Zooming in on video from Bush’s tour bus, Gavin Rossdale is looking fresher and better-coiffed than any 58-year-old rocker is supposed to look at 10 a.m. on a Friday morning — while making the summer road rounds on the way to Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre.
“Well, I mean, I probably got bus bedhead,” Rossdale told The Post, as he runs his hands through his perfectly tressed hair — as if he can feel, just by touch, exactly where each strand is supposed to be. “There’s not much glam going on here in preparation.”
But seriously, who is he kidding?
Just 14 months shy of his 60th birthday, Rossdale remains blessed by the rock-star hair gods — and the vocal lords of the post-grunge universe — as Bush celebrates its 30th anniversary on its “Loaded: The Greatest Hits 1993-2024” Tour, which hits PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ on Wednesday.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Rossdale of the tour, a ’90s rockfest — also including Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell and Candlebox — which continues through Sept. 21 in Washington, DC. “It’s really so beautiful … This feels like a celebration, you know?
“It just feels great to celebrate all this time,” he continued. “And it’s funny because so many people coming out, they haven’t seen us for a while, and I want to be like, ‘Hey, we need you every year! Don’t wait for these big celebrations.’ ”
And while Rossdale doesn’t feel like these “elevated experiences” need to wait for the next big anniversary, he certainly didn’t expect to still be going strong 30 years after Bush released their multiplatinum debut album, “Sixteen Stone,” on Dec. 6, 1994.
“No, never,” he said. “When other people remind you of those kind of milestones, you go, ‘Goddamn it— I’m still younger than Brad Pitt!’ ”
Recorded in their native London hometown — and featuring one single, “Bomb,” that they had already released under the name Future Primitive earlier in 1994 — “Sixteen Stone” had initial success in the US with the alt-rock hits “Everything Zen” and “Little Thing” before exploding into MTV ubiquity with “Comedown” and “Glycerine.”
“I mean, my favorite thing about it was, you know, it was completely innocent,” said Rossdale. “It was innocent of every expectation. I didn’t know what lay ahead for me. It was the biggest thing [as] a musician when I was a kid growing up just to get a record deal.
“I couldn’t see further than my nose where that could take me,” he added. “So I just think back to that beautiful innocence of being so excited to just make a record. That was the G5 of life — that was it. I was like, ‘You can kill me now. I made that record.’ ”
Although Rossdale knew that “I was never gonna be Michael Jackson” at a time when the King of Pop still ruled, Bush went on to hit No. 1 with their second album “Razorblade Suitcase,” which also went multiplatinum on the strength of hits such as “Swallowed” and “Greedy Fly.”
But after releasing their fourth studio LP, “Golden State,” in 2001, Bush was bushed — and the band “took a time-out.” But Rossdale insists that “we never really broke up.”
During that hiatus, Rossdale dropped his one and only solo album, 2008’s “WANDERlust,” but his heart always still belonged to Bush.
“The solo record felt too indulgent and too much [Gavin], and it just wasn’t fun,” said Rossdale. “I like the band mentality.”
Besides, he added, “If you have a big band, people don’t want the singers to go have solo projects. They don’t want it.”
With Bush, Rossdale found his chosen family in rock ’n’ roll. But the foursome’s fame also led him to build his own brood with another music mega-star, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani. The two began dating in 1995 and went on to get married in 2002.
But 13 years — and three sons — later, the poster couple of ’90s alt-rock split up, with their divorce being finalized in 2016.
“We had an amazing time, you know?” said Rossdale wistfully. “It’s crazy how life works out, and how [there was] all that — and then nothing. It’s incredible.”
But Rossdale — who is currently dating electro-pop artist Xhoana X, while Stefani married fellow “Voice” coach Blake Shelton in 2021 — still has the “best gift of life” in their three children: Kingston, 18; Zuma, who will turn 16 with a special celebration at Bush’s show on Wednesday; and Apollo, 10.
“I have three beautiful boys from that time and that part of my life,” he reflected.
So are the boys living up their rock-star pedigree yet?
“Yeah, it’s quite phenomenal,” said Rossdale. “All three boys, really. Apollo, the youngest, plays amazing piano. And then Zuma is singing and playing acoustically on the country side. And Kingston is going down the rock side.
“So they’re all super talented — and really good people. That’s the main thing … That’s all I care about what they do with their lives.”
