Gavin Rossdale | Club Random

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Honey punches of votes is the forma perfecta den pezadela conto familia.

Cono juelas crucientes and verdad qual yños les encantas.

Ademas delicios osrosos de granola, nuces y fruta que todos vanadis brutal.

Honey punches devotes para todos.

Tokal bener para sabermás.

So the dinner ended when Madonna decided the dinner ended.

Yeah,

that's what I would get.

Musical quiz question:

What awesome pistols?

Is there a guest?

There is.

I'm here.

In the room?

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, how are you?

Pleasure to meet you after all these years.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm seeing you around.

I'm seeing you in the clubs, as they say.

You still go to clubs, Kevin?

No, not much.

What was the last time?

I was saying this is really funny.

Oh, this is a great club.

I hope I didn't screw.

I won't want to screw it up to the point where, because I want to come back when it's full of people.

I was like, this is a good thing.

I would love to.

I mean, this was the party house for years before we made it the podcast house.

I really want to get it back to that because I'm here so much doing this that I kind of forget about it that way.

You're right.

All right, I'll throw a party for you.

You live around here?

Yeah, I live down the road.

And what's weird is that actually I heard this was Ben Affleck's game room.

Yes, it was.

And I like your use of it better.

Oh, I like your use of it better.

Oh, first of all, it was full of.

He was never here.

You know, movie stars, they always say they're either on location or on vacation.

So that's why he was, it was like a bachelor pad thing for him.

And

this room, everyone told me to tear it down because it was full of termites and mold.

And it was just hard.

This room was full of like video games all on

all that electricity.

You see, because weird is that I lived in a house up the road

that Ben and J-Lo had lived at.

Oh, wow.

They have a lot of houses.

And so what was the funny part was when I moved in and they had, you know, there's all the big phones with all the different labels on the names for the house, the rooms, all that.

The one?

You know, you have a phone, and next to the phone, there's all the different buttons for the rooms, master bed, guest bed, blah, blah, blah.

Fancy people.

I don't know.

Yeah, well, but the best building was it had that and it had Ben and then we flipped it, took it off, it had Mark

Mark Anthony when he was there.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

I didn't even know that.

Because it was my house.

Gotcha.

So I was doing it.

And I was like, this is.

Wow.

That's like having his and her towels and marrying somebody else

who has the same initials on the towel.

I always thought a funny movie would be.

I mean, this is when I used to do more drugs than I do now, although I do some now.

Yeah.

Here's the premise.

A girl gets a tattoo.

She's like, you know, 17 or in love with some guy named Tony, right?

So she gets a tattoo right above her pussy that says, Tony's little baby.

And then she breaks up with Tony because, you know, she grows up, it always happens.

And now she goes to a, so I got to get this lasered off.

And they say, oh, you have a rare skin, you cannot laser this off.

And then the rest of the movie, she has to fall in love with a guy named Tony

to find a guy named Tony and have him not see her pussy

until she meets him now how do you how would you end that movie you're in or Wino yeah I would make sure to leave Johnny Depp having Winona and then he changed it to Wino when he when they broke up um yeah yeah yeah that would ruin the movie that would ruin the movie uh well i would i would i i would um

i'd find two of them

because there has to to be some sort of

cliffhanger and a sequel because everything is about sequels.

Nothing works unless you can do it seven times, right?

I mean, you could, if you really wanted to take this premise seriously, and why would you, but you could make the case that, you know, love is kind of arbitrary.

It's like when people think, oh, I found the one true person, oh, shut the fuck up.

Like everybody, not everybody, but lots of people.

get divorced, you've been divorced, okay.

It's like, and then they, or horribly, sometimes somebody dies.

Life goes on.

We need to live in the present.

And so we find some other

one true person in the world.

You know what I mean?

And so, like, could you actually find just among the tonies?

I think you could.

Yeah, there's definitely more than six.

But you need AI, though.

I mean, I think another way of looking at it is that also people have a hard time accepting that some people or some relationships have a time.

Correct.

And we get so upset when they think that that time, you know, so that's what.

Because we ourselves

go through passages in life.

Yeah.

So your 20 self, it's not really your 40 self.

Now, sometimes the person you're married to,

like two dragonflies who fly in 10.

Miracle, yeah.

You think that's a miracle?

It's

it's it's somewhat more of a rarity than the opposite.

Yeah.

Even though people do stay together.

But being miserable and together doesn't count to me.

Yeah, that's a drag.

That's a drag.

You know.

How's it?

What's the longest that you've been in a relationship for?

What's today?

I was in a relationship for five years when

I was

20, 32 to 37, like right at the time you should get married.

Right.

But I just wasn't ready, you know.

And,

you know, with someone who would have been a perfect

wife, there was like nothing wrong with her.

Like really, I know people say that, but that's true.

Right.

And much later in life, I somehow found someone very in the same way.

I don't see any problem.

You know, I always say to her, I have no notes.

I have no notes.

You know, if I had, I would give them to you.

But your performance is perfect it's been going on for years it must be real

you know how would you answer that

uh

what's my longest well there was a time i was with someone as they say married for a long time it's been a bit more yeah so the rock star which makes it even harder yeah

you know

I think on the 10-year anniversary, I said it's been the best six years of my life.

You know, yeah since then i definitely have bounced a bit i have had a girlfriend for two years now it's been kind of fun interesting great girl so that's been a vibe and something that it's not easy

you know there's something you know

yes it just there's things that go on that you just uh it's hard to feel settled you know especially if you're

always

doing stuff and you know going for things it's sometimes it can be hard and you have loads of kids.

I have loads of kids.

That's the other thing.

Loads.

We have three boys here, three young people.

So that's a load.

That's a load.

But

we think somewhere in our minds that as we get into these upper ages, that we're going to, I mean, at least I thought when I was 20s, 30s, life would be, and I would be very different.

I'm at 69.

It's just not.

Like,

the things you think are going to recede and going away, maybe they do a little bit.

You know,

your yen for, you know, strange, as they call it, you know, it's a thing built into male DNA.

It doesn't really ever go away completely.

Maybe it does for some people.

You know, my favorite thing that goes away is the need to ever convince other people of something.

Do you know what I mean?

As you go on,

what's the point?

I mean, you've done an incredible job to illuminate amazing things through the years.

Your show has been really incredible.

Oh, I appreciate it.

Huge value.

Really incredible.

So that is something so powerful.

But man,

it is such a

wild time to be alive.

In some ways, it's the wildest time we've ever lived.

There's more uncertainty.

True.

But there's more joy and there's more pain.

It seems just, it's just.

I say the same thing often.

It's a very odd cognitive dissonance in your mind.

I

get this all the time when I'm out and people come up to me and they're like, you know, we're in a beautiful restaurant and they've just had an amazing dinner and they thought nothing of paying $1,000 for four people to have dinner.

And, you know, they're like, Bill, what are we going to do?

I'm like, I don't know.

Look around.

Is it that bad for you?

Because I get what you mean.

Like, part of your brain is like, oh my God, you know, if you like democracy,

remember to like and subscribe

because uh

we may not be hanging around the you know really existential problem and also AI I mean things like that plastics that are we can't seem to stop getting into our body I mean there are things we've been lied to for so long it's incredible that's the what's insane because well that's always gone on but plastics and AI haven't right and Trump hasn't I mean his his his anti-democratic ways okay those things are all new lies are not new but those things are and if you want to like

spend your life fretting you could it's legitimate i don't have a problem with it you have to like just choose to go yeah but look at the dinner i just had yeah no and look at the restaurant yeah yeah

and otherwise you go crazy i mean there's no there's no sense uh but it is a

very

strange time.

And for me, you know, as a father, having my kids just now coming into manhood, 19-year-old on Monday, a 17-year-old, it's just like

just seeing what the future holds for them.

It's, it's kind of,

you know, all these reports look like in 2035, AI, you know, people will be scared of AI robots.

You know, people will have to hide from.

It's just, it's a lot, right?

I was saying on my show last week that I used to curse at my car

because, and I have not liked cars generally.

I've had some good ones.

I have a good one now.

I had a Tesla a few years ago and did not get rid of it because of Elon.

I just, there was a car, Mercedes made an

electric luxury car that was better than the Tesla.

And, you know, it costs twice as much.

It should be.

Very similar.

Tesla is still a beautiful, wonderful car.

But like the Tesla, this one is just, it's just way too much in my business.

Way too much.

You know, nagging me.

It's like if I want.

It knows what do you want to eat on the way home.

It yells at me for the stupidest fucking shit.

Oh, it doesn't yours?

Your car?

What do you have?

An old car?

Yeah, I guess.

You must.

This thing, oh, please.

Like, if I'm at the end of my driveway, if I'm driving out of my house, right?

And

the street is there in front of me, perpendicular to me.

And if a car, I'm at the end of the driveway, I can see.

I look, I've been driving since I was 17.

I can see if a car is coming across and I'm not going to plow out while the car is passing me.

But the car,

I know.

I see it.

I'm a human.

Can you grade it?

Can you like, you know what I mean, sort of give the beginner advanced and longtime driver.

And then I have a second like iPhone in the car because I use it as an iPod.

for music.

Right.

So when I get out of the car, the car thinks I left my phone there.

So it says, you left your phone.

And I used to be like, and I'm not proud.

I don't talk like this in real life.

IRL.

No.

But I'd be like, shut the fuck up, you stupid cunt.

Because it does it every time.

And now I'm afraid to call my car a cunt

because I know the robots are listening.

And I know they're going to remember that.

And in five years or 10, it's going to be, who's a cunt now, Bill?

They might kick you and your cunt.

Now, I know for you British, cunt is not a bad word.

Yeah, that's a compliment.

But here it is.

So when I call the car a cunt, you know I'm being serious.

It's not a good one.

Because we don't do that.

I don't, certainly never did that in real life.

But a car, you should be able to vent your things at

the inanimate objects.

And I'm just afraid to do that.

So there is a lot to be worried about.

Now, your kids are going to be fine.

They're Nepo babies.

Are they?

Well, I suppose.

I mean, I think by definition.

Are they in the business?

Already?

Are they streaming?

Well, everyone's streaming.

Two of them are really, really, really into music, which are...

Yeah, I mean.

But they got that through the genes.

Yeah, I've never really, it's I mean, for me, it's really about letting them be indivisible and do what they want.

And so

they're very talented, but I feel terrified.

Well, a little bit terrified for them.

Are they true fans of Bush?

I think they understand the.

What did they think?

I mean, because...

Well, this is the main thing.

You know, ever since I had kids, when I first had kids, have you written any songs about the kids?

Of course, I fucking haven't.

But I said, but what I do have is like, they're so opinionated that whenever I make a record, I want them to like it.

