New album? New tour? A possible No Doubt reunion in the near future? No problem. But this time around, Gwen Stefani’s got a baby on board.

Gwen Stefani wanted to be sure that her return from a between-albums hiatus was going to be, well, a wind-up. “I was thinking about how you disappear and come back, and I’m kind of coming back from being gone a minute,” Gwen hollas back over dinner at hip London eatery, Nobu. “The idea was to focus on the word ‘escape.’ I started thinking about the idea of Houdini. His whole gimmick was that his wife used to kiss him and pass the key through her mouth to him, and he would escape from his traps.”

Pry as we might, we can’t exactly confirm whether Gwen and husband Gavin Rossdale [Ed: Swoon!] are well-practiced in such techniques themselves, but we do know one thing she can’t escape from: her status as the coolest California Girl in popular music.

While we here at Instinct don’t throw the two words “gay icon” around lightly, loyal readers know that not only is Gwen one of three total females to grace the cover of our prestigious circular, she’s the only one to do so twice. Draw from that what you will.

But thrilled as she is with this honor, Gwen’s got a crowded laundry list of chores to busy herself with after dinner; Album promotion! L.A.M.B. fashion shows! Baby Kingston! The Harajuku Girls! so let’s get to the inquiries.

Between its nod to Japanese fashion culture and retro, legwarmer beats and melodies, Gwen Stefani’s first solo album, 2004’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby., seemed to hit shelves-and iTunes-at the right time. Not only did it go on to sell seven million copies, but it’s pom-pom-shakin’ sass anthem, “Hollaback Girl,” became the first million-selling digital single. But Gwen’s not one to go down the same road again.

“All my inspirations were completely different on this record,” she says. “On the last one it was all about the 80s-inspired dance music-the music I danced to growing up. But this time, I was over all that and felt like I was in a whole different place. I called the record The Sweet Escape, which is basically a song on the album. But it was a perfect name for the album because the music takes you away, and it’s definitely a dancey, poppy, sugar-coated set of just delicious ear candy.”

INSTINCT: Somehow, a wig seems to have found its way atop your head lately.
GWEN STEFANI: The visual theme is all inspired by Michelle Pfeiffer’s character in Scarface-very glam, straight-angled-cut blonde bangs with the big eyegear. Also, my new logo is basically a “G” that looks like a wind-up key. It also kind of looks like a guitar. We kind of play on that whole [Houdini] story, with it basically being the key to getting off the dance floor.

Speaking of gear and accessories, where’s the love with L.A.M.B., your fashion line, Gwen? There’s not a darned thing for us boys to wear! You can’t forget the boys! I didn’t mean to leave the boys out.
I will definitely speak to my team about that. You’ll be the first to know. Look out!

Hmmm. Anyway, you worked with the incredibly dashing Tim Rice-Oxley-the keyboardist from Keane-on The Sweet Escape.
I wrote “Early Winter” with Tim, who I love. I discovered [Keane's] first record when it was given to me. I was actually sent a couple tracks from them for my last record. Do I want these tracks? I was kind of like, I don’t know. At the time, it just didn’t feel right. But this time around, I just really wanted to have a ballad on this record, you know? I know this sounds funny, but I wanted to write “Eyes Without A Face” by Billy Idol, or, like, “Killing Me Softly” or “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper. So I got together with Tim, who’d never written outside of his group before. I can describe him like Superman. He looks like Clark Kent. He’s really handsome, but in a subtle kind of way. We wrote three or four songs together, and “Early Winter” was the one that I liked. It’s beautiful and it’s so addictive. I’m very lucky to have worked with him.

Let’s talk about this sample of “The Lonely Goatherd” in your new single, “Wind It Up.”
It’s just a dream I’ve always had. The Sound Of Music is one of my favorite, favorite movies of all time, and one of my biggest inspirations is Julie Andrews. I don’t know, something about that film, it’s just touched me over the years, and so I’ve referenced it a million times for other things. I did a whole session with [producer] Pharrell [Williams] about a year ago, and we wrote four tracks that were all amazing. The first one was “Wind It Up.” I took the track and, against his will [Laughs], had a friend of mine do a remix with a mashup between The Sound of Music and “Wind It Up.” I actually cried! I know that sounds ridiculous, but it was so good and so fresh and amazing.

And now you’ve single-handedly introduced a new generation to the Von Trapps!
I know a lot of people probably don’t know The Sounds Of Music, and hopefully this is my way of sharing something that I think is really great. Maybe people will go out and watch it. It’s a really good film.

