GAVIN ROSSDALE — on cooking for Serena Williams and being besties with Jack McBrayer
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Hi, it's Jesse. Today on the show, you know him as the lead singer of the band Bush, and more recently, his new cooking show, Dinner with Gavin Rossdale, which premiered last month. It's Gavin Rossdale. It's funny, when I wrote the song Glycerine that I have, I read it really quick, and I was really concerned that I just appropriated someone else's song. I was like, whose song is this? I was playing it to my friends and my band. I was like, is this someone else's song? Because this sounds...

Sounds more grown up than I've managed to this point. This is Dinners on Me, and I'm your host, Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Meeting Gavin Rossdale was a thrill for so many reasons. I mean, some obvious, but some also very personal.

He's a legendary musician, a bona fide rock star, and as I quickly learned, an incredibly down-to-earth guy. He's also launching a new TV show called Dinner with Gavin Rossdale, where he cooks for his friends and interviews them over a meal, which, as someone who has documented many vulnerable conversations with people over meals, felt oddly familiar.

But beyond all that, I had an even more personal reason for wanting to meet him. He once lived in the house where I built my family. Justin and I built that home, filled it with love, and made eight years of incredible memories there. And selling it was very bittersweet. We needed a space that was better suited for our growing family, but I still think about it almost every single day. I mean, so much happened in those walls.

And long before we lived there, Gavin and his then-wife, Gwen Stefani, called it their home. They started their family there, just as we did. And even though I'd never met them, I often found myself wondering what their years in that beautiful house were like.

As a longtime fan of both No Doubt and Bush, it was surreal to think about the music, the moments, the history that that space had held before us. I mean, did Gwen Stefani ever belt out Don't Speak in the Shower? Did Gavin write a Bush song in My Old Bedroom? Did they too struggle with the mystery of where all the Tupperware lids disappear to?

Anyway, I always knew if I was ever lucky enough to meet Gavin Rossdale, it would absolutely be the first thing I would want to share with him. Hi. Hello. Hi. How are you? Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me.

I brought Gavin to Sobin, a renowned family restaurant located in the heart of Koreatown that was also a favorite of the beloved Jonathan Gold. A painting of gold adorns one of the walls as a tribute to the late great restaurant critic. We ordered their braised short rib and black cod, two of their signature dishes, along with the monkfish soup.

When I asked Gavin to come on the show, he requested that we go out for Korean food. He loves Korean food for its bold, soul-warming flavors. And listen, as a fellow foodie, I could not have been more on board. My favorite ingredient in this meal were the garden-grown jujubes in the braised short rib. They came straight from the backyard of the restaurant's owner and founder, Jennifer Pak. Okay, let's get to the conversation.

How are you? I'm obsessed with Korean food. I know. I know. This was your suggestion. Have you been here? No. I haven't either. But, I mean, I'm looking at the wall and it seems like we came to the right place. Yeah. You know about Jonathan Gold, right? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, anything he likes, if he's given his stamp of approval for it, like, we're good to go. Yeah, I based a lot of my eating off of his 100-to-100-to-100.

And his specialty was always the interesting hole in the walls. Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited. I'm happy you're a foodie. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's good for your podcast. It is. It is. And I also feel like, you know, we're obviously going to talk about your TV show, but like it feels like it's basically just another kind of iteration of that. Like just...

Having a conversation over a great meal. I'm not cooking for you, which you do on your show. But so far, I was telling Joanna when they were pitching me ideas for this podcast, I think Sony's one of the ideas was that I would be cooking for people and then interviewing them over the meal. And it's like, oh, God, no. The stress of having to multitask while I'm boiling things. It wouldn't work. But yet, that's exactly what you're doing. So I definitely want to talk about that. Yeah.

It's quite masochistic in its own way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes we've got to be careful of the bites we take. Yes, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always like a big bit of cheesecake. But yeah, I definitely, I love cooking, but I can't even imagine...

Doing that and then having a conversation with someone and then taping that and having people watch it as a TV show, which is exactly what you're doing. Odd. What is it? Rockstar Kitchen Chronicles. Now it's dinner with Gavin Rostow. It is, I swear. Is it really? Yeah, because Rockstar was taken. So I was like, and then dinner's on. Yeah, so I apologize. Is it the same font as this? No. And it's not. It's dinner with Jesse. Is that right? Yeah.