Because I don't want them to go to school and have their friends at school be like, these dads need to be.

Well, you want the generation in general to like it too.

I think they just know that

they know that it's quality, I hope.

They know that it's like.

But you do.

By the way, I will say that to you.

Like, there are bands, no one is going to be like they were the first decade because it's just a thing for young.

It's young people's domain.

You just, nobody does it.

But there are bands that people think fall off or get corny.

They don't think that of your band.

And they're right.

And actually, people think, even though it doesn't, hasn't, you know,

your last record probably didn't sell what the first two did,

but the fans actually think it's better.

You know,

they think the

musicianship has, you know, stayed,

you know, because your fan base is getting older, so they're getting more discerning.

So they want a kind of a top quality, nutritious serving of music.

And I think they feel like you give it to them.

Thank you.

It's weird to say that because I think in that way and I think in that way of it being

you know to be surprising just do good good good stuff, you know, and really like mine.

Some we have a new whole new record coming that I think is really good and it's a great time because

yeah, you can

spend your time worrying.

I spend a lot of my time worrying or fretting, as you said.

And then you just think of the pure simple joy of just making something that connects to people.

It's such an ancient concept.

Even though I use mad technology to make it, intrinsically, it just starts with an idea.

It's a blank, it's a blank sound.

You're just a song?

Yeah.

So making a song, you know, it's like improving that silence.

You know, like silence is one of the,

almost the best sound ever.

So they're having the, you know, the kind of audacity to like say, no, I need you to listen to this.

It's an amazing job.

And I just have so much fun mining these,

they're almost experiments I make in making songs just to get better at music.

And I think that's what I hope comes through.

Yeah, it does.

Well, it does, because like I say,

nobody can be like at that frenzy height

in music.

You know, comedy is sort of the opposite.

It goes slowly up, if you do it right.

Whereas music is like, it just hits a skyrocket.

And of course, it fucks a lot of people up because of that.

But

so you can't be there forever, but

it's a good trick that people who even aren't like that big a fan, nobody thinks your band is lame, you know, where they think that of a lot of people from the past, you know.

Nobody thinks Pearl Jam is lame.

Maybe you don't listen to them, but you know, they never sold out like your band.

You know, they they you know, they do stuff that does not, it's not pandering for sure,

you know.

There's no commercial like, oh,

we're gonna do this one.

They've been supporting your boy Bruce and his stuff going on.

They've been doing Pearl Jam, been throwing some Springsteen covers just as a point.

Really?

Why is he my boy, Bruce?

No, I mean,

because we're both American?

I've never even met him.

No.

I mean, I'm a fan, like everybody.

It's the law.

It's the law.

It is.

No, I am.

I mean, I

think he's one of the artists who

was around when I was young.

And again,

like I have stuff from, you know, he put out two years ago or whenever the last one was

that I feel like

fits

nicely along with earlier stuff.

Like if you play them back to back, it sounds like, oh, that's later when they started to start.

Yeah, that's a good trick.

I like your early funny stuff.

You know, like, what do you out?

He, yeah, what I like about him is that what inspired me about him the most, slightly fucked me up as a songwriter, is that I heard that he always has four or five songs ready to go to make a record.

So you never run the tank dry.

You always to write enough so that you have, like for you, material.

Like, you know, I don't know how often you write or how it works to get material going, but you know, it's nice creatively just to have that stuff in.

Before I went on the Greatest Hits tour that we just did last summer, I went in the studio and I just thought about Bruce now, but I was like, I'm going on the greatest hits tour, but I've got to do something creative now.

So I wrote a bunch of songs.

So when I came to finish this record now, this last few months, it was a nice process because I'd already done the Springsteen trick of having a nice few songs in the bank

took the pressure off.

Writers have said that too.

You know, like, of course, this is the old day when they were using typewriters, but leave half a page in the typewriter.

Right.

So that when you start the next day, it's not that daunting.

Right.

You know, you were.

in the middle of something and you're just going back.

Yeah, I've never worked that way.

How do you write well?

Well, I mean, my, my, I mean, most of my life I did stand up as well as my show.

Stand-up,

well, first of all, I just never purposely wrote.

That's just not how some comics feel that that's the way to do it.

Like purposely get up in the morning and get a yellow legal pad and blah, blah, blah.

Nah, I preferred to get high.

whatever funny came out, try to remember it, like sitting around like doing this.

Yeah.

You know, and like,

I don't know what we've said tonight, but I'm sure there was one thing that would have been a great bit already.

Right.

You know, and in the old days, I would like have made an effort to remember that.

There was a time when I think I saved them.

Oh, I did.

Like all these what I would call cocktail napkins, because a lot of them were literally cocktail napkins.

This is before cell phones.

And if I was out having fun and something funny, I would write it down on the cocktail napkins.

Of course, half the time you get home and you're like, what is that?

Wolf.

Yeah, that too.

Or just something like, you you know, wolves should pole dance.

I'm like, what was I?

I don't remember what the meant was, you know.

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but uh that's so that's your process you you purposely you you force yourself to sit down or are you just like right well my friend's dad back in the day when we began and we were kids and we thought we completely emancipated from life and responsibility by deciding to be in a band meant the end of all work, all effort, all focus.

We're going to be in a band and it's all going to happen.

He sat us down and he said, Listen, it's all very well and good.

You, you two, want to, um, you know, now you now you're going to be in this band and make it happen.

But just don't forget, Tim Pan Alley, five days a week, nine to five, people go and write.

So, if you want to be serious, you have to do it like that.

The Brill Building, yeah, you know what that is, yeah,

exactly.

That's what it means.

New York, like we're Carol King, yeah, and what they're sadaka, and uh, you know, people like that.

Same thing with the Motown Factory.

Right.

So that's Holland, Dozier Holland, that writing team that just churned out like so many hits.

Smokey Robinson wrote a lot.

You know, he was more than just the band

recording artist.

He wrote for other artists.

And they would just, yeah, they would, I mean, Barry Gordy was not like, you know, when the

news sits on your shoulder, let me know when we'll put out the record.

He was like, okay, we're putting out a record Tuesday.

Yeah.

So I, you know.

think of something and it's that there's something to be said for that it well it's been the it's been the mainstay of my of everything I've ever done when that time to write you just go do that and the best thing about it is it's like not being precious just to write and write and write right and just let it be and and

you know I mean one thing I think that as you you know as we get older I have got better at editing so I don't I'm not like so like I'm not so sketchy it's going to be quite specific but

it was really good to stockpile that material.

Editing,

I'm not going to say it's everything.

Of course, it's not.

It's most.

It's a lot.

Yeah.

It's more than you think when you're younger.

At least that's what I found in what I do.

I read this great thing that Alan de Boton, who's this English psychotherapist, said today.

He says, if you're not embarrassed of who you were last year, you're not working on yourself.

That's great.

Who said that?

Alan de Boton.

Never heard of him.

He sounds like he's amazing.

He has a

school of life, which is this

sort of,

I don't know,

psychotherapy, this sort of center for wellness.

It's, he's really, you love him.

He's because he's really funny.

Well, that kind of stuff.

You love him.

Because he says stuff like, whatever you do, don't tell anyone everything about yourself.

Nobody deserves that.

Things like that.

He's just brilliant.

He's just brilliant.

And he's saying, you know, his whole thing is that that everybody is

very, very broken.

And everybody is slightly mental.

And everybody has their issues.

And everybody has their prisms of reasoning that are not always logical.

And there's lots of conflict.

And the fact that two people can cohabitate, can connect is a miracle of sorts because it's so precarious.

There's one thing I'm always like on my own case about, what I'm always testing myself about is, am am I seeing this clearly

you know like you have to be you have to first of all care lots of people absolutely don't care about their biases you know you can confront them and say well you watch Fox News all day or you watch MSMDC all day you don't even hear the other side yeah and I don't want to

they're not even trying to hide it I just want to hear what I already think

and I don't want to let any new information upset that or you know and of course I'm trying trying to do the exact opposite which immediately alienates some people on both sides of that divide but in enamores a nice portion who who also appreciate that yeah but it does take actual effort it those

extremes are always encroaching on you and trying to get you to just come over to one of those sides completely.

It's so much easier and safer.

You have a team.

and so it's like you know it it takes some effort to elbow them all get the away from me both of you i'm just gonna do it my way here in the middle of what you've done that's the genius of what you've done over the years oh finish off the goat gap

but it is that that's the whole point is to sort of i i enjoy i love going through uh popping between them all because sometimes i mean i love watching fox sometimes just to sort of be like wow okay that's what wow you know you just get this sense and then you switch then and MSNBC it sort of feels a bit anodying in in comparison sometimes and then uh then they're going into CNN I like going through them all and seeing what's up with that AI is now much easier for actually ask chat GPT what's going on that's what's pretty crazy yeah but you do know that about one out of 20 times it does what they call in the business hallucinating you're familiar with this term

that Well, ChatGPT, all AI, just, they don't know why, but obviously something with the programming, but like, yeah, one out of 20 things, it will not just be wrong, but it'll be wildly wrong that chat just GPT just decided to tell you with all the authoritarianness that it has for every other thing that it's talking about, as if it is this God, it is not a God,

although we're treating it like that.

So just know, like one out of 20 times, it's going to tell you the exact wrong thing.

You're going to say, do you take aspirin for a stroke?

And it's going to say, absolutely.

And the answer is completely the opposite.

That's an extreme example I'm making up.

And then you die.

And then you die.

But just the fact that it can be wrong that much tells me we haven't really improved on humans.

We just put it in a different box.

And it's more dangerous.

I mean, honestly, it just assimilates all the information that's being put into it.

There's no new thoughts, it's just every thought.

The funny thing is, you just wish that somehow in this incredible advanced world, technology,

the scope is so incredible, and yet the wisdom is so lacking because people still can't get along.

It's just wisdom is in short supply.

Knowledge is everywhere, but wisdom is really hard to find.

And also, we have this 21st-century revolution in epistemology, really.

Well, that's what AI is.

I mean, it's just a completely different way of knowing things and being exposed to knowledge.

And yet, it's not like it came along, well, after we got rid of like religion, you know, which would that would make sense.

But we still, we have this foot in the future, way in the future, with the robots and they know everything.

And then most of the world, one foot in, oh no,

it's mostly important who God is, and my God has a bigger dick than your God,

and that's very important to me.

It's so important to me, I might have to kill you because you don't think my God is the God.

I know we all pretend some of these religions.

I'm not going to name any of you.

You're the 99er shit.

There's a thousand gods, right?

There's a thousand gods out there.

Well, no, there used to be.

That's Richard Dawkins' great definition of atheism, you know, the great Englishman.

