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.

When the real Gwen Stefani strolls onto the patio of The Beverly Hills Hotel a few days later, it’s easy to see how she might inspire the creation of a whole fleet of impossibly big-eyed dolls. Just home from a massive world tour in support of two hit solo records-2004 Love.Angel.Music.Baby and 2006’s The Sweet Escape – Stefani has none of the pretense or guardedness that one might expect from someone at the top of their game. Most pop stars coming down from more than a year on the road would probably be on an exotic, well-deserved vacation, but Stefani is happy to spend some time “being a real person again” in LA – which for her means running errands, working on her fashion line L.A.M.B., and spending quality time with musician Gavin Rossdale and their almost 2-year-old son, Kingston. Being a real person again also means getting back to the business of being a rock star. Rather than rest on the laurels of her newly established solo career, Stefani is also gearing up to re-enter the studio with her old band No Doubt. She’s so casual and friendly, it’s easy to forget that the woman sitting across the table just happens to be a globe-trotting supermom who has sold upward of 30million records and has one of the most recognizable faces in the world. This is why people love Gwen Stefani. More than just pretty and talented, she is someone you might actually want to know-the kind of sweet California girl who still loves makeup and old thrift stores, and isn’t afraid to admit she occasionally plays with dolls…even the ones created to look exactly like her. T.Cole Rachel

The last time you were on the cover of V was in 2004. No Doubt was on hiatus, and you were anxiously putting the finishing touches on a little solo project…
Wow, has it been that long? So much has happened since then. It’s so odd that we’re having this conversation today. I’ve only been home from my world tour for a few days and earlier this afternoon I had to go and finalize my will. So, it’s like this one big chapter of my life came to an end, and then I had to come home and basically take stock of my entire life. Like, now what? It’s a really strange time.

Were you shocked by the response to your first solo album, Love.Angel.Music.Baby and then The Sweet Escape?
You know what shocks me the most? It really was just this goofy thing that I did on a whim. Like, why not make a silly dance record just for fun? No Doubt was going on a break, and I wanted to record a few songs to see what would happen. I could have easily not made a solo record. It was purely the result of following my heart.

Did the experience of making these two records outside of No Doubt change the way you write songs and make music?
I still feel like writing the songs is the hardest thing I’ve ever done and also the most rewarding. I love designing things and I love the creative process involved with that as well, but there’s so much more magic involved in making a song. You never remember how to do it or how you did it before, but when you emerge at the end with this song… it’s literally like magic. I mean, I hate the process most of the time and it’s so daunting to think about going back into the studio to make a record. But a good song will still be around after you’re dead and gone. It’s permanent. Still, going in to work with all of those really talented people… I just felt like such an asshole. Like, I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t really play an instrument and suddenly I ‘m in a room with Dre and Pharrell and Andre 3000. It was the most intimidating experience of my life. Obviously I’m glad I did it though.
[Laughs] I don’t know yet how this will affect my creative process with No Doubt but I’m sure it will in some way.

“Hollaback Girl” was also the first song in the states to sell a million copies as a digital download. That’s crazy, girl.
Pretty historic, right? Me and Pharrell were just like, Yeah!

The experience of touring on your own must have felt strange too, not to have the band up there behind you.
It was very different, but amazing. I played for over a million people and we did over a hundred shows. Because I’ve been doing this for so long I’ve had the experience of playing in front of all kinds of different audiences, but the audiences for this tour were like nothing I’ve ever seen. Success as a musician can seem really abstract until you actually go out on tour and see the crowds. Even then, it’s hard to grasp it somehow… walking out on a stage in front of thousands of people every night and realizing that this is their big night out and they’ve bought a ticket to see YOU. Every night I’d go through the same thing – “I’m too tired, I don’’t want to put these tights on, I can’t sing, I don’t wanna get ready.” Except for putting my makeup on-which I always enjoy – I’d just dread it. Then you walk out on stage and see the way people react and what the songs mean to them and it’s just incredibly rewarding. Every night I’d run out through the audience and have some kind of hands-on experience with the fans… and I mean that literally. I actually have scars from doing that. I love it. Plus I had nine costume changes! I’m not like Cher or Madonna – it wasn’t that huge of a production – but still I wouldn’t do nine costume changes in a No Doubt show.

So the boys in No Doubt weren’t pissed when you were out on the road for so long?
They have been very supportive and cool about it. I mean, they’ve been my friends since I was 16. They knew I’d come back and do another No Doubt record, plus they were all busy as well. It’s not like they were just waiting around for me to come back. They actually went into the studio ahead of me to start working, so I don’t even know how much material is going to be waiting for me when I go in to start playing with them. We did a photo shoot together as soon as I got back from the tour. I was like, let’s get together and take a picture before my body gets destroyed by this next baby that I want to have. [Laughs]. It was also a nice way for us to get together and do something as a band. It was a little weird, but we looked really cute. Now we just have to make the record.

No Doubt has been a band for twenty years now.
What? Do we have to say that? Can’t you just tell people that we’re a brand new band? You know, this hot new band called No Doubt. Check them out.

You should be flaunting it! Very few bands last that long. Still, the musical landscape has changed a lot since the last No Doubt record came out in 2001.
Yes, for sure. It’s daunting for us, but it’s also liberating. I feel like all our records are very different from each other and we’ve never really fit into a specific category. We evolved a lot from record to record, but it always still sounds like us. It’s weird that way. There’s a certain chemistry between us that can’t be faked. We don’t have the same sorts of problems that we used to have. We’ve grown up. I think this record could be the most inspired thing we’ve ever done as a band.

In No Doubt it’s not you calling all the shots.
Yeah, it’s back to the democracy of being a band. I’m like, Are you serious? I’m voting right now?

This is such an obvious question, but did your life feel radically changed after having Kingston?
I don’t feel like I really changed all that much. Kingston didn’t really change me so much as he just has made my life better. he makes me so happy. It’s hard to imagine until you have a child of your own. It’s just one of those miraculous human things that you have to experience for yourself. God, I’m gonna start crying when I talk about this because it’s just so.. it’s so intense. I put him to sleep at night and you know, I’ll be rocking him to sleep and he’ll be playing with my hair and… it’s just the most amazing feeling in the world. To have this little guy who loves me so much automatically, its just crazy. I’ll put him to bed and then, you know, enjoy having the quiet time when I can do stuff like go online and check my e-mail, hang out with Gavin, whatever, but when I find myself thinking that I can’t wait for him to wake up again so we can play. My favorite time of the day now is six-thirty in the morning. We all get up and spend the morning together. Now, you can ask Gavin and he’ll tell you that I am a sleepaholic. I love to sleep. If you had ever told me that I’d be waking up at six in the morning and enjoying it – for any reason – I would have never believed you. The last time I got up that early on a regular basis was when I was in high school! So yes, he’s changed my life. I have to be more protective of my time now. I have to be more organized. But those aren’t bad things to be, you know?

Do you ever find yourself having total Momzilla moments, where you suddenly realize, oh my God, I have become the crazy mom screaming about organic carrots at the grocery store?
[Laughs] Not too much. I think you start to relax after a while. I think we’re super relaxed about everything compared to other people with kids that we see. You realize that they are going to grow up and make messes and whatever. You can’t be psycho about it. Still, I understand the whole crazy mom thing because after you have kids you want them to have the best things-even if it’s the perfect organic carrot-because you love them so much. It just happens. Everyone should become a little bit crazy over their kid because kids deserve it. It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me and I’ve had a lot of great things happen to me. And yes, I definitely want to have more.. and it’s fun trying to get pregnant.

How do you juggle the music career, the family, and the fashion stuff?
It’s tough. you know. I’m going into my fifth year now of doing L.A.M.B and it’s like a full time job. Sometimes I’m afraid that I’m going to get tired from my own fashion line if I don’t do what I’m supposed to. There are days when all I want to do is relax and the baby will be asleep and even though I just want to do nothing I know that unless I do my work, no one else can do their work. So, I’ll tell Gavin to sit tight and I’ll spend the next few hours looking at old patterns online – which, bu the way, is my favorite thing in the world to do. Looking through old patterns, going to thrift stores. Visiting costume warehouses. I love it.

You’ve always had a very defined sense of style, even from the earliest days of the band. Now that you have this successful clothing line and are looking at as a style icon, do you find that you have to be more protective of your image?
Not really. I’ve always been in total control of my image and how I’ve been presented. No one ever told me how to dress or that I need to be more sexy or more fashion-y or whatever. For the longest time, I didn’t even let anyone else do my makeup or hair. To be honest, my sense of style isn’t insanely premeditated. I don’t really worry about it or think hard about it… usually it just happens. I’ll accidentally curl my hair a certain way. Sometimes I’ll see a girl in the audience who is copying my look but rocking it way better than I ever could and that will inspire me. I get inspired by everything around me. I was always the little girl locked in the bathroom putting on makeup, singing and getting a million burns from the curling iron. I’m still that girl.

As far as media attention goes, you and Gavin seem to fare pretty well. I don’t see gossip mags predicting your divorce every five minutes like they do with some celeb couples.
It’s just so weird that people feel free to comment on your marriage I guess we all do it, but it’s usually in regard to someone that we actually know. For complete strangers to weigh in on my private life is incredibly weird to me. As for me and Gavin… you know, we fell in love twelve years ago and we have had the rockiest, craziest, most amazing relationship. It’s sort of a miracle, actually. We work very hard at it. Plus, you know having a baby is just about the most romantic thing in the world you can do with somebody. We were together so long before we had him and he’s such a funny blend of us. We’re really lucky and very blessed but not because it isn’t difficult. Gavin is awesome. Oh god, what a quote… he’s awesome!

