Kingston Rossdale just talks like a musician. Speaking in his first interview about his debut single, “Right Side of the Moon,” out today, he gets most excited talking about his guitar tones.
“Everybody’s sound, especially mine, is always evolving as time goes on. But I obsessed over tones so hard,” he says. “Making this EP, literally like locking myself in the studio all day, all night, just trying to figure out each section piece by piece. So, I feel really proud of the tones and the sound that I got.”
Yes, Rossdale has musical parents – Bush’s Gavin Rossdale and No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani. No, he does not really talk about them. Let me assure you, as someone who has interviewed offspring with names like Lennon, Dylan, Coltrane, Marley and more, Rossdale wanting to be seen as his own artist and taken on his own merits is as normal as sports fans being superstitious (that reference will soon make sense). In fact, Rossdale talking more about his girlfriend, food, Billy Corgan and the Seattle Seahawks makes him nothing but a totally well-adjusted and average 20-year-old.
Now, back to sports and guitars. Any athlete will tell you that you do not mess with a winning streak, so when you find something that works you do not change it. That was how Rossdale approached making Louise Street, his debut EP. Particularly the guitars that got those tones.
“I was trying to use two of the same guitars, which were my Fender Strat and then I used my Gibson Firebird. Obviously, for one, to make everything sound cohesive, but definitely in a superstitious way. Especially with the Strat I just felt like that guitar is special to me and making the EP with that was important to me,” he says.
That superstition definitely comes, in part, from his deep Seahawks fandom. And where does that stem from? “Everybody asks me this. And when I was getting into football, it was like 2013. I’d have been like seven or eight. I don’t know. My math sucks,” he recalls. “But LA didn’t have a football team at the time living in LA. So, I went to a Super Bowl party that year. And 2014, I believe, was the year that the Seahawks crushed the Broncos. So, I was like, ‘Oh, I got a bandwagon with this team.’ And I just have stuck it out since 2014 with the Hawks. Now we have the Rams in LA. But they’re the rivals. Rams and Chargers.”
The only time his dad does come up in the more than half hour is when I remember talking with Gavin on multiple occasions about his friendship with tennis living legend Roger Federer and how Federer has motivated him with his dedication and incredible discipline to reach the pinnacle of the sports world.
Similarly, Kingston draws on some of those players from that Hawks championship team for inspiration.
“Russell Wilson, I really admired him. As a kid growing up, I idolized him. I used to want to be a football player. Marshawn Lynch, Tyler Lockett, Jermaine Kearse, those guys are all just incredible athletes and obviously to be in the NFL you have to be a crazy good athlete, but those guys definitely stick with me.”
As much as the Hawks inspired him, he cites his producer as one of his two biggest musical influences.
“I think my producer, Michael Kamerman, he is the guitarist in Small Pools. I’ve known him since I was 14. I grew up around him and seeing him produce and just seeing his creative process really inspired me to become a producer myself,” he says. “He’s the producer that I made this whole EP with. I think that that connection that we had is really special and it helped push me to the point where I am now with this EP.”
The other big influence is Corgan, who has that special gift of feeling like he is writing directly to you.
“I was in quarantine back in 2020 when everything was just a lot and ‘1979’ came on by The Pumpkins. And in that moment right there — I’m getting goosebumps just talking about it – I was like, ‘Whoa, this is crazy.’ I’d never connected with another musician or a song as hard as I connected with that song. Then I went down the rabbit hole listening to all the other music,” he says. “But I felt in that moment, if I can write music that connects with people just half as much as I did with this song, I’m good. From then on out, that song became my everything. And I played it a million times. I had 37,000 minutes streamed alone on Spotify of the Pumpkins at the end of the year.”
Rossdale can also speak passionately about food, especially pho, “I feel like pho is that food that just warms your soul and makes everything okay,” he says. But like any guy who ever picked up a guitar, Rossdale’s biggest motivation was impressing the love of his life.
“She’s honestly my biggest inspiration. I write a lot of my music about her. That’s how it all started. I wrote a song for her birthday and my friends heard and they’re like, ‘Oh, this is actually really good.’ I was like, ‘Oh, cool. I’m going to try to continue writing.’ Now I have 200 songs or something,” he says. “She loves the EP, she likes all the songs, and she actually came in when we were recording everything and got to see the process.”
So, fittingly he will, of course, be with her today celebrating his first release.
“I’m all about being in the moment and just being really present and appreciating what’s happening. I’ll probably end up just going out with my girlfriend and being excited that I’ve been writing music since I was like 13. I’m 20 now. I wrote all these songs at different times in my life but went into the studio November of 2025 to start making the EP,” he says. “Now, I’m able to share everything with the world and I want these songs to connect with people. I’m just going to go think about every little thing that I’ve done, every email that I’ve sent, all the hard work I put in that’s happening and I’m so excited that we’re here now, so probably just going to enjoy the moments of that day with my girlfriend.”
Like I said, just a normal 20-year-old dude.