I was, I was, I was, visited him at his home once when I was making religious.

Yeah, walked around in his yard.

I was very excited.

I still love him.

He sat here.

But, you know, he says, back in the

days of mythology, yes, there were hundreds and hundreds of gods.

And then slowly we,

you know, got that down to one.

And he says, I just take it one further.

You know, first we believed in Zeus and Athena and Artemis, and then it was just Yahweh or Jesus or Muhammad, you know, Allah.

And I'm just, I just took it one step further.

Maybe, why not none?

Christopher Hitchens was my hero.

He was incredible.

You must have loved him.

Oh, absolutely.

One of the greatest men ever.

Once gave the audience the finger there right on real time.

Just right.

Not that I haven't done it too.

But just growing up in England, just he was always on TV, just in his like khaki suit with a white shirt and just like spewing brilliance brilliance and just putting people in their place.

Right.

And not caring.

I once booked him on the show with, here's the panel, Salmon Reshdy,

Christopher Hitchens, who are huge buddies, you know,

and Most Deaf.

Wow.

And they were, I mean,

I love most Most Deaf much more than they did.

I mean, and Mr.

Deaf does have some, you know, he did have some theories I don't agree with either.

But like Christopher was not having him at all.

You know, there was no political correctness.

And, you know, well, you have a different point of view.

And he was just like, you know, he just,

and Salmon, Sal was trying to be more cordial, but, you know, it was the network, I remember, hated that show, but I loved it.

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Yes.

Do you, do you rate, have you raised your kids with a religion?

Your wife was Catholic, right?

My wife is

extremely born again.

It's very, very, very serious on that stuff.

Was that an issue?

Well, I mean, actually, at the end of our marriage,

listen, I found it when I was a kid,

I had to go to school, and we do prayers in the morning.

You have to go to clubs.

Before you go to class, you sing hymns.

What religion is it?

This is Christian, Christianity.

Just Church of England.

Church of England.

So it's the one where you can get married, remarried, because that was what he did.

It was rewritten from the Catholic Church.

It's just the bishop of what's he called?

It was changed, wasn't it?

Who's the head of the church, of the church?

What is he called?

Isn't there Archbishop Canterbury?

Archbishop, yeah.

Is that who the

head of the church is?

I suppose.

But what I'm saying was that when I would be in there and in the churches, I just never connected to, I was like, come on.

I mean,

it's not, we're not all really.

we just we all know don't we we don't know we do know how old were you when you knew that

I just

knew that something even a 10 year old can get when I just thought are we all it was like are we all we're all in this together right yeah no

and I felt very disconnected from that so it was always very I was never disrespectful to it I love churches I love hymns and I think weirdly ironically for me,

is that

even though I'm not remotely religious, I think the Bible has

some incredible writing, and I find myself using lots of biblical references.

And I sort of like it because I'm like, so what?

They're just words.

So I get so,

but it's not my, I don't connect to it.

I think it's, it's not, yeah, this is a musical quiz question.

I mean, what awesome.

Text pistols.

What awesome 1960s number one hit record

was

the lyrics were straight out of the Bible.

Book of Ecclesiastes.

To everything, turn, turn, turn.

You don't know that song?

Yeah, I do.

I know the song.

There is a season.

Yeah.

Turn, turn, turn.

And a time.

You know.

Beautiful song.

Beautiful.

And they just took the lyrics right out of the Bible.

Right.

I mean, that was sort of the.

So, no, what was interesting is that I don't agree that.

Apparently, not that.

Yeah, I like it.

You know, it's

a beautiful song.

But yeah.

You do not, you know,

were you always the same?

Do you always have the same feeling?

No, of course.

I was scared shitless.

I was a young Catholic boy who went to,

they, you know, forced us to go to catechism and go to fucking confession.

And

like I was sinning at seven.

Like, what fucking sin could I have been committing?

Bless me, Father, if I have sin.

I embezzled.

I committed adultery.

I cheated on my seven-year-old girlfriend.

You know, it just was, I was so scared, so scared that I just didn't question anything.

That's awful.

Yeah, but I mean, that's what they normally do.

And I mean, Catholic, I mean, catechism was just lump in the throat because it was once a week before Mass.

I went to a regular,

you know, public school.

So, and this was so different.

Public school, I had enough anxiety, but I could get through that.

This was like different.

These were kids from other schools.

There was like 60 in the classroom that were taught by nuns.

They didn't know who I fucking was.

Like they gave us things to memorize, like a hundred questions about religion.

You look, who is God?

Where is God?

Like, like all these questions, you had to know.

That's what catechism means.

They're teaching you the religion of,

so you have to memorize, oh, God is everywhere.

And like, I was just a nervous wreck.

They were going to say, question 68, you know,

what happened to Jesus's foreskin when he was

when ascended to heaven did it go with him

you know and I would just be a nervous wreck so I don't remember it wasn't a matter of questioning it it was a matter of just I don't want them to punish me or you know be mad at me because here on earth it sounds bad and also I'll go to hell you know I believed in hell they believed in Santa Claus torture this is I mean five years or three years earlier I believed in Santa Claus I mean we're talking about very young minds here and what what was the transition?

When my mother told me about Santa Claus, I should have made the connection.

I went, oh, well, if you all.

Anybody else would tell me?

Anybody else would tell me, Mother?

This Jesus guy sounds a lot like it.

He's like, he has superpowers and, you know, he'd do all these things.

But I just was...

a ball of fear.

So it wasn't until I was a young teenager where I started to actually think about it.

And then luckily, my father stopped going to church when I was 13.

So then I was sort of like, I didn't have to have the fear, and I could think about it more.

I still didn't become an atheist right away.

Not at all.

I just didn't, I just thought the religion part more and more, I thought, okay, but this is bullshit.

And then at some point, I just thought, oh, you know what?

In for a penny, in for a pound.

I mean, Stephen Fry is the other English.

You have like Richard Dawkins, Hitchens, and Stephen Fry, who the three kind of most.

I mean, I suppose Ricky Gervais is incredible about that.

Oh, so funny

and his whole um breakdown and analysis of being an atheist is pretty incredible so those guys so it seems yeah

and Russell Brand I think was but of course he has his own problems now he's busy he sounds like he would have been one of your mates you know the funny thing is is that I when he first came to LA I went up to him and I was somewhere out somewhere and I did try and say hello to him and sort of welcome him to LA but he seemed very

busy

It wasn't, it didn't, it was sort of, it didn't, it didn't, didn't, didn't, uh,

didn't connect to hanging out with him.

I was like, listen, you're here and you're new if you ever want to hang out, whatever you're doing.

Uh, but he was on a trajectory at that point.

He was like, he'd just done get him to the Greek, he'd be known, he had the MTV Awards member, they fetated him, they had his brand, and it was just like this sort of superstar presenter style.

And, um, yeah, but I'm, I'm, okay, maybe all that was true, but I, I would also say, you have to be really full of yourself to think it wouldn't be cool to hang out with you.

Thank you.

He was busy.

He was busy.

He was on his, he was on a trajectory.

So, but he.

On his trajectory took him to jail, dude.

I mean, maybe he's not in jail, but he's certainly threatened with going to jail.

And he sat here and like, I don't know if I've ever enjoyed one of these more.

I mean, he is so funny and he's so erudite.

Yeah.

You know.

He's incredible.

Yeah.

So, I mean, it was just like this

mental ping-pong game.

I felt like, wow, I am really, someone's really hitting the wall back over the net.

And, you know, look, I love everybody who's here, but people like you, who are British, always going to be smarter.

Close to my age.

I'm sorry.

We've just lived longer.

We just have had more interesting experiences.

I know that makes us the bad guy.

We know things more just because we lived more days.

It's just more interesting.

I mean, that's a lot of fun.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun being older.

I think it is.

I like that David Bowie quote.

He said, like, what's strange about getting older is you become the person you should have been all along.

What is it?

You've become the person you should have been all along.

Oh, that's so true.

Yes.

And you sort of,

but that's.

That's so true.

He said that?

Yeah.

That in a song?

No.

But, you know, the thing about it is, is that it's also

there's also something that that clarity

is, it'd be,

you know, youth is enough.

Come on, youth is enough.

There's like,

like, give us something, give us one edge.

Give us one edge left.

It's the final edge, is the experience.

Yes.

And well, it's a little more than that because you're actually happier because you're more comfortable.

Yeah, please.

Because you're more comfortable in your own skin.

Right.

And like you were talking about something before.

Worry less about what people,

convincing people or something.

I mean, you don't need to convince people.

I know people have bucket lists, right?

But an even better, that's a thing.

Those are things you want to do that you haven't done yet.

My list that I treasure is the things I used to do that I don't do anymore.

That's the great list.

Because I used to do so many things that were tedious or I didn't really want to, especially when I was really young.

Of course, you have to work any job they offer you.

You can't even eat the food you want to because it's too too expensive if you're poor.

And as you get older, you just eliminate so many things that you used to do that,

no, I'm not doing Christmas at all.

How about that?

No gifts, no parties, no showing up anywhere, just another day because that's how I really feel about it.

That's awesome.

That to me is better.

There's really nothing on my bucket list.

Yeah, I don't have a bucket list.

I find that's a weird, weird concept, a bucket list.

Because then I think it's so sad when you've done something, then I don't know, you have to get it.

Sometimes people come and see my show and they say, this is my bucket list moment.

Right.

Oh, yeah.

We're not going anyway.

Come back next year.

I've got another record.

What are you talking about?

This is ongoing, guys.

I need regular sushi.

But that's for them.

They're thinking about you.

They're thinking about, you know.

And the funny thing is, is that I'm really proud of where we began and proud of being from the 90s.

But it's the funniest thing when people go, when you know because it's this mixed thing it's obviously it's really amazing right but when people come into the show and they say oh my god it's so great it's like being back in the 90s think hang on the fuck am i like a relic it's like i'm not a

no but you know i always understand it i don't mind it but it's just

there is something about the 90s um and of course i was my 30s so like that's what in the 90s a lot of people it's their more formative years um

but

i always always thought of your band as sort of like the British answer to Grunge, which was the prevailing wind over here for at least the last

middle part of the 90s, you know, the Seattle sound.

And I felt like you put the British spin on that.

And I do.

Really?

Were you

influenced by it?

Yeah, I think there's a really exciting music.

You know, at the time in England, there was what we call Brit Pop, which is the bands that,

you know, Wham?

No, no, after Wham, more Blur, Oasis.

Oh, Blur.

I remember those.

Yeah, oh, Oasis.

Oh, yeah, more Beatle-esque.

Well, just the Brit Pop sound.

It was like suede, and they're very proud of it.

