10 minutes backstage with Gavin Rossdale at Stagecoach

Gavin Rossdale brought his band Bush to Stagecoach on Saturday — one of several groups at the festival this weekend with indelible rock hits from the 1990s. The 60-year-old, who recently premiered a television cooking show, also put in an appearance alongside Billy Bob Thornton, Wynonna Judd and Gavin Adcock at the fever dream that is Guy Fieri’s Smokehouse. I caught up with him between the two engagements.

This has gotta be your first Stagecoach.
It is. I was waiting till I got an invite. I didn’t want to just get a ticket — I wanted to be invited.

You just did a cooking demonstration with Guy Fieri. How’d that go?
Fantastic — really good fun. We had four people doing different dishes. He’s a great, great man — I love him.

You’ve become a TV chef yourself. What’s the TV-chef-meets-TV-chef vibe?
I felt a kinship. I only had to tell him — we were talking about making the food — I said to him we could cook some secreto pork. That’s the secret, perfect part of the pork that people don’t know enough about. He was so impressed after that he left me alone to just do what I want.

Guy Fieri didn’t know about it, and neither did I.
Oh no, he did.

Clarification: I didn’t know about it. You were there with Gavin Adcock, which means that there were two Gavins.
It was a first for me.

I know that Paramount is here at Stagecoach. Are you interested in pitching an odd-couple comedy with you and Gavin Adcock? He’s a country guy, you’re a rock guy — I think we can make this happen.
He made a big steak sandwich, and I made a sort of a deep-fried chicken with rice and Japanese things. So I feel that we’re opposing sides and we could combine and make a really great balanced meal.

We’ll pitch this later tonight. How did Bush end up on a country music festival?
That is such a good question — you should’ve led with that. And I don’t have any answer for it. It’s like one of those things where I’m just excited to be here and I don’t want to screw it up.

What would screwing it up look like?
Choosing the wrong song.

The deepest cut.
A D-side. Nobody wants it. But it’s so hard to know what everyone knows. I was trying to do the set list, but I was like, Who is everyone here? Is it real cowboys? Is it Palm Springs cowboys? Is it California cowboys? What is it?

Gavin Rossdale and drummer Nik Hughes perform with Bush on Saturday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Bush is not the only rock band at Stagecoach. The Wallflowers are here, Third Eye Blind is here. You have any beef with these other rock bands?
Not on the culinary stage, because it was all chicken. But no, no — I don’t have beef with anyone. Life is too long for beefs.

If you were to play a country song, what would it be?
Zach Bryan’s catalog is sensational. They’re beautiful songs, and I feel that if I spent a good amount of time, I could do a faithful version à la Bush.

So Stagecoach 2029: Gavin Rossdale sings the Zach Bryan catalog.
Well, not the whole thing.