When beauty icon and perennial Nylon favorite Gwen Stefani came to New York recently – husband Gavin Rossdale and sons Kingston and Zuma in tow – we figured it was a good opportunity for a chat about her makeup memories, her harajuku lovers fragrance franchise, and her preteen deodorant preference. By Holly Siegel.

When you were on our cover in June/July 2000, you desribed your courtship with Gavin as fairy-tale like. It doesn’t seem like much has changed.
We’ve been married seven years. It’s crazy, there’s no itch. The [seven-year] itch, right? Maybe because we’ve been together for 13 years.

The last time we talked about Harajuku Lovers, you said that you would do a makeup line.
I’ve always wanted to. I feel like my plate’s a little bit full right now, [but] I love makeup. I used to run home from school, and my girlfriend’s mom had so much Mary Kay it was insane. I didn’t understand how this woman had so much makeup. We’d be like, “Let’s go ask your mom if we can go and do makeup.” I’d be like, burning everyone’s neck with a curling iron. I was always giving somebody a makeover.

What was the first concert you attended?
Emmylou Harris at the Palomino. My parents took me. She had to take a break because she was going to nurse her baby in the back during the concert, I will always remember that. I actually got to do the cover of Vanity Fair with her and told her the story. She’s like, “Oh! Now my daughter’s, like, 30 years old.”

Are there any musicians whom you would love to work with now?
I feel like music is in a really weird place right now. I judge it all by [if] I would be jealous, like, “I wish I wrote that song.” I like that Ting Tings song. I love the Killers. There’s not much great stuff right now that I’m super inspired by, to be honest. Is that rude? I think everything feels the same way. Is there anything that’s great. There’s no Beatles. I think there’s a lot of interesting people out there, not, like The Cure, where you have an amazing sexy guy who wrote a thousand good songs that the whole world wants to listen to over and over again.

Is there anyone who could make you starstuck?
I love Joni Mitchell. I actually got to meet her and have dinner with her. The only person I haven’t met who is one of my idols — and I don’t want to meet — Julie Andrews. At a certain point, it’s like, come on, let me have one fantasy.

What was the first perfume you wore?
I didn’t really–my parents were pretty strict about that stuff. But I think probably Love’s Baby Soft or something. I can’t remember. There’s this one [deodorant] brand that used to be called Tickle. I used to always want to get it.

Why?
Because it was on TV, and it looked really cool. When you’re a preteen, you just want everything they put on TV, and you just go to Sav-On and you are like, “Pleeeeeeease!!”

Mostly transcribed by Jenny from Beacon Street Online, what a star!

Don’t let the coy pose fool you – there’s nothing this superstar won’t reveal. When we asked Gwen Stefani to give it up about life, love, work and mommyhood, she most certainly did. By Liza Ghorbani

The Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel has played host to the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Jean Harlow, so when Gwen Stefani walks in on a sunny afternoon with her Old Hollywood glamour — dark oversize sunglasses, scarlet lips, and platinum tresses swept into a polished updo — she certainly looks the part.

“Sorry I’m late,” says Stefani, sliding into a green velvet banquette amid a fragrant whirl of cocoabutter. “I was getting my color done, and now I feel like a different person. So much better.”

She’s wearing a demure plaid cap-sleeve blazer and pencil skirt of her own design with sparkly diamonds on her ears and fingers, an appropriate look for the ladies-who-lunch crowd. But on closer inspection there are a few giveaways that she is, in fact, a Grammy-winning rock star. Stacks of white rubber bracelets are piled on her forearms, a lacy blue peeks our above her threadbare ribbed tank top, and her nails are painted a stark white.

Stefani, 40, an Orange County girl born and bred, has just returned from a lengthy vacation in St. Tropez with her husband of seven years, British rocker Gavin Rossdale, and their two boys, Kingston, 3, and Zuma, 1, for whom she wears two delicate gold crosses around her neck. The successful designer, with seven years at the helm of her LAMB line, couldn’t be more excited to show her latest collection at the upcoming New York Fashion Week.

It’s surprising that Stefani, an unabashed girlie girl, has been hanging out with the fellas her whole life — first No Doubt, her all-male rock band, and now in her houseful of boys. Pushing her side swept bangs out of her big brown eyes, she leans in conspiratorially when she whispers, “Do you love clothes?” Content with her response, she grins and squeals, “I love clothes too. So much it’s embarrassing. But it’s so fun!”

She shares a photo of adorable baby Zuma on her Blackberry and orders a soy-milk coffee before settling in for some good old-fashioned girl talk.

