Gavin Rossdale on his new cooking show and the burden of being beautiful
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Three decades after he found alternative-rock stardom as the frontman of Bush, Gavin Rossdale has a new job: TV chef. In each episode of “Dinner With Gavin Rossdale,” which premiered Thursday on Vizio’s WatchFree+ platform, the 59-year-old singer and guitarist welcomes a different celebrity guest — first up is Serena Williams, followed by the likes of Selma Blair, Tom Jones and Jack McBrayer — into his Studio City abode for a home-cooked meal and an intimate conversation. Rossdale, who shares three sons with ex-wife Gwen Stefani, spoke on a recent morning about the show and his life in Los Angeles and about Bush, which will resume touring later this year behind the band’s 10th studio album, “I Beat Loneliness.”
Why’d you want to do a cooking show?
Two reasons. One was finding a job where I could stay home and be with my kids. The other was that I thought I could maybe develop people’s sense of who I am. But it was all a bit of a bluff, really: I’m not a professional chef who can tell you what to do. And I don’t want to be that guy. I’m a home cook, and I just based the show on fun dinners that I’ve had.
There’s definitely as much talking as cooking in each episode.
The food is absolutely second place — maybe third place. People refer to it as a cooking show, but it’s really an interview show. I can’t stand someone giving me a plate of food, then poring over it: “What do you think?” The food just disarms people.
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Did you have other shows in mind as a model?
I thought “Dinner for Five” was amazing. I asked Jon Favreau to lunch when I first had the idea — we knew enough of the same people that he didn’t think I was stalking him. I wanted to know what the pitfalls were. Then I realized: Trying to get five people to look comfortable at a dinner where they just met, and I’m cooking? Awkward as f—. One-on-one seemed like a way to get much more out of it.
In the episode with Serena, you guys talk about your long friendship. When did you meet?
Many years ago at my friend Nels Van Patten’s house. Must have been 1999 because I was making “Golden State,” which was the first record I made in America. I came over here and didn’t know anyone apart from Gwen. I’d been a really big tennis player when I was a kid but gave it up when I got into music. So I thought I’d pick it up again, and I found this guy who turned into one of my best friends. The whole Van Patten family — this is the actor Dick Van Patten — there’s three brothers, and I’m like the fourth. And when you went to their house, there were all these incredible tennis players there — it was like this tennis academy in Van Nuys. One day Serena showed up with Venus, and Serena told me, “Oh my God, I grew up on your music.”
The two of you sing Bush’s “Comedown” at the end of her episode. Do you sing with each of your guests?
I sang with Tom. With Jack, they put a guitar out — “Let’s see what happens” — so I’m having a conversation with him, holding an acoustic for no reason. Well, the reason was that he might succumb to me seducing him into singing some Johnny Cash. But we didn’t do that. I just wanted to make people feel comfortable. With Selma, we played ping-pong, which is the Henry Miller way of de-intellectualizing the area. Guests would come to his house and they’d start with a really rigorous round of ping-pong and lose all the intellectual pretense. I played ping-pong once with [Russian oligarch] Roman Abramovich. Funny old life, it is.
You’ve been a musician long enough to know what success means in that world. What would success mean for this show?
I don’t know. I try to only work on stuff that I believe in and I love, which is enough for me since these days it’s a crap shoot as to which things are gonna connect. I’ve just made a new Bush record, even though I don’t need to make records in a way. I could just tour.
Going on the road only to play the old hits —
It’s artistically bankrupt. If you’re an artist, you’re meant to reflect the zeitgeist, reflect the world, reflect something.
This seems like a strange bill now, but I remember seeing Bush open for Nickelback in 2012.
That was my manager at the time. We hadn’t opened for anyone at that point, so at first I said, “Is this a good move?” He was like, “We’re gonna get you back in these arenas, and this is how we’re gonna do it.” Bush fans were almost mad at me: “They should be opening for you!” But stats don’t lie. It actually took till about last summer for the plan to work [laughs]. The long play.
Steve Albini’s death last year got me thinking about the very ’90s controversy around his role as producer on Bush’s “Razorblade Suitcase.”
It was shocking because it was bringing the hugest commercial world to the underground. I’d grown up on Fugazi and Jesus Lizard and Slint, and I kept seeing Steve’s name going back to Big Black — you know, “Songs About F—ing.” So exciting to see an album called that. Then, of course, it’s all the Nirvana flak. There was something perverse about just heading right into the eye of the storm: OK, if you’re gonna compare the two bands, let’s work with the same person, and you’ll see what the differences are.
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How does “Razorblade Suitcase” sit for you now?
I’m really proud of it, though I’m more proud of my friendship with Steve, to be honest — proud of sustaining it. I think a lot of people got the wrong side of him and forfeited the relationship after they finished their record. But whenever I went to Chicago, I’d always see him. It was fun to have been in his world and survived it. I remember [Interscope Records CEO] Jimmy Iovine saying, “That was a huge gamble, and it paid off.” One of the few compliments he ever gave me.
If I had the chance to make that record again today, the only thing I’d change would be to edit some of the arrangements. We’d just come off being an arena band with one record, so we got a bit jammy because we had the time to fill. There’s this song “Cold Contagious,” and whenever I play it, I’m like, “This is so f—ing long. What was I thinking?”
You’ve lived in L.A. for two decades. Why’d you move here?
Because Gwen got pregnant. We were always gonna live in London — she loved Madness and Sting — then the second she got pregnant and we went to the first doctor visit, it was like, “We’re staying in Los Angeles.”
How’d you react?
Whatever she wanted. I had this very weird calling toward Los Angeles when I was a kid. I didn’t like the environment where I grew up in Swiss Cottage [in northwest London]. It was all football fans tricking out their Ford Escorts, and I just felt stifled. I had to hide my love of David Bowie for fear of getting slapped around. And then I went to a really nice school with people with big futures, and I thought they were all posh c—. So I was caught between two worlds, and I used to dream about Los Angeles.
What was the dream based on?
Just the thrill of success — I saw it as a sort of Xanadu.
Do you remember Bush’s first gig in L.A.?
Dragonfly on Santa Monica [in December 1994]. The power went out three times.
Hilarious.
Not if you’d been struggling for years. I thought that was the end — that we’d come a long way just to blow it. [KROQ program director] Kevin Weatherly, who basically put us on the map, he came backstage and he goes, “You guys are the real deal. Need better electrics, though.”
In the ’90s, you struck me as a somewhat reluctant heartthrob. You understood the value of your looks, but you didn’t seem super psyched about it.
Because it was always used as a stick to beat me with. You could say that working with Steve was an antidote to that. On the other hand, Jim Morrison looked really f—ing good. Mick Jagger looks great. Is that a crime? In the same way you can’t be responsible if you’ve got an eye on the center of your forehead, you can’t be responsible if the eyes are right where they should be.
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