POP quiz time: Which British band have sold more records in the US than Oasis, Blur and Pulp put together? From London, they're a standard four-piece rock band who regularly grace the cover of Rolling Stone and are favourably compared to Nirvana? Still not there? Try this: they're produced by Steve Albini, their bass player used to be in Transvision Vamp and their current album went straight into the US charts at No 1, a feat only matched by a handful of British acts such as The Beatles and Pink Floyd?
The answer is Bush (originally called Shepherd's Bush after the part of London they come from) and if you ever wanted a story to disprove the notion that new media and technologies have shrunk the musical world into one small record-buying village, Bush's story is the one. For example (and get a load of this): the last time Bush toured a few months ago, they finished off with a gig in Washington's massive JFK stadium (named after the other Kennedy brother), where they played to 60,000 people. Their very next gig was in the Jug Off Ale pub (yes, a pub) in Birmingham where 120 people turned up to see them. It sort of puts a new twist on the hoary old "but we're big in Japan" line.
Playing in a pub is how Bush started in Britain five years ago. Going nowhere extremely quickly, they legged it to the US and released a single called, Everything Zen. Picked up by MTV, first on the "alternative" programmes and then slowly nudging its way on to the mainstream stations, it soon went into Triple A, high-rotation heaven and the debut album went on to sell a staggering seven million copies. This is all the more remarkable given that they didn't have the backing of a major label. You could point to the fact that the previous year The Offspring had a top 10 album on an indie label (the first for about 40 years on the Billboard chart) and hence some of the ground-work was done, but that is to ignore the massive home-grown fan base The Offspring had in the US - Bush were merely a bunch of no-hopers from London and they succeeded where the heavily-touted Suede had failed two years before.
Bush's story is symbolic of wider issues in the industry and particularly the "doing America" aspect of a band's career. The reason they sold seven million copies of their debut was because they toured and toured and toured. And then they toured some more, and after that there was a bit more touring and it was all finished off by still more touring.
They went everywhere, played every dive, performed to every redneck/hillbilly/student, went on a few hundred thousand radio stations, did voice overs, station identifications, signed T-shirts, talked to the press etc, etc.
By the time they were getting ready to release their new album, Razorblade Suitcase, they had advance sales of two million copies which was a handy 80,000 more than REM had with Adventures In Hi-Fi. The album went straight in at No 1 and looks like breaking the 10 million mark.
Their music is straightforward, no nonsense, grunge flavoured rock (Mudhoney, Soundgarden etc) spiced with American-style punk rock (Green Day, Rancid etc). They are a band who wouldn't recognise Britpop even if it was spelt out to them and they must be the only British band in the world who could have Oasis play as their support act. It's the old, old story of the British taking American music, repacking it and selling it back to the Americans. In this case they've taken grunge, which may be ever so passe in the pages of British style magazines, but is still massive in middle America.
Naturally, Bush are despised by the British music press. The reviews for their new album have been predictably snotty and derisory but, funnily enough, this time the press is devoting whole pages of their publications to being snotty and derisory. Currently out on a short British tour, which should include an Irish date somewhere along the line, Bush are the only band in the whole world who are famous for not being famous.
LOADS more free tickets. We've 10 pairs of tickets for Lemonheads at the Olympia on the 27th of this month, 10 pairs for A House on the 28th (Olympia), 10 pairs for Black Crows at the SFX on March 1st; 10 pairs for Steve Earl at, the Olympia on the 2nd and 10 pairs for Reef at the Red Box on the 7th. To get these tickets, write to Hot Licks Offers, The Irish Times, Arts Dept, 10-16 D'Olier St, Dublin 2, (before Tuesday, February 18th). State on your outer envelope which act you want to see, and enclose a self-addressed envelope.