Dinner with Jesse, cooked by Gavin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's incredible. I love that we basically have the same concept on the podcast version of your TV show. They got the single word that dinner with Heston Blumenthal at a restaurant in London. Yeah, yeah. He's one of my heroes. I know Heston, yes. So-

I was like, dinner, but guys, there's already that. They said, no, it's so simple. There's literally no, you can't have it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I apologize. And anyone who gets confused, come to me. I'll send them right to you. Likewise. So I'm so sorry. Likewise. It's like when people would come up to me sometimes convinced that I was Simon Pegg. And they would make me take a photo with him. And I was like, I don't even have an accent. He has a...

He has an accent. I don't sound like him at all. But I would just finally take a photo. And I finally met Tim. And I was like, listen, I get stopped for you all the time. And I just want you to know I'm really kind. I'm really kind. And I'm like, if people think I'm you, I'm really representing us in the most positive way. Right, right, right. Gavin, did you know that we have something very intimate in common? No, but how great. Do you not know this? Go on. Can you have any guess what it might be?

No, that sounded way too big of an introduction. That was an introduction. The introduction's already happened. We shared the same house in Los Feliz. Really? Aberdeen. Aberdeen Avenue. I was there for almost eight years. Wow. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. I think you and Gwen lived there and then there was, you sold it to someone and then someone else bought it even after that, did a little bit of renovation on it. And then I bought it from her, this woman, Laura, who is the founder of Laura Bar. And she's a chef. And so she redid the kitchen to be a chef's kitchen. Really? So I don't know if like when I moved in, it all looked exactly like it did when you were there. But-

I think that a huge parts of it, like the pool, the pool that is there. I know that you all, you all built. So I have photos of me in this. I have to show you these pictures, but like, you know, there's always the pool that Gavin and Gwen were built. And there was, um, up by the observation deck, uh,

There was like a little observation deck. I don't know if you remember this. We tried to develop that area. We developed it a little bit more. Nice. We developed like we put a fire pit up there. But what we had to cover up was there was a little piece of cement that had your names in it. Do you remember putting that in there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Established. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, so it's really wild. So, I mean, do you...

I mean, I have such great memories about that house. I mean, we moved into this house right after we got married, Justin and I, in 2013. So many big moments happened there. We had our first child while living in this house. The first, like, six months of the pandemic, we were there. We ended up moving because there were so many stairs. I was just nervous about raising kids there. So we ended up moving, but...

When I sold the house and we went to go do a final walkthrough of the place and it was completely empty, to tell you like I had the most guttural cry of my life would be an understatement. I had such intense feelings about that home. Do you have special memories of that place? Oh, unbelievable memories because that was just such an exciting time. I was there for a number of years when we just were together. I was there when we first got married with our first kid there.

Gwen did do a beautiful job on the nursery. And then... Which room was the nursery? Down the hall on the right. That's where our nursery was. Yeah. And yeah, that house has fantastic memories. We used to have amazing New Year's Eve parties every year. We never knew what to do, so it was easy to make the party come to us. Yeah. And so fantastic times. People would come out. And yeah, that was right at the height of everything really fun going.

Work-wise, it was a really great time for us. So I have a great memory of that house. Yeah. Great memory of that house. Yeah. I did, you know, I ate so many times, we ate so many times at Farfalla that we did have to say, are there any other areas where we can get food? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, really beautiful time.

Yeah, I mean, I just, it's such a special place for me. I would still get your restoration hardware catalog. It's the only time I would show up with your name on it. I hope you put it good to use. I did, yes. I ordered several things. Anyway, I want to start off by asking you, you know,

i first i'm a big fan of your music um i mean one of my my favorites of yours is your solo album which i don't know if like how you feel in in your catalog of albums but i love thank you i love wanderlust yeah i feel super proud of that um sometimes i'm aware that people

When you have a rock band, nobody wants you to be a solo singer. Yeah. Just nobody wants it. It's like, don't do it. And I basically had a side project band before that. My band was taking a break. And then I had a bunch of songs ready to go. And I was like, okay, so we're gearing up. What are we doing? And they're like, we're still enjoying this time. We don't want to work for now. So...

I'd seen, I'd been inspired by Gwen and she'd done an amazing job with her solo career so I thought, oh that's possible. But with her of course she made it possible because effortlessly going into pop like that. For me it was a different thing. So as soon as I'd play shows people were like, when's the band getting back together? How's it getting in trouble?

But I really was weird is that I worked with some really amazing people on that record and much more collaborative outside writers, outside people. And that made it really fun. And I enjoyed it. But I just felt so awkward having, I'm English, right? I don't know if you knew that. So having my name said on the radio just felt so alone compared to all these years of being in a band and the camaraderie of a band.

It just felt like, yeah, I suppose if things went really right, we had a big song with Love Remains the Same. People go, yeah, that ballad's great, but there's something great about the shared success when you have all your bandmates. So if I felt like I had a big hit record for nine weeks, number one song were...