So, I was walking around the Virgin Megastore in New York and discovered that they had this huge island of Gwen Stefani mechandise – a total Gwenopolis right in the middle of the store.
Wait, did you say ‘Gwenopolis’? Can you please make sure that goes in this story? Actually, I want that. My next solo record is totally going to be called Gwenopolis.

Well, I’m looking at all the stuff – Harajuku Lovers bags, unauthorized Gwen Stefani biographies, DVD’s- and I picked up one of the Gwen Stefani dolls. As I’m holding the doll in my hands, I look over and I notice that the person standing across from me is Chris Rock. He’s the only other person around in the entire store and he totally clocked me playing with the Gwen Stefani doll!
Are you serious?

Well, it got me thinking about all the various celebrities who have their own doll. It’s a pretty elite group. I mean, it’s one thing to be famous, but to have a doll…
Yeah, it really takes it to the next level. Let me tell you, it was a long difficult creative process creating those dolls. The outfits are exact replicas of what I wore onstage for the tour… the shit is crazy. Plus, they’d bring all these doll head mock-ups of my face over to my house and I’d be talking about how the eyebrows needed to be thinner…

That has to be one of those moments when you step back for a second and think, My life is insane. This is insane.
Uh-huh. But you know, I was one of those girls who played with Barbies a lot as a kid. A lot. So strangely enough it didn’t feel that weird ot me. It was like a fantasy. The funny thing is that they keep sending them to me, so now I have a bunch of them at my house that I don’t know what to do with. I don’t want people to come over and think I just keep dolls of myself scattered around the house. That would be crazy.

Gwen Stefani: The singer, dancer, actress and fashion designer sees children in her near future

Gwen Stefani, 36, is doing a little short of building an empire. After achieving worldwide success with her band, No Doubt, she is making as a big a name for herself as a solo artist with her debut CD, Love. Angel. Music. Baby.

In between recording and performing, she’s found time to launch her own fashion label, L.A.M.B, and forge ahead in her acting career! But Gwen – who is married to Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale – is also starting to gear herself up for an even more demanding role – as a mother.

With your music and your clothing line, do you ever get a chance to relax?
I’ve had a few seconds to myself. It was weird, and I think that I really brought me down. I was like, “Let me go back to work; I don’t know how to deal with this.” I’m trying to live in the moment and really enjoy this wave that I’m riding.

Do you and Gavin get much time together?
For about the last three years we’ve seen a lot of each other. We’re together most days. But in the previous years, because we’ve been together nine years, there was a lot of time apart because we both were touring so much. But we try not to get too far apart or else that’s when all the disasters come! Stay close, hold hands!

What about having kids?
You know, it’s definately on my dream list. One of the big reasons I wanted to do this dance record was because I knew that my passions were going to change soon and I’m to want to have a family. But right now I’m trying to live in the moment and really enjoy this wave that I’m riding. It’s not up to me, is it? If it happens it happens, it’ll happen when… To me it’s such a miracle anyway, that when it’s suppose to happen to me, I guess it will.

Gavin is British – do you spend much time over there?
We spend a lot of time over there. We had a dog there that passed away, and being over here I think has made it easier on us because somehow it just kind of masks it a little bit.

What inspired you to take a break from No Doubt and start a solo career?
When we did the Rock Steady record, that was probably the highlight for me in the sense that we were such great friends at that point. The tour and everything about it was just so fabulous that I pictured a break was the next thing we needed to do. We have never taken a break from each other at that point. So everybody agreed and I had just gotten married. The band were so committed to each other that you kind of don’t even realize it because it’s just up passion. But it was time.

How did you tell the band?
I said to Tony [Kanal], “I really wanna frickin’ make a dance record,” because I heard a Club Nouveau song, “Why You Treat Me So Bad.” I just thought it would be a fun thing to do, and it was very innocent. Like, Tony would be part of it, we would do it in his studio at his house, and it would just be this thing we were going to do. So we started trying it and it turned into this major project where it was like this challenge I had for myself because I never really wrote songs outside of the group.

What does the rest of the band make of your solo project?
Like I said, everybody was very ready to take a break from each other. Tony was so involved in the record that in some ways it didn’t feel like a huge break. It’s almost like it was out of our hands, like we were sent to each other because the idea that we could actually stay together that long is pretty insane, you know? Eighteen Years! I mean, marriages don’t even stay together that long! I never thought the solo record would turn out as good as it did.

Are you surprised your solo album was received so well?
I never thought the solo record would turn out as good as it did, it has so many different styles on it. I think there’s a nice balance of silly stuff on the record. I mean, the whole idea behind it is that it’s a silly dance record, you know? It was based on the whole Harajuku scene in Tokyo and the idea of self-expression through fashion and being unique and individual. I was on a quest. I was like, ” I know, I’m goin to get some Harajuku Girls and I’m going to roll with them everywhere I go.”

What was the significance of the Harajuku Girls?
It was like my fantasy come true. When I first wrote “What You Waiting For?” I’d written a line in the song and it said “I can’t wait to go back and do Osaka,Tokyo, you Harajuku Girls, damn you got the wicked style.” I was giving them a shout-out basically because they’re wicked.

You’ve had such a long working relationship with your band. Was it hard to adapt to working with new people like Pharrel Williams and Andre 3000?
To get out there and write with all these different people was really hard because you to put your ego aside and you have to get out there and open yourself up to not only new people who you respect and you’re a fan of, but also a whole different culture of music as well. So it was a pretty big trip, I have to say. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be and my ego had a real problem with it a lot of the time. What really defines me, when I think about myself and what makes me feel good about myself is that I’m lyricist – I write lyrics and I express myself through music, and I write melodies. I don’t know how I’ve ever done it, it’s all a mystery to me, music, like I go, “Wait, how did that song happen?” So the idea of getting in with somebody I don’t know and trying to make that magic happen is kind of risky and intimidating.

But what an amazing experience.
When the magic really did come, it was really unbelievable because the people I was working with were unbelievably inspiring and talented. It was just so amazing after 18 years to get in a room and see how other people do it because no on taught me; it was just instinct and just trial and error. It was really cool to get in the room with Pharrell and go “oh that’s how you do it,” or Dr. Dre and seeing how he does it.

So how did you get into music?
I think what happened was my older brother brought home a Madness record that had one hit, “Our House.” So when we discovered that when we were like 14, 15, that was it! We were in and we thought we had found the coolest thing around. We were really inspired by the whole ska thing, which turned us onto reggae music as well, and then we just said “We’re gonna start a band.” There was nothing else for us to do in Orange County.

Was your family supportive?
My parents were kind of conservative, strict. At the same time they were musicians and I grew up on Bob Dylan. My first concert I went to was Emmylou Harris. So my parents are a little bit of a contradiction because musically they love all kinds of hippie folk groups, but then they’re very Catholic and strict. When we started the band they were very supportive of it being a hobby, but at the same time we were all meant to go to college and be something when we grow up.

You have done so much more than ‘be something’. You did you first fashion show with L.A.M.B this year at New Your Fashion Week. How was that?
It is different whe you know that you’re actually doing a show, you know? It’s a little bit more pressure. I have a whole other accessories line, too. When you put out a record, like with No Doubt, we always have merchandise line. That’s just the way you do it and it’s pretty ordinary.

Where did the name for the L.A.M.B clothing line come from?

I was trying to think of a name and I had a dog, Megan, for 16 years. She was this little stinky dog that I loved so much and I used to call her Lamb. For most of her life she was called Lamb, because she used to follow me everywhere , she was so dependent on me. When she died, I was just trying to think of a name and I call everybody Lamb, like anybody I love, it’s like my pet word. So I just thought it was a good way to kind of let her live on. It’s really hard because it becomes something more that the name it has this whole new life. It just seemed like the right thing and instead of just saying “Lamb,” I wanted each letter to rotate and I would give different names to it, and the first ones I came up with were “Love, Angel, Music, Baby.”

Do you enjoy the process of designing clothes?
The whole design process is something I’ve done my whole life and it fulfils me in the same way as music – you have nothing and then you have something. It’s just a very creative, fulfilling, passionate thing that I like to do. It’s something I’d like to do for the rest of my life and that’s why I started the clothing line. I think that every season it just gets better and better. I still have a lot to learn, though. I’m still totally a baby at it.

So there will be more No Doubt albums?
That’s the plan. I really didn’t know that it would take so long to make Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Then we ended up putting a greatest hits record out and that took up time. We went on tour. It was amazing — we never even thought we would have a greatest hits record out. I never intended for this record to take so long, but I kind of want to ride the wave while it’s out there.

What about acting? You were amazing as Jean Harlow in The Aviator.
I would love to do another movie, like to have a real role – not that that wasn’t – I mean Jean Harlow in a Martin Scorsese movie is not bad! But I would love to do a film. I have something I’m developing right now, but with films there’s so many poeple involved and it costs so much, and there’s so much at risk; I don’t like to talk about it. When it’s coming out, I’ll talk about.

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…”

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.