And I didn't mind, I liked it, but what I didn't like about it for me, I preferred the American sound, it didn't allow for a big performance.

Like, I like, I grew up like the sex pistols, like post-punk.

So I like a little bit of wham

with

the guitars, with music.

And so those bands didn't have that.

So I just, I like Jane's Addiction.

I like Soundgarden.

You know, I like all the, it was so exciting to me.

And what they did as well is that at that time, the rock music for me was, I didn't know Judas Priest, Iron Maiden growing up.

I knew these big bands, but I didn't know them.

Well, those are heavy metal bands, huh?

Yeah.

But it was like,

it was Guns N' Roses.

And so all these screaming bands.

bands so I so it's only when I heard the pixies the pixies were the band that really

kind of woke slapped me in the face to where I could fit in the landscape of music that was to do you know off-kilter lyrics quiet loud music you know quiet bit loud bit

and just uh talk about how you feel and your complaints and therefore go against that whole sunset strip poison motley crew that style of sort of that.

Mine was more sort of more counterculture, Ginsburg.

I certainly don't think of you anything like those bands.

No, no, but that's what I mean is that, is that those, you asked me those American bands, they

sort of liberated me to see, they sort of were so inspiring as to how you can make rock music without screaming and being spandex and with like hairspray.

Do you know what I mean?

When again, if you want hairspray, again, I'm really permissive.

I'm from London, so you can do anything you like.

we're we're we're very open for everyone so if you want to wear spandex and uh do your hair have at it no i feel like the the zeitgeist of the middle late 90s was angst

like it and i'm not sure why well you know what what they were but i mean like don't you think there's been some cause one thing that has really connected to me is that uh it's it's it's funny because like angst on its own um without sort of some kind of qualification can be seen as like navel gazing or something like that.

But if it's angst, it's existential, you talk about it earlier, there is an ennui that goes with people and with existence and with trying to get things right and how to get people right and get your job right.

It's really hard.

And I've found that

when people talk about grunge music, it was really more so much about the lyrics.

It was always about the lyrics and about that approach of like being more sensitive, more open.

And now

it almost has come full circle where, you know, mental health is being discussed, suicide rates, astronomical, service men and women, suicide rates, astronomical, gun problems, drug problems, geopolitical issues.

It's just, as you know, better than anyone.

And so it's great to have music that you can get lost to and someone can, you know, I've made the record, I Beat Loneliness, it's called.

And it's this thing that people

I think have been struggling and it's just great to provide something that people can listen to and get lost in, and it's a form of armor.

Because I see music as sort of armor and weaponry and sort of make you feel good and lift you up, elevate you, you know, when you listen to it right and sort of understand you.

Yeah, it's very rare to find a person who doesn't have music of some sort in their life.

We all have different bands and artists.

Of course, we should.

But it's very rare to

a human who, like, no, I don't listen to any music, right?

I mean, it's always, it's something.

It's almost like a need,

not obviously like to live, like food and air, but like there is something very primal about, I mean, poets, you know, part of it is lyrics, you know.

Do I have a lot of poems memorized in my life?

No, even though I had a old enough to have a traditional good education where we learned certain poems and Shakespeare and so forth.

But that doesn't stick in my mind.

But there's a thousand pop songs where I could sing along every line because I've heard it hundreds of times.

Yeah.

You know?

And obviously, now I can like a song if the lyrics suck, if the song is great.

I can.

I can't do it in reverse.

If the song isn't good, no amount of great lyrics.

None.

You agree with that?

Fuck yeah.

Right.

You got to like.

It's got to be, everything's got to be on song.

Yeah.

And, you know,

there are

umpteen number of songs where they just are not even trying with the lyrics.

I mean, I love the Beatles, as we all do, more than any.

But, I mean, they would, I'm sure, be the first to admit some of it is just gobbledygook.

I'm setting up.

It got better and better, though, for me.

It did.

No, no, at the beginning, it wasn't gobbledygook.

It was just

what teenagers in 1964 were interested in.

Love me, do, and I love you, and, you know, I'll be true.

And they were very young, and those were the songs.

Where's Tupac singing, I want to hold your hand?

What?

Where's Tupac singing I want to hold your hand it sort of feels a bit twee if you think you want to hold your pussy

where is your hand yeah by the way whose hand is that your hand is on my twat

I mean the I mean once you go to wet ass pussy you that was crazy wasn't it and like can't you know it's how how much further can you take it none there's nowhere else to go no

it's so funny because

but wasn't that incredible that that it became became

an anthem

for

women and younger women?

And

Gavin, how do you interpret the message of what ass pussy?

If you ever had to...

Put it in layman's terms.

I mean, it's a poetic, of course,

work of art, but what ass pussy, what is she saying about what ass pussy?

Yeah, it's very

we should aspire to it or that.

I think it's the greatest haiku ever.

Or the third greatest haiku ever.

Well, it would need 14 more syllables.

Isn't the haiku seven?

Yeah, it's a good question.

It's the shortest haiku ever.

Haiku, I know I'm not an expert on haiku, but I know it has a lot of rules.

I know haiku has a lot of rules.

And

sometimes there are

people will say things just in their...

Trump does it sometimes.

And it is a haiku.

It's like a short thing, and it doesn't have to make sense, but it just sounds like a haiku somebody turned a whole book of uh somebody's sayings into haiku maybe it was yogi berra or somebody like that but so you're drinking good some sometimes rock stars their later years become so evangelical about the opposite because they have had the experience of being around and doing it too much

i'm still a lot of

yeah i don't remember a lot of fun i don't remember having a lot of fun all the time i remember ever reading anything about you and drugs, but maybe I missed it.

Like, I never, you never seemed to go overboard with the drug thing like so many musicians do.

There is a connection I'm trying to find, the joke between me and Freddie Mercury, but we both are very clear with our band names.

I always thought that was an event, but I didn't want to be impolite.

That was the era when you, of course, had to like sneak in you know your if you wanted to tell a dirty joke i mean the beatles did it with you know

in penny lane there's some line there for a fish and finger pie

and i i'm not sure what it means but i know it's dirty

and uh

in girl the song girl it's on rubber soul They the background, you know, the backing vocal, the harmonizing vocal, they're singing tit, tit, tit, tit tit tit.

It just sounds like one of those things you sing when you're in the chorus, but they're saying tit tit tit.

And then they did a

sound effect of smoking and joint.

But you know, it had to, you have to really be clever to fly under the radar of the sensors.

Now you're just like, my new single's called Wet Ass Pussy.

Deal with it.

They had me,

there's a...

What's the line?

There's on a new single, on the song that's coming out,

it's there's two lines.

It goes,

I see stars when I fuck the system.

I see stars when I fuck.

That's great.

And then they go, thank you.

They go,

so we better do a safe, we need to do a radio version.

I was like, what are you talking about?

And they said, someone suggested,

what about

what about I see stars

when I

make the system flick.

I see stars when I change the system.

I was like,

so the line about the man, we're going to change to suit the man.

No,

it makes no sense.

So we'd say beeps, like really good, loud beeps if they change.

But who cares?

There used to be a time where you couldn't have come on the radio, you know.

I like that word, come.

It's a really great word.

C-U-M.

Well, absolutely.

But I also like C-U-M.

I'm English.

Come, of course.

Of course.

Come on, you can.

Yeah, come is a great word.

But they don't allow that on the radio.

They don't like it when you're singing it, which is really puritanical and it's really strange.

And also more reflective of the person who's saying it's a bad word.

It can be.

There's many

explanations for come.

Would it make you think less of me if I admitted that there are times when I have texted someone, come over and spelled it C-O-M?

Would that make you hate me?

I couldn't blame you if it wasn't.

I would

I think that

it's being direct, isn't it?

I think it's being clever.

Well, it's definitely like...

In fact, it probably went over their head, the dumb bitch.

You should have just sent

with a Wet Ass Pussy soundtrack.

Then that would have been really good.

A meme with that.

Oh, my God.

What do you think about Kanye?

What do you think that

there's a guy?

I mean, if Wet Ass Pussy is as far as you can take it sexually,

I got to think that I'm a Nazi.

I mean, there's punk and then there's just like,

wow.

And still, they let him get away with it.

I mean, even I'm a Nazi and a t-shirt with the swastika on it is, that's how powerful music is.

It's like, yeah, but I still like his old records.

You know, Michael Jackson, just,

I mean, once Oprah came out on the side of these kids aren't lying,

I just thought things would change.

No, he's got a show on Broadway.

It's just like, I like those records.

And you know what?

I'm the first one to say I can separate the two.

I play R.

Kelly.

I'll play anybody.

The record didn't rape anybody.

You know?

Well, I wouldn't have played them in the first place, actually.

So R.

Kelly?

But he has some great.

R ⁇ B is very hard for me.

I know people love it, and I'm like, very, I don't mean that that's a correct opinion, just for what it does to me is

I just find it really hard.

In the same way that if I played someone who loves RB, if I played them my record, they'd be like, they'd run.

Well, I know most of most.

It's just that, you know, music goes into two categories to me.

Either

you're magnetized by it and corrected to it, or it's just

down a sieve.

You just, oh, it's complete personality.

One or

That's why I think record reviews are the stupidest thing in the world.

Because it's like you cannot put something in writing that will affect how I feel about this record.

When were you in the 90s?

I have to.

It still goes on.

I still have.

I just have to hear it.

No amount of writing will change my opinion that much.

I either like it or I don't.

And I'll pretty much know that the first time I hear it.

I used to read the newspapers in England, the melody maker enemy growing up.

And sometimes I'd read reviews of bands or descriptions of bands that were so esoteric and removed from, I couldn't even understand what they were.

And then I'd be like, I've got to hear this.

I'd hear it and be like,

I don't know how you got from that to that.

Undeniably

always

works way.

to have a horrible record collection is to do it by what you read in a record review.

You will have all the records that are like important.

This is it.

I don't want important records.

That's a library.

I'm just a young man in the 22nd row.

I just want to.

It sounds like a library you don't read, a book, you know, a library of unread books.

Right.

No, I just, I just, I just want what I like, and it's, it's like important to me.

And if that's, I mean, look.

The R.

Kelly thing, he does have like some great,

the lyrics are always comically awful, but that almost makes the song better.

But he does have some really great sort of like,

yeah, RB songs like of that era, and then a slew of shit, and then I Believe I Can Fly, which doesn't really sound like any of the other songs he's ever done, but that's probably his biggest hit.

And it's like such a crossover hit.

I mean, it should have been done by Michael Jackson or somebody like that.

It's so,

I believe it's.

What do you think do you think as a man, like as women, you know, women, it's like these guys that blow their lives up to this we're seeing right now in Diddy Trial, we've got Ye

having a lot of problems finding himself all the right things to say.