1. Have you always been obsessed with fashion, even before you started designing?
   It’s been the same my whole life. I made so many clothes growing up, and I used to design my own costumes. Like, in college — we’d have a concert coming up and all I would do was just daydream about what I was going to make. And it’s the same now. Fashion gets me so excited.
2. Where did you draw inspiration for your spring line?
   I wanted to make a collection I was really going to wear. I was into gray, black and white with just touches of color, like yellow here and there. And a lot of drapery and slouchy stuff, and some tailoring — and looks that were a bit ’80s but also modern. We pull inspiration from everywhere and make it our own. It’s important to me to be involved because it’s about what I would wear, to be honest. It’s very selfish!
3. And what is it about designing that you love so much?
   When you find your passion, you can’t help it. I’m generally lazy. I like to sleep, I like to eat, I don’t like to work out, I don’t like to do anything. I want to watch TV, eat in bed, and sleep. And with designing, it’s just fun. I always enjoy doing that. It’s never a drag.
4. After two solo album and two babies, you just completed a 60-concert tour with No Doubt. What was that like?
   This tour was so emotional because it meant going back onstage with those guys who were my best friends since I was 17. We’re in such a great emotional space right now. And knowing that it’s not going to last forever makes it even more precious. I had tears in my eyes as I singing certain songs, like “Simple Kind of Life,” where I say, “I always thought I’d be a mom” — and all of a sudden I am, and my kids are sitting on the side of the stage watching me sing. It’s really intense.
5. Do you enjoy performing onstage in front of thousands of people?
   I love it. It is so awesome. I love getting ready and getting in costume, and then performing and being physical. If you don’t play live concerts, nothing feels real. It’s just a song on the radio you hear when you’re driving, and it doesn’t affect you. But when you walk out onstage and there are people who actually spent their money to buy a ticket and they’re singing the songs, it’s suddenly mind-blowing.
6. What initially made you decide to jump from musician to designer?
   I wanted so badly to have a backup plan for when I’m not performing anymore. Let’s be realistic: It’s not going to be like this forever. So I wanted to continue having something creative to do. I have to be creative to be happy. I don’t have a strong sense of self-worth unless I’m doing something. I was a different person before I started to write. When I realized I could be a songwriter and that people would listen — that was when I started feeling good in my life.
7. You’ve said you had writer’s block when trying to work on the next No Doubt record. Have you overcome it?
   I just wrote a song, which is really exciting! It’s not even done and I’ve listened to it two billion times already. It’s like I can’t stop. I’m embarrassed — if my husband comes in and I’m listening to it, I’m like, I’m sorry.
8. Tell us about your boys — what are their personalities like, and which one of their parents do people say they look most like?
   They are totally different, and they look totally different. Kingston didn’t like the fans on tour. He doesn’t like having his photo taken or the paparazzi. We call him Sid, like Sid Vicious. He’s a little punk, he really is. Zuma is more of a show-off. He wants everyone to watch him, he’s a goofball, and he’s really silly. He’s a funny guy. People say Zuma looks like my dad, and like me more — and obviously Kingston looks exactly like Gavin from head to toe. It’s crazy how the second child is so different from the first and has the same parents.
9. Does Kingston pick out his own clothes? He has such a cool style, and he really seems to own it.
   I know! At that age they like to be in control of everything, so I let him choose. Luckily, everything in his closet is cute, so no matter what he picks, he’s gonna look good. For a while he was into costumes. Now he doesn’t ever want to wear shoes.
10. What do you miss about L.A. when you’re living in London, and vice versa?
    I miss my family when I’m in England. And when I’m in L.A., I miss the role I have when I’m in London. I’m not working there, so Gavin spoils me and I get to be really dependent. I don’t drive when I’m there, and I like that. It’s a different lifestyle to be able to walk to the little village to get milk. I take Kingston to the gym with me, with no nanny or assistant, and that would be very rare in L.A. — that I could actually go somewhere on my own. Things can get out of hand with the paparazzi, so I don’t feel safe.
11. Do you or your kids adopt an accent when you’re over there?
    Not me, I can’t even pretend. But kids are like little sponges. Once in a while Kingston will pick up a word, like “I’m going to take a bahhth.” And I’m like, really? A bahhth!
12. When I interviewed Gavin years ago, he said he prides himself on being an excellent gift giver. Do you ever drop any hints about what you want?
    Oh no, we’re not allowed to do that. It’s just old-fashioned gift giving. He goes all out, you know? He’s romantic, so it’s good. He is a creative guy, and he’s amazingly inspiring with that creativity. We had a really good Christmas last year; it was fun getting gifts for the kids.
13. How do you and Gavin coordinate your outfits for a red-carpet event — is his outfit based on your dress?
    We just do our own thing, and it always seems to work. He has such great style. I get ideas from a lot of his clothes for the women’s clothing line because I like that kind of mixture. I use a lot of stuff in his closet. I’ll be like, Ooh, we should do a girl version of this!
14. Let’s talk about your closet. With all your LAMB collections, and pieces of Galliano and Vivienne Westwood, tell us: What’s it like in there?
    It’s really a work of art. I have a very, very large closet. Girls fall on the ground when they walk in. They’ll be like, ‘I just want to stay in here!’ It’s awesome. I keep all my main costumes and archive my favorite things, and I’ve held on to so many things I’ve designed in the past seven years, so you can imagine how many clothes there are. It’s insanity. I just cleaned out my closet, and I had like, 20 bags of stuff. Usually I let my friends and family just go nuts, but this time I’m going to do an auction and give it to charity. I mean, why should my sister always get it?
15. You’ve even worn red lipstick while you’re jogging. Is there any time you don’t wear it?
    No, I wear it all the time. I wear pink, I wear gloss, I wear everything, but my husband prefers when I wear red. I want him to like me still! I remember the first time I wore dark red lipstick. I was maybe 18, and I can remember the moment I put it on — in my Honda Prelude that I bought for like, $3,000 — and looking in the mirror going, “Good, I like that.” Never again did I stop wearing it.
16. How do you get motivated to work out so religiously?
    I like to wear clothes. That’s the only reason. You can’t make a whole fashion collection and not be able to fit in it. Plus, I feel so much better. And if you work out, then you can eat!
17. What advice can you give to women who see your post-baby body and feel inspired?
    I have to work out before noon or I won’t do it. You just have to get what you want in your head. It’s hard, but it’s like a domino effect once you see the results. I think I’m like the average person when it comes to all those things, so if I can do it, then I think anyone can do it.
18. What’s your favorite meal to cook, your signature dish?
    I don’t cook. I can toast in the toaster. I can pour and set the table. No, Gavin is the one. It’s not even an option, he is so passionate about it. He cooks every day. He loves to go grocery shopping and find different things. I’m really lucky. It’s actually lucky and hard at the same time because sometimes you want to be fit and not eat it, but you have to eat it.
19. Are you and Gavin going to try for a little girl? Someone should get to inherit your wardrobe!
    I don’t know. Having children is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. No one could have prepared me for how awesome it is, and how hard. And having two boys — there’s a lot of energy. I mean, it does seem weird that I don’t have a girl, but I feel like I’m running out of time. I also don’t want to spread myself so thin that I can’t even be good for them. Poor Zuma, he’d be the middle guy. I’m not focusing on it right now, but it’s not up to me anyway, you know? These things are miracles, so we’ll see. Otherwise, the clothes are probably to go to some girlfriend of Kingston’s!
20. What do you consider to be your biggest career achievement to date?
    Walking through an airport in Israel, and soldiers with machine guns coming up and being like, “Don’t Speak.” Or meeting kids who tell you that you’ve changed their lives because the music is so powerful. Or seeing girls who are wearing my clothes and saved all their money to get them, and suddenly they have this style and “this is who I am,” and at that age it’s really important. I get to meet all those people, and it makes me feel so good.

