Bush’s new album I Beat Loneliness, released on July 18 via earMUSIC, isn’t just another addition to the band’s catalog, for Gavin Rossdale, it’s a deeply personal statement born from raw honesty and lived experience. Speaking on the JJO Discover New Music Podcast, as transcribed by blabbermouth.net, the singer revealed how the title was one of the first things he thought of when writing the record, and how it became the heartbeat of the entire project.
“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,” Rossdale explained.
He went on to reflect on the growing conversation around emotional well-being. “Everyone has been talking so much about mental health, which is a much more healthy, open dialogue,” he said. “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.”
When asked how creating I Beat Loneliness compared to previous albums, Rossdale noted the evolution in his approach. “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 Sixteen Stone, Bush’s debut album in 1994, 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.”
Co-produced by Rossdale and Erik Ron — known for his work with Panic! At The Disco, Set It Off, and Bad Omens — I Beat Loneliness marks a milestone in Bush’s catalog, showcasing the band’s ability to adapt and evolve while staying true to their emotional core.
The group is currently touring North America from July 19 to August 30, after which they will join Volbeat for a run of European shows from September 18 through November 13.The current lineup features Rossdale, guitarist Chris Traynor, bassist Corey Britz, and drummer Nik Hughes.
