She’s the consummate multi-tasker

Grammy-winning frontwoman of No Doubt, multiplatinum solo artist, deisgner of two clothing lines, wife of rocker Gavin Rossdale and, in less than two months, mother of their first child. Last week, at home in her 1923 Spanish-style home in Los Feliz, Ca., Gwen Stefani still looked the part, wearing maternity jeans, a vintage sweater dress belted above her bump and Rasta-hued Christian Louboutin espadrilles. In her first sit-down interview since announcing her pregnancy, Stefani opened up about her music, her fashion career, her body and her great expectations.
You seem happy to be hanging out at home.
I love this place so much. I’ve been here since about 1998, right after the Tragic Kingdom album. I moved out of my parents’ house into this, and I finally got my studio done. But obviously, we’re probably going to to have to move once I have the baby. My husband wants to write songs, and there’s no more room. He can’t have a studio next to the baby’s room. This house is really great for singing if you’re the only person in it.

How are you feeling today?
Right now I’m sort of in lazy mode. I’m obsessed with watching TV and eating [laughs]. But seriously, this is great. It’s the first time I’ve had to focus on designing since I’ve kind of put the music on hold, and it’s been really fun. Everyone comes to the house and we sit here in the living room and have cookies and design. It feels good not to be double-dipping the whole time, because when you are performing, touring and doing appearances, it’s hard to balance both. It takes a lot of energy. The week before, I worked on L.A.M.B. spring 2007 three full days straight and we rolled into Harajuku Lovers that Thursday. After a certain point, it gets hard to see straight.

Compare Harajuku Lovers and L.A.M.B.
There’s nothing to be compared about the two, but at the same time, it’s a challenge for them not to copy each other, because they’re both me. L.A.M.B.’s my serious art project and my passion, and Harajuku Lovers is part of a bigger picture. With music, you do the actual songs, the videos, the artwork, the Web site and now you can do clothes to go with it. So that’s all one big creative pile.

Describe the creative process behind L.A.M.B.
I used to get really bummed about having to drop something, or if things didn’t work out. Now I just realize it’s going to come, and if I don’t get to it in one collection, I can do it in the next. It’s not as hard as music because the ideas just seem to come. With [fall 2006] for instance, a girlfriend of mine wore this dress when we were in Lake Como doing the video for ”Cool” and it became one of the inspirations, a toal 1950s, Marilyn Monroe-on-the-beach thing. It was very specific, whereas [spring 2007] is a little broader, but it definitely has a theme. I don’t want to give it away, but we just did the sketches and it’s going really well.

What do you love most about designing?
It’s not the outcome or the product. At the end of the day, it’s the actual process that I enjoy and it’s also the potential with everything. It’s the same with songwriting. I never listen to the record, but I listen to the demos an embarrassing amount of times because it’s the potential of what the song could be or what a bag could be.

What do bags mean to you?
I never carried a bag before I did the LeSportSac line. I just always felt like it was too much of a fiddly, girly thing. I’ve been in a band for 20 years years with all guys. I had a backpack, you know? Now I feel I never will have enough bags because when I leave the house, [paparazzi] always take pictures, and if I wear a bag like two or three times, they are like, ‘Whoa, she’s wearing the same bag!’ But so does everyone else.

What is it like to see girls and women wearing your products?
At first it was really uncomfortable putting it out there, but the reaction was so warm. It’s not quite as emotional [as music], but when you find something that’s your thing… I’ve seen people own those bags like they made them, walking across the street like it defines who they are. And that’s where it started.

Even after seven L.A.M.B. collections, do you ever feel like a fashion novice?
I didn’t go to school for this, but making clothes is something I’ve done my whole life, so it’s not new to me – but at this level, of course, it’s brand new. I don’t know anything, but I enjoy that and the whole vibe of the fashion world, even though I don’t know the rules. I’m just making my thing and hope that people enjoy it and apprecaite the stage I’m at. You can’t expect it to be anything more than it is.

What’s next, design-wise?
With L.A.M.B., I definitely want to focus on the bags, but I’m still doing the tennis shoes. I also convinced the tennis shoes to make boots, and now we are doing stilettos. I’m also doing watches. You can imagine the amount of artwork and e-mails that I have to approve, so I don’t really want to take on too much. But I want to do lingerie and makeup at some point. I want to do everything, eventually.

What about baby clothes?
It’s easy to downsize for kids and babies in Harajuku Lovers, but apart from that, I’m not going there. But we are doing some L.A.M.B. baby tennis shoes, little gold ones. You wouldn’t believe it. They are so cute. They are ridiculous.

How are you dealing with your ever-changing shape?
I’m sick of maternity clothes, but people are really sweet. No matter how big I feel, they say, ‘Well, you look cute’.  My body’s changing every week. I’ve gained eight pounds in the last month alone, but it’s all going to be worth it. And my husband has made me some really great meals and I’ve been eating whatever I want, trying to enjoy the moment. There’s only one time it happens for the first time.

Is it hard for someone as active as you to see yourself gain weight and slow down when all you want to do is jump around?
Well, I’m looking forward to my [post-pregnancy] diet. And then I’m going to train. But I have been working out. That’s the one thing I’ve been strict about, three days a week with a trainer. You should have seen me try to work out this morning. Oh, my God, it’s getting so hard. I do those stairs up there [pointing to the terraced steps behind her house].

What’s next, music-wise?
I have some songs that are left over from my last record, and I wrote four new songs as I was finishing it. One of them is called ”Orange County Girl”, which is one of my favorite songs ever. It’s really close to being done, but as time goes by, I might have to write some new ones to freshen it up. I went in the studio and I’ve been trying to write, but it just hasn’t come, so I’ve finally gotten to a place of guilt-free relaxation. I will try again, but now is obviously not the right time. But I want to put that record out. It would be a waste not to.

What about No Doubt?
I’m going to go back in the studio with the band to try and see what we can do together, which is going to be a huge, weird reunion. We don’t know if we go back what kind of music we’ll write, if we can write. We just don’t know. And then, being a mom… I don’t know what that’s going to be like.

It seems like a very transitional time for you.
Yes, everything is new for me right now, It’s a weird crossroads, the beginning of a lot, the closure of a lot. This is all about nesting and getting inspired. But [making a downward whooshing motion above her belly] I know one thing is coming out for sure!

She works hard for the money, and she ain’t no hollaback girl, but now that the world has embraced Gwen Stefani as the platinum bomb, will she ever find a simple kind of life?

The popular television series The OC and Laguna Beach have made Southern California’s Orange County and attitude like, totally rad. They portray the laidback lifestyle of perfectly aligned palm trees, lazy afternoons, and never-ending spring breaks. Meanwhile, the most famous OC girl of them all, Gwen Stefani, is quietly building her empire as the hardest working girl in show business. Last year, we saw her playing Jean Harlow in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, and this year she is high off the phenomenal success of her first solo album – having already achieved worldwide domination as front woman of No Doubt – and summer anthems “Hollaback Girl” and “Cool.” She is also busy spearheading not one but two clothing lines: L.A.M.B (which shares a name with her Love. Angel. Music. Baby. album) and the newly launched Harajuku Lovers.