Just, I didn't know who to celebrate with. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hi. How are you? Welcome. Would you like some barley tea? Sure. Yeah. Hot or cold? I'll do cold. Hot, please. Yeah, absolutely. We're a perfect pair. See? Yeah. I'm sort of fascinated with the beginning of your time as a musician, you know, while you were...

kind of figuring out maybe your voice before Bush. I mean, you had a few attempts at other bands and you worked with other people and toured a bit. - Two other bands. I had two bands.

Neither of which I wasn't really good enough or able to do music to. I just did the top lines and sang stuff. So you didn't write any of the music? No, I didn't play music well enough at that point. They wouldn't let me. I could sort of struggle through a couple of songs here and there. I'd kind of figured out the two bands I didn't want to be in because the music wasn't quite what I wanted to do. It wasn't enough like the bands I liked.

- Who were your inspirations at that time? - Well, like Public Image, you know, John Lydon and sort of, you know, Matt Johnson from The The.

The Fall, that kind of stuff. So a bit more kind of leaning, much more indie leaning. So that didn't work out. And then, so then I sat down and began writing songs myself and that allowed me to be a bit closer to what I wanted to do musically. Do you know what I mean? If you can imagine. So it's like being an actor, also managing to write your own script. - Right, right. Well, only you can hear what's in your head. - I could really fashion what I wanted to do. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And so that was it. And thank you so much. Oh, pictures and everything. - I love when there's pictures.

What are some of your favorites here? Okay, so my personal favorite is probably the indigujorim, which is the braised black cod. But our other specialties are also braised short ribs, like the kalbijjim. We're also really famous for our soy marinated raw crab. Yeah, if you're feeling adventurous, the crab is really fun. Okay.

It's cold, right? It is. Yeah, that's the only cold and raw dish on our menu. I ordered that before at another place and I was like, whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the piece of the crab, so you went to like the shell, so you went to kind of like...

Yeah, it was interesting. It is a little bit of work. You have to be in the mood for it. I don't want to work today. You don't want to cook. I don't want to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, the point of this is I'm very lazy. Yeah, okay. I think I'm going to do the short rib. Yeah, absolutely. Would you like it spicy or original? Spicy is like less than a hot Cheeto. Less than a hot Cheeto is spicy? Oh, I can do spicy. Okay, yeah. It's not like Thai or Indian, like, you know. I mean, I love spicy, but I'm also...

a redheaded white boy, so I do sweat quickly. - No, no, the spicy is like-- - But I love it. - Yeah. - But I don't want to torture myself. - No, super manageable. - Okay, I can do this. - Great, can I get this, can I get this, the monkfish soup? - Of course. - But I really want to try your black cod, so maybe we can like, you know. - Yeah, just share for the table, the spicy short rib, the cod, and then the monkfish stew. - Yeah. - Perfect.

Now for a quick break, but don't go away. When we come back, Gavin talks to me about being a quote-unquote art jock and about his day job painting dentist's office before he made it big. Okay, be right back.

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Hi, it's Jesse Tyler Ferguson, the host of the podcast Dinners on Me. Spring is here, and you know what that means. Longer days, backyard hangs, and of course, firing up the grill. And when I'm planning a get-together, Whole Foods Market is my secret weapon for making it both fresh and effortless. Let's start with light or fair because, you know, sometimes you want something crisp and bright after those rich winter meals. I'm going to be

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And if you're planning on having some folks over for this barbecue, Whole Foods Market has everything from high-quality meats to the best side dishes like deli salads and charcuterie boards that instantly level up any gathering. Oh, and of course, don't forget the drinks. Their seasonal Italian sodas like Berry Blend and Orange Hibiscus are my new obsession.

So whether you're keeping it light or going full on feast, Whole Foods Market has you covered. Make Whole Foods your destination for all spring gatherings. Make Whole Foods your destination for all spring gatherings. And we're back with more Dinners on Me. When you were younger, were you a writer? Did you write poetry? I know that you were interested in athletics, I think, right? Yeah, I'm an art jock. Are you? Yeah. So I like love...

My sport. I love tennis and I love soccer. But, you know, I also love art and music and poetry. So I had to be very careful who I would let know my music tastes when I was growing up because you weren't really allowed to. Where I grew up, loving David Bowie was not really the scene.

But yeah. Why? He's so cool. Just because he's a little like... Yeah, a little edgy. Edging, maybe a little sugar fluid. I grew up surrounded by a lot of ignorant people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, my son loves David Bowie. Our nanny is British. And so, you know, I say, you know, let's play some David Bowie. He's like, it's David Bowie, Dad.

