He’s more than just a pretty face. They are more than the British equivalent of Nirvana. Just ask the more than 7 million people who bought Bush’s debut album, Sixteen Stone.

Their sophomore effort, Razorblade Suitcase, has already gone triple platinum. It is in support of that album than Gavin Rossdale and the boys, collectively known as Bush, will be making a stop in Ames tomorrow.

The quartet was officially founded when frontman Rossdale and guitarist Nigel Pulsford began working together. Citing influences as diverse as the Pixies and Bob Marley, Rossdale and Pulsford evolved their musical interests into the pop/punk mixture of Bush.

With the addition of drummer Robin Goodridge and bassist Dave Parsons in 1992, Bush was complete. But the recording sessions produced an album’s worth of noisy demos that were far more in keeping with America’s alternative rock than London’s Brit pop movement.

By late 1993, the band had signed with an unknown label called Trauma Records. In two years, the members of Bush went from relative obscurity on the U.K. circuit to the top of the American pop charts scoring five hit singles with Sixteen Stone — “Everything Zen,” “Little Things,” “Comedown,” “Glycerine” and “Machinehead.”

But shrugged off by critics as flash-in-the-pan pretty boys, Bush remained undaunted. “I hope there’s something of Nirvana in Bush,” Rossdale said in the April 18, 1996 Rolling Stone, “in the same way that there was a massive element of the Pixies in Nirvana.”

Women all over the country may be thinking Rossdale was made for the spotlight, but he almost missed it. A semi-pro soccer player at one time, he left the macho world of European football for the “civilized” world of rock stardom.

“I couldn’t bear not hanging out with girls and taking drugs, to be honest,” he said. “In England there are no beautiful footballers, just this thug ethic.”

The “thug ethic” is something Rossdale is not very accustomed to. Born in 1967, he was raised by his doctor father in North London’s Kilburn district. He attended the posh Westminster school but transformed himself into a “party animal” after graduation.

Rossdale, it seemed, was taken with the American style of T-shirts, jeans and sneakers from the beginning. His casual style contrasted with the flamboyant London club kids, though.

After his first band, Midnight, fell flat, Rossdale thought a trip to the States might do him well. “My life was too safe in London,” he said in Rolling Stone, “so I thought going to America would help my career.”

Indeed it has. No longer do the Bushmen have to prove anything —except that they can put on a live performance. Bush plays Hilton Coliseum Saturday at 8 p.m. Chicagoite Veruca Salt opens. Tickets are available for $25.50 at the Iowa State Center Ticket Office or all Ticketmaster locations. Call 233-1888 to charge by phone.