Tag: Andre 3000

Gwenopolis

Having just come off a world tour promoting her record-breaking solo career and right before she steps into the studio with her old cohorts No Doubt, singer Gwen Stefani is flying too fast and bright to slow down. It’s safe to say that Stefani has become one of the gods of today’s pop music world, with plenty of devoted followers. Welcome to Gwenopolis.

A few days before I’m supposed to meet Gwen Stefani in Los Angeles for this interview, I just happen to run into her in a Virgin Megastore. Not surprisingly, Gwen is striking-movie-star blonde, impossibly big brown eyes, impeccable style. She also happens to be standing in a clear plastic box and is approximately 12″ tall. It’s the “Hollaback Gwen” doll, a fascinating (and, in this case, adorable) barometer of fame. It’s one thing to acquire international pop-star status, your own fashion empire, a level of wealth unimaginable to most humans, and what appears to be an enviable level of domestic bliss (right after this interview took place, Stefani indeed became pregnant with a second child). It’s quite another to actually see yourself immortalized in toy form. Read the rest of this article »

Shadow of a Doubt

Unlikely ska-chick turned international fashion icon and starlet Gwen Stefani is pushing for world domination with her Harajuku hip-pop.

Her debut solo album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby, released last year, has gone six-times platinum worldwide and, with pop anthems like ‘Hollaback Girl’ becoming the sound of 2005, Gwen Stefani has spent the year becoming a solo star of truly international status.

Hardly suprising – she has all the makings of a sex icon – bleached blonde barnet? Check. Scarlet smackers? Check. Tight belly constantly on display? Check. Gwen Stefani really is an all round siren, ticking all the boxes. An individual, quirky trend bender with a feisty attitude. Gwen was already an accomplished star, as the enigmatic front woman of No Doubt before she launched herself as a modern day style icon. An important addition to a long line of contemporary feisty females fronters of rock and alternative bands, she is the Debbie Harry of our generation. Read the rest of this article »

She wears the crown

Few mix it up like style queen Gwen Stefani. But unlike most pretenders to her throne, she’s not too precious to share her secrets. Respect.

We get a shock when Gwen Stefani walks into the room. That’s to be expected, of course,  from a peroxide bombshell rock goddess. But today, as she saunters in from the 11 o’clock sunshine to the industrial cool of an LA photo studio, we’re taken aback because she’s so, well, under-stated.

Dressed almost head to toe in her own label L.A.M.B (Mukluk-style boots being the only concession), a beanie covers her trademark hair, over-sized shades shield her face and, despite the bomber jacket, she looks daintier than her larger-than-life stage presence – kinda doll like, which is really rather appropriate for a girl with such a penchant for dressing up.

‘This is my everyday outfit,’ she says. ‘These jackets are wicked, the lining’s camouflage with little lambs – I call it Lambi Cami.’ Gwen’s got a way with words – just read the lyrics, or cute sleeve notes, on her debut solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby (L.A.M.B, geddit?). And as she laughs and chatters her way through our interview so enthusiastically that it’s a struggle to actually get a word in, it’s clear that not only has she got plenty to crow about, but that she’s toe-wigglingly happy with life right now. Read the rest of this article »

Everyone has a view on Gwen Stefani:

She’s a punk-rock pin-up, a female David Bowie, the new princess of pop, a style icon, a hip-hop superstar, a movie starlet, the red-carpet goddess, a cultural chameleon. Just don’t call her a faker…

“What I would say to those people,” spits Stefani in her helium-tipped Cali-purr, “is do your research. I was in a band with all guys since I was 16 years old. I’ve been in a fucking rock band touring the fucking world for eighteen years. So if you’re gonna try and erase that, then I’m gonna stick my finger right up in your face. ‘Cos you know what? I did it. And you try and be a girl and do that in 1987. Read the rest of this article »

Bound for glory

Ska-punk siren Gwen Stefani is about to go stellar with a debut solo album and a plum role in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator. But GQ managed to tie her down… By Charlie Porter. Photographs by Marc Hom.

Gwen Stefani is sitting in a Mercedes and she’s fizzing, fast words, few pauses. “The record is ridiculous. It is RI-DI-CU-LOUS.” Ridiculous, in her native Orange County, California speak, appears to be a very good thing. We’re driving away from the photoshoot at an abandoned riverside building in deepest south London, where the basement rooms feel like dungeons and the sparse furniture includes what seems to be a miniature bondage chair, rope knotted tight across its frame. Would she sit on it for GQ? Stefani strides up and straddles it, happy to oblige. Read the rest of this article »

DATE UNKNOWN: above date is a general guide

Gwen Stefani

Scared solo

When Gwen Stefani got the call that Linda Perry was ready to write with her, the first thing she did was bury her face in a pillow and cry. All she wanted to do was sleep. And now she was going to have to get up and get creative.