Her much anticipated runway show for L.A.M.B took place at the Roseland Ballroom during New York fashion week last September and on October 16th she will embark on a major North American tour, also named “Harajuku Lovers,” starting with a sold out performance at the American West Arena in Phoenix. In midst of all this activity on th music, fashion and film fronts, she also finds time to promote other products and services including the HP Photosmart R607 Harajuku Lovers digital camera and the “Hollaback Girl” ringtone, which is available exclusively through Cingular Wireless.

On this particular August afternoon at Quixote Studios in West Hollywood, Gwen Stefani is sitting in a dressing room chair, facing a large mirror while hair stylist Danilo starts crafting a new look for the TRACE cover. Gwen is chatting away, all platinum blondness and sassy sophistication, as stylist Andrea Lieberman and makeup artist Kathy Jeung try to figure out the implications of this new Afro-braided-platinum-punk look. All three are close collaborators of Gwen’s, but now they have experimented with a folded blue scarf holding in the top of her hair, in a subtle nod to the I Love Lucy housewife hysteria from the ’50s, the Afro madness just seems a little more directional. Although Gwen wasn’t feeling it at first, she quickly changes her mind and we all agree to go for the Afro look.

Two of her Harajuku girl dancers are also in attendance. Maya (aka Love), hails from Tokyo, and Mayuko (aka Baby), who is a native of Osaka, but both became Harajuku girls after they auditioned in Los Angeles. I ask where Angel and Music are. No one knows. As she makes her way to the cover set-up where lighting is being tested with Polaroids. Gwen starts rubbing her stomach. “It’s coming,” she says, speaking of her period. This time, her hands aren’t pressed against her bare midriff, as they often are, because her belly is covered by a green Harajuku Lovers t-shirt, but she still tells anyone who cares to listen that she is menstrual, and that her mood isn’t the best it could be.

However, Gwen is open and approachable as ever. We shoot the cover and venture out of the studio to nearby Poinsetta Park for additional pictures. That is where the real Gwen Stefani pop experience is brought to life in a series of casual encounters with Angelenos from all walks of life. Of course we should have suspected that a mid-afternoon outing with a pop star in a public park would cause a bit of a commotion, especially in her home state, and the broad scope of her fan base is a reality that cannot be argued with.

Situation One: A Mexican family in a huge Freightliner delivery truck suddenly stops and idles in the middle of a street, interrupting their work schedule as well as the normal flow of traffic. The wife climbs out of the truck while her eight-year-old daughter stares at the pop star from the front seat, with her father looking on. When the mother returns to the truck with an autograph that reads “To Jackie, Love Gwen,” the daughter starts weeping.
Situation Two: A black man in his early 40s steals a glance at the pop star from the corner of his eye. “Damn!” he says, to no one in particular.
Situation Three: Two LAPD policeman catch wind of our photo shoot, which is taking place without a city permit, but instead of sending us back to the studio across the street, they see Gwen and decide to turn a blind eye to our impromptu production.
Situation Four: A 15-year-old white boy playing basketball in his brand new Air Jordans: “Where’s Gwen? That’s my wife. Hey shweeeetie!”
Situation Five: A tipsy white man in his mid-50s holds his bicycle while decides to speak to Danilo, who is touching up the pop stars Afro. “Is that Gwen Stefani right there? You can tell her Madonna can’t touch her. You can tell her I love her.” To which Gwen replies, “You can tell me, I’m standing right here, aren’t I?” “Well, sure! Isn’t the Hollywood Bowl coming up in a couple of weeks?” “Yes, in a couple of months” “Well, God bless ya. You’ve got it, and most can’t find it. I love ya.”

Andy Warhol first coined the term “superstar” to promote his coterie of New York personalities. The word is now used to describe a widely acclaimed celebrity who has great popular appeal and is considered a major attraction. When we finally sit down for the interview after the enlightening Poinsettia Park episodes, I realized that although Gwen has become accustomed to the adulation, especially in a year that can, by any measure, be described as stellar, she is still relatively unfazed by the everyday situations, privileges and annoyances that come with being a superstar.

“2005 has been a mind-blowing year,” she admits. “It all happened so quick, and wild and different from everything I’ve ever done before, but some of the years in No Doubt before we got on the radio were great as well. To me, it really doesn’t feel all that different from being at Tower Records in Orange County, one year into the band, like 17 years ago, and hearing people whispering about me as the girl from that band. But still, finishing this album and having it accepted the way it was, that was great. There was a lot of mish-mashing and unlikely pairings, like getting into the studio with Dr Dre and Andre 3000. I wanted to make an ’80s inspired dance album, in the style of Debbie Deb and Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam and Club Nouveau, but also with Prince and The Time in mind, and I could see how Dr Dre was just rolling his eyes.”

Debbie Deb, as some of you older electro-heads may recall, was a two-hot wonder, but one could easily call her a one-hit wonder, because her two songs “Lookout Weekend” (“Look out weekend ’cause here I come, because weekends were made for fun”) and “When I Hear Music” sound almost the same. “Those are the songs that I would listen to when I used to go dancing at Disneyland or places like Videopolis or Studio K,” Gwen remembers. “For this album, that Debbie Deb style worked for me, because I wanted a record that was more of a chant than a melody. I wanted to do a record a record that would be in the clubs. With No Doubt, that would have been impossible, because that style of dance music excludes the drummer.”

Those years growing up in Orange County remain the foundation of her musical expression, and many of her biggest hits – starting with the breakthrough No Doubt songs “Just a Girl” and “Don’t Speak” from the 1995 album Tragic Kingdom – are derived from Gwen’s own experiences in mid-to-late ’80s Anaheim, home to Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom. In those years, Orange County was the residence of middle class white Californians who chose that particular suburban landscape over the metropolitan sprawl of Los Angeles, but it was also the chosen destination of many immigrant families, and young families, who were able to find nice and safe homes that they could actually afford.

Orange County was known as Reagan country at the time. The years of the gas crisis and forced busing created an extreme Republican climate. There were planned communities like Costa Mesa, where corporations would build an entire city from scratch, with a city center, a mall and recreation centers. Bands like No Doubt proliferated and thrived in a scene that was essentially a reaction to Reaganomics. The post-punk scene had become so vibrant and the music coming out was daring in its own fusion of mod with ska and reggae and hip hop. The early No Doubt records display that unique fusion, and it was obvious that they were listening to The Clash just as much as they appreciated Grandmaster Flash.

Shawn Mortensen, the longtime TRACE magazine photographer who shot the images in this portfolio, has been a friend of Gwen and the other members of No Doubt since 1994, when the band was just about to switch from their indie label to Interscope Records. “There was an immediate connection,” he says, “because we had all hung out in the same area in Orange County and we used to go to the same places, the same clubs. Although I was born in Long Beach, I grew up in Los Angeles and Orange County. When the label asked me to direct a video for them, I knew it would work. They weren’t famous yet, but when I first heard Tragic Kingdom, it felt to me like the Sergeant Pepper’s of Orange County life.” Shawn, who has photographed Gwen and No Doubt many times, ended up being best man at Gwen’s 2002 wedding to Gavin Rossdale. Hearing him talk about the ’80s inspired parties in OC, one senses a deep nostalgia in his voice and a longing for a mythical era that epitomized the uninhabited, creative spirit and do-it-yourself mentality of rebellious Southern Californians.