Transcribed by Jenny from Beacon Street Online. What a star!

After two kids and 15 years at the top of the pops, Gwen Stefani and her trademark style-SoCal tomboy meets ultrapolished pinup-still win us over every time. by Maggie Bullock

Fresh off a No Doubt reunion tour and the spring show of her fashion line, L.A.M.B., Gwen Stefani touched down in New York recently to introduce the latest version of her Harajuku Girls fragrance franchise (this time,the fab five are reimagined as tanned, bikini-clad Sunshine Cuties). An inspiring blend of superstar and supermom, Stefani was in full regalia-sharp brows, pink-painted lips, gobs of gold jewelry-while Zuma, her one -year- old (”my bunny”, Gwen cooed) attempted a sweet escape from her hip.

Fans love that your look wasn’t dreamed up by some music exec; it’s very authentic.
No Doubt was together for nine years before we even got on the radio, and I’ve looked pretty much the same since the beginning. In one of the first interviews I ever did, I’m sitting on the floor, gluing together this jailbird costume – basically the same one I wore two years ago in The Sweet Escape video. I still use the same references: old-Hollywood Marilyn, chola girls, Anaheim girls, English schoolgirls, and Japanese Harajuku.

You seem to have an abiding love affair with Japan.
Whatever trend is happening there, it’s everywhere – like, oh my God, lots of zippers! I look at millions of Japanese magazines, and my design associate goes there on inspiration trips. I’ll be in bed at 11 PM and she’s sending me pictures.’ ‘Want this $350 fleece motocycle jacket for Kingston?” I’m like, ”Yes, he definitely needs a $350 motocycle jacket – not”.

Was the makeup at your spring runway show inspired by your own look?
I’ve basically done the same makeup since ninth grade: eyeliner, a strong brow, not much eye shadow, and red lips. For the show, we did the big thick liner I’ve always done,but in pop colors: red,blue and yellow. I thought it was going to look tough,but under the lights it was soft,pretty.

What’s the secret to doing your own makeup on tour?
Sweatproofing. I don’t know how many calories I must burn every night, I’m dying up there! You can get waterproof stuff at the beauty supply, but it’s mainly about layering.And double lashes! I stick two rows of false lashes together.Luckily on this tour,I had a little break to go backstage and re-spackle.

Do you ever leave the house without makeup?
I’m not in full-on makeup every day, but my husband and I just had our seventh anniversary – he makes an effort for me, I make an effort for him. It doesn’t take me very long. I’m fast!

Well, you have professional experience, right?
When I was 20, I worked in a department store – basically a mature women’s shop with, like, polyester slacks. The clothes were horrible, but I really enjoyed helping women pick outifts. Later, I graduated to be one of the stuck-up girls at the makeup counter, which was a big deal. I never thought I’d get there [laughs]! I got to smell all the fragrances and be with all the pretty girls and intimidate everyone. Well, I didn’t, but they did.

Where are you headed next?
Back into the studio for a new No Doubt album. I hope. I’ve had writer’s block a for a while, maybe because I was too homebound. How was I supposed to be modern when I was sitting there with this post-pregnancy body, in the house, banging my head against the wall! On tour,I freed all that up and got inspired.

Thanks to NoDoubterNick on the official forum, Gwen is featured in this months InStyle magazine, USA (with Taylor Swift on the cover).

The article features Gwen’s favourite beauty products and there is a mini interview too:

Beauty talk

Gwen Stefani

You’ve done everything from the O.C. mall girl to Old Hollywood glam. What’s your next look going to be?
Right now I’m feeling fuchsia lips.

Totally ’80s. I like it! Does that mean we’ve seen the last of the red lipstick?
Not a chance. But I love to layer tons of different shades to create new colors.

What’s your technique for getting it to last?
I start with a matte lipstick that’s really dry, then I put a more creamy, moist lipstick on top. And my trick for not getting it on my teeth? Be really careful!

Have you always been a product junkie?
I can’t remember a time I wasn’t interested in makeup. When I was little, we would come home from school and dive right into my best friend’s mom’s Mary Kay collection.

How many lipsticks would you say you own?
Too many to count!

Now tell us about your platinum blond. How do you maintain it?
[Laughs] That’s a secret never to be revealed!

Like any good girlfriend, Gwen Stefani spills her secret style resources, her favorite chic cheapies and what she loves about her new Harajuku Lovers fragrance collection. She even hangs with GLAMOUR to talk about the husband and kids. Listen in—she’s as cool as she looks.

She’s like living pop art—against the white walls of the studio where Glamour’s cover shoot is under way, Gwen Stefani’s famous red lips, heavy black lashes and platinum hair stand out vividly. In fact, her style is so iconic, so crafted, so utterly Gwen Stefani that when she says hello and shakes my hand, I’m almost surprised she’s an actual talking, smiling person. I’m definitely surprised to realize that behind her twisted pinup-girl look, this rock star (married to another rock star, former Bush front man Gavin Rossdale) is kind of shy. Later, as she quietly breast-feeds her son Zuma, now one (she’s also mom to son Kingston, three), it’s hard to imagine her electrifying stadiums filled with screaming fans on the band No Doubt’s first tour in five years.

