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Gavin McGregor Rossdale (born 30 October 1967) is a British musician most famous as the lead singer and guitarist of the rock band Bush. He later was the lead singer and guitarist for Institute, and is now pursuing a solo career.
Rossdale was born in Swiss Cottage, London, to parents Lucy Stephan (b. Scotland) and Douglas Rossdale. His father was a doctor of Russian Jewish descent whose surname was originally Rosenthal. His parents divorced when he was eleven years old, and he was raised primarily by his father and aunt. His mother remarried and moved to Tampa, Florida. Rossdale has a younger sister, Soraya, and an elder one, Lorraine. Rossdale's half brother, David, is the Bishop of Great Grimsby in the United Kingdom.
Rossdale learned to play bass guitar after hanging out with his sister Lorraine's boyfriend, who was in a band called The Nobodyz, but he switched to rhythm guitar. At 17, he left the Westminster School, played semi-professional football until side-lined by an injury, and formed a band called Midnight (formerly Little Dukes), which produced a couple of singles and many publicity photos. Gavin also plays USTA Tennis at a 4.5 mens level. In 1991, Gavin moved to Los Angeles for 6 months, lived where he could, and took whatever part-time jobs were available, including production assistant on video shoots. He spent some time in NYC before returning to England where he hooked up with future manager Dave Dorrell (MARRS), whom he had met in LA. In 1992, Gavin formed Future Primitive, whose original line-up (under the name The Diceheads) included screenwriter Sacha Gervasi, who left to pursue a film-making career. The band changed its name to Bush in the summer of 1994 and released the promo Sixteen Stone.