Because that's how he learned how to say it, from the British nanny. It's funny because my mother's maiden name is Bowie. Oh, really? And he's David Bowie. Yeah. So he's the real, the Bowies of Scotland are Bowie and David Bowie. Yeah. Go figure. Well, first of all, how did Bush come together? How Bush came together was just, I was lonely, had a few songs, looking for guitar players to work with and a friend of mine.

introduced me to the guy that came ultimately the guitar player in Bush. We just literally built up, I don't know, 12, 15, 20 songs. Then it was like, should we see if anyone wants to flesh these out and play them as a band? Then we got a few people, tried them out in some terrible rehearsal rooms around London. Then we got this lucky break to be on a TV show in England.

for unsigned bands, and that really became a video for us. And that got sent to someone in America who signed us to a small label in the Valley. And we made that record, you know, made that record. Kind of was proved wrong for a bit because we lost the distribution deal. So I went back to work. I had a day job, like a regular person. - What were you doing? - I was a painter. - Oh, no way. Painting houses or? - That week, that month, I was doing 11 dentist offices.

In Magnolia. What's it like having that, you know, you have this creative outlet, you have this music you're super proud of writing, then you want to obviously catch on and become this thing, and then... I felt like a real man. Yeah. I felt like I had to be responsible for stuff, and I wasn't getting arrested with music, and so I just...

Just doing what anyone does, which is work. It was always hard because I took a lot of survival jobs when I was first starting off. And it was for me, and I don't know if you ever felt this way, but

You know, in those breaks when things were percolating and then I would have to, it felt like I had to take steps back to then pay, do something to pay the bills and so I could eat. And it was, for me, it was hard just because as an artist, you're putting so much of yourself into this stuff that when it doesn't catch fire right away, it sort of feels like a personal front. At least that's how I felt. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Life's tough, right? Yeah. You're right. I totally feel you. It's horrible. But, you know, the alternative is to just completely give up. And the alternative is to not pursue things. And in many ways, I spent a long time either failing or getting my act together. And, you know, so much of it is dependent on the zeitgeist or being in the right time and the right place. And so...

and having had a career now for a number of years you know there are times when you know hotter times you know times you come out so i just think it's just about you have to write the best song you can perform the best you can sing in tune don't be a jerk you know try and get along people and just see what happens and that's all you can do you know yeah when did you sort of feel like you had

had some success with it. I mean, I know as an actor with Modern Family, people always ask, when did you know it was a success? And I don't know, I kind of always felt like- Season two. Yeah, season two. Or even from when we shot the pilot, I was like, this is a really good show. So I have a specific moment I could pin it on. But with music, I-

I know that you kind of create it in a bubble for a while and then it has to get mixed and engineered and then it gets put out and then you sort of wait and see how it takes off. It sounds to me like you sort of felt as you were creating the music that there was something different about the way it made you feel and as some sort of a way to release what's going on inside. It felt like a really good outlet for you.

Was there a moment when a certain song was written that you're like, oh, this is it. I found my voice. Well, it's funny. When I wrote the song Glycerine that I have, I wrote it really quick. And I was really concerned that I just appropriated someone else's song. I was like, whose song is this? I was playing it to my friends and my band. I was like, is this someone else's song? Because this sounds more grown up than I've managed to this point. So I felt I had quality then, but...

I never felt like I was about to take on the world at any point. I just felt like I hadn't wasted all those previous years of devotion to music that I would end up with a record. Because I sort of figured, even when I went back to do The Dentist's Offices, I didn't know this was possible. So therefore, I was a bit confused by it. But I still felt really good that I'd made a record. My aunt had a record by this guy, Colin

unknown guy, but she had the record and he came around to the house. I was like, wow, it's a guy who made a record. That's so cool. He made a record. I had no connection to what the potential was because that's the brilliance of being young. You know, you can be so dumb. It's brilliant. I was watching you sing Glycerin on the Jimmy Fallon show recently. I guess it's Bush's 30th anniversary, right? This year? Yeah. Yeah.

What is it like going back to your early stuff as the artist you are today? You know, I mean, there's a lot of time for a lot of people. We have such an interesting, like, generational thing at the shows. We go from really young people who've... We have, you know, hit songs on the radio now.

And yes, some people listen to the radio. And that brings in a really young crowd who don't even know the older stuff. And then you have the people that know the older stuff didn't even know there were new records out because they did not listen to the radio. I love that generational thing. It goes on. I mean, over 30 years, you could have like lots of, you have two or three generations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely two. Yeah, for sure. What do your kids think of your early stuff?

