Why critics didn't like Gavin Rossdale's band Bush.

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While grunge music was on it’s way out by the mid 90’s a new sub-genre of rock called post-grunge sprouted up in it’s final days and one of those early bands was British group Bush. Despite selling millions of records and selling out tours, they would be lambasted by critics as being derivative of the bands from Seattle. Today let’s talk about why critics hated Bush, what they had to say about them and the one legend who gave advice to frontman Gavin Rossdale on how to cope with all the hate.

Compared to the grunge bands before them, Bush leader Gavin Rossdale had a pretty posh upbringing. Growing up in the northwestern, London his father was a doctor who had politically connected patients some of which were part of the African National Congress. His mother meanwhile was a model. Rossdale would attend a prestigious prep school, and attempt a career at soccer that was cut short due to an injury. His parents would divorce when he was just 11 and he would be raised by his father and aunt.

All the members of Bush, had older siblings who were teen-agers in the late ‘70s, when the punk explosion was at its peak. They would be exposed to groups like the clash and the Sex Pistols. Rossdale was a late arrival to picking up guitar not playing the instrument until he turned 19. He would tell Chicago Tribune “I left home at 17, was this wandering soul at 19, and decided to become a singer--a very purposeful decision to be the singer, because I wanted to be rich and famous. It was then I decided I wanted to be on a stage craving the attention of thousands of people.”
Rossdale would support himself with odd jobs while playing in a variety of bands one of which was named Midnight who actually landed a record deal, but they eventually went nowhere. According to Rossdale, he soon became damaged goods in London and moved to America in 1991, relying on the kindness of friends and in some cases ex-girlfriends to survive.
IT WAS IN November of 1991 while attending a bryan adams show Rossdale met his future bandmate nigel pulsford. The pair bonded over their love of Pixies and decided to start a band adding bassist Dave Parsons and drummer Robin Goodridge. ” The quartet would call themselves Bush, a name which was inspired by Shepherd’s Bush, a district in west London”
Bush soon recorded a demo and got signed to hollywood records,long story short they lost their record deal after one of the big wigs who backed Bush died in a helicopter crash. But, they would be rescued by Interscope who put out their debut record Sixteen Stone on December 6th, 1994. The first single was such a massive success that the album, which was due out in early 1995 had it’s release date moved up a month earlier.

It was in the fall of 1994, LA radio station KROQ started playing the song ‘‘Everything Zen’ and well the singles just continued - Machine Head, Come Down, Little Things. Glycerine. The album would go on to sell over six million copies in America. Some chalked up the band’s success not just to their musical talent, but their lack of competition.
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Compared to 1994, 1995 was a light year for alternative rock bands,

Despite the success of Bush, critics weren’t fans. The band received a lot of comparisons to bands from Seattle, most notably Nirvana.. Rolling Stone even did a whole piece on the band in 1996 titled “nirvanawannabees.’ Bush tried to ignore the comparisons, but you couldn’t deny the similarities: Rossdale recalled seeing Nirvana in 1991 when he first moved to America, he dated or was at least friends with Courtney Love, he dealt with chronic stomach pain like Kurt Cobain, they shared similar influences, and Bush would even worked with Nirvana producer Steve Albini on their second record. Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl even saw the similarities and it escalated with a short lived feud between the pair. Grohl apparently wore a shirt with Bush’s name on it, but the S was replaced with a dollar sign.

Rossdale would answer these comparisons telling Spin “I didn’t teach myself to sing in a certain way,” “You can’t manufacture that, you know. “That Seattle comparison is really such a lazy one,” “If you’ve got loud guitars, and the singing isn’t screechy-high,