Bush released their debut album Sixteen Stone on December 6, 1994, through Trauma and Interscope. Its five singles would establish the London band on American rock radio, but they didn’t all follow the same musical approach. “Glycerine” made room for distorted guitar, vocals and strings without a drum part.
The partnership between Gavin Rossdale and guitarist Nigel Pulsford helped give those songs their shape. Rossdale told Guitar World in 2024 that “Comedown” was the first song he brought to Pulsford, who initially agreed to record with him without committing to a band. Their playing complemented each other: Rossdale worked instinctively, while Pulsford brought a more deliberate approach informed by jazz and classical music. His lead parts gave Rossdale’s melodies something to work against. “He’d find excellent notes to go against my voice,” Rossdale recalled. Bush gave the singer a way to develop ideas that his earlier groups hadn’t realized.
Rossdale’s writing tools were basic. He recorded guitar ideas on one tape machine, then used another to capture his voice over the playback. “Glycerine” arrived unusually quickly: he remembered writing it in two passes in his London basement apartment. Its apparent completeness worried him. After building other songs piece by piece, he wondered whether this one had come so easily because he’d inadvertently copied somebody else.
Producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley worked with Bush at West Side Studios in London. In Mix’s 2024 recording history, they described an approach that kept overdubs limited. Langer helped develop the material in rehearsals, while Winstanley concentrated on recording. They were willing to revisit a sound when it mattered: Langer recalled redoing Rossdale’s guitar parts in a day after a Marshall 50 produced better results than the Marshall 100 they’d been using.
On “Glycerine,” the strings supplied another reason to leave space. Pulsford arranged the violin, viola and cello parts, and Rossdale credited their effect with helping keep drums out of the finished recording. Langer thought they had tried bringing in bass and drums, but remembered feeling that a full band entrance would overwhelm the song’s emotional weight.
Finishing the album didn’t secure its release. Hollywood Records rejected it, and Bush lost their distribution arrangement. In a 2024 interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Rossdale remembered the months afterward as another setback in a career already full of them. Making a record had been the immediate ambition; he hadn’t imagined what a successful release might make possible. Interscope subsequently took on distribution, giving the completed album a route to listeners. Rossdale recalled meeting the company’s Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as “Everything Zen” began gaining radio attention.
That attention changed the release plan. Billboard reported in February 1995 that Trauma had intended to issue Sixteen Stone in January, avoiding the Christmas sales rush. The label moved it forward after Los Angeles station KROQ selected “Everything Zen” for Jed the Fish’s Catch of the Day in November. The song gave Bush an opening before the wider audience knew the band, and radio support became a practical reason to get the album into shops sooner.
“Everything Zen” was followed by “Little Things,” “Comedown,” “Glycerine” and “Machinehead” as singles. The record that had struggled to reach stores eventually climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard 200, with “Comedown” and “Glycerine” each reaching No. 1 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.