With her song dedicated to the over-the-top style of the girls who populate Tokyo’s fashionable Harajuku district, Gwen Stefani single-handedly made them recognizable to millions of Americans who would be hard-pressed to locate Japan on a world map. She is building a franchise around the Harajuku iconography so that it can exist beyond her lyrics and videos in her fans; imaginations. Yet, her most popular song from Love. Angel. Music. Baby. album, so far, is not the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis-produced “Harajuku Girls” but rather the Neptunes-produced “Hollaback Girl.” Although Gwen is now known for her penchant for Vivienne Westwood and Christian Dior couture dresses – she wore a special John Galliano creation at her wedding – few of her hardcore fans are actually familiar with the high fashion Japenese brands (Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, Hysteric Glamour) that she sings about in the song “Harajuku Girls.”

They can, however, relate to the Carson High School cheerleaders she recruited from outer Los Angeles for the perfectly choreographed video that Paul Hunter directed in full Technicolor, with emphasis on Gwen’s pink bra, red majorette’s outfit and bright lowrider. The vivid imagery and The Neptunes’ simple one-two beat complemented the girl power words: “Uh huh, that’s my shit. All the girls stomp your feet like that. ‘Cause I ain’t no hollaback girl.”

“The simplicity of the way Pharrell produces is so different,” she says. “It’s just one take and four instruments. It’s raw and different to the way we produce with No Doubt.” Looking back, it seems ironic that “Hollaback Girl” actually almost never made it to the album, because it was recorded after the album was completed. “We were done with the album and we really didn’t have any space left,” she says, “but I felt I didn’t have my attitude song. I called Pharrell and told him he’d be mad, because he wasn’t on the album. After two days, we had two really good songs, ‘Candy Land’ and ‘You Started It,’ but neither would make it onto the album. Then we did ‘Hollaback Girl’.”

After all, the first Neptunes collaboration outside of hip hop was with No Doubt on “Hella Good” from the 2001 Rock Steady album. They have come a long way since then. More than just an attitude song, “Hollaback Girl” somehow represented the mood of the summer of 2005, really striking a chord with young fans around the world. Shortly after “Hollaback Girl” emerged as one of the most significant songs of the year, Gwen flew to Miami to work with Pharrell in his studio and record more songs. “I have another record and I have to say the stuff that me and Pharrell did is so rad. I’m afraid if I wait too long before releasing it, it will be old. DJ Clue came down came down to the studio with eight beautiful girls, and he listened to the whole thing.”

Now that they have an entire album’s worth of material, Gwen is toying with the idea of releasing those songs as an entirely new album for Christmas or Valentine’s Day. She even has the artwork and creative direction all ready to go. But then again, the schedules may change, because her record company already has a DVD lined up for a Christmas release. This is what happens when superstars get prolific.

In the midst of all this hyperactivity, one has to question the future of No Doubt and the viability of a band, however successful, whose lead singer has found so many niches of her own, away from the legacy of a sound that was first formulated in 1986. Gwen refutes any suggestion that the band might break up, and she even mentions that they have pledged to reunite in January of 2006. She says all this while making sure she provides the context of her solo career.

“The Rock Steady Tour was one of the best experiences for us as a band. At the end of it, Adrian [Young, the drummer] had a baby. I had just got married, like two days before the tour started. After the tour ended, that’s when I heard that Club Nouveau song again, and the idea of my solo record turned out to be a huge personal challenge. We all decided to concentrate on our own projects. Tom [Dumont, the guitarist] is on tour with Matt Costa and Tony [Kanal, the bassist] is playing with Perry Farrell. When we get into the studio again, it will be great for everyone, because they will be all charged up, with the time that I was away.”

The No Doubt greatest hits album with a wonderful cover of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life” came out early last year, at the same time when Gwen was beginning to work on her own album. Having been with the same three guys for 18 years, including a now well-documented eight years as Tony Kanal’s girlfriend, she feels that they are a family for life. “It doesn’t feel like we’ve been apart,” she says, “because Tony has been my bouncing board. I still lean on him for advice.” Tony produced three tracks for L.A.M.B and although he has been working on his own side projects in Jamaica and elsewhere, he has remained a big presence in her life. (She points out that he is the one who turned her on to Club Nouveau and Debbie Deb in the first place.)

The song “Don’t Speak,” which spent a record-breaking 16 weeks at the top of the charts in 1996 and pretty much put No Doubt on the map, is well known as Gwen’s heartfelt response to her difficult breakup with Tony. A decade later, the gorgeous video (set in Italy) that Sophie Muller directed for Gwen’s latest single “Cool” is a testament – albeit a very confusing one – to the unbreakable bond between Gwen and Tony. In it, Tony’s current girlfriend plays the girlfriend of Gwen’s fictional ex, acted by a model who looks suspiciously like Gwen’s real life husband Gavin, in a song that was inspired by Gwen’s current relationship to Tony.

“Cool” Is a prime example of Gwen’s proven songwriting skills – “After all the obstacles/ It’s good to see you now with someone else/ And it’s such a miracle that you and me are still good friends/ After all that we’ve been through / I know we’re cool.” Some of the inspiration came from the song’s producer, Dallas Austin. “‘Cool’ is an amazing song,” she says, “because I wanted to work with Dallas Austin. He’d signed Fishbone, and I felt we’d have a connection, especially knowing that he’s such a solid songwriter. He had a similar story with an ex-girlfriend of eight years, and he’d written a song about it that he’d never finished. As soon as he started playing the chords I helped him finish the song. He had this idea of cool, which he couldn’t make cool, so I wrote the lyrics in ten minutes. I wanted a Cindy Lauper or Madonna ‘Crazy For You’ feel to the song, and it came out beautifully.”

Walking across the Poinsettia Park, Gwen receives a call on her cell phone from someone who could very well be a booking agent, and from the conversation that we overhear, it sounds like she is being offered the opportunity to tour right up to Christmas day. “That’s something I’ll have to speak to Gavin about,” she says. ” I just can’t make that decision right now. We’re supposed to spend Christmas in England.” Gwen admits that she is nervous about the upcoming Harajuku Lovers Tour, because up until now, touring has always been about going on the road with her No Doubt family. “The tour is going to be different, because it will involve a lot of costume changes. It will be a lot more theatrical, and I will get to do things that I could never do with No Doubt, things that would be considered cheesy in the rock world. I mean, I love theater, I love the Sound of Music, so the Harajuku Lovers Tour will be an opportunity.”

It all seems so convenient, and I have to admit that several of my friends find Gwen Stefani’s constant references to the Harajuku subculture annoying. The tour that references the clothing line that references the camera that references the lyrics from the single may all be a bit much, but beyond a simple celebrity marketing ploy, it appears that Gwen Stefani is serious about the cross-promotion. When pressed for an answer, she seems to genuinely see her Harajuku-influenced mantra as a way to give more Gwen back to her fans. If she can make a little extra money on the side while doing that, well why not?