My early funny stuff? Yeah. I don't, I'm too busy being dad. I don't ask them that stuff. Thank you so much. Do you have an overlap in musical tastes? Oh yeah. My oldest son is obsessed with the pumpkins, the death tones. He's an amazing guitar player, great singer. I love his songs. And sometimes he'll say things like, that was a really cool show, dad. Like you say that, you know, I'm like, oh my God, that's the best news ever. I never, I don't,

I've been around people who seek approval. I don't seek approval.

If you come and see my show, I'm not going to say, I say, do you want a drink? I'm not going to say, what do you think of the show? Do you like the bit when I was doing that? It's painful. Anytime you ask anyone what they think, you set yourself up for like... But I hear that. I've experienced that quite a bit where people will do that. You hear it and addressing it, I'm just like, no, what am I supposed to say? It's so good if they're like, it's all right. That dull bit in the middle where I went to get a drink. Well, and my parents are brutally honest. They don't have that

that ability to fake it at all. So like if they don't like something, they would just tell me and it always would kill me. And I was like, but I asked, I put it, I put it upon myself. I asked. Right. Yeah. Now for a quick break, but don't go away. When we come back, Gavin tells me about the time he accidentally made Serena Williams a meal of all of her least favorite foods and how he and Jack McGrair have spent every Christmas and every Thanksgiving together since they've met. Okay. Be right back.

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I sort of feel like Bush is kind of like the band version of Curb Your Enthusiasm because it's like you guys will like go away. You'll do another like album. You'll go away. Like should we do another one now? Like sure. It feels like you just keep like popping. First of all, you have so many albums. But you had a big hiatus in the middle where you were – where you sold a career. Yeah.

First of all, what are those conversations like when you want to move on from a band or if you want to go do your own thing? I mean, is it like breaking up with someone? Yeah, but it's always been people breaking up with me. They broke up with you? Yeah. So it's been people leaving me because I'm like weird and Scottish. And so I'm like, just keep going and I just keep trying and just keep on keeping on.

You're about to go on tour again in like a month, right? Yeah, so a lot of tourings, Canada, South America, and America, and then Europe. This tour, though, it's in support of your new album that hasn't come out yet. Well, yeah, everything's now, everything in support of the new album is about to come out, or the greatest hits that just came out, or everything's just in support of the concept of Bush. Right, right, right, right, right, right.

But the album, the one that you're, I guess, mixing right now. Yeah, that's about to come out. Right. But there'll be a single out for those shows. Okay. And that album, let me tell you what I remember. I read what the album name is. This is me. I have an idea. I got it from institution. It goes through my head. You take what you like. And what comes out is just like a general idea. So I want to say I figured out grief.

That's not the name of it, but that's the general idea. Right, yeah. Now I'm going to tell you what it's actually called. I think we can get a bit catchier with it. Wait, let me see if I wrote it down here somewhere. I can tell you if you want. Yeah, tell me. I beat loneliness. I beat loneliness. See, it's sort of the same idea, though. It's just not as eloquent. I'm like the super literal version. This looks incredible.

Thank you for cutting up all my meat. Of course. So that's the galbijjim, the braised short rib. There's moose or the Korean radish, shiitake mushrooms, carrots. There's a little bit of the tteokbokki-style rice cakes. And there are jujubes in there that my mom grows at her house. Enjoy. Really incredible. What's your favorite place to go eat? I've really been enjoying Indian food recently. Growing up in Albuquerque, there was a lot of big flavor and...

I didn't eat a ton of the Korean. I didn't eat Indian. I was basically just only eating Mexican food. And I love that spice. I love the big flavor. I love the boldness of it. So when I discovered Korean and Indian, when I moved to New York and I had all this great food,

- On your block. - On my block, yeah. Literally right there, I just, I lost my mind for everything. I like went crazy. Ethiopian, like, I just, the world was suddenly open to me. So I really truly love anything with big flavor. Yeah, so I don't know. I mean, I am so happy you chose this place because it's delicious. - This one is my personal favorite. It's a braised black cod. I'm gonna try to make a little bit of space between.

So the braised black cod has of course cod, Korean radish, the moo, kabocha squash, rice cakes, onions, some other veg as well. Cod is actually not very traditional in Korean food. There's no cod in Korea. So we do have the more traditional versions which would be like the cutlass fish or like belt fish version. We also have one with a mackerel but we put a lot of kimchi in the one

With the mackerel to offset the oil. I know, right? Next time you have to come back and try the mackerel. But the cod's so beautiful here. It's just kind of become like, kind of like an LA dish, I want to say. You can get the braised black cod elsewhere. That's also really good. But yeah, that's my personal favorite. It's beautiful. Thank you so much. When you're cooking for your guests on your show, how many episodes have you shot, by the way? Six. Do you, like, how do you choose what you're going to...