No,

he's having a great time.

You think he's having a great time?

Of course.

I just think, I think it's ridiculous that,

look,

you know, he's sorry now, though.

No, I'm just saying you can get away with certain things if you're, if, you know, certain parameters in life.

One is being a musician.

I'll also just say in passing, I think if, say, I don't know, Michael Bouble

put out a t-shirt that said, I'm a Nazi, and paraded his wife naked on the red carpet, I feel like there would be more feedback, blowback, rather.

I just, and both.

I mean, I just think,

you know, some people, it's just like so arbitrary

who gets to get away with what.

I mean, I've said it before, I don't mean to pick on him, but Charlie Sheen has done like so many more cancelable things, like super cancelable, like AIDS and like beating up hookers and

hookers.

And yet he's just a scamp.

And other people have done really not that bad.

California rolls at a stop sign.

Basically, yeah.

You know, masturbating.

And, you know, I see there's a special coming out, a movie, I guess, about Pee Wee Herman.

Do you remember Pee-Wee Herman?

And I remember when, I mean, I didn't know him, but he would come into the improv when I was working there.

And it was, oh, a big star came in.

And,

you know, he was always in character.

So I had zero relationship.

He seemed like a nice guy.

And like, the career just went, and of course he did a kid show.

I get it.

But

the career just went, just completely disappeared him.

I mean, like, like disappeared like Trump disappears people, just like over masturbating in a porn.

This is the days when people people went to the theater.

The theater,

a movie theater, and was jerking off in a movie theater.

That was his big offense.

He was caught doing that

and just gone.

It's never to be heard from.

Well, Louis C.K.

said that everyone has a thing.

Everyone has a thing.

Another

masturbator who

overpaid for, okay,

by his own admission, it wasn't cool.

and although you know comics it's different it's a little complicated and they made it like no not complicated I mean this me too thing was he's one of our greatest comics we've ever fantastic I love him greatest yeah he's finally gonna do my show and I think he's got something coming out in October but you know I mean and he fought his way back to like certainly having a very, very

here's the successful touring career.

I buy his shows in terms of the show.

But he still has to do everything without the aid of a studio or something.

He's so toxic from the masturbating that we can't go near this.

There's no one else masturbating.

Speaking of cum,

they're still cumbers.

There might be cum on the contract.

We can't sign a contract with this guy.

I mean, it's just so ridiculous.

And to his great credit, he says, well, you know what?

I don't need the middleman.

And that's, of course, more and more the way it's going in show business.

I mean, haven't

recording artists put out songs like directly through Starbucks?

And isn't that a way to do it?

Like you can sell your thing without

microplastics.

Yeah.

Yeah, I, you know, it's.

You still have a label.

Yeah, just.

You know what I mean?

It's like we,

yeah, we do have a label.

We have a great label.

But our label is now based in Germany.

It's complicated.

I mean, it's just, well, the funny part is

it never stops being a fist fight.

Never stops being, I don't know what it's like for you, but for me, I'm a, I'm like medium, really good working musician successful.

It's still a fight.

Of course.

It's still a fight.

It never stops being a fight.

There's no, it's always.

Do you think it ever would?

I don't know, but I just was thinking that one day it would be stop less.

You know, I was like, Coldplay don't have to go through this shit, do they?

Chris Martin.

Yeah.

Sometimes, a lot of it.

I mean, it's very healthy.

I mean, it's a healthy thing, right?

We like the fact that that

it's fucking grit and determination.

There's this sort of unseen, necessary quotient, like outside, wherever you're with stand-up comics, musicians, actors, you need a, you know, steel.

You need to be kind of made of steel to just to sustain, right?

Anything?

Including about what you're just talking about.

I mean,

I can relate to that because, you know, again, I just stopped touring, but I did it for like 40 years.

And, you know, the last 25 were all in nice theaters, you know, and this wasn't comedy clubs anymore.

You know, I was selling a good number of tickets, enough to like always travel private.

Couldn't have been that bad and still make a lot of money.

But I still, you know,

noticed, shall we say, oh, there are guys who...

are half as funny as me who sell twice as many tickets.

And that's okay.

Because the last thing in the world I think you want to do is have like gotten 99% of what's good in life and start bitching about the 1%.

Like, yeah, you know what?

There isn't absolute justice in show business.

In fact, there's very little.

None.

Right.

There's none.

Yeah, I mean, Madonna had that great line that she said

when Kanye went up to Taylor Swift, remember famously in Yank Louis.

The horrible war.

Yeah.

And again, if Michael Bouble did it.

I don't mean to drag Michael Bouble into this.

I'm sorry.

Come on.

Michael Bublay.

Admit it.

If you did it.

I mean,

I just feel like it would have been more of a tangible event.

Anyway,

when he did that.

Oh, what were we talking about?

What was I going to say?

Bouble of Taylor Swift and Kanye on stage.

Yeah, but why did that look?

What was she saying about like the Madonna says something about?

Oh, Madonna.

Her comment after that was,

don't go to an award show expecting justice.

and I just thought what a perfectly succinct exact wise thing to say and yet from Madonna

doesn't seem like no she's probably very I mean she's certainly a or she's certainly a genius first of all her her her record called the Immaculate Collection is not mislabeled when Madonna made a record it was fucking usually great.

I mean, even into this century.

She's incredible.

Yeah.

I mean, Ray of Light was

a while ago, but and then I think there was one after that.

And I mean, this amazing.

I love how she just fucking lives her life how she fucking wants and everyone else can fuck off.

It's fucking great.

The only thing she's doing.

Yeah, I do, but I also think she's that typical, what I think of as rock star for so long that like what's really in that noodle of hers is just a lot of nonsense.

I mean, some stuff that isn't, but just when you're that insulated from having to deal with reality, there's a lot of nonsense in her head.

I mean, I'm sorry.

I just think there is.

And also,

you know.

But she looks so fun.

She's always having fun.

She does not look fun.

She doesn't look fun.

I feel like

she looks having fun.

You don't think she looks like something else?

She may be.

I don't know about the people around her.

She does not.

They're all dancers and like everyone's laughing.

And dancers are great because they dance and then they laugh about it.

I feel like they dance and they laugh about it.

I don't know if she really can like let go of who she is enough to like just be

one of the people.

And that's okay.

I mean she's a she enjoys being a diva and she earned it.

But there's a price to pay for that, I think, which is you don't get to like sort of be down and dirty with a bunch of people.

And everybody's always going to be walking on eggshells.

I'm like, should I kid her?

Well, I guess I should, but if it goes wrong, you know, I'll be

thrown into the sea where they put bin Laden.

You know, they only want something where people can like make a martyr out of me.

I'll just disappear.

You know, I mean, that's my impression of her.

I don't know, but she just looks cold as ice.

I just never thought, I thought she was very pretty, but not sexy.

Like, I never got the sexy vibe off her because I just felt like she'd be like directing me to do something.

Bill,

get it right.

Exactly, Bill.

That is not, this is not working.

Yeah.

But I could be all wrong.

These are just surmisals.

I don't know.

Maybe you know her.

I don't know her.

I've only met her a couple of times.

I've had

a couple of funny dinners with her

a couple of times that were that were just...

Is she nicer to you than fuckface Brandon Russell?

Russell Brandon.

Yeah, Brandon.

Well,

I went to dinner with her.

It was crazy.

It was like me, Guy Ritchie, and Gwen, and the four of us having dinner together.

Oh, that makes sense.

It was really funny.

And like, I really love being around people that

like it was really fun to be disarming and be funny and make jokes because I didn't get the sense that that was happening a lot.

Right.

So for me,

it was, I was like, and I remember, I remember like, you know, they weren't really drinking much, but I was, I was like, yeah, bring wine.

And so I was having the wine.

And I just remember at the end,

Madonna standing, I think, behind me

towards the end of the dinner.

So I was like thinking, I was like, I think that's the end of dinner.

I think that's the end.

The signal.

So I wasn't giving it off dancer vibes.

If I was a dancer and I could have like done the moonwalk, I would have probably lasted longer.

But

I was out.

Not making any judgments.

So the dinner ended when Madonna decided the dinner ended.

Yeah.

That's what I would guess.

And that again, that doesn't make her a bad person.

I'm just saying that's who I would guess was going to call the evening at whenever.

You know, the funny story about that is, is that I ended up nicking her housekeeper.

Her housekeeper was working the other night.

She ended up working for us for 17 years.

And then when I got divorced, that then said housekeeper came with me where I went.

So it was Madonna's housekeeper.

How did you do that in Britain?

I don't know.

What happened is that when we went to Madonna's house,

that housekeeper was working for her and we had the dinner.

And then after that, then when we were looking for someone to help us, it was like, she was in between working at Madonna's house and then something happened.

So anyway, we inherited her and she was with us 17 years.

And then when I

moved to my new more Bill Maher flavoured life,

I took her.

She came with me, which I always really loved.

She came with me.

It was so sweet because she just came with me.

I didn't know where I was going to live.

Lived in Bel Air, actually.

So I guess, yeah.

So I guess when rich people get divorced,

they have to fight over the housekeeper.

I don't think privilege-y about that.

We're just deciding who owns this human that was.

No, I think it was

a charter now.

I think it's a much better insight into like,

it was my, one of my,

it was a, it was a beacon of light in a dark time.

Well, that's very poetic.

You should put that in the poet.

I am a poet.

I am a beacon of light in a dark time as we pour ourselves more liquor.

But this is a very clean liquor.

It is.

What are you pouring in there?

What's that little elixir you have?

This is called C2.

It's a combination of ketamine and cocaine.

No.

But I heard about that.

That's the new drug.

Did you hear that?

Which one?

I think it's ketamine and...

No, ketamine and molly.

That's like, I think they call it C2 or 2C or something.

I think it's a gay weekend, isn't it?

It's not just gay.

Drugs are not just for gay people anymore.

My old assistant, I'm being facetious, but my old assistant

used to,

he did a lot of ketamine through the clubs.

So it began with him in the gay clubs.

But anyway, I digress.

But what is this new

combo?

Yeah, Corey.

I mean, I think

a big change in the last decade with drugs is that is it your Siroc?

Is it yours?

I have not done anything except have a few drinks a week and really only a few joints a week.

I just save it for here and a few other places.

But

no, no, those days are over.

I mean, that would just scare the shit out of me to do anything like

fentanyl or

ketamine,

anything.

I wouldn't do anything.

Ketamine has also been used for

psychoactively, like a psychiatric statement.

All of them come from.

I mean, LSD did.

All of them came from somebody with legitimate.

It's trying to help someone.

And sometimes it does.

Yeah.

I mean, LSD helped people.