But electrify she does. Developing that front-woman persona didn’t come easily to the singer. As a teenager in Southern California, Stefani was too absorbed with her high school boyfriend to think that the songs she wrote just for herself would one day make her a superstar. And even when she became the singer for No Doubt in 1987, she still thought of it as her brother’s band. But when the group hit it big in 1995 with the release of Tragic Kingdom, Stefani’s talents were too big to downplay. Between her work with No Doubt and her solo career (launched in 2004 with her platinum album Love. Angel. Music. Baby.), the blond powerhouse has sold millions of albums. And on top of that music career, she now runs two wildly successful fashion lines: L.A.M.B., the five-year-old high-end label, and Harajuku Lovers, her Japanese-inspired clothing and fragrance line. They ring up a combined profit of more than $200 million annually. Yeow—that’s a lot for anyone to manage, especially someone as naturally California laid-back as Stefani.

The No Doubt reunion tour has Stefani, 40, wondering how long the ride can last. “It’s very emotional,” she says. “I feel like I’m going to wake up sometime soon from this weird journey.” Sorry, Gwen, not likely. Keep reading to see what else Stefani has to say about style, shopping, moguldom, motherhood and her long road to success.

I’ve been spending a few weeks learning about the Gwen Stefani universe of fashion and style and music. They’re all one.
It all comes from the same place. I remember back when No Doubt was just starting out: We didn’t have a record out, and I was in school. I would spend my time daydreaming about what I was going to make for my costumes. That’s something I’ve always done. As soon as I knew we had a show, I’d be off to the fabric store. And I’d be really excited. It’s just something I’ve always, always done.

Stefani, loving life, at home and on the road by Marian Lu

Gwen Stefani is no doubtedly back with No Doubt. After taking a five-year break from the ska-band, the 39-year-old singer has found success outside of No Doubt – with a fashion label (L.A.M.B), two hit records and two kids in tow.

But this summer she’s back with the band that launched her, and in its 1990s and early-2000’s heyday, sold more than 27 million records and won 2 grammys.

No Doubt plays the White River Amphitheater in Auburn on Sunday. Stefani talked to the Seattle Times:

What classic No Doubt songs will you play at the show?
We’re just trying to do the songs that make people really happy — the hits. … There’s no way you’re going to walk away and not have fun. We put everything we have into it — all of our love, all of our energy, everything.

As a solo artist, you sold 8 million albums and won a Grammy. Why did you decide to get back together with No Doubt when you had such personal success?
Since we were 17, we had never taken any time for ourselves. It was always band band band band band, because we loved it. … It was an opportunity, a window in time to just do something different. … It was never intended to be so long.

Are you going to do more solo work?
Not that I’m planning on. I feel like I’m in a time of my life where I can’t really make plans. … It’s really about living in the moment, because if you start to look ahead too far, you kind of miss where you’re at. Right now, I’m just so grateful that we’re out here. I can’t even think about writing. I mean, I think about it, and I get excited, because I listen to a lot of music when I put my makeup on. When you’re a mom, you don’t have a lot of spare time. … The whole point of going on tour was to fill myself back up, because I felt really empty after having that baby. It’s just like — wow, I don’t have anything to give, talk about or say. So now, when we go home, the idea is to just go and start writing and do No Doubt records.

There was some criticism — from folks like Margaret Cho — about appropriating Asian-ness. How do you respond to that?
People catch bits of things, so they don’t see the whole picture. But if you go back and listen to the whole song — “Harajuku Girls” — the song is clearly a song about loving a culture and being inspired by a culture. That’s all it is. It’s just being a fan. So, if anybody takes offense, of me publicly saying this culture is amazing, then there’s something wrong with them. It was very positive.

How do you describe yourself?
I just see myself as really busy and really passionate about all the opportunities that have come my way. … Now I have a family, that takes up obviously my No. 1 priority, and I try to make some good kids, you know. That’s the newest, hardest thing I’ve ever done.

How do you balance family life now that you and your husband [Gavin Rossdale] are on separate tours?
He’s actually here right now — he just got in last night. … I think when you have the family involved, you take it to a different level. It’s such a very self-centered lifestyle out here. It’s about just doing everything you can to put on a great show and that takes a lot of energy, emotionally and physically, and so when you have two little humans … and you’re missing your husband, and you’re trying to work it out all the time, and you’re catching me on a day when you’re like, “How’s it going to work?” Some days it doesn’t work and most days, it just works itself out.

Would you want your two kids to be rock stars?
Hell no, they’re not allowed.
No, I want them to be happy. I think the most important thing, the most blessed thing is I get to do what I feel passionate about. I love, love performing. I love being creative. I love designing. Being able to be passionate makes you able to work really hard and just do so many things and just enjoy life. My life is so rich and full because of that, so I hope they find something that they love.

Thanks to Jenny at BSO for posting this and Jillian for the transcription.

In the early days of No Doubt, Gwen Stefani – all fierce and fabulous – was already superwoman. Now she’s supermom, superbrand, and still bringing it onstage with the force of a superstar. By Aaron Gell

It seems impossible now, sitting with Gwen Stefani amid the dazzling bougainvillea and azalea on the sun-dappled patio of the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo lounge, but there was once a time, not long ago, when the delicate flower perched beside me on a leather banquette with her strong, thin arms wrapped around her midsection, blinking away a tear and looking like she could maybe use a hug, seemed to me the most terrifying woman in pop. Remember those No Doubt videos? There was Gwen the Malfunctioning Aerobic Fem-Bot wires crossed, head jerking maniacally from side to side in ‘Just a Girl,” and Gwen the Post-apocalyptic Jet Ski Hellion in “Hella Good.” Gwen the Noir Femme Fatale, throwing a courtroom conniption after bumping off a series of beaus in “It s My Life,” and Gwen the Tae Bo Powerhouse with the wife-beater tee and lipstick snarl, ready to take out the camera with a single well-placed kick in No Doubt’s “Excuse Me Mr.” And let’s not even mention Gwen the Foxy Nun in her solo hit “Wind It Up.” (Excuse me, sister!)

