No Doubt Scrapbook

Hella Great

With a new baby, an impending wedding and a breakthrough hit single - “Hella Good” - it’s no wonder the members of No Doubt are feeling fine in the summertime. By: Cara Lynn Shultz

The members of No Doubt are screaming for their lives. They’ve been electrocuted, blasted with fire, and now they’re plummeting off the side of a 10-story building. At the last minute they’re whisked to safety by… Spider-Man? That’s right. Singer Gwen Stefani, 32, bassist Tony Kanal, 31, and guitarist Tom Dumont, 34, are spending a rare free afternoon at Universal’s Islands of Adventure in Orlando, cramming eight rides - including the virtual reality Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man - into a 90-minute field trip. (Drummer Adrian Young, 32, is off playing golf.) After going on one stomach-churning roller coaster twice, Tom asks the operator, “Don’t you have any Snow White rides?” Everyone laughs, but he’s got a point - they could use a break. Read the rest of this article »

Rock Steady

Hip chick and No Doubt’s front woman Gwen Stefani gives us the lowdown on music, marriage and what it takes to get the flattest stomach in pop.

Who didn’t have Hey Baby stuck in their head for, like, weeks? No Doubt’s number two smash (their first biggie since 1997’s Don’t Speak) is so hip-swingingly addictive that it’s still being played like crazy on the radio. And as for Gwen Stefani’s smash collaboration with Eve (Let Me Blow Your Mind), well, it just goes to show she’s one of the hottest divas around. With bags of talent, a shiny, new ghetto fabulous look and fiancé (she’s getting spliced to Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale), she’s poised to take on the world, despite her protests that she’s just “a normal girl from Orange County.” Read the rest of this article »

Adrian Young’s Nonstop Skank

No Doubt’s Drummer dusts off his ska roots, teases the Mohawk, and proceeds to party on with the release of Rock Steady

It’s a Psycho-suburban dream come true: Adrian Young was a striving young drummer living in suburbia, playing golf, drumming at home, and playing in a local band called No Doubt. Fifteen years and seventeen million records later Young is a striving young drummer living in suburbia, drumming at home, playing golf and playing in a famous band called No Doubt. Read the rest of this article »

No Doubt’s Anniversary Party

In which we celebrate the union of Gwen and Gavin, the spectacular success of the little so-cal band that could and the arrival of a dangerous character known as the douche. by Neil Strauss

Thousands of Staind and Linkin Park fans are packed into the Universal Amphitheaters in Los Angeles, unaware that No Doubt are about to make a surprise appearance. And to tell the truth, no one is sure if these fans really care. No Doubt are the only band tonight with a female member, the only group more attuned to ska and reggae than rap and rock, and the only act whose current single “Hey Baby,” is full of New Wave electronics and drum machine beats. There is no aggression or angst to be found in “Hey Baby,” kids, just Gwen Stefani singing about sipping chamomile tea. Can you relate to that? Read the rest of this article »

What you hear is what you get

Back from its trip to Saturn, No Doubt is ready to Rock Steady. By Tom Lanham.

Gwen Stefani is late. Not really late, just 15 minutes or so. But the platinum-haired, pout-lipped, pinup-perfect ska-pop goddess has a good cause - her boyfriend, the similarly pout-lipped, pinup-perfect rock icon, Gavin Rossdale of Bush renown, is her wheel man this particularly crisp autumn afternoon. He must’ve missed a Hollywood-hills turn or two. And when this oft-photographed No Doubt diva arrives? Most assuredly, she’s ready for her close up, Mr DeMille; in a flowing, floor length, red cashmere cape (complete with wolf-wowing hood), Stefani sweeps into the spacious, sparsely appointed digs of her band’s bassist Tony Kanal. She doesn’t just walk - in her patent-leather pumps, camouflage pedal pushers and baggy V-neck sweater - but sweeps and ’40s film starlets must’ve swept on Oscar night. Read the rest of this article »

Tony Kanal Interviewed by Brandon Griggs

What made you guys enter the studio so soon?
We were just feeling the vibes. We finished touring in November of last year and we started writing at the beginning of January. The writing process moved quickly and was going so well that we were like ‘lets go into the studio and make this happen’. As smooth as everything was going, there was really no reason to wait.

So did you all help out on the writing of this album or did you have any outside collaborations?
Gwen, Tom and I wrote most of this record, but we did do a couple of outside collaborations. We co-wrote a song with Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics, and a song with The Neptunes (a hip-hop production team). Read the rest of this article »

Growing Up Doubtless

No Doubt’s Tony Kanal gains taste & maturity.

This summer marks 30 years since Tony Kanal was born and 15 since he took up bass. For nearly 14 of those years, Tony has played in the service of No Doubt, a band that began in Southern California’s third wave ska underground and became one of the defining groups of ’90s pop. With the 1995 Interscope album Tragic Kingdom, and its worldwide, bass-heavy hits “Just a Girl,” “Spiderwebs,” and “Don’t Speak,” No Doubt seemed to come from nowhere to international stardom. But this was no overnight success; Tony and his bandmates had struggled to make it since high school. Read the rest of this article »

Mission to 1982

Tired of Ska, Bored with bindis, and suffering from writers block, No Doubt looked back to the 80’s for inspiration, conjuring a new-wave fest that would do Missing Persons proud.
Now only if a certain person would propose…

In bed with Gwen Stefani! Bliss! Rapture! Total listener-contest dream come true!

That is, if you’ve haven’t already spent two years in a tour bus with Gwen Stefani. Or a thousand hours at soundchecks with Gwen Stefani. Or 18 months in recording studios with Gwen Stefani. Or untold nights in cramped, urine-smelling, graffiti-mottled backstage dressing rooms with Gwen Stefani. Read the rest of this article »

No Doubt

It’s 1992 and your career looks bleak.

Your first record couldn’t have been less adept to the climate: In the midst of gloomy, distortion-saturated sounds emanating from Seattle, you’d gone and released a peppy, pop-infused ska/new wave record that plunged into obscurity almost upon release. Your label has pretty much shelved you, and your key songwriter is about to bail, What do you do?

If you’re No Doubt, you just keep to your game plan - and get famous. 1995’s Tragic Kingdom scored the Anaheim, California quartet a slew of hit singles and an eventual resting place a Billboard’s No. 1, but that’s not all. Critics who’d dogged the band early on as throwaway pop or simply more product from the Orange County ska scene were now praising them for their infectious zeal and singer Gwen Stefani’s potent stage presence. And fans were continuing to gobble up Tragic Kingdom, eventually rendering it platinum 15 times over. So what do you do for a follow up? (Gulp.) Read the rest of this article »

No Doubt

Tom Dumont & Tony Kanal signal The End of Modern Rock

One this is for sure. The bell has tolled. Alternative rock is dead. Shut the coffin, tighten the bolts. After some brilliant contributions (Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth) to the music world over the last decade, the flame is now extinguished, sending its last, weakened plume skyward. Eh… better to burn out than fade away, right?

Though “serious” players may be breathing a collective sigh of relief at the news - alternative rock having served as a thorn in the side of many of you for quite a while - its death leaves a few questions unanswered. First how did it die> Wasn’t it just storming the airwaves? Second, what will take its place in the national market? And last, does anybody care? Read the rest of this article »