Stefani, along with No Doubt-the Anaheim-based band she fronts-leapt out of the O.C. and into the homes of ten million record-buyers a decade ago. Their biggest hit implored us not to speak, but really we just couldn’t stop talking about how varied the group’s sound was.

“I grew up listening to a lot of different styles of music-everything from the LA punk scene to the local ska scene,” Gwen remembers. “Ska was a major part of No Doubt’s sound. I also remember bobbing along to pop or dance ditties I’d hear on the radio. I work really hard to try and reach into different genres, so I hope that comes through.”

Around the time of No Doubt’s early success, Stefani met Gavin Rossdale, lead singer of Brit-rock act, Bush. The two eventually married in 2002, and this past May, seven-pound Kingston James McGregor Rossdale was born in Los Angeles. Shortly after, as all brand new mothers do, she made a beeline to the studio to finish her sophomore solo album.

“I didn’t have the luxury that I had before, where I would just stay up all night,” Gwen says of the sessions. “I would go in to record and have the nanny there. She had to sit right there with the baby while I did this. I am very blessed because he’s such a chilled little guy. He’s seen me do my makeup four thousand times! He’s been in every studio in LA, every studio in New York, every studio in London. He’s been on a jet. He’s been on a helicopter. He’s been everywhere!”

And as jet-setting Kingston racked up frequent flier miles, mom finished the album, and is now preparing to hit the road yet again this April (her 2005 Harajuku Lovers tour was chronicled on a recently-released live DVD). “We’re going all over the U.S. and the rest of the world,” she says. Then, smiling toward Kingston, she adds, “This time around I’m going to bring something along that I didn’t have on the last tour.”

Let’s face it; your husband is hot! Please tell us he’s got at least one flaw.
Oh, you don’t have to tell me! He is amazing and supportive not to mention gorgeous! Also, he’s a wonderful father. What more could I ask for?

It’s been nearly six years since the last No Doubt album came out. Is there any truth to the rumors of a new project with the band in the next year?
A girl’s gotta have some secrets-wink, wink! I’m sure at some point we’ll be doing something. Right now all I can focus on is The Sweet Escape and the upcoming tour.

The last tour was your first one without the rest of No Doubt by your side. Did that affect you?
Definitely! It was a real adjustment in the beginning. I mean, I had the same guys beside me for 20 years, so it’s a totally different experience. And to some extent, it’s a different energy that you give as well as receive from the audience. But I started to find my ground and a whole other level of confidence in myself as the tour progressed. It was a real challenge, but it was also a great learning curve for me as a performer.

What can we expect from this new tour?
Complete mayhem! A lot of costume changes, of course, and just a great party. I’ve upped the crew, so there are a lot more people on stage dancing with me. I had a lot of fun auditioning the new dancers-four girls and four yummy boys! It’s really energetic and up. The production design is going to be quite elaborate.

Speaking of performing, say, for instance, you woke up one morning and realized you’re actually a drag queen, and you’ve got ten minutes before you go on stage. What’d your name, and how would your act go?
[Laughs] Hmmmm. How about Anna Heim? My act would cover a wide range of styles, from early ska/reggae classics to Broadway classics and a few ’80s dance tunes. Don’t forget the red lipstick and platinum blonde hair. Oh, and great backlighting! Always great backlighting.

Despite her hectic life, apparently flawless husband and that whole business of being a “superstar,” we still can’t shake the feeling that, at the heart of it, Gwen’s the kind of down-to-earth girl we’d love to pal around with. This leads us to wonder, Had we been BFFs roaming the halls of high school together in the ’80s, what kind of naughty shenanigans would we get up to?

“Oh, maybe hit a few clubs in the neighborhood, or maybe hang out at the house and watch one of my favorite movies,” she ponders. “I used to enjoy dancing and checking out new music while growing up. I don’t get to do that as much. Now I just love to hang out with Kingston.”

Ah, yes, Kingston, the small, cuddly reminder that Gwen Stefani is, after all, just a girl in the world. “I dedicated the album to him,” she points out, gathering her son up to leave. “I just want him to grow up and look back and to know how important he is. He’s just, like, the most delicious I’ve ever seen, I have no words for him. Isn’t he yummy?”

Both The Sweet Escape album and the Harajuku Lovers Live DVD are out now.

She’s So Unusual

GWEN ON ONE OF HER BIGGEST INFLUENCES GROWING UP:
“I would have to say Cyndi Lauper. She just blew me away. She really was unusual and unique. Aside from the great songs and the look, she gave you something that came from an outsider’s point of view. She knew what was left of center, and she made it okay for young girls like myself at that time to connect with that within themselves. I got the chance to meet Cyndi six years ago. She came to one of the No Doubt concerts at Irving Plaza in New York. Wow! What an experience!”