Feed each person. I asked them for a list of likes. I got into likes and dislikes because when I didn't do likes and dislikes and Serena gave me a really short list that didn't include... Serena Williams, yeah. Yeah, didn't give me two things. Her list was really fun. It was like tacos, chicken, cake, healthy...

No sugar. Wait, wait, this is all contradictory. Yeah. I know. And I had to figure it out. It was like a riddle. Sugarless cake. Yeah, exactly. It was like a Morse code. Which one of these words doesn't belong? So what happened is...

I deconstructed a taco. Okay. I kept healthy, but I put, I did one, I did this tomato salad that I learned, I was told by a friend of mine, Dominique Crenn, who's a beautiful chef. Oh, I love Dominique Crenn. She's so talented. So she had told me this dish her mom used to make her, which was a dish of uncooked tomatoes, raw tomatoes, and confit tomatoes. And you do it up, so you have a hot tomato and a cold tomato, and they were the lemon creme fraiche.

So I made this, I wasn't going to make it as a, I made it as a side dish, but we made it as a starter, whatever. So it was a starter. And then I did a deconstructed taco. I did a really nice bit of fish. And then I did a bit of pineapple that I burnt the pineapple, charred the pineapple to go with the fish and then put a little avocado mousse down the center. And it turns out,

She's so great. She said it on the show, but before she let anyone know, she doesn't like tomatoes and she doesn't like avocado. This is my show. I'm like, oh my God, kill me. So after that, I was like, make sure we know what they don't like. Why did we not ask them that? That was like the dumbest thing that I failed to ask people what they don't like. So that was good. But she did like that she ate the tomato salad.

She's a great person, so she could be still retching in private when she thinks about it. I don't think so. You have a great guest in your first six episodes. Yeah. Jack McBrayer, who's a buddy of mine. Jack is the best. Isn't he great? Yeah, he's wonderful. He's a really good friend of mine. He's been helping me a lot recently do all my audition stuff.

Yeah, for everything. I mean, all the different shows I've been trying to, or movies I've been trying to get into. I have to say, I think he's a horrible director because I haven't got one. Is he making you, you just got to talk like me, Gavin. No, he actually is super helpful. He's such a great guy. You know, if I'm at a, you know, really not good, he gets me just head above water of average. And I think I did a couple of good takes.

So I, and I was like, every time I think this is it, you know, by about, I start to, you know, you're a professional actor, so different, but people like me who come in and out of it, we need to rev up. So I, I need like, by about my fourth take, I'm really, I'm starting to motor. Take five and six, I'm money. So whenever I'd go to auditions, you know, that'd be take one and two. This is really hard. So the only movies I ever did, I did get a couple, but generally I'd get them if I was given them.

And then I would do the part, you know. So auditions. But Jack always helped me with that and got me a lot better than I was, but not good enough to actually land the roles. But what's so sweet about Jack, I'll give you a fun insight to Jack. Yeah. Since I got divorced and was raising the kids on my own, he's come to every...

Christmas and Thanksgiving that I do with my kids. He comes to them and he comes to them. And, uh, so we just had him for Christmas. We had him for Thanksgiving and he, the last Thanksgiving he sent in, I posted it on my Instagram a little while ago, but he, he sent me an invoice for his presence. So Jack and,

Selma Blair, I had known. That was the hardest thing to get people to come because I knew I could show up. I knew I'd figure out how to make a plate of food, ask them a few questions that I hope we'd have fun with and we'd be off to the races, just film it and that's it. Now I get to stay home, do something fun, get to speak, have a voice, be myself.

And it took a number of years to get that happening. TV is not easy to make. No, no. But also, I mean, it's the same sort of thing with this. You know, I've obviously...

Want people to come on and have a nice time, but also have a good experience. And, you know, I'm the one driving the conversation. I'm sure you feel the same pressure. I'm having a great time. Yeah, I'm glad. It sounds like you are. Well, because at the end of the evening with the cooking show I'm doing, I'd be like, that was what they did for four hours. That's four hours of, you know, one-on-one and drinking. And most of it was five out of six were alcohol-based. Mm-hmm.

How do you do that? I can't drink on this and keep the conversation on track. How do you keep the conversation on track if you're both drinking? It depends what you mean by track. Which track you want to be on. A different track, yeah. Yeah. I think I like the other track. Yeah. I'm English. You know, we like, we sort of. Yeah, I know. You drink and you eat and you drink. I'm going to be staying in London for four months. I'm doing a play at the National. Wow. And I'm going to be staying in Battersea.