You know, anytime people are sort of trapped in their mind by, you know, some of we have a lot of mind-trapping mechanisms.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, drugs can help a lot.

Ayahuasca.

I mean, people are often, I mean, not to mention what it did for my record collection.

Sure.

I mean, Bill Hicks is the king of that.

Like, you know, the idea of like, you know, drugs opened up everything.

If you wanted to, like, take all the people out of your recollection that weren't stunned when they made those records,

you have achieved silence, sir, apart from some Christian polka music.

I mean, it also can have the opposite effect.

You can do, well, the drug, drug, I mean, certainly I know like the Eagles talk about how they were, when they were trying to make their last record, they were just, there was just too much cocaine.

You know what the thing is, is that I found, like, I grew up in London where cocaine is really was like that.

The cocaine in London is like,

you said the word cunt earlier, that people use that.

Cocaine is just like,

like when you walk into a restaurant in California or in America and they put a glass of water down.

That's what it's like in England with cocaine.

People are just like, especially in London, right?

Now?

But yeah, still, people are crazy.

So,

wow.

But what I found

to me is that it's the least creative drug I've ever experienced in my life.

The worst.

When I read, I mean, I've probably never, most songs I've written, I'm not, you know, usually.

So.

But I remember trying once, you know, because in England,

sometimes just out of like, out of manners, you end up doing two nights of cocaine with your friends.

You're like, oh, okay.

So you stay up for a day and a half, and

I write something, and it was always the worst shit I ever wrote in my life.

And you have this conversation.

It's just such bullshit.

So I never connected to it.

And it makes everything sound, it's like those oasis records where they're really skinny.

They listen to a lot of cocaine.

It's really bright.

You know, people just get, it's not bright enough.

It's not bright enough.

You know, it's too basic.

And they get this record.

It's like, yes.

This is terrible.

Because it's not really cocaine.

That's the problem.

This is horrible.

If you were doing pure coca leaf,

I mean, this is what I'm told.

You would have had a bigger career.

You had a great career.

No,

but it doesn't have that speedy effect on you.

They've been doing it, chewing it in the Andes for centuries.

And it was just more of a...

of a good high.

And getting back to what I was going to say about like in the last decade, they have found ways, of course, because there's money in it, to sort of perfect these kind of drugs for the common person, not just the person who's like, you know, 24 and can body can handle it, and they're out on the weekend and it's going to abuse their body and somehow come back the next day like nothing happened, which you can do at 24.

But what about the guy who's 40 and 50 even?

Yeah, they found a way.

They just perfected like micro-dosing acid, micro-dosing mushrooms, these things like, oh, this amount of ketamine and this amount of ecstasy, it's not like over the top.

It's not going to last all night.

You can come, you're just going to feel fucking amazing for an hour, and then maybe you do a little more.

I think that's what's going on.

Now, again,

I know people will be like, oh, how do you know all this, Bill?

You see, but because I talk to people who do it, but I don't do it.

If I was their age, I would.

Trust me, I'd love to be doing this.

I would love to be doing this.

That's your bucket list.

Yeah, but it would put me in a bucket.

That's the problem.

It's my coffin list.

So,

you know, I mean, do I wish I was

26?

Not really, because I knew what was in my head at 26.

And it was

so painfully stupid, I couldn't go back there.

But I mean, if hypothetically, say there was somebody in my life who was...

Don't you feel sweet?

Don't you feel like

protective and empathetic towards that person who is just fucking trying to figure it out against all the odds that life threw at you and 26.

Not really.

You don't, you know.

I just hate myself for being so stupid.

For just not for.

But everyone's stupid.

That's the beauty of you.

That's the luxury of you.

You're meant to be stupid.

I know.

But I just think of how much easier so many things could have been and how much better so many things could have been if I just wasn't stupid.

That's stupid.

stupid, you know.

Yeah.

A lot of like not knowing about women.

I mean, that's a lot of what.

Yeah, and if Auntie Martha had balls, she'd be Auntie Arthur.

You know, it's just like you can't, it's just Uncle Arthur.

You can't be.

But you probably.

You know, it's just sort of like, coulda, woulda.

I think it's beautiful.

I think it's beautiful to be able to sort of have perspective on your life that at that time you were blind.

But how, why should you, why should you be able to see at 26?

Why should you be any different?

Oh, you still can't see.

I mean, we just see.

But why should it be any different?

I think it's great.

It's like natural evolution of people.

And it's wonderful.

I mean, you of all people, Jesus Christ,

I can tell you, you know, you have an incredible life.

You set up an incredible life.

So I think you made your way through.

Yeah, I'm very lucky.

I mean, first of all, I love where I live.

Despite the fires.

And despite the taxes, and like, there's a lot of bad things.

It's true.

It's, it's sort of.

About L.A.

Yeah.

Oh, it's magical.

But it's still the best.

I mean, why do you live here?

You could live anywhere in the world.

You're not even from this country, but you want to live here.

Everybody wants to live here.

Well, what happened?

It's amazing how everybody, you think people who don't live here, they live here.

Johnny Depp lives here.

I know.

You think he lives someplace exotic?

I did.

I lived all here.

Angelina Jolie, I know.

She's got a thousand kids all over the world.

She's all races.

She lives here, okay?

They all live fucking here.

Well, you know what's the weirdest thing is that when I was a kid, I grew up in North London in a regular little house and uh

but when I used to think how much I didn't want to be there, I used to dream of Los Angeles.

I had no reason, no right.

You had a reason.

This is where Hollywood is.

I know but when you're a young kid it's like

being an atheist.

It's like I didn't know why I just thought it was nonsense.

I just thought it was nonsense.

So when I thought I eulogized about LA I didn't actually, I wasn't sophisticated enough to know that it had, I just saw it as a mecca.

It just was easy and it sounded like everything.

That was I was in love with skateboarding.

So I that's one of the time I thought that Santa, Vera Cruz, San Diego, and LA were all the same place.

I didn't know, you know.

So I was just far away.

And the wildest thing is that

LA, I am like the living American dream because I came over here, I signed a deal because I was inspired by the pixies.

I signed the only deal I was offered, which was in the valley.

I didn't know what the valley was.

So I was in London and I signed a deal in the valley and through the radio station here, K-Rock, in LA, gave me life and I began and it's oh really they were the ones who played your record it's how funny bands in the Kevin Wetherly always play

so he's the one

man who has been huge in my life and um

and then I fell in love and uh we were always going to live in London and then as soon as my then wife got pregnant

she was like we're going to be in LA we're going to be at Cedars

so I was like so that was it I moved for my kids and now since I'm divorced a long time, 10 years now, and in fact, I was never married now because it was annulled.

I'm virgin again.

That's the Catholic Church.

I'm a virgin again.

I love the Catholic Church.

We don't believe in divorce.

We believe in saying things never happened.

These three kids.

So, but I love it.

And I have this beautiful thing.

I have my family and everyone in London.

And I'm lucky enough to get to go to London a few times a year.

But really, I live here.

Whenever I come back here, I feel this is where I'm meant to be.

I meant to be where my kids are, but I love the light.

I love the space.

I love everything about it.

I'm really, I'm in love with it.

And I wouldn't want to live in New York.

I like Parsons.

I prefer Brooklyn now.

I don't like New York as much as I used to.

It's just, I prefer Brooklyn, which just feels like a gentrified New York, just a calmer New York.

I love Brooklyn.

So when you go to New York, you go to Brooklyn.

And what's in Brooklyn?

What do you do there?

Just a great hotel, and it's 10 minutes away, William Vale.

Really cool hotel.

10 minutes away from what?

From the city.

If you have to go to work.

By subway.

Yeah, no, no.

I mean, if you

go to Jones Beach, then it's from there.

You know what?

I prefer it.

I prefer it.

Jones Beach?

You go to Jones Beach.

Well, when I'm doing a show, if I come to Jones.

The show, of course.

I remember seeing shows at Jones Beach.

I grew up in New Jersey.

Right, right.

So we're playing the garden this summer.

That's awesome.

The garden.

August 3rd.

That's awesome to be old like you and still playing the garden.

I mean, because rock and roll.

That's a lovely way of putting it.

A rock and roll is.

That's a lovely way of putting it.

Thank you.

Rock and roll was not meant to be an old person's game.

I mean, I was around, not the first wave of rock and roll, but I was 12 in 1968.

Okay, the Beatles were still playing.

That's when I first listened to music.

And no one was, I remember, no one was thinking that we'd go past 40.

Let alone.

Surely you'd be dead at 40.

He wouldn't be dead.

But no one thought Mick Jagger would be doing it at 80.

I don't know about, yeah, yeah.

I mean, he finds so much, and he's engaged to his 39-year-old with a four-year-old kid.

Gotta love him.

No, we have to.

He knows how to live.

Now, I was wondering how much

Mick is ever engaged.

I mean that philosophically.

Sure.

But engaged enough so that he sustains the life that he wants.

He's figured life out.

He figured out he is one of none.

Because, first of all, his waistline has not changed.

No, size 28.

We're the same stylist once, and so we found out they all have size 28 waists.

Who's all?

The stones.

No.

Oh, maybe in their heyday.

No.

Up until, I mean,

everything for me is pre-COVID, having the stylists.

Yeah,

no, well, he was definitely a size 28.

What's Keith?

He's not a size 28.

Well, Mick was 28.

I can't believe we're arguing about Rolling Stones waist sizes.

Boy, this is a gay show.

Okay, but no, Mick, but Mick Jack, I mean, yes, first of all, also, they never lost their hair.

Even the one who got cancer didn't lose his hair.

It's amazing.

They were like born rock stars, you know.

So they, I always say this about the Stones.

When they were young, they were skinny and ugly.

And when they were old, they were skinny and ugly.

And that's what worked for them.

You know, they weren't the Beatles.

They weren't the the sweet little uh doo-doo-doo

they were the bad boys right which in a way is you know cooler not that the beatles aren't the coolest but you know i mean they certainly had their thing and to think that somebody could do it at 80 and and the reviews were good of their last you know they're on tour now or they were very recently um it makes you feel already feel like jumping to save someone when you say that like doing that show and it by the way incredible i saw the videos of him dancing and doing it.

So

for me, it's obviously for me, it's great.

My lineage.

Because you'll be the only conveyor, but I'll be there in 12 minutes.

It'll seem like 15 minutes I'm there.

No, but in 20 years or something.

And then,

but why not?

No, of course.

The funny thing is, is that...

Just don't do it in a wheelchair.

Like there are people like Phil Collins, and I love him, God bless him, or I've seen other people do it.

Like they break their leg and they're out there.

Don't do it.

Just cancel the show.