“I know what it’s like to be up onstage with anyone from a stupid, fucking wannabe, punk rock band with a bunch of fucking wannabe punk rock kids in the audience to, like, opening for U2, opening for The Rolling Stones. I mean, we’ve shared the stage with so many different kinds of groups. We played the fucking Warped Tour! I was one of the first females to do that – it was like (tampon-flinging girl grungers) L7 and No Doubt!”

A pause for breath and a flash of that winning Hollywood smile: “You can tell I get a little bit angry… No, not angry, but I feel a little bit like, y’know what? I don’t need to hear it.”

The truth is, Gwen Stefani is whoever the goddamn hell she wants to be. The other night she was Rock Gwen, accompanying her husband and bush frontman Gavin Rossdale to see heavy metal headfucks Helmet on tour (“That was pretty scary”). Earlier today, she was Fashion Gwen, emerging airbrushed-immaculate from three hours in hair and make-up to work the camera like a seasoned pro while wearing pieces of her very own clothes label, L.A.M.B.

And then suddenly she’s Street Gwen as ‘Rich Girl’ – the pop-ragga track she’s worked on with two of hip-hop’s most celebrated heavyweights, Dr Dre and her old sparring partner, Eve – blasts through the photo studio speakers and she lip-synchs along, pulling gangster poses and giggling to herself.

In her astonishing 18-year-career, Gwen Stefani has proved she can turn her hand to anything – bindis, Two Tone, ’80s clubbing, Japanese styling – and instantly make it the coolest thing in the world. For anyone with an ear for cross-pollination and an eye for fun, she is the only 21st-century superstar that matters any more.

Contrary to popular stereotyping, Gwen Stefani was not the token pretty girl drafted in to give parochial, Orange County new wavers No Doubt an MTV-friendly face and send them on their way to mid-’90s stadium success. Sure, she gave them that, but that was just the beginning. As a 16-year-old tomboy, it was Gwen who knew her stuff better than the boys, and first turned her hopelessly un-hip disco-loving bassist boyfriend Tony Kanal (perhaps more famous as the object of her lost affections in No Doubt’s 1997 breakthrough ballad ‘Don’t Speak’) onto what was to become their signature sound.

“I was into ska, like, hard ska. Like I was really into Madness, The Specials and The Selecter and all these groups you didn’t get to hear on the radio over here,” babbles the astonishingly warm (she’ll compliment on the sundress we’re wearing numerous times over the course of the day and ask us almost as many questions about ourselves as we ask her) and beautiful (for a 36-year-old, she could put many of pop’s pubescent pin-ups to shame) Stefani, sitting down in post-cover shoot spivs, to talk about her debut solo album and much-hyped career break from No Doubt.

Named after her fashion line, ‘Love Angel Music Baby’ is so crammed with celebrity cameos that Stefani prefers to call it her collaboration record (“It would be a little too greedy and untrue to call this my solo record”). With André 3000, The Neptunes and New Order just some of the ice-cool names on board, the album has crossed over to become – like Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake and OutKast – the pop record of the year it’s OK to like. From the opening bars of super-kitsch and self-berating bubblegum anthem ‘What You Waiting For?’ (just as likely to be heard on a hip indie dancefloor as it is on CD:UK) through to the style-obsessed Japanese Harajuku girls that littler the lyrics and artwork, it is totally credible, up-to-the-minute sound of now now now.

Actually, according to Stefani, it’s the sound of ex-boyfriend Kanal’s much-derided high-school music taste and her own best-forgotten nights out at Disneyland in the ’80s.

“I used to go dancing at Disneyland embarrassingly,” she blushes, “because there was a club in there and I lived across the street so I’d sneak in! I love all that music even though I couldn’t admit it then. Imagine, like Madonna had just come out, no-one had seen her before; it was like, ‘Who the fuck is that?!’ And Depeche Mode, imagine that music for the first time – you’d never heard that kind of music before! I wasn’t into all that at the time – Madonna and Depeche Mode – but as I grew up I realised that all that music, the stuff that was popular at the time, was the backdrop of my life.

“So I wanted to take that music and make it into a modern record that made me feel good but make it with modern people from the clubs today like Dre and André 3000 and Pharrell.”

Dre’s input metamorphosised ‘Love Angel Music Baby’’s latest single ‘Rich Girl’. “I kind of played him early hip-hop, almost embarrassingly hip-hop – y’know, great stuff really! – like Salt-N-Pepa and all that shit. He’d basically roll his eyes at it all, like ‘Naahhhh!’ He was actually the one who came to me with ‘Rich Girl’. I was like: ‘Really?” How am I gonna make that lyric work for me? ‘Cos y’know, I don’t see a white girl from Orange County singing that!’ And he’s like, ‘Ah, you’ve got to play the characters.’ ”

Meanwhile, André 3000’s involvement spawned two collaborations – the co-written cartoon Prince parody ‘Bubble Pop Electric’ and ‘Long Way To Go’, a politically charged duet in which Stefani and 3000 play the parts of a stigmatised mixed-race couple.

“André was on top of my list because if I could be a boy, I would be like André. I was always excited about coming into the studio to see what he was going to be wearing. Even on his dress-down days, he looked fucking fabulous. I was definitely like ‘Hmm, what am I going to wear for him today?’ ”

What began life as a passing fancy to make “a stupid little dance record” quickly began sprouting countless star turns. Suddenly Stefani was hooking up with everyone from Courtney, Pink and Christina collaborator Linda Perry to NME Godlike Geniuses New Order.

While Hooky and the boys were too busy recording their own album to write an entire track for her, they did find time to record the instrumental parts for the Linda and Gwen-penned New Order homage “The Real Thing”. When she wasn’t being followed around by four mute Harajuku girls every time she appeared in public, Gwen celebrated the completion of her fantasy-party album by dressing up as Alice in Wonderland at every available opportunity. “It was very magical, that’s where the Alice in Wonderland thing came up ‘cos it felt like I was falling down this hole and and plopping into this world, like ‘OK, go here next, do this next.’ It was very surreal, y’know, it was like a maze and I had the clock just ticking in my ears, like, ‘I need to get this shit outta me ‘cos I wanna do another No Doubt record, I wanna have a baby, I want to do all these things’ and I was, like, time is not on my side!”

Baby-envy is a recurrent theme in Stefani’s conversation (the ‘tick-tock’ refrain of recent single ‘What You Waiting For?’ is, she says, the intense clattering of her biological clock). Needless to say, the revelations that she shares a step-child with Supergrass’ Danny Goffrey (husband Gavin Rossdale recently discovered he has a 15-year-old love child with Danny’s missus and Sadie Frost’s best mate Pearl Lowe) have not been enough to satisfy her brooding. Especially when the US tabloids picked up on the story, giving her and Gavin’s marriage the kind of week-in, week-out gossip column coverage usually reserved for supermodels and their crackheads. While legal restrictions prevent Gwen giving her version of events, she is more that ready to ride-out the latest red-top rumours about her and Gavin splitting over the strain.

“Oh, we’re still together. We’re married!” she shrieks, thrusting her wedding ring before our eyes, convincingly aghast, “Marriage is forever, y’know, and, um, he’s great. He has a new record coming out and it’s wicked!”

Does he get pissed off by the fact you’re much cooler than he is? “Well, I mean, that might be your opinion and I should probably slap you because you’re speaking about my husband and you better watch your mouth, girl!” she says, suddenly getting all rude girl on our ass. “He’s got so many amazing gifts and he loves me way! So, y’know, there is no competition.”

Maybe so, but like Rossdale, whose first movie role proper is in Frances Laurence’s Constantine which opens in the UK this week (March 18) , Stefani has also recently turned her hand to acting. Following unsuccessful auditions for Girl, Interrupted and Helena Bonham Carter’s part in Fight Club, she finally got her much-hyped, big Hollywood break last year when Martin Scorsese cast her in a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo as Jean Harlow in his Howard Hughes biography The Aviator.

“I’ve been trying to do films for years. Yeah, it’s hard, it’s very competitive, they’re very specific about what they want and I think also for me it’s doubly hard because I don’t want to do anything that will fuck up what I’ve done already because people know who I am.”

So now she is a fully paid-up member of the north London rockistocracy (well, she does own a mansion in Primrose Hill and is practically a blood-relation of Camden’s most ubiquitous Britpop ligger, Danny Goffrey, these days), it’s time to test Gwen on her indie credentials. Who’s your favourite band right now? “I do love Franz Ferdinand, I really like that, though I haven’t got the record yet. The thing is about me is that – and I admit this! – I’m a bit of a singles girl. I like hits and it’s very rare I’ll give a record a whole listen. The Keane record, that was the last record where I really listened to the whole thing. I got turned onto it because someone at my label wanted me to write with those guys.”

Really?

“I wish I did it! I’m really happy for them that… actually I’m happy for me that I’ve found a record I can listen to the whole of! I love the Coldplay record too, the last one (suddenly starts laughing at herself), but they’re kinda similar, huh? What other British bands are there…”

Well there’s The Libertines, but they’ve split up?

“The Libertines have split up? Haven’t they only been together a few minutes?” They sure have. And have you heard the latest about your mate Kate Moss and Pete? Apparently they’re back together again, it’s all over the newspapers. “I know Kate vaguely, I’ve met her a couple of times… ooh, you love it (salacious scandal) over there, huh? You guys!” Stefani should know: when it’s not her private life racking up column inches, then it’s her professional one. Recent months have seen all kinds of speculation as to what Stefani’s solo move means for the future of No Doubt.