What made Stefani seem all the more dangerous – it wasn’t just me, was it? – is the way she tempered that madwoman mystique with an exaggerated, Kabuki-like femininity… no less alluring for seeming like it might be a big put-on. “She’s like a diamond-encrusted heart,” says her longtime stylist and friend Andrea Lieberman, “like this bottle of champagne with this girly effervescence, but balanced with the tomboy thing.” The whole package can make for a dizzying flurry of sexual semaphores’ Think of those caterpillar eyelashes, batting coquettishly one moment peeling back into a horrfied scream-queen grimace the next. And those Borvflex lips (her killer app), morphing from sweet pout to feral sneer in an instant. It’s this combination that makes Stefani – who spent years as a rock singer, Xeroxing band posters at Kinko’s, touring the country in a van, before her detour into pop-princess territory – so much more formidable than her semimanufactured cohorts. And now, with two platinum-plus solo albums under her belt, she’s preparing to go on the road with No Doubt the poppy ska-punk foursome that since the late ’80s has been her musical family.

Rocking a brand-new pair of superluxe Dior shades (“there’s a girl that hooks me up sometimes,” she says), a Vivienne Westwood wrap-blouse, baggy Dsquared jeans cinched with a studded belt and a pair of five-inch heels from her L.A.M.B line featuring enough straps to immobilize a grizzly bear, she cats an impressive figure as she breezes into the joint with baby Zuma on her hip, turning heads (including that of fellow celebu-mom Jennifer Garner) as she goes. And boy, are those lips red. But then she opens them to speak. Stefani is so emphatically nice in person, so unassuming and normal and chronically insecure – in the course of several conversations. she informs me that she doesn’t know how to write songs or even really sing, is a hopeless dancer, and knows next to nothing about fashion – it’s easy to forget she’s a superstar. She seems to have forgotten it herself.

“Obviously, I’m not anything more than I am,” she says at one point. “I’m just, like, totally normal The fact that any of this has happened, that we’re sitting here at the Beverly Hills Hotel” – she casts a dubious expression over the well-manicured patrons around us – “just gets me going, like, ‘What?’ ”

Apparently, Scary Gwen emerges only when Stefani’s working out (her Scottish trainer has recently flown in to prepare her for the three-month tour) or performing. “Definitely when I go onstage I feel superpowerfuJ,” she says. “There’s something that clicks, another side of me. I don’t even have control over it”

“When you put her in a costume,” says Jimmy lovine, the legendary chief of Interscope, Stefani’s label for 18 years, “she turns into Superman.”

Five years ago, Stefani took a break from No Doubt – her first since high school when the band’s then-mastermind, her big brother, Eric, asked her to help out on vocals – to try her luck as a solo artist. “I just did the circuit” she says of working with producers such as Pharell Williams and Nellee Hooper. “You write with all the same people Christina Aguilera writes with, and the music’s very programmed and done in this very patchwork way. But it was so fun. I felt like I was playing a character.” After two monster hit albums, 2004’s Love.Angel.Music.Baby and 2006’s The Sweet Escape, she finds herself negotiating old relationships on new terms.

“Everybody’s making it like there’s all this tension, you know, like I stepped away from the band and now they’re jealous of me, and look, maybe there is a little bit of that,” she admits, while emphasizing that she never actually quit the band. More important, though, is the personal transformation she’s gone through. When No Doubt recorded its last studio album, 2001’s Rock Steady, she points out, “I wasn’t even married. Now I’m a wife and a mother of two. It’s a really different role. I always referred to No Doubt as a marriage, because that s what it s like to be together for so long and go through what we’ve been through. I can’t really have that relationship with them anymore. My priorities are always going to be my husband and my family now. That’s a huge, huge thing.”

Originally, No Doubt hoped to record a new album before going on tour, like bands usually do. But when they got together to write new material, Stefani says, nothing really gelled. Practically every day at noon for four months, bass player Tony Kanal and guitarist Tom Dumont turned up at her house, where she and her husband, Gavin Rossdale, have a studio, and thought about music. “At about 4:45,we’d be like, ‘Okay, the magic’s going to happen right now,’ ” she says. “And it just wasn’t happening.” When they recorded a cover of Adam and the Ants’ “Stand and Deliver” for a forthcoming episode of Gossip Girl Gwen and Tony wound up having “a heated conversation” over how the song should sound’ “But some fights aren’t really what they seem,” she says. “I think it was a little about the song and a little about our coming back together. There was this air bubble that needed to pop, you know?”

Speaking of pesky air bubbles and the troubles they cause, Stefani is also in fulI-on mom mode. “It’s one thing when you have an infant,” she says, “but when you have this two- or three-year-old going ‘Mommy, what’s the deal?!’ it’s harder. Kingston’s whole thing is, ‘I need, I need.’ He is insane right now. We’re just hoping for the best and that he’s not going to turn out to be a freak, but we’ll see.”

She would never, ever spank her kids, she says. “But I’ve wrestled him. I’ve gotten my muscles out on him, that’s for sure. He’s in that really challenging phase, but what I’m learning is it’s all phases.

Stefani, who turn 40 in October, is going through a phase herself. Her voice seems to drop several decibels when she talks about it. “I just feel very in between at the moment” she says. “Like in my cocoon waiting to blossom into whatever’s going to be. But like, I’m screwed right now, okay? I’m so screwed’ I might never be able to write another song. Who knows? I did try. So here we are, going on tour without a new record.” She pauses and shakes her head. “But then I think what I’ve gone through is major, right? I got married and had two human beings come out of my body – plus two albums and two clothing lines that were born during the same period. I’m still nursing! I’m a little sucked dry. Like maybe once I sleep through the night, maybe I’ll be able to write a song. That’s where I’m at. I want so badly to write a record. I wa¡t to make every other songwriter jealous. But it’s just not happening right now.”

It s at this point in the conversation, which has tumed into more of a rush of words from her and a sort of open-mouthed silence from me, that I notice Stefani’s eyes begin to glisten. And although she’s got way too much expertise with mascara to be wiping away tears, it’s a little stunning to witness a celebrity in such a vulnerable and raw condition. “I feel superinsecure right now,” she says. “But this always happens to me.”

