Gavin Rossdale quotes:

I pretty much grew up when punk was big in the UK. The Sex Pistols were heroes for me. I used to run around like Johnny Rotten. I had a jacket like his.

We recorded our first CD, Sixteen Stone, with a small budget and never dreamed that we would enjoy such a high success. It was simply fantastic.

Being real is what is important.

Who doesn't love Game of Thrones? Sons of Anarchy is funny and thug-ish. I love Shameless. I just sit with my hat tipped, waiting for something to happen, more than going out after the shows.

The Beatles, the Small Faces and the Kinks were great bands, but that was in the '60s.

Wherever you look there are inspirations, books, literature, paintings, landscapes, everything. Just living is an inspiration.

I have always been fascinated by dark and mysterious stuff. I guess I have a pretty dark and gloomy side. Writing songs saves me from going completely gonzo.

Dub and reggae... I play that a lot around the house.

If you just keep your head down and just try and do your thing, sometimes magic happens.

Bob Dylan has a way with words that simply blows me away. When he forgets his lyrics he just makes up new ones on the spot, that is what I called talented!

I quite like Low, the band from Minnesota. They're absolutely mesmerizing. I get much the same feeling from anything that Will Oldham does.

I was pretty taken with Patti Smith, she was my heroine.

It's pretty hard to make out what's going to be a commercial success and what's not.

As much as we all love playing live, it's not normal to be on the road all the time, to have no home.

When I first began to write, I was writing on bass, because I was thinking more Public Image, more dub.

Playing live, you can't survive, certainly not in England. We used to work daytime jobs and play gigs at night. It was very exhausting.

For the sound we produce, everybody is equally important. Each of us has a very different personality and that is what keeps Bush alive.

It's like a relay race of being ignored. It is really challenging, but whenever I get asked that stuff, I feel really self-conscious about it. I feel really lucky because we have a lot of help. When I first began to be a dad with Gwen [Stefani], I was amazed at what she went through.

I don't know any musician who got to the top without hard work. Take whoever you want. They all work bloody hard, harder than you think.

I always wrote about things that were important to me. I think our past success showed that it was also important for a lot of others.

I love seeing the fans of the music that I make.

A happy wife is a happy life.

It goes without saying that what a girl goes through, boys could not even comprehend. If we get the flu, we need a week. We're idiots. But what was the most powerful realization to me was, how do single mothers with a low income cope? I can't complain about my dumb life. That's what was most revelatory to me.

I'm not a workaholic, but I was a bit manic, I have to confess.

I love what I'm doing most of the time, but it's hard work. People only see your albums in the charts. They see us at award shows and after-show parties. They don't know about your doubts, the hard work that goes in.

I love playing live, I don't like studios all that much. I need the reaction of the audience.

I don't see myself as the boss. I sing and write the songs, and it would feel strange if somebody else wrote the lyrics I sang.

Any reaction is better than none.

The only people who benefit from lawsuits are lawyers. I think we made a couple of them rich.

As an artist, you're pretty sheltered backstage. You often don't know what's going on out there.

But it is really, really fun to just change it up some and to absolutely be a very small spoke on a big wheel, and to just be a part of that and contribute to something that people can enjoy.

By just passing through things, I continue to slightly limit myself. I want the jobs that don't say that much. I'm often the stepping stone or the conduit from one thing to another. I love the idea of existing in a film and growing and having bigger arcs, and being in scenes where you're just being, as opposed to talking. That' one of my ambitions, lying ahead.

Every time I try to disown that concept for myself, which is a really healthy perspective, they bring it back all the time. It's so serious and so real and so tangible that you don't want to taint it with anything other than the thing itself. I was tickled pink with my very zen self, walking around saying that I made a record because I wanted to make a record. That's so beautiful. It's like a haiku poem. That takes away all the tension and the expectation. I just want to try to do something interesting.

I always work hard to have a very close connection to the fans.

I am really addicted to music.

I can make no apologies for following my heart.

I was in rock music in London when it was the height of Brit pop, with The Kinks revival and Suede and Blur and Oasis, and all of those really great bands that were of a certain style. If I'd really been smart and commercially minded, I would have just got myself a blazer and some Stay Press and some Fred Perry tops, and just gone out and tried to do it like everyone else. Instead, I did this ridiculous thing of trying to do this music.

I'd love a drug that was good for you, I was thinking about ecstacy with Vitamin B.

I'm just thrilled and kind of honored that I still get the chance to do what I love, because that really is the definition of success.

In a band that works out well, everybody has a certain role to fulfill.

It's a very selfish time. When I'm here at home, my responsibilities are far greater. I'm forced to be way more selfless. My priorities are so far down the list that it's hard to see them. And yet, when I'm on tour, I basically have to get the show right, every night, but the days are really constructed around selfish activities for self-improvement, or not. That's where I feel guilty because I know that life is going on full-speed when I'm not around.

It's so natural you just fall into it and you find your way. It's terrifying and exciting, and brilliant.

I've always thought that you just make everything as best as you can, and then, one day, people will look objectively at what you do, from a distance, and see its quality. All you try to do is keep the standard up so that, one day, when I sit back and I look at it all, I can feel really good about it.

Most people who are on the road are pretty damaged. It's an escapist's life. It's not a life that forces you to look in the mirror at where you're at and what you're doing. It's one where you leave the mirror behind. I think that appeals to something in all of us. On the open road, all of your regrets are out the window.

Somehow, something is always suffering. Someone is always losing out somehow. If you pick one kid up, you're not picking the other one up. You just try to minimize those small let-downs because, in a way, life is a series of let-downs from everyone, all the time. We don't mean it, but it happens. So, I just try to minimize that and spread them wide.

The day before I left to fly in New York, I went in the ocean and was just lying on my black looking up at the sky, which was that Hawaii blue. Just that moment was worth the entire thing. The ocean is everything. It can heal you.

The person I love would never wear fur. Fur just makes me think of shallow women who have no conscience. The fur industry belongs to a time when people were selfish beyond belief. If you were some ancient tribal cheiftain, and there was not a department store nearby 350 years ago, I'd understand. But now, we have synthetic fibers,and it's not necessary. The elitism of fur makes me wanna puke.

There's nothing worse than someone coming up to me and going Oh God, I really love your hair.

Those times when I play on stage in front of lots of people, it's such an unusual and borderline unhealthy process, even though I love it and I really do it with humility. I don't have serfs getting me grapes after, or things like that.

Well, I'm English, so it's intimidating to step anywhere. I used to be painfully shy. I wouldn't say that I'm painfully shy anymore. But if I have the option of sitting on the edge of a circle, I will.

When I was lucky enough to be successful, I distanced myself completely from the whole thing of units and selling copies. I just wanted to keep everyone who comes to see me happy. I spend so much time after my shows talking to people who come from all over the world to see me. I'll go out and sign a picture and have a chat.

Women are part of the reason for washing and keeping clean, aren't they?