Bush
A lot can happen in two years. Just ask any member of Bush. For them, two years is the amount of time it has taken to go from relative obscurity on the U.K. circuit to the top of the American pop charts. It is the amount of time taken to score five hit singles "Everything Zen," "Little Things," "Comedown," "Glycerine," and "Machinehead" play a few hundred concerts a sell seven million copies of their debut album Sixteen Stone. In short, it is the amount of time it has taken for Bush to become the biggest English rock act to break in America in more than a decade. Mindful of their hard won achievement, Bush are packing a Razorblade Suitcase for their return trip to the top of charts.
Though it may appear serendipitous on the surface, there is nothing magical about Bush's phenomenal success. By the time they came together in 1992, Robin Goodridge (drums), Dave Parsons (bass), Nigel Pulsford (guitar) and Gavin Rossdale (guitar, vocals) were already frustrated with the U.K. music scene. As musicians, Rossdale had released a few unsuccessful singles with Midnight, Parsons had been working with glam punksters Transvision Vamp, Goodridge was getting regular session work and recording with club act The Beautiful People and Pulsford had been gigging as a member of Beggar's Banquet act King's Blank.
The band were officially founded when Gavin and Nigel, who met at a London club gig shortly after Rossdale had returned to the U.K. from a brief stint in Los Angeles, began working. Weaned on punk, and citing influences as diverse as the Pixies and Bob Marley, Rossdale and Pulsford's shared musical interests quickly evolved into the full throttle melodic sonic assault that has become Bush's trademark. With the addition of a rhythm section in Goodridge and Parsons, the band began to record and tour with money earned at various day jobs in the hope of securing a label deal.
The sessions produced an album's worth of noisy demos that were far more in keeping with America's exploding alternative rock scene at the time than with the burgeoning Brit Pop movement in London. Despite the disappointments, Bush continued however they could as a band, both professionally and personally all the while developing a work ethic that would serve them well in the months to follow.
By late 1993, the band signed with an unknown label called Trauma Records. Rob Kahane, president of the label, came to see the band on the advice of a friend. Both sides decided to take a chance, and with a modest budget from Trauma. Bush were left alone to record with producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. The album was Sixteen Stone.
Written by Gavin Rossdale and sung in a throaty, intense growl, the songs were loaded with slashing guitar, snaky bass lines and pounding back beats, capturing perfectly the energy the band had been putting across in their live shows. With titles such as "Machinehead," "Testosterone," "Bomb," and "Glycerine," to match the incendiary music. Bush balanced the sonic aggression and cryptic Lyricism with absolutely irresistible guitar hooks and anthemic choruses revealing a very keen awareness of classic pop song structure without resorting to cliches.
Within a year, the debut album was in the shops and its explosive first single "Everything Zen" was creating a major buzz at radio. By early 1995, major support from MTV for the Matt Maburin directed "Everything Zen" video drove the track to #1 on the alternative radio charts. It was a pattern that would repeat itself over and over and over as five singles were released through the next year all of which have now become playlist staples at alternative and rock radio. Bush's accomplishments are even more impressive considered against the complete absence of advance hype from their homeland (generally a prerequisite for any British band crossing the Atlantic) or any critical support whatever, Sixteen Stone was the sound of a band making it on their own merit and their own terms.
Not content to rely on radio and MTV, Bush embarked on a club tour of America in January 1995 that ultimately expanded to a grueling eighteen month marathon taking the band from CBGBs in New York City to the biggest arenas in the country by the spring of 1996. In all, Bush performed more than 230 U.S. concerts in support of Sixteen Stone, delivering a raucous, riveting 90 minute show almost nightly. With each new single, each new video, each gig, their fan base grew and Sixteen Stone inched further up the album charts, holding steady in the lower echelon of the Top 20 until December 1995.
In that month, with their fourth single, "Glycerine" headed for #1, career making performances on "Saturday Night Live," at Christmas radio concerts for KROQ in Los Angeles and Z100 in New York City and on The Howard Stern Show rocketed the album into the top 10 of Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart, where it stayed for much of the winter and following spring. Rolling Stone and Details cover stories only served to verify the obvious Bush had conquered the American charts and hearts of millions.
Finally concluding their Sixteen Stone Tour in May 1996 with two soldout shows at Red Rocks, Bush returned home and ambitiously began work almost immediately on their second album, Razorblade Suitcase. Hiring producer Steve Albini, king of the underworld and a master at capturing actual, unadorned performance, Bush quickly cut the 13 tracks for the new record at Studio Two, Abbey Road. The songs were recorded mostly in one or two takes with a few overdubs, owing less to any lo-fi experiment than to the fact that the band's live performance momentum was carried so easily into the studio.
The resulting album balances raw and ragged songs like "Personal Holloway," "A Tendency To Start Fires," "Greedy Fly," "Cold Contagious," and "Insect Kin," with bittersweet laments like "Straight No Chaser," and "Bone Driven." "Swallowed" is the first single from the record, distilling Bush's approach on Razorblade Suitcase to the essentials with its infectious guitar and chorus.
Following the sessions for the new album, Bush returned to the U.S. in early September for a final piece of promotion for Sixteen Stone at the MTV Video Music Awards turning a fiery performance of "Machinehead" and walking away with the award that matters most: The Viewer's Choice. Surprised by the victory, Bush thanked their fans with a promise to return next year.
On the eve of the release of Razorblade Suitcase, America's passion for Bush's music continues unabated. "Swallowed" recently scored the highest debut of any track ever on Billboard's Modern Rock Monitor, landing on the airplay chart at #6, as radio stations nationwide rush released the track into heavy rotation. Having achieved success beyond their wildest dreams, Bush are at the peak of their creativity and confidence with nothing left to prove to anyone but themselves.
Taken From:www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/8845/
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