“The stakes are higher,” Lieberman comnents later. “You’ve got kids and fancier things, bigger houses, and more people to pay. But she goes through it every time.”

“Every album,” Iovine agrees, noting that an earlier case of writer’s block was the theme of a scene in her “What You Waiting For?” video from Love.Angel.Music.Baby. Iovine first saw No Doubt in 1990 and famously promised Stefani – whom he recalls as being “a hurricane in a bottle” – that if the band stuck with it she’d be a star in five years. “I don’t blame her for saying she’s nervous,” he says. “She should be. Gwen’s not going to lie to herself. She knows what’s ahead of her in that studio, and she won’t do it half-ass. She’s the real thing.”

The second of four siblings, Stefani grew up in Anaheim, California, practically in the shadow of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Her father was a marketing executive, her mother an accountant turned home-maker. It was an idyllic childhood in many ways – she describes her family, with whom she’s still extremely close, as “like The Brady Bunch” but after third grade, she began to struggle in school. “Once you got into the real nuts and bolts of it like my spelling and math and basically all the other subjects, I had a hard time,” she recalls. She now thinks may have had a touch of dyslexia. “School was just really hard for me. I didn’t want to fail. I wanted to be smart! But I was really dreaming, like drawing my boyfriend’s name on my notebooks. It was such a disaster. It’s so sad! It makes me sad when I think about it. I still have nightmares about tests.”

A “total goody two-shoes,” as she puts it, Stefani describes herself in the Rock Steady track “Hey Baby” as ‘Just sippin” on chamomile” while her bandmates lived out a slightly more familiar rock star fantasy. Her teen years were spent practicing with No Doubt (sharing vocal duties with John Spence), sewing her own clothes, and listening to favorite musicals such as The Sound of Music and Evita. Eventually she landed a job as a makeup girl at a local mall. “I never had any kind of ambitions,” she says. “I just thought I was going to have babies.”

Though she joined No Doubt mostly to placate her brother Eric, she soon found that performing gave her a desperately needed jolt of power. The ska-punk scene was deeply male, she says, “so whenever I went onstage there was this automatic assumption that I couldn’t get the audience going because I was a girl. I just ignored that like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to be all made up, and I’m going to destroy you. If you’re not looking at me right now, you’re going to because I’m going to fucking get you to look at me and fuck you! Raaarrrhhg!’ ” Stefani puts up her firsts and growls, and suddenly, for a split second, there she is, the girl in the videos. “The F-word was my favorite word,” she adds, laughing.

Gwen became the band’s lead singer in 1987, following Spence’s suicide. She took an even more dominant role several years later when Eric left to become an animator on The Simpsons. “When I found out that I could write songs, I felt like all of a sudden I’d found myself. Like, really, this power that I had that I never had before. It was amazing to have something that I could do after the whole school problem. I remember playing them for my dad and him being, like”-her voice cracks a little-” ‘Keep going. Because these are really good.’ ”

Stefani’s high school boyfriend was No Doubt’s bass player, Tony Kanal. Somehow the band stayed together when their romantic relationship ended after roughly eight years, and Stefani’s anguish over the split inspired many tracks on their third album, Tragic Kingdom. Barely a year later, she met Gavin Rossdale when No Doubt opened for his band, Bush. “It’s like, I only had two boyfriends in my life, and I married one of them,” Stefani says. “That’s how I wound up getting over Tony. It was like, Wow, someone can be really into me! Someone likes me!”

The next day, Stefani arrives at the tiny West Hollywood bungalow belonging to her younger brother Todd, a videographer. With her are Zuma, his nanny, Stefani’s personal assistant and an old friend of Rossdale’s named Pete. “Great, now the house is full!” Todd jokes to his wife, Jen.

First on the agenda is a “merch meeting” with one of Stefani’s managers, an officious blond named Lisa, who’s come armed with a MacBook. Zuma hangs in the other room with his nanny and Aunt Jen as Mom surveys proposed designs for ringer tees, hoodies, “button packs,” and glow-light bracelets, some for sale in tour venues, others bound for retail outlets. “I want that pink, that Sex Pistols pink,” Stefani says at one point later declaring the use of multiple arrows in one No Doubt logo “a little too ska.” With her two fashion lines – L.A.M.B. and Harajuku Lovers, which, combined, rake in retail sales of some $200 million per year – not to mention her Harajuku Lovers fragrance, one of the top 10 best selling in the
country, Stefani is an old hand at such meetings. While her style has become more sophisticated over the years, she’s bounced between two poles – prim and punky – since the beginning when she’d just as likely be found sporting combat boots as dresses lifted from The Sound of Music.

Next a short video greeting for an awards show Stefani can’t attend must be shot. The plan: Walk up Melrose and wing it. Lisa wonders about security. “Oh, come on,” Stefani says. “Nobody’s going to mob me. Nobody cares.”

Todd hands Pete a boom mic, lifts a camera onto his shoulder, and, as everyone heads out bellows, “This is run-and-gun, people!”

She’s barely finished one take when the first paparazzo arrives and radios for reinforcements; suddenly there’s a swarm: paps, fans, tourists, curious passersby. Traffic slows to a crawl as motorists crane their necks for a look. A few takes later, Todd announces he has what he needs and the entourage hightails it back to the house, slamming the door behind them. Outside, the paps slowly circle the block like gangbangers plotting a drive-by.

Back at work, Stetani and Lisa confer over her schedule, trying to isolate the few days when Gwen’s and Gavin’s tours nearly intersect so King can see his dad. They take a quick spin through the new No Doubt website and talk over a new shirtdress for Harajuku Lovers. Once the paps have given up, Gwen, Zuma and Pete pile into the Range Rover and drive to the Hollywood Hills to meet with Lieberman about the tour costumes. As Zuma and Lieberman’s baby daughter Paloma (wearing a Harajuku Lovers onesie) enjoy an impromptu playdate, the two moms fondle metallic fabric swatches and talk kilts, corsets, and punker pants. The overall look, as Stefani puts it is “like a ’60s, cyber-futristic version of the old me.”