“This record, for me, is exploring some more of my musical, theatrical side that I would never have dared put my band through the torture of. Y’know have little Japanese accessory girls run around with me!” she giggles, “But I miss those guys.” Does it ever bother you what people say about you? “No, not at all. I mean, what am I so worried about? I’ve been beyond the scope of dreams, I have a really fancy life and I have everything I’ve ever dreamed of. So no, I’m not going to about what other people think at this point really.” Our time is up. Gwen stands up, compliments us on our outfit one last time and turns towards the door, readying herself to walk straight into a high-profile TV interview. Suddenly she pauses, and turns back to face us.

“Y’know someone one time called me a cheerleader, negatively,” she smile, arching one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “And I’ve never been a cheerleader. So I was, like, ‘OK, fuck you. You want me to be a cheerleader? Well, I will be one then. And I’ll rule the whole world, just you watch me.”

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.”

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.

Everyone’s jaw drops when Gwen enters the room, but she magnanimously deflects this awed reception, partly by running around on vertiginous, clip-clop Westwood heels, showering ‘hello’ kisses all round by way of introducing herself – as if she needs to – and partly by ‘yo, duding’ anyone that will listen. Which is mostly everyone. She breezes into the photographers studio at 12:30pm. By 5 o’clock in the afternoon I figure that the whole room has fallen in love with her. Not bad, given that half of them are women, gay or variants of both.

When God was dishing out the good looks, it is fair to say that Gwen Stefani was somewhere near the front of the queue (she skipped the semester when he was alloting angst). She bagged the bright, starry eyes, the Jessica Rabbit waistline, the stretch-to-infinity legs, the neat, cherubic and suddenly explosive pout and added her own bleach later to blend into a perfectly fitting state of white blonde.

Thus, the camera loves her. And, boy, can she work it. Whether paddling down the backstreets of Kentish Town, stopping traffic by flashing her Dior Couture hooped underskirt, handing out balloons to local kids with whom she is causing an evident stir – at any given point she draws an audience of somewhere between ten and thirty gobsmacked onlookers from nowhere – or reclining on her back in the middle of a busy road, she seems preternaturally hotwired to stardom. “Loving your work, Gwen,” shouts some itinerant laddo from an open window. Is he referring to her records? Or the fact that she has just strutted starrily down his street, mostly in her underwear? It’s never quite established. But Gwen’s an expert at this game. She plays it right back to him. “Loving yours, too” she says, blowing the lucky chap a kiss.

Later she will says that this is her work, that “I want to be at the centre of something incredible.” She can play the loveable ditz better than anyone you’d care to imagine. But underneath it all, one suspects, is a steely determination to turn her brand into something approaching legend. The eve of her solo launch for world domination – or as she, somewhat disingenuously put it “just making a fun little dance record of my own” – is a fascinating moment to watch Stefani. Gwen, you see, is that oddest of breeds. She is a joyful celebrity. She appears to have been born to it. If only they cut all of them from this mould.

What was little Gwen like?
I was always, um, a little… [dithers a while, stirring soya milk and honey into her tea]

Was she going to be a superstar?
No! Dude! The only fantasy I ever had about that was after I was already in the band. When I was in High School I thought that a really cool job would be to sing jingles. I do physically like singing. I thought I could do it. So that was where my ambition was at. I thought ‘dude, you can sing. Hey, you could do Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials.’ That sounded like fun.

Before she acquired the illusive status of being famous for simply being Gwen Stefani, Gwen was famous for fronting No Doubt, an unusual, ska-inflected poprock operation. I had always, wrongly assumed No Doubt to be named with a knowing wink to the obviousness of their English musical heritage, a nod to the whole ska thing. In fact, the explanation seems far more literal. It is because they, and their startling front woman, appear to have no doubt. Even in their fallow periods, No Doubt have exuded a unique and singular, can-do confidence. I’ll be honest, the first time I heard tell of the group I winced. Then I saw them and gasped. They looked like they’d been assembled by an angry marketing meeting of chunky, godless businessmen clutching phallic cigars and mopping sweat from their thickset brows with fancy Hermes hankies in a Bel Air production office. The foxy chick and the almost Bennetton-ad racial assortment of backup dudes. Mohawks, skaters, punks, babes, Ragga, pop, rock, ska, even a short sharp brace of metal and the odd hip hop inflection. This cacophony was surely dreamed up to appeal on every level, at every single junction of the record-buying demographic. It was as if ’80s MTV had imagined the group into life, willed them into being.

Yet for two partially flunking albums – their self-titled debut in 1992 and Beacon Street Collection in ‘95 – they managed to keep only heads above water. LA college kids with piercings and Acupuncture bootees kept them just about in business. There were tours with The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ziggy Marley, but still Gwen would only get stopped while shopping at Tower Records on Sunset Strip and asked about the band. She was approaching huge in her native LA, a bona fide sensation in Anaheim – unbelievably appropriately, CA’s feeder town for Disneyworld that was her childhood home. But in most of the speaking world she couldn’t get arrested. Then came along Don’t Speak, the first of two monumental, turnaround, upward swings in the imperial curve of being Gwen Stefani.

Gwen was 26 when Don’t Speak gave her her first international smash nine years ago. She toured its parent album Tragic Kingdom in support to the then-huge Bush, where she met her husband their handsome, English rake of a singer, Gavin Rossdale. If for a while they had appeared to be wipe-clean, parent friendly Kurt and Courtney, her inflating success bubble put Gwen in the bridesmaid’s role of a direct run of iconic pop blonds from the previous two decades. Exactly where Courtney always threatened yet never quite managed to be. Debbie Harry was approaching 30 and three albums old when she first cut through to circuit-dominating pop supremacy. Madonna – that other Catholic, Italian-American bleached pop goddess that Stefani is so often compared with – was 27 by the time of Holiday. It is suggested to Gwen that the ’70s gave us Harry, the ’80s Madonna, and the ’90s Gwen. She looks aghast.

“That’s crazy, dude. That’s crazy. Don’t even say that shit. Listen, I’m having a freaking fun time and I love what I do but to even talk about me in the same breath, you know?” Three days before we meet, Gwen had been to see Madonna on the London leg of her career-defining Reinvention tour. “It was amazing. It was actually quite embarrassing how close I was to her. It was so fun. people were so happy. I was so elated. I haven’t been to a concert like that in years.”

Beneath the wonder, there is a serious consideration here, as to how far Gwen can go. If Gwen is gently cautious about voicing it, Madonna herself, ever a champion of the young bucks biting at her ankles, spotted it. They have socialised together. “She’s been really nice. It’s something not a lot of people know about Madonna – how supportive she is to other female artists.” Gwen has a theory on their connection: “My mom’s Irish/Scottish and my dad’s pure Italian, but his dad came from Rome to Detroit, so I tease Madonna that me and her are related. Because my grandma’s sister’s husband is Ciccone. But I don’t think so. Maybe.” The thought is clearly a thrill, however far-fetched.

Twelve million copies of Tragic Kingdom, and its follow-up Return of Saturn later, a brace of Grammies collected, and the second pivotal moment in the making of a modern icon occurred. Gwen had been experimenting with solo vocal work, already, and had bagged an American smash with Moby on the single Southside. But it was her duet with crop-headed Dr Dre prodigy, rapper and impecunious scion of all things street Eve on Let Me Blow Your Mind that upped Stefani’s ante into being something other than a pretty frontwoman of the American record industry’s favourite globe-trotters.

Did she feel the shift? “Aha! Sure I did. Just like everybody else did. I am under no illusions that the record turned me around. being able to rock into Eve’s world and get lost in all that coolness. I mean, I dreamt of Dre. He’s always been on my label and I always dropped things to people that knew him, like, ‘dude, if you ever want me to do any vocal thing, anything. I’ll do it’. So I got the call about the Eve track, but I didn’t have much to do with that track. I went in. He beat up my vocal, I left and I remember I was really liking walking into another, completely different world. But it turned out so incredible and it was such an incredible thing to be part of. It really opened our world up to all these other people. We had a whole opportunity out there of people that would work with us. It was awesome. That’s how I met Andrea, too.”

Andrea is a crucial figure in the Gwen operation. They share a closeness amongst singers and their stylists probably only rivalled in the celebrity cannon by Kylie and her creative directing shoulder, William Baker. Andrea, a Bronx girl by both nature and nurture also looks after Jennifer Lopez – it was she that selected the olive green heavy print, Versace/tit tape Oscar ensemble that was to redefine red carpet attire forever – but Gwen is more than her client.

“She’s my girlfriend first,” says Andrea, “I love working with her and hanging out withe her.” Gwen puts it even more succinctly “She’s the East Coast me,” she declares. Their bond was instant and thus their working synchronicity was nailed instantly too. A fashion plate was beginning to weld itself onto the public conscious. Stefani became eternally prefaced in print by the seldom scientifically or precisely used words ’style icon’. And she earned the plaudit with glowing ribbons.

By her own admission, coolness is not Gwen’s forte. She blanches when I ask her to rate how cool she is on a sliding scale of one to ten. “No way. That is so mean. I could never do that. I just don’t think like that.” Nevertheless, she has become a benchmark for the scintillating ambitions of the coolerati since her seismic shift. No Doubt’s first and, thus far only post-Eve album, the most perfect pop/rock configuration Rock Steady, attracted a new elite into the fold. Nellee Hooper, William Orbit and Sly & Robbie joined in the production credits. Just to prove the band itself was one step ahead of the fashion curve, they invited Ric Ocasek, frontman of The Cars and new wave renaissance man par excellence, out of retirement to harness a couple of moodier rock moments. The result was astounding. If Don’t Speak had been both blight and blessing for No Doubt – who really wants to be a one-hit wonder, however wondrous the one hit? – Rock Steady established them as one of the late-blooming giants of the world stage, both commercially and creatively. It was their belated tipping point moment. They achieved heat.