How can you balance 42 gigs in 70 days, a clothing label, a nine-month-old baby and a spot of yodelling? Gwen Stefani gives Chris Salmon some tips

La! Gur-la! Ah!” Gwen Stefani’s ninth-month-old son Kingston is making so much noise that his immaculately-dressed mother stops mid-sentence to look across the exclusive London members’ club to where he’s sitting with his nanny. “He’s OK,” says the singer brightly, “he’s just in a talking mood.”

For years, Stefani, now 37, spoke of her desire for children, to the point where the frantic “tick tock” motif of her debut solo single, 2004’s What You Waiting For?, was widely believed to represent her biological clock going into overdrive. Now she and husband Gavin Rossdale – the singer of British grunge-era band Bush – have Kingston.

It’s not as though she’s a typical parent, though. Although she has a home in London, she’s staying in a hotel on her current visit. “It’s just so much easier to have all my clothes and my stylist next to me,” she says. “Plus my nanny, my manager, my trainer. It’s a whole team of people.”

Stefani was back in the studio just 13 weeks after her baby was born, making the follow-up to her 2004 solo debut Love. Angel. Music. Baby, which sold 7m copies worldwide (and shared its name with Stefani’s clothing line, L.A.M.B, which she launched a few months before the album). Her second solo effort, The Sweet Escape, was released in December last year, a few days after Kingston turned six months old. Given her relish for parenthood, it’s surprising she didn’t take a longer break. “Well, the good news about my life is that he can come with me everywhere,” she says. “But I didn’t really want more time off. What I’m doing is too fun to stop. If you were me, you wouldn’t take time off either. Y’know, this isn’t gonna last forever.”

Stefani’s ascent to pop princess has been a long and unlikely one, which perhaps explains her desire to make hits while the sun shines. It’s 21 years since she formed No Doubt with friends in Anaheim, Orange County. United by a love of Madness and the Specials, the band were unheralded mainstays of the California ska-punk scene for nearly a decade before their breakthrough third album, 1995’s Tragic Kingdom. That record sold 15m copies, largely thanks to the power-ballad Don’t Speak. The band released two further albums, the second of which, 2001’s Rocksteady, featured a shift towards 1980s-flavoured, beat-driven pop, notably on the peppy Pharrell Williams collaboration Hella Good. That year, Stefani guested on R&B singer Eve’s Let Me Blow Ya Mind single, a collaboration that won the pair a Grammy. Stefani had somehow reinvented herself as a credible, urban-flavoured pop star. Out went the sweaty tracksuit and vest from the ska-punk days, and in came the haute couture threads of a living fashion plate. The style press had found a new hero. “She embodies all the qualities we look for in a cover star,” says British Elle’s executive editor, Christopher Hemblade. “She’s sexy, stylish and spirited, with a genuine love of fashion. Her look never feels forced. She owned the Dior-meets-Japanese Harajuku Girl look of the last album as much as she does the Michelle-Pfeiffer-in-Scarface reinvention of the current one.”

Magazines were suddenly full of articles on how to achieve that elusive Gwen Stefani look; in 2005 Harpers & Queen chose her as its No 1 “fashion icon”; earlier this year she and Rossdale were voted – in a spectacularly meaningless poll – the world’s “most stylish celebrity parents”.

As Stefani’s profile rose, there was speculation that her bandmates were unhappy at being perceived as her backing band. Some sort of solo career seemed inevitable. It duly followed, on three fronts – as a musician, an actor (she played Jean Harlow in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator), and as a fashion designer.

“It wasn’t about wanting all the attention for myself, although I do love attention,” she says of her move from being singer-in-a-band to solo performer. “It was more about being able to indulge my theatrical, cheesy side and make something really fluffy, fun and light-hearted. It was nothing to be taken too seriously, it was just a silly dance record.”

In fact, Love.Angel. Music. Baby was one of the most interesting and unusual pop records in years. Alongside an A-list of collaborators including Pharrell Williams, Andre 3000 and Dr Dre, Stefani made a weirdly wonderful album. Sassy hits such as Hollaback Girl and What You Waiting For? sounded unlike anything else on the radio, yet became permanent fixtures on it, redefining the pop landscape along more experimental lines than anyone had expected.