Although she won’t be doing nearly as many costume changes as she did on her solo tours, she and Lieberman plan one big “reveal,” when Stefani will doff her skirt and jacket to show off a pair of shorts during “Undemeath It All.”

Stefani sings a bit of the song, snapping her fingers and grooving to the music. Her eyes light up, and for a moment you can see her imagining herself onstage, looking out over the ocean of faces, her power returning at last.

“Okay, what about the encore?” Lieberman asks as Paloma crawls over and begins gumming Stefani’s BlackBerry Pearl. Stefani laughs. “You know, we might not even get an encore,” she says, the insecurities flooding back.

Prudently, they hook up a hot costume, just in case.

Five years, a grip of side and solo projects, limitless speculation and a nursery (or two) full of babies later, No Doubt are heading back on the road. They’re ready, more or less.

“I think we’ll be just rehearsed enough to pull it off, not so well-rehearsed that something couldn’t go wrong,” guitarist Tom Dumont admits. “That’s just where you want to be at the beginning of a tour, I think.”

Dumont and Co. would know, having cut their teeth relentlessly touring their native Orange County prior to blowing up into one of the world’s biggest bands. But things have changed, both professionally and personally.

“It’s crazy, the last four or five years, everybody’s really grown up in the sense of – I got married, I have two kids,” Dumont says. “Gwen [Stefani] has two kids. So, I guess we’ve kind of just crossed into that next phase of our lives.”

The very same life changes have rendered speculation about production of the band’s yet-to-be-written or recorded fifth album; a wild goose chase, not only for rabid bloggers and fanboys, but for the band itself.

The seeds for a follow-up to 2001’s Rock Steady were planted in 2007 when, following a three-year hiatus in which Stefani cemented herself as a bona fide superstar with two wildly-successful solo albums and became a first-time mother, the singer voiced a desire to reunite the group.

“The idea was to have an album finished, you know, by the end of [2008] and tour this year, but you know, we didn’t get much done,” Dumont says.

When Stefani became pregnant with her second child, the record-writing process halted altogether.

“We’ve kind of never been fast at making records and writing albums,” Dumont says. “And, so towards the end of the year, after she had her baby and we realized we weren’t going to have an album ready, you know, we were kind of bummed because the touring part of the album is kind of the pay-off and the fun part. Hitting the road and playing live is kind of the blast of it all.”

Luckily for hoards of fans clamoring for tickets to this summer’s much-anticipated super tour, the draw of the road was too strong to foil the plan.

“The novel idea came up at the end of last year; ‘well, screw it, let’s just tour anyway,’” Dumont says.

“The idea was just to play shows and go and kind of revisit the early days of the band when we were a live band again, have fun together, and hopefully through that process we’ll get stoked and figure out what kind of album to make, how to make an album, what to write about, all that.”

As such, the Summer Reunion Tour with the likes of openers Paramore, The Sounds, Katy Perry and Panic at the Disco, will have a distinctly “greatest hits” flavor to it (Diamond-certified album Tragic Kingdom will provide plenty of ammo, alone).

Still, the wait for a new record for the first time in nearly a decade weighs heavily on everyone. What will it sound like? Lyrically, what direction will it head?

At this point, even the band has more questions than answers.

“I think it’s partially a matter of figuring out; ‘what is relevant to write about?’ Dumont says. “It’s that figuring out process: what do I have in common with these three guys now, and what kind of music makes sense for us to do? It’s kind of like getting reacquainted again, in a way, as friends and everything. It hasn’t been that long of a break, but it’s been long enough that, it’s like, what’s our common ground?”

And while No Doubt sorts through what remains, interpersonally, after a long layoff, the bigger challenge may be coming to grips with the dramatically-transformed world around them.

“It’s a hard thing to figure out, and the way the record business is, it’s hard to figure out if we make a record, who is it for? The world’s changed. Records are still meaningful and relevant, yet at the same time, they don’t have the cultural impact that they used to have. We’re never going to sell 10 million records again. Nobody does. It’s like the whole world is splintered into a thousand little pieces, which I think is a healthy thing for music,” Dumont says.

“It’s just up to us to figure out what’s our place in that, where do we fit in, and where can we do something that feels right and feels meaningful.”

In between bites of a Cobb salad at New York’s Tribeca Grand Hotel, Gwen Stefani is explaining why No Doubt is going on tour for the first time in five years without a new album to promote.

“Honestly, it’s procrastination,” she says with a sigh. “My plan was to get pregnant and write a record, but instead of writing, I just ate all the time.”

Stefani laughs as she pops a tomato in her mouth. “Writing is always really hard for me – I hate it and hate it and then I do it, and I’m happy it’s done,” she says. “I was blocked and I needed to get inspired, and I thought playing live would get the creative juices flowing again.”

Which isn’t to say Stefani and her No Doubt bandmates haven’t been busy since the 2001 release of their last album, “Rock Steady.” Stefani, who has two sons, ages 8 months and 3 years, released two solo albums, “Love. Angel. Music. Baby.,” which sold 4 million copies, and “The Sweet Escape,” which sold 1.7 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Bassist Tony Kanal did production work on Stefani’s albums and wrote songs with artists including Pink. Guitarist Tom Dumont produced two records, scored a documentary and was a stay-at-home dad. Drummer Adrian Young did session work and played golf.

Now they’ll be together for a tour that starts Saturday (May 16) in Las Vegas and ends August 1 in Irvine, California.

Hitting the road without new material after years of relative silence might seem like a risk, but the band’s manager, Jim Guerinot, was delighted when the group approached him with the idea. “I think it’s the right move,” he says. “Even though they remained friends throughout the hiatus, they’ve all been working on other projects and haven’t spent a lot of time together. They’ve become more of a unit in the time they’ve been rehearsing together and played a few shows, and I think this will change things for the positive.”