By the time it’s come to a full blown solo foray, everyone wants a piece of Gwen. The cast list of collaborators on her debut is dizzying. Andre 3000, Wendy & Lisa, Pharrell, New Order, Linda Perry, Dr Dre, Dallas Austin and long-time No Doubt co-writer and one-time boyfriend Tony Kanal are all along for the ride. Outside of her currently enviable musical predicament – Stefani’s solo album is the most hotly anticipated of the season, and not without reason: it’s dynamite – she has been directed by Martin Scorsese in the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. Her and Andrea’s fashion line, L.A.M.B, is finally reaching its full potential (“Look at my cardigan,” says Gwen, showing off a piece of her own work “it looks like camouflage, but look closer. It’s lambouflage”). Multi-tasking is in Gwen’s DNA. She is rocking so hard now, a free-wheeling boulder couldn’t interrupt her progress. Thus her opening gambit as we sit down to talk properly comes as something of a surprise…

Do I smell? I’m so sorry. I mean, I have all this crap on me and I’ve not showered and I’ve been running around and, um, I’d stay away from me if I was you.

You smell fine.
Just stay over there dude.

Honestly, there’s nothing! Why do the solo thing now? Is this it for No Doubt? Has it run its course?
People for years have always been saying ‘oh, she’ll go solo.’ Listen, I am not going anywhere. My fears are the same as any No Doubt fan’s fears. I really do not want to fuck that up. I’ve been doing No Doubt for 17 years now. I talked to Tony about it and said I didn’t want to threaten anybody or anyone’s situation here, but I wanted to try something else. He was really into it. They were all supercool about it. I already said that I wanted to make a family… oops. I wanted to make a movie, and I did want to make a family, too, by the way. All these things that I wanted to do and, lets face it, I’m on time check here. They understand that. It’s different for them because they’re guys so they’re all cool. I was thinking if I don’t get this thing done now then when’s the No Doubt record going to get done? When am I going to have a baby? Fricking hell, this clock is going quicksville.

It’s a pop record, right? A proper pop record?
Sure. Me and Tony come from totally different backgrounds, musically, to Adrian and Tom. They’re really into punk and heavy metal and ska and Tony and I didn’t really listen to that stuff when we were growing up. We listened to all the ’80s stuff. When I met Tony I was 17. He turned me onto Prince, The Family, Time, Club Nouveau, Debbie Deb, Lisa Lisa, all that stuff that was totally a huge part of our childhood. Early Madonna really figures here. White Lines. I had all that shit, and even though you didn’t necessarily admit it, it was a totally huge part of our musical upbringing. It felt right to go there again, Cyndi Lauper, Duran Duran. I graduated Sixth Grade in ‘87, you know?

Have you only ever had two boyfriends in your life?
Yes, I had one boyfriend in high school who was my kissing boyfriend who I was completely in love with. We went out for six months. The thing about him that’s weird to talk about is that he actually died. Recently, you know. Just two years ago. I didn’t know him for years, though I actually wrote a song for him on this record called Wonderful Life. He was one of those guys that was the naughty, naughty boy who had total character but was always getting into trouble. He was in and out of high school all the time.

So the boy that all the girls wanted to date?
Yeah. One time he was back in high school and he just turned into Robert Smith overnight, which I obviously found very attractive. I was obsessed with him for years, then he broke up with me. It wasn’t like… It was Ninth Grade, he was the second boy I kissed. But Tony was my real boyfriend for eight years. We broke up then I met my husband and we’ve known each other for almost nine years.

What attracted you to Gavin?
Probably physical stuff, you know. It was very physical to start with.

What were your initial impressions?
We got to meet the guys and we went into the room and all I’d ever heard was ‘Gavin this’ and ‘Gavin that’ and I saw this guy and it just hi me like something out of the blue. I was like ‘whooo!’ He is shockingly handsome. We went out for dinner last night and I was thinking ‘gee, you are hot’ and then I thought ‘and I’m married to you! Whoa!’ It’s really good. Then he was on tour with us and it was kinda weird. All my band are my friends and none of them wanted me to go out with him. He had a little reputation for being the typical rock star guy.

But he’s a nice boy?
He’s an amazing person. He’s such a nice guy. Obviously, I wouldn’t have gone out with him if he wasn’t.

There was a little rock’n'roll mythologising around him though?
Sure. I mean, probably some of that shit was true but he was a guy like anyone is. It’s not like you’re born a rock star.

Why do all these people want to work with you now?
Linda Perry had come up to me. She approached me, which is wild. She came up to me at the Grammys and put me in a headlock. We were the first girls to sign to Interscope, so I’ve kinda known her for years and we were always drawn to each other.

Is she not a little scary?
She is, dude! She was right up in my face telling me ‘we’re gonna write songs together’. She totally confronted me about working together and she’s the hottest hit maker. You have to remember that I’ve never worked with a woman before and this girl can play any instrument she picks up, she can run the board, she produces, she writes, this is the coolest, most awesome person to be around. She’s on fricking fire from the moment we walk into the studio. My ego was already curled up and in the corner by the time she’s pounding out these tunes but it just clicked. There were times during the process of doing this that I hated myself because whoever I was sitting next to was so incredible.

Are you aware when you’re in the presence of genius?
To be able to sit next to Andre 3000 and see how he writes lyrics and comes up with shit is amazing, let me tell you. For me coming in as a fan, it can be horrifying.

Aren’t you aware that those people are fans of yours too? That’s why they’re there?
Everybody that I’ve worked with seems to be really into it, which is very flattering. I can’t believe it. I didn’t want to put something out unless it was incredible. I said that from the beginning and at any point I could have just pulled it.

Jean Harlow, lets talk…
I just saw it in New York. I saw my clips. It’s sick.

What was Scorsese like?
Magical.

Not frightening?
The exact opposite. I was obviously scared out of my mid, but he’s the most welcoming, comforting kind of guy. Almost to the point where you think ‘have you got to make me feel this nice – haven’t you got a film to direct here? He basically saw my picture from a Teen Vogue shoot on the side of a bus stop by Herb Ritts. It’s all Herb’s fault! I’d done the whole Marilyn on the beach kinda thing and Martin saw it and asked me to try out for the Jean Harlow part and I tried out and got it. The thing that’s crazy about this… I mean, it’s a small part but I’m not calling it a small part. I’m with Leonardo DiCaprio, directed by Martin Scorsese, playing Jean Harlow. I can be on screen for, like, one second and that is not a small part. That is huge, dude.

Are you pleased with it?
Oh boy, am I?

Is this the first time you’ve acted?
Yep. You know what’s crazy about it is I’m playing Jean Harlow just after Howard Hughes has given her her first major movie role, right? And I thank Howard for giving me this amazing part. So I sent Marty some flowers when he cast me with the exact same words on it. It’s kinda symbiotic, you know?

How many people will you be thanking in your first Oscar speech?
Dude, the list will be endless…

One last thing. How happy are you right now?
Ecstatic, basically.

Gwen Stefani blows our minds once again. By Peter Davis, Photographs by Richard Phibbs.

It’s Gwen Stefani’s 33rd birthday, and the scene in No Doubt’s dressing room at an auditorium in downtown Los Angeles is cluttered and chaotic. Stefani’s operatic voice booms from the sound check as she belts out the song “Bathwater.” Five large pizza boxes and cases of Coca Cola, Diet Coke and bottled water are stacked near an enormous bouquet of birthday flowers. Drummer Adrian Young’s wife, Nina, strolls by cuddling their toddler son, who has been dressed in a black jumpsuit with skull-and-crossbones buttons. Techies race back and forth, fueled by venti lattes from Starbucks.

“I’m burnt, dude,” says Stefani, who wed Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale in September, as a blue-haired assistant hands her a cappuccinos. Her sweet voice has a Southern California sufer-girl twang. “I had 10 days to plan my wedding, and now I’m going on tour,” she says. “I have so much stuff going on. In January I’m taking the month off. Gavin and I, we don’t know what we’re gonna do-just hang out and not talk to anybody.”

Sporting a rehearsal outfit of Ron Herman and a blue-and-white mesh tank top, with her long, white-blond hair framing her face, Stefani is just as beautiful as she looked in the photographs of her in her pale-pink couture John Galliano wedding dress. Stefani and Rossdale actually tied the knot twice. The first ceremony, performed by the Church of England, was held on September 14 in London, where the “I dos” were said in front of 130 people-family members and friends like Stefani’s ex, 32-year-old No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal. After a honeymoon on the Italian island of Capri, the pair flew back to Los Angeles, where they repeated their vows privately for a Catholic priest and the couple’s parents. Finally, on September 28, Jimmy Iovine, chairman of No Doubt’s label Interscope, gave the newlyweds the ultimate present: a lavish, enormous wedding celebration at his Beverly Hills home, with guests like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. “I didn’t know what level it was going to be at,” Stefani gushes, widening her brown eyes. “It was beyond! It was the most spectacular event I’ve ever been to. Everyone’s mouth was on the floor. I didn’t think I”d be emotional the second time around, but I was.”