“The concept behind Harajuku Lovers line was to create clothes that would be better conceived than just another merchandising line. I’ve been working on it for over a year, and it was hard to get it right. Whereas L.A.M.B is my creative project that I have total free ride on, it remains limited by the price points. It’s just too expensive for most of my fans. Harajuku Lovers is how I express another kind of creativity, because I am so inspired by the whole Japanese culture. The song lyrics are all over the t-shirts, and the clothes are available for all ages and sizes, from babies all the way to XXL. We have erasers and school stuff and we even teamed up with Nakajima for some Hello Kitty items.”

Although Gwen has full creative control over the L.A.M.B line, she has recruited an new designer to guide her through the creative process. New York-based Zaldy who has designed costumes for Mary J Blige and Christina Aguilera in addition to Gwen, says that he has known Gwen for a while because his ex-boyfriend, Matthew Anderson, used to be Gwen’s make-up artist.

“Even before meeting her in person, the first day I saw her on TV, I could tell she was for real,” he says. “She just seemed like the kind of girl I would have hung out with in high school.” One night, when he was returning to Los Angeles from the Coachella music festival with Gwen’s hair stylist Danilo, he was invited to a party at Gwen’s house. That’s when she approached him with the idea of helping her design her new collection. “I was flattered, and when we started working together, I had to process all this information. When I design the L.A.M.B line, I always have her in mind, because she is the muse, the only muse, whereas when I design my own line, I have other muses. It is really a great experience for me, because [stylist] Andrea Lieberman is also a consultant, and I get to work in a team. It’s almost like doing a group project.”

In 1997, I was invited to a Chinese restaurant called Chi Dynasty, in the Hollywood Hills near Gwen’s house in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. That night, I had dinner with photographer Shawn Mortensen, Gavin and Gwen. I remember asking her about being a star, and she told me about the constant online interactions she had with her fans. She said that she had a habit of checking the Internet on a regular basis. She admitted that, somehow, she always managed to find the time to to maintain ongoing dialogues with a lot of her devoted fans. Eight years later, at the Quixote Studios, I reminded her of our conversation and asked her whether she still had time to engage in regular dialogue with her fans, having recently spotted dozen of websites dedicated to the cult of Stefani. She thought about it for a second and said “I like going online and look here and there, but it’s not really that healthy, because you get bummed out a lot. Actually, all the fan forums on our sites are down at the moment because they got hacked.”

When the interview was drawing to a close, I asked her about the history behind my all-time favourite No Doubt song, “Sunday Morning,” from the Tragic Kingdom album. She smiled and said it was such a long time ago. She told me that the video, which was directed in the spring of 1997 by Sophie Muller, in her third of eight collaborations with No Doubt, was filmed at her grandparents’ house. “The guy that’s in the store when I buy the tomatoes, that’s my grandpa.” Those somewhat innocent statements are really charming coming from a 35-year-old superstar in her prime. They also go a long way towards explaining the enduring popularity of Gwen Stefani, the hardworking girl from the OC who once sang about wanting a simple kind of life. “I was with Tony when we wrote ‘Sunday Morning’, and we were just kids just learning how to write songs. I never in a million years would have that that…”

Blender joins the No Doubt singer’s court to find out about her solo album, movie career and love life. “Everything you could probably think up is true,” she says.

Gwen Stefani is dancing barefoot in her kitchen. One of the tracks she’s just finished for her first solo album is playing on her laptop, and she spinning around saying “I love this song!” while a small posse of assembled staff looks on: her publicist, her graphic designer and her British manservant Pete, who is juicing a lemon and preparing Stefani her light, fragrant lunch.

All around Stefani, in her Mediterranean-style Los Angeles mansion, are the lavish accumulations of the truly successful: a driveway crowded with Mercedes; huge vases of tall, perfect lilies on every table; two silent cleaning women fluffing every cushion and dusting every shiny surface; a parade of Herb Ritts photographs of Stefani with her shirtless husband, Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale; and drawings by couturier John Galliano of the dress he made for her wedding, framed with a card from the designer that reads: “Dearest Gwen, Thank you for the most amazing evening.” Stefani arrived here from London just last night, but Rossdale had to stay behind. “We’re trying to get his dog out here,” she explains, “but it’s hard to get a private plane to fly a person with a dog.”

Stefani sings along to her song “Harajuku Girls” in the kind of mock pop-star voice one might use to croon “Like a Virgin” into a hairbrush. “I’m your biggest fan!” she squeals in perfect unison with her recorded self. And if Blender didn’t know that the woman bouncing and twirling about was the queen of this castle, that she and Madonna have actually “hung out several times,” that the voice coming from the computer has sold 26 million records worldwide with her band No Doubt, we might think she was exactly what she just said: a fan, a starry-eyed hopeful bopping along to the beat.

Blender’s Woman of the Year still has the giddy enthusiasm of a person who is surprised by her luck, even after 17 years in music, three Grammys and the launch of her own fashion label L.A.M.B, which Gwen-ishly stands for “Love Angel Music Baby,” also the name of her new album. Love Angel Music Baby will not only bring her another car or manservant, it’s sure to brighten the celebrity spotlight, as happened to Justin Timberlake when he stepped out of ‘N Sync.

But going solo is still a risk, a move away from a proven formula and out into the unknown. Just ask Mick Jagger. Or david Lee Roth. Or Al Gore. Stepping out – at age 34, no less – of the protective cocoon of a band that she has been in half her life requires remarkable ambition, power, balls. Gwen Stefani doesn’t see it that way.

“Everyone keeps calling it a solo record and I keep calling it a dance record,” she says. “‘Cause if I was doing a solo record, that would be like, finally, me… finally this is the real Gwen Stefani. It’s not that. This album is actually less of me than ever before.”

Growing up, Gwen Stefani never fantasized about being a rock star. Never pictured living the brilliant transatlantic life of pop royalty. The Gwen Stefani story according to Gwen Stefani, goes like this: All her life, things just happened to her. She is an accidental rock star – or at least she likes to think so, maybe because it’s true or maybe because lusting after fame and fortune seems unladylike to her.

And to be sure, Stefani has been lucky in one crucial regard: The men in her life have buffeted her from many of the uphill struggles in her life.

Her brother Eric founded the band No Doubt when Gwen was still in high school in Anaheim, California, and herded her into the band. “Eric’s the one who brought the first Madness record home and got us all into ska,” she says. “I’d wake up because he’d be banging on the piano. He would always be trying to get me to sing, because he couldn’t sing very much himself, and I could sing along to the Annie soundtrack or Evita.”

Gwen’s first real boyfriend, Tony Kanal, was, and is, No Doubt’s bassist and co-songwriter. Kanal has always handled all the wheeling and dealing and planning that are crucial, tedious busy work of any successful band.

“Tony took care of everyone and he was on top of all business,” Stefani says. “Nothing went wrong – no stone unturned, every corner cleaned. The opposite of me. I’m a mess!” (She means literally as well as figuratively: Stefani says that of all her indulgences, the one she’s most hate to lose is her cleaning women. “I get home, I drop.” She mimes throughing things in every direction.)

