"I accept that rock music doesn't have a large footprint for a lot of people, so I think that it's every band's duty now to make wild, interesting records."
On July 18, Bush will release their tenth studio album, I Beat Loneliness, via earMUSIC. And for London-born, Los Angeles-based frontman Gavin Rossdale, the 12-track record is both "a personal journey", and an album which he hopes will transcend beyond the band's loyal fanbase.
"It's nice and heavy, it's a really modern record, and it's basically a continuation from [2022's] The Art Of Survival," he tells Louder. "Every album is a sort of voyage of discovery, and this one feels like a very personal journey. But the weird thing about personal journeys is that the further you go into yourself, the more you find things that are similar to other people's interior worlds."
Produced by Rossdale and Erik Ron (Panic! At The Disco, Bad Omens), the bulk of I Beat Loneliness was written before the band's 32-date North American greatest hits tour last summer, with Rossdale determined to show that his band are very far from a nostalgia act.
"I couldn't imagine not making new records," he says. "I have the same tenacity to make a great record now as I did when I was living in London writing [1994's] Sixteen Stone. I have to prove myself with every album. I have to fight every time. But I like getting into music's octagon. A record is a reflection of who an artist is, and this one isn't an acoustic swan song!"
The full tracklist of I Beat Loneliness is:
1. Scars
2. I Beat Loneliness
3. The Land Of Milk And Honey
4. We're All The Same On The Inside
5. I Am Here To Save Your Life
6. 60 Ways To Forget People
7. Love Me Till The Pain Fades
8. We Are Of This Earth
9. Everyone Is Broken
10. Don't Be Afraid
11. Footsteps In The Sand
12. Rebel With A Cause
As a taste of what you can expect, Bush today share the album's sixth track, 60 Ways To Forget People, described as an exploration of "the complexities of heartbreak, personal transformation, and the painful process of letting go."
"I'm not manic depressive, and this isn't a record about being a manic depressive," Rossdale stresses. "But I think there's a sort of melancholia that people build up through their lives, through their situations.
"People talk much more about mental health now, and in particular about men's mental health, but I've always written about it. Because that was the essence of grunge, whatever that meant, to me. It meant lyrics of self doubt, and and fear, and vulnerability, and I think that's what I liked about it."
Asked what will define success for him with the new record, Rosssale takes a slight pause, then replies, "my hope is that it transcends the people that know us today."
"Obviously I want the people that know us today to really love it," he clarifies, "but you want it to spread, and you want to attract others. It would be really cool to widen it all out, just because I think that it's important for everyone to make individual records that sound only like them."
Watch the lyric video for 60 Ways To Forget People below:
I Beat Loneliness can be pre-ordered here.
Bush head out on a North American tour with Rival Sons and Filter next week. Full details here.
They will tour Europe and the UK with Volbeat in September, October, and November, culminating in a homecoming show for Gavin Rossdale at London's Wembley Arena on November 13.