Stefani’s blonde, bottle-rocket looks have landed her in magazines as different as Vogue and Vibe-proof that the singer transcends all age and racial boundaries. Her ability to transform and reinvent her public persona are sure to give her a career trajectory like another blond pop dynamo, Madonna. Part of her enduring appeal is her daring fashion sense. Raised in a conservative Catholic household in Anaheim, California (home of Disneyland), she has a look that is part cartoon, part Latina home girl. From bindis to braces to Jean Harlow hairdos, Stefani’s changing looks have kept the Gwen-abes busy trying to re-create her style. With help from her mother and friends, she has always designer her own clothes and stage costumes, so it’s only natural that one day she would start her own clothing company. With her business partner, Andrea Lieberman, Stefani is launching Lamb, an edgy fashion line that will hit stores in Fall 2003. The line’s name comes from her moniker for her dog. “‘Lamb’ is anything cute singer explains. “It’s basically the clothes I wear. I want it to be my style, so I can wear them. I don’t know what it will evolve into. I don’t know if people will like it nor not. I don’t know anything about fashion, I’m still learning. It’s just another creative outlet for me to do, and it’s exciting.”

Armies of Gwen clones crowd every No Doubt concert, but Stefani says she is still surprised that she is a role model. “I never thought I would have an impact,” she claims. “I was a really passive person growing up. I had a really creative, talented, hyperactive older brother. I’d do whatever he said; I liked what he liked. Anything he did, I did.” This brother, Eric, started No Doubt in 1986 with singer John Spence, and 17-year-old Gwen provided back-up vocals. Then Spence killed himself with a gun in a public park in 1987. With Gwen stepping in as lead singer, the band (which at the time included Kanal on bass, Tom Dumont on guitar and Adrian Young on drums) recorded Tragic Kingdom in 1995. The record sold 14 million copies (Eric Stefani, who dropped out of the group seven years ago, is now an artist and a contributor to The Simpsons.) Gwen became an instant MTV superstar. “After living at home with my parents and going to college and making this record that I thought no one would ever hear, it was like, ‘Who am I? What the hell in happening?’”

As a teen, Stefani didn’t find many women to look up to in rock music. “I remember in high school, I couldn’t like Madonna,” she admits with deadpan seriousness. “It was high school. There were rules. I was into ska and rockabilly- bands like Fishbone and Madness. It wasn’t until later that I discovered Debbie Harry, who was everything I loved. She was glamorous,and she got up on stage and she rocked. Now, of course, as you get older, you see someone like Madonna, who has a career that lasts and keeps people interested so long, and I have a lot of respect for her.” Stefani complains that when she first started there was little room for women in the mail-dominated world of bands. “Girls were like, ‘What does she think she’s doing up there?’-that kind of attitude. Then it started to turn around to, ‘She’s me. She’s representing me.’ I think it’s amazing to be in a band as a girl. Girls come to the concerts, and they feel like they can relate to you-to the lyrics, or maybe they just like the way I do my hair. It’s really cool that I can do that for them. I love it.”

These days, all anyone wants to talk about is her love life, which has been followed by fans of No Doubt’s pop-ska music for years. Her breakup with Kanal in 1994 inspired the hit ‘Ex Girlfriend.” She says the ballad “A Simple Kind of Life” (from No Doubt’s sophomore album, 1999’s Return of Saturn) – with lyrics like, “And all I needed was a simple man/ So I could be a wife”-has “a lot to do with Gavin.” Today, on her birthday, Stefani reports that she is more mature and ready to start a family. “I want to be a grandma,” she confesses, smiling. “I love my 30s so far. Of course, I’m really vain, like we all are, and I’m probably more vain because I’m being looked at all the time and judged. I”m sure in a couple of days I’ll look in the mirror and go, ‘Oh, my God! Look at that and that and that.’ But turning 30 has been so cool. I just want to live life.”

During the making of Return of Saturn, Stefani was in a deep-blue funk. “I was lost,” she recalls, staring off into space. “The making of that record was a growing phase. You can hear it in the songs. I didn’t know how to write songs when I did Tragic Kingdom. I kind of figured it out. I really wanted to be a good songwriter. I wrote in my journal and cried. Ugggh! It was such a serious mood. You can see it in my style. I had pink hair, but I didn’t know what I was doing. I was turning 30 and going through a weird phase.”

Stefani’s current ebullient state of mind is evident on the band’s latest disc, the up-beat Rock Steady. “There’s a real freshness to [the album], because nothing was planned,” she says. “It was like, be fun – write a song about, whatever, how cute your boyfriend is.” Much of Rock Steady was recorded in Port Antonio, Jamaica, and boasts co-producers and co-writers like Sly and Robbie, Prince, William Orbit, the Neptunes, Rick Ocasek, Nellee Hooper and Dave Stewart. “We had all these different energies,” she says. “When you do a record with all different people, you have to bring it together phonetically. We had no game plan, but everything fell into place.”

The list of artists Stefani has collaborated with is also impressive. She’s scored hit with Eve on “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” and Moby on “South Side.” “Working with Gwen was wonderful,” Moby recalls. “When she came into the studio, I expected her to be a lager-than-life rock star, but she was so sweet and down-to-earth. It was the same when we worked on the “South Side” video. She has this very focused work ethic that is impressive, and she’s a lot of fun to be around.”

Stefani returns the love. “I’m so lucky people ask me,” she says. “The song with Eve had the most impact on me. I’d never worked with a rapper. Doing the video, it was like stepping into a whole other world. I love the idea of different worlds coming together. It was what ska was all about in the first place. And I got exposed to a whole other audience. Even just walking around New York, people who I didn’t think would know who I am were like, ‘Hey, what’s up?’”

On the top of Stefani’s with list for future collaborators is Dr. Dre. “He’s on my label, so I told them, if he ever calls or wants me for anything, I’ll be there!” Although Stefani and Rossdale listen and critique each other’s work, they have yet to cut a track together. “We’ve never been creative as a team like that. I would love to, but I feel shy about it somehow. It’s the one thing we haven’t done together.”

After No Doubt’s tour ends in November, Stefani and the band are going to lay low. “We don’t really have any plans. We’ll do whatever feels right at the time. Right no, I don’t think anyone feels inspired to write a record.” The main thing on Stefani’s mind at the moment is finishing up today’s sound check so she can hightail it home to hubby Rossdale, who is cooking a special birthday dinner. No Doubt will soon be on the road, playing big stadiums with bands like Garbage and even opening a few dates for the Rolling Stones.

Stefani finishes her cappuccino and sighs. “Being a performer and being on tour is really repetitive,” she says, rolling her eyes. “It’s not very creative. I really enjoy writing a record more than touring. Performing is fun, but it’s like, hey, so is eating ice cream. You don’t want to do it every minute of your life. It’s like, okay, something else now, please.”

Transcribed by Tabitha for No Doubt Scrapbook. What a star!

Ms. Stefani is already a rock rebel, a girl-power icon, and a style star. Now, Lauren Waterman finds, she’s going for blissed-out bride, fashion designer, and silver-screen queen, too. By Lauren Waterman

Back when Gwen Stefani was just a girl, she never imagined for herself the kind of life she has now. Even though she loved Julie Andrews and Emmylou Harris and was, as she says with a perfectly straight face, “very affected by The Muppet Movie,” she never thought she’d be a performer. “I didn’t think I’d have an impact on anyone,” she says.

Gwen and I are sitting together at the end of a huge conference table in a back office of Orlando’s Hard Rock Hotel – she’s between stops on a seven-week tour with her band, No Doubt – and as she finishes her sentence, the door behind her swings open, right on cue. It’s the room service guy, bearing cups of English breakfast tea, and as if to underscore Gwen’s point, he immediately accosts her. “Gwen Stefani!” he yells, grinning from ear to ear. “Hiya!” He sets down the tray and, with little finesse, asks for four tickets to that night’s show. I’m rolling my eyes at this point, but Gwen graciously agrees. Finally her bodyguard rises from his seat on the other side of the room and subtly intercedes, taking the fan’s name for the guest list even as he ushers him out the door.

“See, I know everyone,” Gwen says with a little smile, delicately acknowledging her discomfort and at the same time brushing it aside. Whether or not she ever imagined herself in this kind of situation, here, for better or for worse, she is. It’s been like this ever since No Doubt’s ska-punk sound first penetrated MTV eight years ago. Back then, the cobwebs of grunge – the angst, the flannel – still clung, so a girl like Gwen, with her retro rolled bangs (inspired by her grandma), her bindi (borrowed from band mate and ex-boyfriend Tony Kanal’s mom), her punker pants, and her California-girl cropped tops might have attracted outside attention even if her songs hadn’t been up to par.

But, of course, they were – thanks to Gwen’s timely discovery of her inner pop star. “I was a very passive person groing up,” she explains. When Eric, the big brother she idolized, encouraged her to join his band, she did, not because she thought she could sing (she didn’t) but because “I did whatever he told me to do. I was never a leader,” she muses. “I didn’t need to be.” It was only after Tony and Gwen broke up and Eric left the band that she really started to find herself as a songwriter. “All of a sudden, it was like, ‘Where did this come from?’” she remembers with a laugh.

No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom went platinum in 1996, thanks in large part to the power of Gwen’s voice and her go-girl personality. And each subsequent album – Return of Saturn and Rock Steady – has only increased the band’s critical cred and popularity. “It’s cool to be respected for things I’m passionate about,” says Gwen. At the same time, she can get overwhelmed by the attention, which she thinks peaked around the time of her wedding to Bush’s Gavin Rossdale.