Stefani entered the band that made her a star when she was 17 years old. “I was a very passive girl,” she says. Stefani is perched on an immaculate, overstuffed white sofa, her white hair pinned up in a glamorous puff.”I was completely satisfied with just being in love with my boyfriend and dreaming about getting married.” Stefani didn’t consider herself talented. “I always considered myself as really lazy because I was bad at school…. Not that I was a bad girl,” she says quickly. “just that it was hard for me to learn. I couldn’t even pay attention, I spent the whole fuckin’ time drawing pictures. The bell would ring and I would be like, ‘Gosh the period’s over?’ I would have just written my boyfriend’s name in really sketched out, really nice letters.”

Part of the fun of being a No Doubt fan has always been tracking Stefani’s crushes and heartaches through her unusually transparent, occasionally, artless lyrics. Listening to a No Doubt song can feel like peeking into high-school journal: finding out on 1995’s “Sunday Morning” how excruciating it was for her when Kanal ended their romance; hearing, on Rock Steady’s “Underneath It All,” about how happy she’s become with Rossdale (“You give me the most gorgeous sleep/ That I’ve ever had”); or how badly she wants a baby on “Simple Kind of Life” (“I always thought I’d be a mom/ Sometimes I wish for a mistake”).

Gwen Stefani wrote that song in 1999, a couple of years after No Doubt and Bush were pushed together on a tour by their label, Interscope Records. Initially, everyone in the band was dead-set against the pairing. “The label was always talking about Gavin and Bush,” she says in the whine of a kid talking about history and math. “We were just like, ‘Whatever. We are not going on tour with those guys; that’s not who we are.’ And then we went and it was love. It was magic.”

Well, maybe for her. The rest of No Doubt were furious.

“Everybody was against it,” Stefani says. “It was a very crazy time. There was already my breakup with Tony, and we were enjoying success for the first time and having outside things come in to to our little band, our little family. And then I met Gavin. It was really lonely, because I felt like nobody wanted me to go out with him. My ex-boyfriend and all of my, like, brothers in the band were saying ‘You are not gonna go out with that guy!’ ”

Why not? “Because I had never been out with anyone else! And other reasons. Everything you could probably think up in your brain is probably true.”

Gwen Stefani started thinking about making a solo album when No Doubt was on tour in 2002 to promote Rock Steady. This was just a few weeks after she married Rossdale in London, went on a quickie honeymoon to Capri, then had a second ceremony in Los Angeles at the home of Jimmy Iovine, her boss at Interscope records. (“That dress,” she says of her custom-designed Galliano with a giggle, “was the whole reason I had another wedding.”) All four members of No Doubt were planning to take a break after the triple platinum Rock Steady “because we hadn’t had one in so long and everyone was burned out,” Stefani says, “Me, first and foremost.”

But the girl who had always worried about being lazy wasn’t planning on taking it easy. “I had so many things I wanted to do: the baby, the movie, the whole list, and the clock was so loud in my head!” Stefani says making her solo album was actually a low priority, but that once she put it in motion, it was impossible to halt. An all-star group of musicians and producers from very different genres came forward to collaborate with her: André 3000, Dr. Dre, Linda Perry, Dallas Austin, the Neptunes and Nellee Hooper, to name a few. And once she told the label she was interested in doing her own “side-project,” you can imagine their reaction. Gwen Stefani, the billboard-ready blonde with the crazy voice and the mad style is finally going solo? Ka-ching!

“As soon as I told Jimmy Iovine that I wanted to do this record, it’s been, like, his record,” she says. “When someone believed in you more than you believe in yourself, you almost want to do it to please them.”

“I would literally back her on anything,” Iovine says from his L.A. office. “Her vision is that strong, I use her a lot in Interscope’s business, the way I would use Dr. Dre: ‘What do you think of this? What do you think of that?’ ”

But when Stefani first started working on Love Angel Music Baby, she found herself – or cast herself – in a familiar role, as the subordinate: dealing with other people’s time lines, striving to meet other people’s goals.

“This is how crazy it was,” she says, tapping her feet frantically as if still buzzing with the pressure and the adrenaline of the whole thing. “The record company called me and was like, ‘You’ve got to go work with Linda Perry. Now. She has only five days out of the whole year to work with you.’ And I’d just got off tour! I was tired, I was burned out, I’d just got married. I hadn’t even seen my husband! But then I thought, OK, if I don’t do this now…. I want to do great things, and I know that I’m super-lucky?” she says in perfect so-cal upspeak.

“So I should just take all the opportunities. It’s one to have ‘Just a Girl’ on the radio, but to have years of cake and ice cream?” She grins and makes eating noises. “It’s gonna end soon! So basically, I cried in my bed, like, for real.”

“When Stefani talks, she actually does sound very much like that teenager who sings into hairbrushes and spends 6th period tracing her boyfriends name in curlicues. But it’s confusing, hearing this animated, teenybopper voice come out of the crimson mouthed woman who is so outrageously glamorous. She doesn’t wear clothes so much as she does costumes. Even sitting around the house, she has gold high-heeled Mary Janes and a plaid Vivienne Westwood top with a cape-like piece that she throws dramatically over her shoulder every 20 minutes or so.

Her assistant brings out an exquisite china coffee service and she takes hers with honey and milk, raising a tiny teacup to her lips with a perfectly manicured hand. “I feel so ‘lady’ now!” she says, beaming. She is not unlike the cliché of the platinum-haired silent-movie star who opens her mouth and spoils the illusion of frosty allure with her Betty Boop voice.

Only in Gwen Stefani’s case, the tears and the eating noises and the “rads” that pepper her conversations are a large part of her Valley-girl-next-door appeal. You can’t be too fancy when you begin your career with a bindi glued to your forehead or decorate your backyard with two intersecting green street signs that read “Gwen Drive” and “Gavin Way.”

“I’m gaudy and cheesy and I always want to push it,” she admits. “Adrian [Young] was always the yang of the band if I was the yin. If I’m the cheese, he’s the cool. That’s what makes No Doubt.” She thinks about it for a minute. “We would be like the most not-best-friends.”

The down side of all this guileless, youthful charm is that Stefani sometimes seems on the verge of drowning in her own adolescent securities. “I think Gwen is over-critical of herself,” say Linda Perry, who was the first producer to work with Stefani on her solo tracks. (Perry was the lead singer of 4 Non Blondes and then went on to write and produce Pink hits like “Get The Party Started” and Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful”) “There was one day where she had a little insecurity breakdown. But I found it very endearing: I loved seeing her that insecure. You meet a lot of people who have half her talent and the they think they’re God’s creative monster.”

Somehow, when Stefani tells it, she is, again the person who things are happening to, not the person in control. “At the Grammys, Linda Perry came up to me like a fucking bull dozer and basically put me in a headlock and was like, ‘We need to write some songs together,’ ” says Stefani. Gwen was accustomed to taking her time – sometimes years – to write songs with No Doubt. “It was always a long, hard process. So I was like, ‘I can’t sit next to you and pour my heart out. I don’t even know you!’ There was times I was just like, ‘Fuck you, dude, you’re totally stepping on my territory.’ Other times we were really inspired by each other. Linda and I had a meant-to-be thing that was magical. I get emotional about it,” Stefani says, and starts to cry a little.

