Gavin Rossdale says staying silent about gun violence in the US makes people “complicit” in the carnage.
Gavin Rossdale says staying silent about gun violence in the US makes people ‘complicit’ in the carnage
The Bush frontman, 57, and his band are playing an anti-gun violence show at New York City’s Irving Plaza to benefit Artist for Action and Sandy Hook Promise on Friday (22.09.23), and he added it was an issue close to his heart as a dad.
He told Good Morning America ahead of the show about how he believed tackling mental health issues would cut down the amount of shootings blighting the States: “It’s insanity. Everyone feels that, everyone sees it. We witness it. 400 mass shootings this year alone, and something’s got to give.
“I think that the reason why the musicians are coming together like that is because we’re really focusing on mental health.
“‘Why do these people do that?’ Not just about the guns they're using and access to guns, it’s really about what makes these people want to do that from the get go and you know, how isolated they are.
“Mental health, which has been at the forefront of so much recently and quite rightly, it’s part of that conversation and we’re doing the show at Irving Plaza on Friday, to kick off Artist for Action.
“And so it’s an honour to be part of something that tries to help the situation.
“It really takes a dialogue to change things... by staying silent we’ve just been, in some ways, complicit in it.”
Gavin’s figure of 400 shootings in the US this year is in fact far higher, with 500 so far in 2023.
The musician has three sons with his now ex-wife Gwen Stefani, 53 – Kingston, 17, Zuma, 15, and Apollo, nine, as well as daughter Daisy, 34, from a previous relationship with the 53-year-old English designer Pearl Lowe – was also quizzed about the issue of gun violence impacted him as a father.
He was quoted by The Messenger saying about how he felt it was impossible to set them up for facing the reality of a shooting: “How can you prepare your kids? There could be a maniac or… you can't. I mean, they see it. It’s just awful.”
Gavin added: “It’s a lot to do with looking at the reasons of why... then you’d get to the heart of it.
“And so you imagine these 400 maniacs – maybe they’re all psychopaths or maybe some of them had terrible treatment and were ostracised and isolated and abused. Who knows what horror they went through.
“You’ve got to go through a lot of horror to do that stuff. It’s not political, it’s not politically-sided, it’s neutral. It’s just a human issue.
“And it is beyond the sort of ‘assault rifles, not assault rifles’.
“It’s to do with how can we change the climate so that these people don’t feel this compulsion to do these terrible things.”
Artist for Action, which aims to tackle America’s gun violence epidemic, also includes Billie Eilish, Nile Rodgers and Sheryl Crow.
Bush – who have released the new single ‘Nowhere to go but Everywhere’ from their upcoming greatest hits compilation – will have their show on Friday livestreamed on veeps.com.
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