Do it like the kids do like the I love that the Gen Z people like I have a headache we're canceling like this show like really did you ever hear about the show must go on they just don't give a shit don't tell chapel roan about the show must go on or any of these kids it's like if I have a fucking hangnail we cancel the show and the kids deal with it god bless them do you cancel shows much have you done I have never ever I never missed a show on either politically incorrect or real time that's over 32 years except the two they forced me to miss when I quote unquote had COVID because I would have endangered the entire city.

So, but I personally never missed a show.

Stand up never missed a show except two because the plane broke and so I couldn't get there.

Never once canceled or missed a show because, yeah, there were times when I felt shitty.

There's no business.

No business.

I did last week of my last tour on just

on flu.

I had flu.

That's the worst.

Well, flu.

God.

I feel like shit.

And you have to just be hard to do it.

It took half a bottle of sake every night just to kind of get.

Oh, so you did it with the flu?

Of course.

You did.

Yeah.

God bless you.

Well, there's no other way.

Wow.

It's no way.

It is what it is.

You can't fucking

cares.

No, by the way, no one cares.

Be good.

We paid money.

Be great.

These are all my memories.

We're depending on you.

You know, know, it's like, we have a responsibility.

I like that.

Well, I mean, sometimes it's a hard call because if you do the show, sick, yes.

Congratulations.

We appreciate you being a trooper.

It didn't sound like it used to.

It didn't sound like it used to.

And I say this from personal experience because in 1984, I was opening for Mr.

Frankie Valley and the four seasons.

Hold your applause to the end.

But yes, I love Frankie.

He was always great to me.

And it was a big, it was 28.

It was a a big feather in my cap to be opening in Las Vegas, Nevada for Frankie.

But it was a two-week gig.

And, you know, it's very dry in Vegas.

And singers get something called Vegas throat.

And,

you know, Frankie had to cancel like half the shows.

I remember.

And he was doing everything.

Remember, he was taking, they said they gave one day, he said, yeah, they gave me a steroid.

I had one the other day.

I took a steroid, dexamethasone, because of my,

And it helps?

It's weird.

I was like, give me the Lance Armstrong.

I want the cocktail.

I want to fucking...

I want to be the strongest guy in here.

You're like the pregnant woman.

I want to pick up the audience.

You're one by the pregnant woman who didn't want the epidermal.

Give me the epidermal.

Now, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I was all about it.

It's funny.

You've taken four hours before.

I was like, what's going to happen?

I was like, I thought it was like the, you know, remember the Incredible Hulk.

Was it Incredible?

No, $6 million man, right?

Yeah.

Get annoyed.

But didn't that stairway keep you up all night?

You can you sleep?

Yeah, yeah, it was a little bit.

I was a lot of fun.

I was a lot of fun after the show.

Really?

Yeah.

Even with the flu.

Yeah.

Well, because once you've had that adrenaline, then the next morning you wake up, you go, it's...

Did I get it?

And you go, oh no.

And you go, do you got that sort of haze around you when you go into the.

How long are you ever on the road without being at home how many days in a row well i just came back from five weeks i'm about to do seven weeks then i've got two and a half months and i've got ten weeks so i have a lot coming up i'm just kind of overwhelmed by it but it's something but you're you'll be away for ten weeks without being home at one time

that's tough yeah i've never had that no it's a lot and i'm you know every night different like you know same for you like actors are different because they they get to go to location what do you do on the days days?

I mean, you can't perform every night in a row.

No, I've been.

Now they have me on a show because we do acoustic shows on the day.

So we do a VIP meet and greet.

And I have this idea of it would be nice.

People, you know, they come in, they queue up, they pay a bunch of money, they line up, and they have this picture with you.

They're always fumbling with what they want to say.

They never get across how they feel.

It's very emotional for people.

Right.

And you have to respect that.

And I say to them afterwards, I say, look, I know you didn't say what you wanted to say.

It didn't come out right.

Right.

And you were more tongue-tied.

Let's just have a moment.

I'm going to sing a couple of songs for you.

So we have a special moment, 100 and

in a room.

We have a great moment with us.

And this is just for you, just for now.

How many songs do you do?

Just two.

But it means I've got to warm up in the day at 12.

I'd rather see two like that than, you know, than a lot of...

bands for the whole hour.

Yeah.

Oh, you like it?

Let me play one more.

Because that's an experience you'd never really have otherwise yeah they're just they're they're one-offs they're deep cuts we play them and but what happens is that um they just they've met my time on tour it's not miserable it's incredible on stage incredible with people the rest of it is miserable because i have to be silent can't speak save your voice yeah it's just like the easiest way what do you do on the day off that's what i'm asking like the day between gigs uh the day between gigs usually we we

we have our tour manager, Yvette, she's amazing.

I'd go home, but you know.

She, well, no, we can't.

We're too far away.

So we get always to the place we are.

And really,

I go off and I play tennis.

I play tennis a lot.

So it gets me away from there.

I'm usually so out of it.

I've come in, I've got like, you know, it's been on the bus for 12 hours.

But I go somewhere and I do something different and I sweat a bit and I have a day off.

It feels like this.

Remember those when you're your kid at school, even though the days are great,

you have that sense of your day off is so important.

And then by Sunday, by the night, like, oh my God, I'm back tomorrow.

Silent in the morning.

So it's a really, it's not, you know, I'm really grateful, but it's, it's, it just takes

a lot of focus.

Like the only, the way that I don't go crazy on tour

is to

is to just really focus so heavily on the show that I'm like an athlete that's for the match, the game.

Of course.

That's all it is.

And if, because if I lose sight of that, it's just another thing, then I'm lost.

That's the golden goose.

It's the golden goose.

Right.

It pays the bills.

Right.

Makes everything else possible.

Yes.

So that's what my whole thing is about: what did I do yesterday?

What's the awesome sight list?

And it's what you can count on because it's you.

I mean, you do, you've been in a lot of things as an actor,

but you can't count on them.

Somebody has to hire you.

This is what you control.

if my kids

amazon bill was dependent on my acting career there would be no amazon bill it's like yeah it's yeah but it's not your main thing it's your hobby no it's you can't like i enjoy it um i'm doing a movie coming up soon

um

uh on yeah with a girl i worked with a little bit before christmas uh before Christmas, before COVID, Janelle Shercliffe.

And I did this film Habit, and I'm doing another movie with her coming up so i'm excited about that i like the process someone else had to think of it

writers they have to think of all that stuff i mean it's such a sort of a holiday to have someone that thought of it something first and i get to reinterpret because i think it's magic how actors make words come alive off of a page it's something super special um that I really like and I somehow I just I'm an adrenaline junkie so I like that moment where the camera they go okay kirolling and camera and action And if you fuck up, you've got like 100 people who have to reset.

Oh, I know.

So I like that thing, the responsibility of not only trying to be great for the film, but not lay people down.

I went from one, I did a hundred million dollar movie.

I worked on a million dollar movie.

I was downtown at a bank.

It was called How to Rob a Bank.

It didn't really end up being a great movie,

but it was a great process.

And we shot this downtown.

I played a bank robber.

and um I remember this moment where it's like all the extras are lying on the floor and now it's a marble floor this lovely old banks right and I thought you know I don't like to be stuck up you know so it was like these people on the floor and I was like

oh you know how you doing you know she's like laying down as a hostage I said how you doing she goes you know it's uh are you all right then they must be cold she goes oh no it's such a pleasure to work with an actor who knows his lines I thought oh poor thing where's she been but yeah you know, you work on an independent movie.

You have to know your lines, know your marks, and not fuck up.

Well, not just an independent movie.

Or any movie.

Any movie.

I remember doing a...

Well, some actors will shop don't know their lines.

I remember doing a movie of the week in the 80s.

I did, you know, I was on sitcoms.

We have some of the posters around here of my horrible movies.

And I remember this actor who I was kind of like,

you know, impressed to work with him because he remember had been on some show when I was a kid, like a TV show, when I was 10 years old.

And now I'm 28 and I'm working with him.

So I was like, kind of excited.

And his day had passed.

He was not on TV, right?

But he was still an actor being hired.

He was probably 45 now or something.

And he had a scene and I had done my scene.

So I was just watching.

And

he could not get the line.

I mean, he could not remember.

He either just didn't put in the time to memorize it.

And it just,

every time you don't do it, it gets worse.

There's more tension on the set, and everyone's looking at you like you fucking loser.

We could have been home by now, but you didn't learn your lines.

And you're just, and now you're getting mad and you're cursing, and it's getting awkward because

sets, as we know, are very tense places.

And

And the makeup trailer is the center of all activity.

You'll find out everything that's going on in the movie by getting your makeup done.

And the best advice is to keep quiet and listen.

I bet you the makeup people know all the...

Everything.

Right.

Because that's where they go and they're bitching.

I can't believe he did that, right?

And that kind of shit.

And they're hearing it.

My favorite thing is the first movie I did was this film called Game of Their Lives.

And it was an ensemble piece.

And David Anspor, amazing director, amazing guy.

But the chaos and the madness of

a

big ensemble cast, and we had this amazing soccer player, Eric Rinalde, who used to play for Bayern Munich.

He was USA's top scorers.

He's an incredible footballer.

But he had this real,

he had a, you know, he was doing the soccer stuff.

and the choreography and he was getting a little bit too

comfortable in his role.

And Dave was running the movie.

And Wes Bentley was the star.

And then Wes, who was the only one who wasn't a soccer player.

The rest of us were all soccer players.

That's how we got the gigs.

So we were all pretty proficient in soccer.

But Wes, who was the star of the movie, wasn't.

And Eric.

And Eric and Beauty, right?

Wesley.

And he's an incredible actor.

And he, there's this, the greatest moment, the most hilarious moment where I was just learning how on a film set you just shut your mouth and know your lines.

Was

Wes had set up this

free kick that

he could do

that he was comfortable with.

But Eric was really upset that he had taken away the directorial reins of this piece.

It was like, dude, let him take the fucking kick.

Who cares?

But he took the kick.

And then they had this fight.

And then Eric took the ball.

And as Wes, he threw the ball at him and he hit the star.

And

everyone was like, oh my god it's like mutiny like what is this chaos so i learned on my first movie just know your lines know your positions and shut the up just shut up be good and go home because like and those ensemble pieces and jerry butler was in it who was fun you know i met a lot of he was he was a great he's a great um he i always watch his movies and support him because he's a lot of fun you know i gotta tell you something about english movies

i don't know what the you're talking about.

Like, like Guy Ritchie movies.

Snatch it, come on.

It's like, I cannot watch it

without the subtitles.

Right.

I mean, it might as well be in Chinese.

I mean,

can't you people learn to speak English?

Yeah, no, you know, not really.