It will probably come as no surprise that Stefani is big on emotion. She is also big on magic. With Pharrell Williams, she “wrote three songs in three days and they were all magic.” The Rock Steady tour was “so magic.” Shooting her cameo appearance as Jean Harlow in martin Scorsese’s upcoming biopic on Howard Hughes, her film debut, was “super-magical.” She had a “magical night” with Adrian Young at the MTV Video Music Awards in Miani. And recording with Andre 3000 was, you guessed it, “total magic!”

Despite all her breathless enthusiasm for the new pool of talent she’s been soaking in, Stefani claims she has no plans to stay solo. “No Doubt is definitely not broken up,” she says firmly. “I don’t even have plans to tour at this point; I don’t see myself putting out a bunch of Gwen Stefani records. Who knows? I might have a baby and just want to stare at it all day and quit everything.” She assesses her time with No Doubt thus far like so: “To be able to put that many years into one project? It was magic.”

Back in her capacious, green tiled kitchen Stefani plays a few more of her new tracks for Blender, and one in particular stands out: a heart-melting ’80s-ish pop song called “Cool” that she wrote with Dallas Austin. She sings “After all the obstacles/ It’s good to see you now with someone else/ It’s such a miracle that you and me are still good friends/ After all that we’ve been through/ I know we’re cool.”

Sounds personal. Is it about anyone in particular? Any bassist in particular?
“It reminds me of the ending of something… that place we are with the band. Like, how every thing’s cool no matter what and we all know it,” she says and looks at her feet. “And other things you can probably pick up on.”

Blender wonders if all this isn’t a little weird for her husband: having a super famous wife who’s till intensely enmeshed with an ex boyfriend, an ex she’s written whole records about, an ex who’s produced several tracks on her solo album, an ex on whom she still depends (“Doing this on my own there’s this whole pile of things where you go, ‘Frick! Where’s Tony?’ “).

Stefani won’t get specific about it. But she does admit that working out without No Doubt on this record has made it possible for Rossdale to contribute more to her music.

“It’s one thing to be in a band with all these guys, and obviously Gavin’s not gonna offer much of an opinion.” she says. “But when I’m on my own, we can talk even more, he can have more of an opinion. It’s been really… romantic.”

For the first time, Rossdale wrote some lyrics for one of Stefani’s songs, a track called “The Real Thing.” It’s so clear the lines that he wrote because they’re so visual and mine are always so obvious,” she says. “Like, just how you would talk it.”

Their second wedding anniversary, on September 14, just passed. “We haven’t done anything yet because he’s in London, but when he gets here I’m sure we’ll make out or something.”

For all her insecurities, Stefani is refreshingly proud of this album. She fully expects 7th graders to be slow dancing to “Cool” and requesting it – begging for it – at make-out parties.

“That,” she says, “would be so perfect! The thing about my record is you can try not to like it. You can try. But you know what? It’s gonna be your guilty pleasure. I just know it!”

All about my year: Gwen Stefani

No band mates were consulted in the answering of this questionnaire!

Best song I heard in 2004
OutKast’s “Hey Ya!”

Trend I’m most sick of
Reality television.

Sex symbol of 2004
Beyoncé

Most expensive purchase of 2004
A Vivienne Westwood shopping spree.

Most rock-star moment of 2004
Every day felt like a rock-star day.

Where I’ll spend New Year’s Eve
At my house in L.A. with 300 people dancing to my record.

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.

This was no isolated incident — recording her solo album ended up being a largely terrifying, maddening and ego-shredding experience, no matter who she worked with. Not exactly what the No Doubt singer had initially envisioned.

Stefani had decided to do Love, Angel, Music, Baby — which she calls her “dance record” or her “collaborations record” — when she was on the Rock Steady tour with No Doubt. One day, she happened to hear the old Club Nouveau song “Why You Treat Me So Bad” and immediately was transported back to high school, when she used to go dancing at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California. She turned to No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal and said, “Wouldn’t it be fun to do music like that?”

Or not. It looked like this ’80s flashback fantasy would have to happen outside of her band. So she made a list of influences she wanted to explore in an updated way — Prince, Lisa Lisa, Debbie Deb, the Time, New Order, Depeche Mode, early Madonna. And then she made another list of musical idols she’d like to do some exploring with. The game plan was simple, but strict: Love the ’80s, but make them modern. The concept for a solo record was born.

Sort of.

“If I was doing a solo record, it means basically pouring my heart out, the real Gwen,” she said. “Like the years with No Doubt, that was just No Doubt, this is me.” In some ways, the new album “is actually less of me, because I’m letting all these other people into my world and trying on their clothes, their music and melodies.”

The list of those people was long — Dr. Dre, the Neptunes, Andre 3000, New Order, Nellee Hooper, Dallas Austin, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were among the producers and musicians with whom she collaborated. Perry made the cut primarily because she’d put Gwen in a headlock at the Grammys, looked her in the eye, and told her they could make beautiful music together.

That was a good start, but Stefani didn’t have a “huge game plan” for how she wanted to get there. “I know one thing,” she said. “You can try not to like this album, you can try real hard; but it will at least be your guilty pleasure. It’s like the ABCs — you can’t get them out of your brain. I wasn’t trying to go for an art record or a deep record. I just wanted to make you feel good for a moment and forget everything else.”

There was just one problem — she wasn’t feeling so good herself. Instead of the big cast of contributors helping to take some of the pressure off, it only made her feel worse. In fact, it scared her stiff.

“I think every record No Doubt’s made had its own challenges,” she said. “But this one, for me, was the hardest. When you’ve never really written with other people, you’re exposing yourself, taking your clothes off, saying, ‘All right, here we go, this is me, this is you.’ And then there’s the whole fan thing going on, when you’re a fan of the person you’re working with. It’s humiliating and intimidating even if they’re sweet and excited, because you’re drowning in their creativity.”

Stefani’s ego got a beatdown during her first writing sessions with Perry. The freelance songwriter/producer tried coaxing Stefani out of her shell, but it wasn’t until their second day and second song together that their sessions turned fruitful — by writing about Stefani’s very fear of writing (on “What You Waiting For?”).

“I’ve never been a creative writer,” Stefani explained. “I’ve been a writer from the heart, whatever’s happening at the time, usually a love thing. I wanted to be one of those writers who picks up a story or a theme. It doesn’t come to me naturally, but it was one of the things I wanted to conquer.”

Easier said than done. Soon after their initial success with “What You Waiting For?,” Stefani freaked out when she was trying to write “this deep song” about a friend who had passed away, and Perry came up with the lyrics before she could. “That’s my territory,” Stefani thought. Upset, she told Perry she had to leave. “I went in all glossy-eyed, and she’s like, ‘You’re a freak. Go.’ ”

So Stefani bolted from the studio and went to visit Kanal, who played her some new tracks he happened to be working on. This made her jealous at first, she said, until Kanal revealed that one of the tracks was for her. They turned that into the Salt-N-Pepa-inspired song “Crash” that very night. “I’m sitting there crying about my ego,” she said, “and I go from, ‘I feel so bad, I suck so bad, I’ll never write again,’ to writing a song, the exact song I wanted to write.”