A weight was lifted

So far, the reception has been enthusiastic. Tickets have been selling briskly for the shows; seven dates in Southern California have sold out, according to Live Nation spokesman John Vlautin, as have shows in Houston, Denver and at Jones Beach on New York’s Long Island.

The band started rehearsing in Hollywood, then set up shop in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to prepare for East Coast dates. “As soon as the pressure to make a new album was off, it was like a weight was lifted,” Stefani says. “I could get back into learning the songs and planning the show, and it was so much more fun than banging my head against a wall in the studio.”

No Doubt wants to make it clear that it’s not another ’90s band looking to hit the road and cash in on the band’s greatest hits. “I don’t see us as being part of that ’90s revival,” Kanal says. “We were always a band, even when we weren’t playing together.”

The group also wants to make sure its audience doesn’t consist entirely of twenty- and thirtysomethings who know the band only through “Just a Girl,” its 1995 breakthrough hit single. So it will give away digital copies of its three studio albums to anyone who buys tickets in the top two price tiers. (Seats for No Doubt’s run of summer dates range from $10 for lawn seats to $80 for the best seats, with $59.50 and $24.50 price points in between.)

“Tom had the idea to give the albums away electronically for free with the ticket purchase,” Guerinot says. “A lot of people like Gwen’s solo work but might not be as familiar with No Doubt. There are people who might not have listened to the records in a while.”

Dumont says that giving away the catalog seemed like an obvious value-add. “Lots of bands give away their new CDs, but we didn’t have one of those,” he says. “I’ve always thought you should be able to go and buy an entire catalog in one click, so you could get a broad representation of a band’s work.”

In his mind, giving the music to fans is a continuation of No Doubt’s time-tested strategy. “When we first started out, we had mailing lists and parties where we’d sit and lick stamps for hours. This is a more modern version of that. And we won’t get high off of licking stamp backing, either.”

Today and tomorrow

If the band is worried about fans forgetting the hits, it shouldn’t be. At recent performances on NBC’s “Today” and at the Bamboozle festival in New Jersey, the audience sang along as the band ripped through a set of its greatest hits, including “Spiderwebs,” “Don’t Speak” and its cover of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life.” The audience at both events leaned slightly older, and at Bamboozle, when Stefani asked those in the crowd to raise their hands if it was their first No Doubt show, many did. Still, they proceeded to sing along to most of the songs.

After the joys of parenthood and channeling their inner Tiger Woods, the band members will do their best to maintain a semblance of normalcy on the road. All admit to being fitness fanatics, and they’re indulging their need to jog while touring. “We travel with two personal trainers,” Kanal says. “We make hotels keep their gyms open late so we can work out. We’re getting older, and we can’t party like we used to.”

But Kanal says that being older has plenty of perks. “We got to live though the record industry in its heyday. When we started, we were in a van and looking for change under the seats so we could buy food. We went from that to having a hit and getting to do things like make music videos with million-dollar budgets.”

Stefani says she and the rest of the band aren’t interested in “gratuitous fame,” but she still finds herself in the spotlight. “I have to wear makeup to the gym because I get some dude doing sit-ups next to me and surreptitiously taking pictures,” she says.

And although Stefani cheerfully shows off pictures of her sons, Kingston and Zuma, she’d rather talk about her ventures as a businesswoman, albeit in a self-effacing manner. Her clothing line, LAMB, is in its seventh year, and she also has her own perfume. Still, Stefani is slow to take credit for it all.

“I’m a good collaborator,” she says. “I’m always open to other opinions, and I can do things like have meetings at my house and juggle it all. I’m actually heading to a five-hour meeting about the new line of handbags after this, and I’m pretty excited. I started it seven years ago and never thought it would last, but here we are.”

During the “Today” performance, Stefani and her cohorts were self-assured, despite worries the day before that they might forget parts of the set. There was a moment during the intro solo of the track “Don’t Speak” where a slight tension rose among the members, but it quickly dissipated as Dumont hit every chord and Stefani’s voice kicked in. Backstage, the visibly relaxed band conducted an interview with a local morning news anchor, who had attended some of the act’s mailing-list parties in the early ’90s in Orange County.

“We’re from Anaheim,” Stefani says with a laugh as she considers her opportunities. “This is cliche to say, but we never thought this would happen to us. We built a studio in the garage, and now we’re driving around on tour with a bus that has a studio in it. We survived it all and we’re still friends, and that’s great.”

On the second night of No Doubt’s new tour, Gwen Stefani looked into the sea of fans and screamed, “I fucking love this song!” before launching into “It’s My Life.” It’s the band’s first time on the road since 2004, and the adrenaline is pumping: Stefani also climbed a lighting rig and busted out a set of push-ups during the show, which highlighted the group’s hits. “We’re a live band — we had to get out there and reconnect onstage,” says bassist Tony Kanal, who filled usin on the band’s 55-date tour.

Why tour without a new CD?
We need to find our muse — that’s what this tour is for. Before we made Rock Steady, we has so much fun on the road — having dance parties — that we got excited about dancehall and went to Jamaica to record. When we started wrting our new album, the inspiration was missing, so we decided to get out and play.

Have you written any new tunes?
There’s tons of ideas, but we’re not far enough along to play anything live. I put a studio on my bus, so whenever there’s a long drive, I’ll invite my bandmates on board to work on music.

How is touring now that your bandmates all have kids?
It’s a totally different dynamic — there are five babies out there! Gwen and the guys have cribs on their buses; the afterparty room with the DJ rig and bar is being turned into a romper room.

What’s it like to play old songs?
Tragic Kingdom songs like “Happy Now?” and “End It On This” bring back memories. We’re so lucky to be doing this after 23 years. I know it’s difficult for other bands, but not for us. We actually like each other.

Thanks to Jenny at BSO for the transcription!