, ‘Okay, I can see the horizon.’ So it kind of presents a different thing about making sure there’s a reason to write. I call it making sure you improve the silence. And so I just went inside and found some things, just sort of experimented with myself musically and lyrically and just went inside and tried to be as clear as possible. Anytime I thought about an idea, I questioned myself if I was being clear enough about it. And I try to get right down to the kind of the really basic cell structure of people.”
BUSH is on tour in North America from July 19 to August 30, before heading overseas to join VOLBEAT for a series of dates across Europe from September 18 through November 13.
2024 marked the 30th anniversary of the release of BUSH‘s six-times-platinum debut album, “Sixteen Stone”.
Last summer, BUSH celebrated its 30th anniversary with an extensive North American headline tour.
BUSH released “Loaded: The Greatest Hits 1994-2023” in November 2023 via Round Hill Records. The set included a new song called “Nowhere To Go But Everywhere”, which was written by Gavin and produced by Rossdale and Corey Britz.
BUSH‘s current lineup consists of Rossdale, Chris Traynor (guitar),Corey Britz (bass) and Nik Hughes (drums).
BUSH broke up in 2002 but reformed in 2010, and has since released six albums: “The Sea of Memories” (2011),“Man On The Run” (2014),“Black And White Rainbows” (2017),“The Kingdom” (2020),“The Art Of Survival” (2022) and “I Beat Loneliness” (2025).
“Black And White Rainbows” was crafted after Rossdale went through a divorce with pop star/reality TV judge Gwen Stefani in 2015.