Pumped up, Stefani canceled everything and locked in with Kanal instead — only to run into writer’s block. “We totally thought we were on to something,” she said. “But we didn’t write anything for two weeks straight. We thought, ‘We are the biggest a–holes ever in the world.’ It was just frustrating and embarrassing to sit there and think we could write songs.”

Six months later, she and Kanal took a second look at some of the earlier tracks they had tossed, and one of them, a “Lisa Lisa/ Prince wannabe song” called “Serious” pleasantly surprised them. This moment made her realize she was being way too hard on herself, letting her ego interfere with the songwriting process. She decided to change that.

“I don’t want somebody writing something better than me on my own record,” Stefani admitted. “But at the same time, it’s not about that. If I were to write the chorus of ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles, and that’s all I wrote, that would be good enough to be part of that history. It’s like this whole thing with your ego: ‘No, I did that part,’ ‘No, I did this part.’ For the most part, people don’t care. And I wanted to take that away.”

She found that change freeing, and as she began working with other writers and producers, songs came more easily. She even started mixing things up a bit, turning one session with Dallas Austin into more of a party by inviting Linda Perry (whose studio was across the street) to join them.

“They both worked on the same records, Pink, Christina Aguilera, and they never knew each other! So when Linda called to say, ‘I have this mix for you,’ I was like, ‘Come over,’ ” Stefani recounted. “Dallas didn’t even know what she looked like. So she walks in, and immediately they start talking about all their stuff from the past, and everybody starts having a drink, and the next thing you know, we’re playing the tracks and Linda’s getting really excited. ‘Oh my god, you have to use my mellotron!’ And she’s punching Dallas in the arm, ‘Come on, dude, we have to write a song!’ ”

Within 45 minutes, the three wrote the new wave rocker “Danger Zone,” on which Stefani gets her Pat Benatar on, ripping her lover for trying to keep “all of your secrets, all of your lies.” Her session with Austin was even faster on the sweetly nostalgic “Cool,” a midtempo track he was trying to write about remaining friends with an ex — something she could relate to. This time, the lyrics took her all of 15 minutes to write.

“When he started to play it for me, I was like, ‘Wow, this is my song,’ ” she said. “I was never intending to do personal songs, you know? But when he told me about the track and where it came from for him, it just triggered something in me. It really captures a feeling and kind of puts an end to a chapter in a really nice way.”

The song “Long Way to Go,” which is about an interracial relationship, came courtesy of another collaborator who made Gwen feel insecure: Outkast’s Andre 3000.

“He’s crazy talented,” she gushed, “like totally get-down-on-yourself talented. I didn’t have a lot to offer. If I’m super honest, it makes me look stupid, that I’m sitting next to him, feeling all blank brain, hoping I can come up with something good. And meanwhile, he keeps writing away. But you’re in with Andre, so even if you don’t get all your ideas in there, you’re going to make something great.”

Later on, Stefani had an idea for a melody that evolved into the curiously catchy “Bubble Pop Electric,” in which Andre’s alter ego Johnny Vulture takes her out on a date. “It sounds so weird and it’s so Andre,” she said. “If I could be a boy, I would be him.”

Her confidence restored, Stefani, having co-written some 20 songs, figured the sessions were over — until she decided to give the Neptunes another chance. She hadn’t felt a spark the first time they got together for the project, but then she reconsidered and booked seven days with Pharrell Williams.

She decided during those sessions that she needed an “attitude song.” “I need something about how the [No Doubt] fans probably are like, ‘Why is she doing this record? She’s going to ruin everything.’ ” Her response is the b-girlish “Hollaback Girl” — the third song in three days she cooked up with Pharrell.

But her speedwriting streak ended when she tried to finish up the album with Dr. Dre. Stefani had previously worked with Dre, along with rapper Eve, on “Let Me Blow Ya Mind,” and she had been hoping to recapture a little of that track’s magic. But after she played Dre the songs she had been working on, he rolled his eyes.

“He was like, ‘You don’t want to go back there,’ and I’m like, ‘Yes, I want to,’ and he’s like, ‘No, you don’t.’ ”

Still, Dre found something for Stefani he thought would work — a dancehall reggae reworking of a song from “Fiddler on the Roof,” “If I Were a Rich Man,” which, transformed into “Rich Girl,” had already been a minor hit for Louchie Lou and Michie One in the early ’90s. All Gwen needed to do was update the track with Eve.

“I was helping with her rap, she was helping with my part, and we made the demo for Dre, and he basically told us to go rewrite the whole thing again. And I was like, ‘Oh, no, what am I going to do?’ ”

Eventually, during a brainstorm while running on her treadmill, Gwen got it. At a dinner party another night, Stefani ran into 50 Cent, and in swapping Dre stories, she discovered that the rapper/producer was strict with everybody, not just her. “You kinda go with him last,” she said. “You get the doctor in.” If she had gone in with Dre first, she realized, she might not have had the confidence to keep at it as long as she did — completing enough tracks for two albums over.

“What I learned is that you can get a lot done if you push yourself,” she said. “I made all my dreams come true of working with these people, even though I have so many insecurities. I still have this whole ego issue, and it’s all bruised up and messed up. But at the same time, the record is so spectacular, and I can say that without bragging because I worked with so many talented people.

“I totally feel like I am Alice in Wonderland right now,” she mused. “It’s been such a journey. It’s been so magical. I don’t even know how I got to this point, it’s been such a maze. I’ve been dropping down this hole for a year. But now, I’ve landed.”

Gwen Stefani has ditched No Doubt in a bid to be the next Madonna. Complete with English husband and questionable movie career.

“My album will probably end up being called Fuck You or something,” shrugs Gwen Stefani and then cackles for a while, shattering the silence of her floor-to-ceiling white suite in the sickly contemporary St Martin’s Lane Hotel.

The No Doubt singer is throwing around potential titles for her upcoming solo album, a supposed “side-project”, as would-be superstars put it when they’re still rather embarrassingly attached to the band that made them in the first place (see also Beyoncé Knowles, Justin Timberlake). But she’s being disingenuous. The album will eventually be called Love, Angel, Music, Baby, the final detail is a near military plan for world domination. Why else would the 35-year-old have already bagged a role as ’30s starlet Jean Harlow in Martin Scorcese’s new Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator?

Naturally, Stefani already has the diva-like retinue of flunkies. She sits stiffly in her chair, trademark red lips blazing, while her over-eager PR, hair and make-up squad whisper in the adjoining room. The door is slightly ajar – in case of screams, gasps, hissy fits. And she’s still pretending that it all happened by accident. “I didn’t want to think of the idea of doing the record, it just came,” she says, her brown eyes wide.