Well,

we just don't want to include you.

You're not invited.

I don't know.

You know, I got to tell you something.

This is true.

I was in London in 2007 making the movie Religilous, and it was there for New Year's Eve.

And I was out on New Year's Eve, and I remember I had lent a young lady my coat, so I was freezing, and I needed to get my driver.

And I didn't know where I was, and I had to tell him, and I got on the phone.

Cell phones were...

Thank God we had them by then, because otherwise I never would have gotten my driver for even found my hotel that night.

But he and I could not make each other understood.

I had to get the girl whose code I had given to get on the phone and translate for me

so that I could get, so that he could understand where I was and get the car there.

I don't know what that says about the world, but it just

maybe that we think we're more alike than we are, and we're really still very far apart.

Or maybe I'm just reading into it.

But it was

accentuated.

I was like, wow, if I can't get this done in London,

I am not going to Vladivostok.

I'm just not.

I'm not a traveler, though.

You like travel?

No.

I can't stand it.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I'm a homebody.

I'm a homebody.

I just really.

I love a homebody.

I tell you something, Gavin.

I was on the road for 42 years.

And last year was was my last year I've only been off for six months and I mean 42 years you would think and I was conflicted about stopping even though last year the whole year I was kind of counting down the gigs I just had enough of hotels that don't know how to do shit anymore and just just getting what you used to do in the day like out of in good luck have you what's your day

I only did weekends so there was no day I flew in the morning of the

morning the afternoon

flew in right before the show started.

The great thing about a private plane.

Went right to the venue with the luggage, did the show, then went to the hotel, then went out,

then woke up the next morning in that city.

Yes,

my dearest friend who travels with me, we'd have breakfast in the hotel the next morning, breakfast like at one in the afternoon when I woke up.

I'd have to kill a few hours, then we'd fly at the afternoon to the second city, do that show, and then fly home after that show.

So I was never anywhere.

I know.

They say to me,

what do you want to do this year?

I want a tour till I get a jet and it doesn't matter.

But doesn't that schedule sound good?

Two cities.

I would do it.

I would do it.

Two cities, but only staying over one night.

Genius.

So I loved it.

But even that became too much.

And even though I've only been off six months, like I can't imagine right now doing it.

Like i just i wake up on saturday i'm like oh i don't have to go to cincinnati today and i love cincinnati i just don't have to go there and it's just like joyous i'm home i can go feed the ducks right now i'm in the pool again yeah i tell these ducks you can sit on the side of the pool but you can't go in and they take advantage of me they had to work all those years so the ducks could have a place to be I have ducks and also groundhogs here that have ruined the lawn, but I let them because everyone needs to make a living.

It's a great complex you have.

What am I, a suburban dad?

I want a perfect lawn to who?

Impress who?

My fucking teenage daughter.

I'll trip on my lawn if I like.

My teenage daughter who doesn't exist?

Well, is she going to say, dad, your lawn's embarrassing?

So you live close.

Oh, wow.

Like 15 minutes.

And do you live with someone?

Is this this?

No, I live with my kids.

Oh, you live with your kids.

All three?

well i live with my 18 my age seems to be 19 year old on monday he lives with me exclusively

um

this is cool with mom

oh that's a whole nother podcast but um yeah that's well i think we're in the wrong podcast for that but no he he lives with me and um i look after him and then the other two come

um

on and off so they're there now they're they're they're all there now they switch time between parents between with me me and their mom.

And it's, you know,

whatever the situation, you know,

it's not ideal.

But I mean, it's funny because they have such diametrically opposed lifestyles.

And I say, isn't that amazing?

You know, you have, because obviously

you have these views, extremely religious.

views and over here you have an extremely non-religious view right isn't that beautiful that you get to make your own decisions of what that means right but i do have an older one well if you need a tag team on the religion thing, just send the kids over here because the kids love you.

I'm sure your kids are amazing.

You know, they are.

Yeah, we'll see how that pans out.

The most important thing for kids are nothing worse than, I know you're not into parenting, but nothing worse than a parent who forces their child to live vicariously through them and their inadequacies or whatever they're doing.

And it happens a lot.

Oh, it's just like, let them be who they are.

Exactly.

They are not you.

Right.

You know, that's it.

So I yeah, and if they're, and if, I mean, it wouldn't be odd if they did have musical talent.

But I find it, what's, I promise you, I tell you what's interesting.

I'm a really big cook.

I love cooking.

And

so, but I also don't know how to delegate, and I'm not sure if I've been a good father in the sense of forcing them to do chores and forcing, I just being a bit more laid-back about things.

So when they're with me, I make food for them because I can't be bothered to ask someone, hey, I've got 16 steps on this dish.

Help me with steps 7, 8, 9, and 10.

They're not interested.

They do their own thing, right?

In the house.

But what's amazing to me is that they all, well, the two older ones, I mean, will then go and cook at their mum's place.

What they learned at your place?

What they mirrored.

Not even what they asked me, what they saw.

And so they,

so that to me is more valuable than,

hey, let's cook together.

It's just that they were just like soaking up what they wanted to, and then they go off and do the thing.

And that to me is, that's the kind of thing.

You're right.

I've never been interested in parenting, but I always have.

No, it's true.

It's okay.

But I've always thought that

if you are a parent,

one of the most important things you can do is you just have to accept that while they're children, they are not going to express the proper gratitude.

It just kind of comes with being a kid.

And because they're kids, you have to let that go.

Now, I'm basing this on having young girlfriends, but I do think it's very simple.

Who haven't thanked you appropriately?

And I'm not appropriately.

But I know they love me.

And I know they love me.

They meant to thank me.

And I know they, you know, it's just not part of their.

You know what?

They probably thank you

in the adventure.

You know, when you're not there.

You know what?

Bill was so great.

Damn, that sushi was good.

When they get older, absolutely.

But I really feel like that is true with kids.

To me, the most important thing with my kids, and I, you know, I'm a musician, so what the fuck am I meant to talk about kids?

But I ended up having a load of kids.

Make them likable.

Because to have an unlikely, I say to them, be funny and be polite and be funny.

And life is going to be so much easier for you.

Because if you are likable, how about I get, can I add one?

Sure.

Humble.

Right.

Yes.

Be fucking humble.

You know, that's what is so i feel lacking in the obnoxious whether you're obnoxious of the left obnoxious of the right it is like a lack of humility and i and i say that as someone who when i was younger did commit sins of lack of humility but isn't that was a brash brad

because that's a diametrically or in you know intrinsically connected to the lack of knowledge you had correct you know and and the knowledge you gained well the lack of knowledge and the preponderance of insecurity.

It was, I think, more insecurity.

I know, but when you're young, that is how you compensate for, like,

maybe if I act like I'm

a big deal, then people won't notice that I'm not, and I'm afraid I might never be.

That's the big fear.

that you might never be.

Everyone is broken.

Everyone is broken.

Everyone is broken.

you're not you don't seem broken

you seem perfectly there

i'm perfectly present but but uh i have uh scars who doesn't of course not

went through life but no it's whether the scars are rendering you somebody who is i mean you don't strike me as not present you don't strike me as crazy you don't strike me as uh egomaniac you don't strike me as anything

that i'm not going to yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but but I mean, yeah, for sure.

Thank you.

Like a good dad?

Yeah, I'm obsessed with my kids.

They're incredible.

And it's

really, I, you know, we all have our own things and I enjoy them a lot.

But I also have this incredible

thing between

doing the band and that takes so so much time.

I don't know.

Do you think about things like, is it important to have meaning in your life?

Like for me, reflecting

the last few years, it has been important for me to know my place and to know my contribution to myself.

And to me, making sure that, yeah, I was in the right thing, doing the right, doing the right thing all the time.

and having this artisan life of devotion to music.

And it really helped me to make what I think is a really good record because I was just so full of gratitude, humility about it.

Like, you know, knowing this, I'm just a working musician, but like, what a gift to make songs that people could listen to.

You think looking for the meaning of life, that's what inspired this record?

Well, it's just the idea of life.

You have one coming out, right?

Did I get it right?

Let's plug in.

Oh.

It's coming out in July.

July.

What's it called?

I Beat Loneliness.

I Beat Loneliness.

That's a great title.

Thank you.

That came to you just while you were doing something or you were.

It was one of the first songs that I wrote.

And, you know, I always waited.

It came to your head.

Yeah, it's not a very convoluted system I get a I get a bit of music that I like I play it in my house I have a studio in one of the spare bedrooms I tricked it out a bit so it looks like a studio but it's really it's a spare bedroom and the closet is actually got a window in the where I sing so it's very modest but it just yeah I just like to create these environments where I think about things and yeah so things

So when I got that phrase, you know, I'm just singing along to the track that I've made.

And when those things, you know, I sing these things, you just know intrinsically if they're right or not.

You know, like you might sing, you know,

blah de blah, or you might sing I Beat Loneliness.

You find it, and it just fits.

And that

almost set up the aesthetic for the record, all the intention of the record.

And it's wild how it came together because it looks

very complete and very thought out, way smarter than I actually intended it to be.

It's one of those funny things that the sum of the parts is way greater than the individual efforts that went into it.

Suddenly, look, this sort of journey of this record that

is very exciting.

And I think that...

I will be the first online to buy it.

I'm going down to the record store, to the EMI shop on Walpole Street in London in 1962, and I'm going to buy this record.

But, you know, I don't know.

I'm anxious to hear the lyric to that song because, you know, you're a rock star.

You're a good-looking guy.

I'm guessing you beat Loneliness a long time ago.

But you're still having problems with me.

No one does.

I don't even know.

Please come back here.

Will you?

Yes.

I want to come back here.

I was very flattered that you would do this show.

Oh, my God.

Created Mutual.

I was like, oh, my God.

People are scared of me.

They think I'm terrible.

Am I terrible?

I'm not terrible.

No, I think that you're absolutely

a very straight shooter, which people aren't straight shooters.

So you've built a lot of people.

But

that scares some people.

It scares some people.

But

that's their shortcoming.

People are scared of a shooting shooter.

This show anybody can do because it's just me getting high.

Real time, sometimes, you know, celebrities be like, well,

I don't think I'm smart enough to do that show.

And now I don't say it, but I always want to say to them, you're correct.

You're not smart enough to do that show.

This is different.

This is just two people shooting the shit.

Well, on that front,

I always remember that line of Christopher Hitchens that we spoke about, that we both love, who, you know, that aphorism that people talk about, they say,

everyone has a book inside of them.

And he said, yeah, everyone,

most of the time, that's where it should stay.

Just to bring Christopher in the ending.

All right, Gavin Rossdale.

That was so much fun.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure to get to know you.

Thank you.

It was really fun.

All right.

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