Theformer Bush frontman gave his old tormented persona one last spin in 2005,teaming with members of Helmet to record a lone album of thrashing, seethingalternative rock with a short-lived new band, Institute. In hindsight, thatinstantly forgotten album now sounds like Rossdale’s mid-life crisis, arebellion against the inevitable taming that comes with age. By the time hereturned to the studio, sans band, to record his polite new solo record, Wanderlust, Rossdale had learned to stoprebelling.
“I’dalready done an album that was filled with hard, driving guitars with Institute,so I didn’t feel the need to go down that path again,” Rossdale says. “I coulddo something a bit softer, something that put more emphasis on my vocals.”
That’sthe press-release explanation for his new record, but of course there were alsopragmatic reasons behind Rossdale’s switch from unrelenting hard-rock tohousewife-friendly soft-rock.
Rossdaleadmits that he was shaken by Institute’s swift failure. He realized thatcommercial redemption would require a drastic change of course, but in today’sbearish music industry, earning that second chance was a challenge. The threeyears that it took to release Wanderlustwere marked by, as Rossdale worded it in his liner notes, “delays, detours,surprises and extreme weather.”
“Withthe state of the music industry being what it is, it’s become much harder toeven get a record made at all,” Rossdale explains. “It’s not what it used tobe. Artists are being dropped and employees are being laid off.”
Anovert bid for “American Idol” audiences, Wanderlustis the type of smooth contemporary rock album that critics absolutely loathe, amarket-tested collection of swollen ball
Rossdalehalf rejects the suggestion that Wanderlustis an expression of his familial fulfillment, pointing out that the only songon the album that directly cites fatherhood (“Frontline,” where Rossdale sings“I miss my wife and family”) is an anti-war song, told from a soldier’sperspective, not his. But the record’s many “you and I against the world” lovesongs, he concedes, are autobiographical.
“Askanyone who’s married and they’ll tell you that if you write a love song and it’snot about your wife, there’s hell to pay,” Rossdale says.
Gavin Rossdale does acareer-spanning set at the Pabst Theater on Friday, July 11, at 8 p.m.