Pull the other one. “No, I never thought of even doing this before. Why would I?” she shrugs. with faux naivety. “I didn’t even think about being in a band before I was in one. I don’t really feel it’s in my hands…”

She will continue to protest a little too much throughout the interview…

You’ve packed up and gone solo. Why now?
The idea was for me to do an ’80s-inspired record for fun, as a side project. Not a solo record, not like I’m going to suddenly reveal “The Real Gwen” [giggles]. Suddenly pour out my heart and soul! It was going to be a fun project and it turned into something super hard! [laughs]

On the first single, What You Waiting For?, you sing “You’re still a super-hot female.” Is that how you see yourself?
I’m not going to do it 10 years from now, am I? I want to do a sexy dance record. I have a list of things I want to do. You start running out of time at a certain point in your life – you’re like, “Fuck, what have I done?” Everyone’s like [whiny voice] “What does the band think about this?” This is my fucking life, OK? We’re not talking about what the band thinks!

What does the band think? Is there any ill-feeling?
As far as I know, no. I mean, who knows when it actually comes out what it will be like for everybody, I don’t know. But they know I’m a woman and I need to be able to do things for myself. I feel in some ways it’s not equal, because their clock is different to mine. Those guys can have babies whenever they feel like it. I want to do some projects but I also want a family.

You worked with Pharrell Williams, Andre 3000 and Linda Perry. Were they all your choices?
Linda Perry was not even on my list of people to work with. I’ve known her for years because we were the first two girls to be signed to Interscope, but I never wanted to work with her. She came up to me at the Grammys and said, “We are gonna do something together!” And I was thinking, “Oh great. You don’t understand the record I’m wanna make. I’m gonna work with Prince!”

So why did you have a change of heart?
The record company was putting pressure on me to work with her straight off the Rock Steady tour. I cried in my bed [laughs] and then I agreed. We did one song which wasn’t right, then the next day I came in and she’d been up all night – maniac – and had this track, What You Waiting For?, and I was so inspired. She’s so fast, I would come in and she’d written a song and I was like “Hey, wait for me! It’s my fuckin’ record!”

And you had a fight?
No, not like a fight, it was all me. I’d never worked with a girl before. I’ve always had the same boys, so it was a little weird. But there was one day when we were writing this track about my first boyfriend I kissed in high school and he actually… he died and I’d written this song for him and it was really personal. And then Linda gave me these lyrics and I was getting my period and you know when you’re ready to bust up? I started crying and I was like, “I can’t see her, I have to go home! I can’t write in front of her.” And that was that. I phoned up Tony [Kanal, No Doubt bassist and Gwen's ex] and he said, “Don’t worry, we’re going out tonight, come over here.”

After the Tragic Kingdom tour in ‘97, you and Tony had split up and your brother Eric had left the band to be an animator for The Simpsons. You went back to live at your family home. Did you think life was falling apart?
It wasn’t really like that. I went back and I was rich – you would think we’d have been a lot richer, but we really had a bad record deal. But I got to buy a beautiful house. And on that album I’d learnt I could write songs. Before, I never really had big ambitions, I was always in love, I just wanted to be girlfriend and a mom. But when I found out – “Fuck! I can write these songs and they sound like exactly how it feels” – I felt finally me. I took it so seriously…

How do you mean?
I got into Joni Mitchell and Sylvia Plath and reading and really trying to use words like [they were] colours. I think I wrote my best stuff on [2000 album] Return of Saturn, although I know it only sold four million – sorry and all that. But I was fucked in that time period. Maybe that was how I flipped out. I was depressed. If you look at my style then it shows.

You mean the pink hair?
The pink hair [raises eyebrows], it really reflected my needs at the time. When I look back at pictures now I’m like, “Wow, you were searchin’!” I was turning 30 and I didn’t know who I was.

What’s it like Mrs Gavin Rossdale?
You know I’m like, [sarky voice] “i just can’t wait to tell the world about my marriage!” Everybody wants to know. And up until I got married I never really had secrets. But when it comes to getting married, you have someone who you’re responsible for. You’re a team.

You got married in London – Gavin’s hometown. It’s hardly neutral territory…
In our lived it was the place. For me, London is like a magical, fairytale land. All the music I grew up loving came from here, all the style I love. This is London Town! So the idea of a wedding here seemed pretty good. I was a little bummed out that everybody couldn’t be there, but it was always going to be that way for us, so that’s why we had this huge reception in LA which turned into a second wedding.

Why did Gavin have his dog as his best man?
[Puts on baby voice]That’s Gavin’s little friend. He goes everywhere with him.

The best man usually makes a speech. Did he?
[Smiles stiffly] No.

You were brought up strict Roman Catholic…
I didn’t know any different. I was really happy about it in a way. It gave me a lot of security and a lot of morals and boundaries. I think it moulded who I am.

So, you don’t rebel?
No, I was very passive. I was the peacemaker in the family. I’m not a fighter. The person I fight with is my husband, poor thing… I hate that when you say something and you think about it and you’re like, “That was really bad”. But I feel like it [Catholicism] was really good for me. I had a lot of spiritual moments when I was a teenager and I want to get back there some day. People in rock ‘n’ roll or music, they always have that kind of bad past – “I was beaten down but that’s why I’m still here” kind a thing, but that’s not really me.

But weren’t your parents especially strict?
Crazy! Like, if you were walking to school in some outfit they’re like, “You’re not wearing that!” and make me go home and change. As soon as I could get away with cutting my shirt this short [points to midriff] I did. That was my rebellion. I pierced my nose when I was 25 years old and my mom didn’t talk to me for two months.

You’re about to appear in Martin Scorcese’s new movie, The Aviator…
I’m, like, one minute in it, but it was so fun. The attention to detail, though! I got this call recently saying, “Martin couldn’t understand one of the words you said and he wants you to re-do it.” So they sent a car for me, brought me in, we have one day of recording for that one line. I was like “Whoa, this is tedious work you guys and girls do.”

What were you expecting? Glamour?
Yeah. But I guess that’s what it’s like in the studio, too. The only difference is, I’m not in charge, Martin Scorsese was in charge.

Are you a control freak?
Control is everything. On this album, I’ve let people in a lot but it’s been great. Like the song Cool. [Madonna, TLC and Pink producer] Dallas Austin heard my song Underneath It All and got inspired to write a new song called Cool which he could never finish about his ex-girlfriend and all the bullshit of breaking up and how he wanted to be OK. We finished the thing in 15 minutes. I didn’t write all of the melody – I’m ashamed, I want to say that I did – but I also know how magical it is that somebody could be so inspired by my song that they write one.

You claim things “just happen” to you without planning. That’s pretty hard to swallow…
I don’t know, I always thought of myself as a pretty lazy girl. I hate work. So I don’t really understand how I get things done. But I guess I’m not the person I used to be. The passion takes over. When you create things and they happen, it’s addictive.

Gwen Stefani uncrosses her legs and gets up quickly, clearly relieved to be back off duty again. She thinks the record is almost there – she’s almost nailed the track she’s been recording with Dr Dre. “So I hope you like it all,” she says sweetly. It’s a rare moment of self-doubt, her guard dropping for a split-second. Then she pauses and her diva persona kicks in again.
“What am I talking about?” she says, stamping her foot. “Of course you’ll love it. It’s, like, the fucking wickedest!”