It’s hard to blame people for being so interested in Gwen and Gavin. After all, they’re talented, successful, fantastic-looking, and – it’s clear – very much in love. When they were introduced in 1996, Gwen liked Gavin immediately. “He looked so familiar to me,” she says. “There was something about him. The first thing I said to him was, ‘You’ve got gorgeous eyes.’” By the end of the night, Gavin had told Gwen that she was gorgeous, too.

After he asked her to marry him on New Year’s Day 2002, Gwen enlisted a friend, Christian Dior designer John Galliano, to make her gown. “Gwen is an old-fashioned romantic at heart,” explains Galliano. “We share a deep respect for tradition, yet also a love of breaking with convention. We wanted the effect to be dreamy, with a contemporary twist.” The pink and ivory dress he created – as well as Gwen’s wedding ring, a wide platinum (of course!) band paved with diamonds and top with a heart-shaped stone set inside interlocking Gs – is dazzling, totally romantic, and extremely cool, just like Gwen herself.

Even the fact that she hasn’t seen Gavin much since their second wedding – they had twin ceremonies in London and LA, with a honeymoon in between – can’t rattle Gwen’s newlywed bliss. “When we got married,” she says, “we promised we would be there for each other. So it’s cool if we’re apart now; we’re going to be together forever. I’m totally with him in my heart.” Still, Gwen does look forward to being with Gavin – and not just in her heart – when No Doubt finishes their tour. As for what else she’ll do, she’s happy to keep he options wide open. “One of the benefits of the band’s success is that we don’t have to think too far ahead,” she says. “I get to enjoy what I’m doing right now.”

In the fall, Gwen is launching a clothing line she’s designing with her friend and stylist Andrea Lieberman. They’re been collaborating on Gwen’s look for a few years – “She totally streamlined me,” says Gwen, “because to me, there’s no such thing as too much” – and suddenly it just felt like the right time to strike out on their own. “We were already making lots of my clothes,” she says,” and we have so much fun working together, so why not?” They’ve named the line L.A.M.B, which was what Gwen called her dearly departed little Lhasa apso (in “Platinum Blonde Life,” she sings, “Where did my lamb go? I feel as empty as a widow”). It’s also an endearment she reserves for her best friends and an acronym that “has different meanings, none of which I’m ready to reveal.”

When I ask if she’s planning a J.Lo-style in-store assault – logo sweatsuits, rhinestone-studded denim, signature perfume – Gwen says no. “This is truly my look,” she says. “It’s going to be based on everything I’ve ever worn, from my first punker pants to the present.” It will be a collection of pieces that, when put together just so, will subtly convey the Stefani sensibility. Considering Gwen’s fashion history, the line looks set to be a success. After all, she’s inspired flocks of so-called “Gwennabes” since her bindi days, and she always manages to make the most out-there ideas – blue hair, braces, bikini tops as eveningwear – look totally in. But it’s charmingly, utterly Gwen that what excites her most about L.A.M.B is the prospect of presenting the finished pieces to her friends. “To hand them a pair of pants and say, ‘They’re mine; I made them!’” she enthuses.

Gwen’s also looking forward to jump-starting another longtime dream of hers: She tells me she “very badly” wants to be an actress. “I’ve auditioned for lots of things, but always when the band was about to make a record or go out on tour. I think that to do something like acting, which is so difficult, really well, I have to put all my passion into it. I’m ready to focus on it now.” Since one of the “things” she missed out on was Mya’s part as one of the murderous yet glamorous Cell Block Girls in Chicago, expect to see Gwen taking a small role in a prestigious picture like Moulin Rouge, not starring in a big shiny vanity vehicle like Crossroads or Glitter. “I think acting is an art,” she explains,” and auditioning can be terrifying or humiliating, especially since people know who I am… It’s the challenge that drives me to want to do it.”

But don’t worry that all this fashion and film and true romance is going to keep Gwen away from music. It’s her first love, and even though she has no specific plans to make a new album with her band, she knows she’ll always come back to it. “We didn’t plan to make the last one either,” she notes. Plus, she’s very interested in doing more high-profile collaborations like the hits she made recently with Moby and Eve. “Dre told me he’s ready any time I am,” she says happily.

“Sometimes,” Gwen tells me, “it seems like good things just happen all around me.” She might be selling her own powers a little short – even her friend Galliano insists that Gwen is “very much in control of her destiny” – but it’s easy to understand her point. Because she didn’t expect to be living what she calls a “platinum blonde life,” the scenery can be, at times, a little baffling. But her excitement and energy are truly infectious. “It’s crazy,” she says, shaking her head. “Sometimes I have to remember to keep walking forward, because it all blows my mind.”

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.”

To kick off, let’s talk about the new album Rock Steady. Do you think it’s the kind of record people want to hear right now?
“Well, I think we were just in a really good mood this time around. And the mood we were into was something that you could dance to, a little sexier, a little Jamaican dancehall-ish. So it was just a fun record to make, and the chemistry as far as the band goes, couldn’t be better. Although I had a fight with Tony [Kanal, No Doubt's bass player] yesterday. Just a little one – we made up afterwards.”

Why did you fight?
“Cos we were exhausted and had a rehearsal at 10pm after all day working, after working for seven days straight! Time zones and all that. But we’re doing awesome.”

And the new sound surely coincides with the new following you’ll have since working with rap artist Eve?
“It’s weird how it’s such a coincidence, cos the Eve thing was so separate from what we were gonna do on the album. Except maybe for working with Dre [who produced Let Me Blow Ya Mind] where, production-wise, I tried a couple of things with my voice, cos he really worked me in that studio! But the thing was fun cos it was like a cultural collision that turned out great.”

How do the other guys in the band feel about you doing solo work?
“They were the ones who said, ‘Do the Eve thing’! We’re best friends, so if they see me do stuff and, not only that, be successful, they’re really happy for me. We’ve been through so much together and we’ve made so many commitments to each other. It’s weird how we don’t realise it at the time but No Doubt was always number one, and the girlfriends and boyfriends came second. Now the first one to get married is Adrian [Young, drums]. And I’ve got engaged. I don’t know if you heard?”

Of course we’ve heard!
“It seems everybody knows, which is, like, so weird. But I’m the second one to go and it’s obviously going to change things for the band cos the band is like we’re married to each other, y’know?”

Did Gavin’s proposal come as a surprise?
“Well, no. I think we always wanted to get married. The idea of going out with each other was that we were gonna have a family together at some point, but there was always distractions with work and living in two different countries. But we’re very excited it’s got to this point. It’s been a long journey and hard work, but it’s been totally worth it. I feel so different! I didn’t know it was going to feel like such a relief, y’know?”

Have you set a date?
“No. I wanna do it this year and so does he. But we both have records out and it’s going to be difficult. But you know, it’ll probably be over here somewhere. [Rumour has it they may wed on London's Primrose Hill!] One thing I do know is that your wedding is either big or small – you can’t have a medium sized one.”

Which way are you veering at the moment?
“Probably big – there are too many people I wanna share it with. It’s funny, but last year was a great year for us, and people that I’ve talked to are really into the vibe. And to go back to your first question – this record is definitely a good diversion to life. It’s not saving the world, but it’s a throw-it-on party record. The band’s always been about fun, y’know?”

But you lyrics have always been quite heart-on-sleeve. Does it feel weird having people know so much about you?
“Well, when I first started writing on Tragic Kingdom [the 1997 album], I went out with Tony for eight years, then he split up with me and I had this story to tell. I never thought anyone would actually hear it! Then, for two and a half years, everyone asked about these lyrics and us. It was very exposed and we really used our sense of humour to get through it. But I try not to censor myself. I’m not writing about anything weird. I’m just a normal girl from Orange County. I have nothing to hide – I’m trying to be a good person!”

Do you enjoy being a style icon?
“It’s cool! I always made my own clothes and did my own thing in high school and it’s lasted. Being in the band is a good excuse to play fancy dress every day. If you spend a year making an album, it’s really fun at the end of that to get all dressed up and say ‘Look what I did!’ It’s just another creative outlet, but it’s the music that really drives me.”

You wouldn’t set up your own range then?
“I would, but it wouldn’t be just do a t-shirt and put a label on it, or have a some company launch a ‘Gwenline’. I’d have to do it myself and, currently I don’t have time.”

Does being the band’s front woman mean you’re conscious of keeping in shape?
“Yeah, I’m very normal in the sense that I get fat really easily. I come from an Italian background and my whole family history is, like, large women [laughs]. Then, when I was in sixth grade, my mom put me on a diet.”

What age is sixth grade?
“Right before you hit puberty. The doctor said ‘She could go either way – watch her!’ So I did all the exercising and dieting, but I think as I grew I kind of stabilised.”

Did it ever get serious?
“Oh yeah, I think everyone goes through that at some point. And I think in the last few years I’ve been able to maintain a healthier lifestyle. I’m very athletic because my stage show is all about moving around, so I work out a lot on tour. But I have the same issues as everyone else. Whether people were looking at me or not, I’d still feel the same way, but I think there’s more pressure, like, ‘Oh shit, that’s coming up, I wanna be able to wear this…”

Like a wedding?
“A wedding, whatever.”

Or an awards bash. Do you enjoy that whole celebrity party circuit?
“It’s fun to meet other artists, and talk to them.”