Which I don't know anything about. And you just nodded quietly, so it makes me nervous. No, I had two thoughts that happened. Okay. One is, it's a bit far, but that's okay. There's actually a restaurant in Clapham, which is next to it. Oh, I know Clapham, yeah. Called Trinity. And the chef there is one of my heroes. I follow him and you got to go there. Yeah. Best food. Okay. Trinity. Yeah, that's great. It's just along the embankment. It's beautiful. Yeah, the national is incredible. Yeah. Wow.

What does that feel like when you get the gig, when you found out you got it? Did you have to audition or did you... No, first of all, I've always wanted to work in London. I've always wanted to do a show in the West End. Although, I guess the National is not technically the West End. But it's a show by Stephen Sondheim that was done in New York called Here We Are. It was his last show that he was writing when he passed away. And it's actually unfinished. And...

The book writer and the director, Joe Mantello, finished the show and put it up in New York. And it was great. I saw it in New York. I know what the piece is. I know kind of the tone of the whole show. Actually, when I saw it, I had some friends on the show and I went backstage and I said, I'm actually so jealous that you all get to do this. This is such a cool show.

piece of art and so when the director asked me to do it in London because the guy who originally had the part in New York can't do it I was like oh this is incredible school yeah totally I'm really excited and I get to work in London for the first time so

That is amazing. London's incredible. Yeah. Do you think that, you know, as you're about to go on, although it sounds like you've kind of been on tour for a while, but you're about to do another five months out on the road. I mean, how do you compare yourself to like when you first started 30 years ago with the band? I mean, do you, is it the same rush? Is it the same, like, what are the crowds like?

Um, it's just such an incredible way to live that if when you get them right and you get the shows right, it just, I mean, you, you've done Broadway and you understand that feeling of, I can spend the whole day wandering around, you know,

South Dakota thinking, where's my life going? And then I play a show and I go, it's going right here. This is where it is. There's something so great about that. I mean, my touring ahead is not consecutive, by the way, because I have kids. So I have to have them a lot half the time. So it's spread out across the year, but it's a lot. I love it. And I think that there's two types of people that really...

in terms of that, want people that want to tour and give it all they got or people that have to tour and reluctantly tour and phone it. And you know, you've seen plays where people aren't in it. And it's fun for me, it's only fun for me to try and improve the show. It's not fun for me to repeat the show. There's no fun in that. But I think that when I'm playing live or I think of live, I mean, I do the whole set list is all thinking about other people. I wouldn't do it just myself. I'm thinking about what, from the moment someone walks in to the moment they leave an hour and a half later,

like what's the experience like everybody wants to avoid that that middle bit where everyone gets bored and so here's the new song and someone goes i'll get the drinks yeah yeah you know anybody wanting to think are you guys hungry you know right too many songs in a row if the songs aren't any good and people are buying food as well as drinks in that gap when are they playing come down you know so what are some of the best live shows that you've seen that you're inspired by

Usually anything with YouTube involved. So watching the effect on the crowd. I do like... Did you see them in Vegas? Yeah, I saw this too. Yeah, me too. This fear. That's really incredible. Yeah, it's incredible. They're such a wonderful band, wonderful people, amazing songs.

And just phenomenal. When I was in Institute, I toured with U2. So I watched them every night. No way. Yeah, they took us. I never went with Bush, but I went twice with Institute, with U2. Oh, interesting. So that was just, and to just be traveling with them, I just got to watch them every single night. I think that Bush is definitely synonymous with grunge. Although some people call it post-grunge. I don't know the difference between the two. It does help people to signpost and flag things, but...

There were so many influences that were ungrungy that I was like, it was a bit of a blanket. Well, I mean, everybody. We were all reduced to like three sentences. Right. True. That's true. And you also, where was Nirvana at that point? Was that, were they? Well, he had just passed away. Passed away. Yeah. So we came out with a record and got in a lot of trouble for fulfilling a space in the world that he effectively had vacated. I didn't, you know, that was...

you know, it felt weird to be coming out in the time of where he had, he had left, you know, I was excited to, you know, you can't help idealize or romanticize. You're going to like, I'd be like, I'm going to meet, maybe I'm going to meet them one day. No, he'd passed away. I mean, he,

I was making the record and I was like, I was making 16 stone. It was devastating. Was he someone that was an influence for you? Yeah, he's massive. He's incredible. I mean, he's inspired a whole entire generation. So it was awful. And then, you know, my kids went to school with Dave's kids. So he's got three girls at one school. I had three boys. So we spent a lot of time with Dave at school assemblies. Wow.