When she arrived at Perry’s house, nothing she did seemed fast enough. Stefani would go into another room to try to write some lyrics, and when she came back, Perry would already have the whole song nailed. “Dude, slow down. This is my record. Let me be a part of it,” Gwen thought. Read the rest of this article »

Dancing Queen

With Madonna lost in Kabbalah-land, Gwen Stefani, who is releasing her dance-pop solo debut, Love Angel Music Baby, looks set to take over as Top Blonde. Here, the No Doubt frontwoman and fashion icon talks marriage, movies, motherhood, and the future of her band.

She used to be just a girl. Now she’s just “Gwen.” Thanks to megahits with Eve and Moby, a hot clothing line (L.A.M.B), a fantasy wedding to longtime boyfriend Gavin Rossdale, and her film debut (as ’30s movie star Jean Harlow, opposite Leo DiCaprio, in Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator), the No Doubt singer has transformed into a one-name pop icon and multimedia brand – the kind you read about in supermarket tabloids, fashion bibles and rock magazines alike. With every door in the music industry open to her as she plotted her solo debut, Love Angel Music Baby, Stefani went shopping for producer (Dr. Dre, Andre 3000, and Linda Perry among them) and emerged with a truly eclectic homage to the ’80s pop disco of her adolescence. With a potential motherhood and a film career ahead, this may be the last time the 35-year-old will be able to stay in the groove for very long, and she’’s determined to dance for inspiration. Read the rest of this article »

Blown away

Thanks to a radical hip hop reinvention and a series of credible creative hook-ups, Gwen Stefani has emerged in recent times as a major music player. Now, on the eve of her solo launch, the iconic blonde talks about boys, girls, celluloid dreams and making “a little dance record of her own”. Pop goes the superstar!

Somewhere within Gwen Stefani there must be an element of sadness, dourly gestating, imprisoned, waiting to break free. Not that you’d know it from the woman herself. You won’t get so much as a breath of negativity from eight straight hours in her company. Spending time with Gwen is like mainlining a curious, buoyant cocktail of Sunny D and liquid seratonin; it’s as if helium has magically found it’s way into the air-conditioning. She oozes essence of zesty, goofball, feelgood California. She’s got a succession of quickfire, cheerful punchlines beamed straight in from The OC script office on some delirious repeat edit and raises an iconic eyebrow by way of saucy punctuation for each one. If I had a dollar bill for every time I heard the word ‘dude’ coming from her big, smiley, slasher Hollywood mouth, I’d most probably have a couple of hundred bucks by the day’s end. Read the rest of this article »

The Greatest Show on Earth?

Well, No Doubt’s greatest hits, anyway – which is what they’ll be playing on their last tour before Gwen Stefani drops a solo CD. By Chris Willman.

Shooting what little breeze there is on a hot, insufferably still LA day, Gwen Stefani suddenly feels the need to cull a statistic from a bandmate. “How many times do you think you’ve thrown up in your life, Tony?” she asks. Tony Kanal looks like he’s not certain he wants to play this game. “I’m not sure it’s a lot,” the bass player answers with a nervous chuckle. Better to focus on the immediate future. “This time,” he insists, “it’s gonna be much more mellow and healthy.” Fifty points if you’ve already figured out our subject of the day: rock touring. Their little O.C.-teem-ska-band-that-could, No Doubt, is hitting the amphitheater circuit in June, pairing up with blink-182 for one of the summer’s most anticipated tours. (One of the most economical too: Ticket prices top out in the mid-two-figure range, or about $250 cheaper than it’d cost you for a similar seat to see Madonna.) It’s a nationwide victory lap in honor of their recent blockbuster hits collection, The Singles 1992-2003, whose new song, a cover of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life,” afforded them yet another top 10 smash (their tenth). This could be the optimal point in their history to catch the band: They’ve been together long enough to almost count as seasoned elder statesmen – 17 years, which is about 170 in rock years – but, being still in their 30s, they’re vigorous, scrappy, and in no danger yet of outgrowing their audience. Read the rest of this article »