Which artists do you admire most?
“I really like Bjork and I’ve copied her look loads. I think she’s amazing, very talented, creative and totally unique. I love Outkast, as well. We were lucky enough to work with so many of our idols on this album and Outkast did the remix of Hey Baby, so I guess they like our vibe, too. I kind of see our bands as in some way similar as I don’t think either of us would fit into one kind of a genre. Ours is really just like a fruit salad of music – so many influences and everything just folds together.”

The new single Hella Good is out soon.

Gwen Stefani and No Doubt are back. But maybe not for very long. She talks to Caroline Sullivan

The dressing rooms at Top of the Pops are uniformly tiny cubby holes with barely enough space for a dispirited pile of weathered ham sandwiches, let alone people. Jennifer Lopez supposedly commandeered 15 of these rooms last time she was here. No Doubt have two and, despite being the band’s sole woman, Gwen Stefani has democratically crammed in with bassist Tony Kanal, while guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young are sharing a cupboard down the corridor. There’s not even room for their entourage of two – their manager and her assistant – who find themselves relegated to an anteroom wistfully known as the Star Bar.

On seeing the 10ft x 6ft space where she’ll be spending the next three hours waiting to perform No Doubt’s new single, Hey Baby, Stefani flops into a chair and laconically asks: “Can we turn down the lights?” It’s not a slur on the decor, even if the dressing room has apparently been furnished with cast-offs from a Warsaw office block. She was up late last night, celebrating her first London gig in three years, which went particularly well. The light is dimmed and Stefani cautiously removes her sunglasses. At 32, she still has the peachy skin of a 20-year-old, and her tiredness is hardly visible. “Better,” she says, sliding into a roughly horizontal position.

“As comebacks go, up there with Elvis,” panted last week’s NME, which is over-egging it, but it does convey the unexpected enthusiasm generated by No Doubt’s return. Until recently, they seemed destined for pop-footnotery, remembered only for the leaky 1997 hit Don’t Speak, and the accompanying 12m selling album, Tragic Kingdom. Subsequent singles and an album in 2000, Return of Saturn, underperformed, as the euphemism goes. Few would have bet on their making one of the splashiest returns of recent times, charting at number two with Hey Baby, and unveiling a new album, Rock Steady, to highly favourable reviews.

Much of the new-found interest is down to Stefani herself. Fifteen years after joining the band formed by her brother in Anaheim, California (home of Disneyland, hence the sardonic play on Magic Kingdom), she has suddenly been deemed of-the-moment. Chiming with the current taste for unconventional female stars such as Chloe Sevigny and Sarah Jessica Parker, her camp, goofball blondeness and tremulous vibrato are now hip, causing her to be reassessed by many who had never taken her or the group seriously.

“Any perception of you is weird. You have your own life and reality, and anything people might think of you is their own perception,” she says, uncomfortable with personal celebrity in a way that pop’s other Italian Catholic princess, Madonna, would find inexplicable. She shoves her sunglasses back on. “It’s like when you don’t see someone for a while, and they say, ‘Your hair’s grown’, or, ‘You’re so skinny’, and you don’t realise it about yourself.”

Stefani’s activities are now routinely reported in gossip magazines, which run shots of her undulating through awards ceremonies and restaurants. Her chum Marilyn Manson boasted of deliberately peeing on her toilet seat, presumably a form of Hollywood greeting. She even bagged a front-row seat at Vivienne Westwood’s fashion show, a sure sign of someone who gets her calls returned. Often, she’s pictured with her rock star fiance, Gavin “Big in America” Rossdale, but where photographers once aimed to get the best shot of Rossdale, it’s now Stefani they focus on.

One reason, perhaps, is that she undersells herself. She belittlingly claims to be an “ordinary, suburban” girl from “a goody two-shoes” family who lived at home till she was nearly 30 (not all that unusual in Italian-American households). “I didn’t travel at all till Tragic Kingdom. I’d been to Italy, like, 15 years before. One of the best parts of the band is meeting people.”

One reason she was attracted to Rossdale, she has said, is that he wants a wife and children. She’s protective of her London-born boyfriend, whose derivative grunge band Bush sell by the million in America but are less successful at home. He’s only her second boyfriend, and their five-year relationship has been bumpy. He was often “linked” with women such as Andrea Corr and Natalie Appleton, and he and Stefani broke up several times. During one separation, she wrote a bitter song called Ex-Girlfriend, which brooded: “I always knew I’d end up your ex-girlfriend.”

According to Bush biographer Karen Shook: “I got the impression Gwen does that female thing of thinking that she’s so normal and he’s so deep.” On cue, Stefani muses: “My boyfriend told me to read The Bell Jar, and I got totally into Sylvia Plath’s saga and journals and Ted Hughes. She died across the street from our house in Primrose Hill. The purple house.”

The couple’s paparazzi appeal is obvious. Stefani is the sunshiny yin to his studiedly dark yang. She thinks their relationship was predestined and talks of seeing him on TV before they met and knowing they would be together. “I didn’t have a choice; I met him [while supporting Bush on an American tour] and fell for him. We got engaged on New Year’s Day. We had a night out on London and woke up at three in the afternoon and he asked me. I’m so happy.”

Her only other relationship, with bassist Tony Kanal, ended with his leaving her after seven years, a crushing experience that inspired Don’t Speak. “I’d never envisaged moving on after breaking up with Tony.” She glances at Kanal, next to her, and fondly pats his knee. “I’m grateful to have him as a friend.”

Her new-found coolness could turn out to be fleeting, but there is a sense of having permanently crossed a line. On one side, the zany frontwoman of an achingly naff Los Angeles ska band (ska was mysteriously popular in southern California when No Doubt formed in 1987) – on the other, the confidently stylish leader of a quartet that’s suddenly had its lease on the charts renewed.

Jostled along by Jamaican dancehall rhythms, Hey Baby is good enough to almost erase the drippy memory of Don’t Speak, which was number one for three long weeks in 1997. Its parent album, Rock Steady (the title is another nod to Jamaica, where it was partially recorded, accounting for its joyous pop-reggae slant) is by some way the best of their five LPs, including Tragic Kingdom.

Like most women who front male bands, Stefani innocently professes surprise that she gets the lion’s share of the attention. Echoing Debbie Harry (who wore badges proclaiming “Blondie is a group!”), she refuses to be interviewed alone, and was outraged when American music mag Spin computer-erased the other three from a cover photo.

Kanal, though, is resigned to it. He tells a story about Prince flying the band to Paisley Park to play on one of his songs. When they arrived, it was Stefani alone who was ushered into the studio, while Kanal, Dumont and Young ended up twiddling their thumbs outside. “We expected to work with him, but it didn’t work out that way,” he shrugs. But Prince did make up for it by producing the Rock Steady song Waiting Room.

“But this record is all about having fun!” Stefani quickly interjects, pushing her outsized wool beret off her forehead in a conciliatory gesture. Kanal waves his hand in a what-the-hell way and props his feet on a low table. Born in London of Asian parents who emigrated to California when he was a child (“In LA, people think I’m Mexican, black, Hispanic – never Indian”), he has a phlegmatic British attitude to his place in the No Doubt scheme of things. Just as well – fashion magazines approach Stefani to model, and other musicians seek her out for the tomboyish sass she imparts to a track. She has worked with golden boy Moby as well as Prince, but it was her guest vocal on rapper Eve’s hit Let Me Blow Ya Mind (rarely off the radio last summer) that zapped her to iconic coolness.

I tell her about hearing Alan McGee raving to friends in a restaurant that the song was the best thing he’d heard all year. She leans forward, pleased. “Dr Dre called and I went down and sang. The band were like, ‘Go for it!’” She casts a sidelong glance at Kanal, who grins encouragingly. “It was fascinating to go into Eve’s world, so different from anything I’ve done before. When I left I was like, ‘Whoa, I’ve just worked with Dre!’”

It provided an entree to an audience that had probably never bought a No Doubt album. As Danny Eccleston of Q magazine puts it: “She’s taken on board that bling bling R&B lustre, which gave her a sense of being culturally aware of that world. She looks very modern now. She’s always been colourful, with those cropped tops and crazy shoes, but now R&B is like that, and she fits in.” Her biggest problem these days seems to be accepting that she’s first among equals in No Doubt, but a couple of years ago she was depressed and shellshocked by two years of touring the blockbusting Tragic Kingdom, then facing the poor performance of Return of Saturn.

“I had a very hard time making Return of Saturn. Tragic was all about [Stefani and Kanal's] relationship, and then I went on tour for two years. I felt like I was fine when I got home, but then I went into a depression, which has never happened before. Compared to most people, I wasn’t really depressed, but I was figuring myself out. Saturn was my coming-of-age album.”

She makes light of it now, but in an interview with the journalist Emma Forrest at the time of Saturn’s release, she confessed to feeling “insecure and jealous and paranoid”. Asked about it now, she frowns. “I never said insecure or paranoid. I’m not that way at all. I never said that.” (Forrest maintains: “She definitely said it. I felt great empathy for her. She seemed so sad.”)

Cheerful again, she says something very Stefani: “I’ve blossomed so much with this album, but I remember something I said in Jamaica. I was sitting on a raft and talking about how we’ll make one more album and then I’ll get pregnant.” At this moment, she’s every inch suburban Gwen, even getting misty as she says: “I mean I’m 32 and I think about babies a lot. “