You can see us now. And Paul Stanley from Chris. Kiss. There needs to be a documentary about that. Yeah. Chris Cornell. The hot dads of rock. Well, there was an assembly we went to. I sat with Chris Cornell. And then Dave was there. And Paul Stanley. It was hilarious. It was like, you know. At a school assembly. That's incredible. Yep. Look at that. Between Chris and Kurt and Chester. Yeah.

That's why I beat loneliness. I think that if I could reduce myself to something really, a few sentences, I love the idea that I have a band that can provide comfort to people. My kind of music, sometimes I wish I was as good as like,

party bands you know like some people can write you know will i am and i got a feeling it's just such a great song but it just it doesn't any time i try and get into that zone i just don't sound good i need to be complaining about something and then be challenged about something and then resolve it it's never doom and gloom it's always just sort of accepting that life is really hard and so

I've taken that on, you know, I have a lot of people that come up to me from shows in the daytime when I see them and I get a great comfort from the music. You know, it's the biggest compliment when people want to tell me that they've begun poetry, it saved them. I've had so many times where people tell me they were on an edge, this record saved them, that record saved them.

When you have that, it's an incredible, it gives my life an incredible sense of meaning. The funniest thing about being a writer is that the more honest I can get and the further inside myself I can get, the more chance there is that you'll connect to it. Yeah. It's so weird because you think that by disappearing from someone and diving into a well of yourself that you're going to alienate someone or distance yourself. But actually it's by... Become unaccessible. It's by accessing those...

feelings, emotions and those words you can put into things that make people connect with you. It's wild. I'm super excited for people to hear it. And that title, I've had it for a minute because I wrote, it's actually a song on there called I'd Be Lonely.

So I got it from there. I was like, oh, I don't know if I can improve that. Normally I don't like doing an album title from a song. I'm like, it's a cop-out. Yeah. There's a great chance for a writer to sort of have an overview, like take a drone of their work and be like, crystallize it in some form. Like The Art of Survival was that. But...

I was like, oh, God dang. I've done myself in here because I'm not going to beat that. I don't want to beat that. And I just thought the idea of Bush, I'd be loneliness. The only thing that screwed it up is I thought we should definitely about time we should do a picture of the band on the cover because no one's seen the band on the cover for so long that we've ever done that. I thought this is time for now. How many more have you got? Let's do something to shake it up. Yeah.

And I thought, oh dear, should it be we beat loneliness? He beat loneliness? It's just like, it fucked it. And so I was like, but I can't not have the title. Well, I just, I think there's something really, I think impactful and interesting about people who are,

you know, constantly morphing and becoming these new versions of themselves and are influenced by the people who, you know, consume their art. And I think it's really cool to see all these twists and turns you're taking. And now this new TV show, which is called, tell me again, because I have the wrong. Another night with Jesse. Dinner with Gavin Rostow. I put my, I put your whole name on it. Dinner with Gavin Rostow. We wouldn't have enough room on my microphone.

And it's on Vizio. Vizio Watch Free Plus. Yeah. I think that people have responded really well to it. It's an incredible bluff. Yeah, I can do that. Sure. Of course I can't. You seem like you know what you're doing. I watched the teaser. Well, I just thought it could be interesting and fun to hang out with these people. And they're so good that, of course you can. Just let them talk and film them. That's what we did.

You should be very proud of yourself. It's really cool. Thanks for doing this. I loved it. You're fun. The meal is fantastic. I've been a big fan for a very long time, and I love that we shared an abode together.

Yeah. Not together again. And a nursery. I don't want people to get the wrong idea. We shared a nursery even. We shared a nursery. Yeah. Yeah. Again, not together. That was Kingston's nursery. That was Beckett's. Beckett's. Beckett's. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I know. God, I love that house so much. It's a beautiful home. I'm going to show you some pictures. It's a beautiful home. That I found. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. This episode of Dinners on Me was recorded at Sobin.com.

Next week on Dinner's On Me, you know him as my brother-in-law from Modern Family. It's Phil Dunphy. Ty Burrell.

We'll talk about his life in Utah, the moment when we first met, and the story of how he adopted his two daughters. And if you don't want to wait until next week to listen, you can download that episode right now by subscribing to Dinners On Me Plus. As a subscriber, not only do you get access to new episodes one week early, you'll also be able to listen completely ad-free. Just click Try Free at the top of the Dinners On Me show page on Apple Podcasts to start your free trial today.

I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Join me next week.