"Gavin Rossdale: The Fear of Accidentally Plagiarizing Bush's Biggest Hit"

# Bush’s Biggest Hit: Gavin Rossdale’s Writing of Glycerine

In a [grunge scene](https://www.guitarworld.com/features/a-grunge-guitar-guide-to-the-90s) dominated by stateside bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Hole, and Alice in Chains, British acts seemed few and far between. This all changed with Bush, led by vocalist and rhythm guitarist Gavin Rossdale. With their 1994 debut album, _Sixteen Stone_, the band found immediate success outside their home country, establishing themselves as a British answer to the Seattle sound.

## The Birth of Glycerine
*Glycerine* would become the album’s biggest hit and take the band around the world, but it began its life in a basement flat in London. “I physically remember where I was for some reason,” Rossdale tells _Guitar World_ in a new interview. “Four people were living there at the time, there was a blue underlying carpet, no top one – I had this really weird Feng Shui, OCD bullshit, where it was like a graffiti-covered kitchen, no carpet, just the underlay.”

## Music Inspired by Fear
“While writing what would eventually become *Glycerine*, something clicked so profoundly that Rossdale worried he had unintentionally copied someone else’s work. ‘I was in full fear that I had just repeated someone else’s song because it was way too accomplished for the kind of stuff I had been writing in piecemeal,’ he admits.”

“I’d write a riff, be on a tape recorder, and send that riff and record my voice and that tape recording of *Machinehead*, or something, into another thing. So, I was always walking around the parks with two tape machines; that’s how I’d do that… crazy times.”

## The Success of Glycerine
Like its predecessor, *Comedown*, *Glycerine* topped *Billboard*’s Modern Rock Tracks chart for two weeks in December 1995 – helping solidify Bush and their debut as one of the blockbuster acts and albums of the grunge era.

## Stay Tuned for the Full Interview
*Guitar World*’s full interview with Gavin Rossdale will be published in the coming weeks. For the complete feature, click [Source link](https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/guitarists/gavin-rossdale-remembers-the-moment-he-wrote-bushs-biggest-hit).