Stefani’s ubiquity – all over the radio and TV, fashion pages and celebrity pages – inevitably started to rankle with some. She was criticised for wearing fur, and the album’s Harajuku Girls theme led to accusations of near-racism. The real Harajuku Girls are the hip Japanese teenagers who inhabit one of Tokyo’s shopping districts. Stefani borrowed their bugglegum style and employed four Japanese dancers – whom she named Love, Angel, Music and Baby – as Harajuku Girls to fawn around her on stage and in videos. One Asian-American writer suggested Stefani had “swallowed a subversive youth culture in Japan and barfed up another image of giggling, submissive Asian women”. The mood of Stefani’s detractors was summed up in a line from the acerbic US cartoon Family Guy, “I don’t know what a Hollaback Girl is – all I know is that I want her dead.”

Stefani, though, had other things on her mind. She discovered she was pregnant midway through a 42-date North American tour, playing to 12,000 people a night. “I was surprised how much I didn’t enjoy pregnancy,” she admits. “Having something growing in your stomach feels so unnatural. Your body’s changing and you can’t control it. You just feel gross. I was having to get up on stage wearing bathing suits, looking fat. Nobody knew I was pregnant except me. They were constantly having to add extra panels into my costumes. To be honest, I was feeling pretty bad about myself.” Stefani says only her adoring audiences of teenage girls kept her going. “I swear that saved me. I realised I’d got a whole new audience, which is crazy. They’d be looking up at me like I was Cinderella. It was the greatest feeling ever. It makes me wanna cry just thinking about it.”

When her pregnancy reached its halfway stage, she finally put her feet up. “I just sat in bed watching hundreds and hundreds of TV programmes. I’d really earned that.”

With Stefani’s attention focused on her bump and the remote, both Nelly Furtado and Fergie took the chance to sashay into her edgy urban-pop spotlight, releasing albums that were obvious descendants of Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Did Stefani feel threatened?

“Not really, because I was so consumed with being pregnant. Besides, it’s an amazing compliment to see yourself in someone else. It’s also really inspiring. It forces you to move forward in different ways.” In other words, it only made her determined to reset the agenda with another album.

After Kingston was born, Stefani stayed at home. “Then after three months, I was like, enough’s enough, I want my life back. I’d gained 40lb, so I went on a diet. And I decided to go back into the studio.”

She didn’t find those first steps easy. “I remember showing up for the first day feeling really chunky, hormonal and guilty,” she says. “I was like, should I be here right now? I decided that if it felt too hard, then it wasn’t meant to be. But the whole experience turned out to be really great.”

Joining Stefani on that first foray into the studio was Keane’s keyboard player/songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley. “It wasn’t the only offer I’d had to write with people,” Rice-Oxley tells me. “But it was easily the most compelling. She’s undeniably the queen of pop right now, in the genuine sense of pop music that’s in the moment and defines an era. I don’t think she gets the credit she deserves for what she does. She really is the source of all the ideas. You can sit in an office putting a pop-star package together, but unless it comes from the person who’s at the centre of it all, it won’t ring true.”

The pair came up with Early Winter, one of the album’s slow-burning highlights. Having already made five tracks with Pharrell Williams before the baby, the remainder of the album fell together smoothly, apart from one abandoned session with producer Timbaland. “He’s one of my favourites, but I just couldn’t write anything,” says Stefani. “I’d done three straight weeks of songwriting and I was tired and burned out. He got me at a bad time. I had a little breakdown and went home crying. It was so embarrassing.”

Despite that setback, The Sweet Escape was still released in time for Christmas. Then came another setback. The album was preceded by the single release of its least enjoyable song, Wind It Up, a bizarre hotch-potch of hip-hop and Sound of Music samples, which seemed to prioritise experimentation over a decent tune. Stefani can’t have enjoyed the less-than-sparkling critical and commercial reception it was afforded. “It didn’t feel good,” she admits. “But do you think that I didn’t know that me yodelling on a song is not gonna appeal to everyone? I was hoping it would win over people’s hearts, but I understand that it was weird. But I think the most exciting thing I could do was to mash the Sound of Music with a Pharrell track. Nobody was doing that, so I wanted to.”

Her chutzpah is admirable, but, tainted by the single, the album debuted at a lowly No 26 in the UK, with comparatively poor reviews and sales across the globe. Stefani insists she wasn’t too worried: “I’m really proud of this album and I knew that it had other more obvious singles.” She wasn’t wrong. The second release, the album’s title track, is currently riding high in charts on both sides of the Atlantic. “I was like, phew,” she smiles. “It’s always great to have a hit.” Happily for her, the album appears to have several more. Happily for us, none of them feature yodelling.

With the album receiving a new lease of life, Stefani has announced another enormous US tour, in which she’ll play 42 dates in 70 days. “It is a lot, but I feel like it’s going to be easier having a baby outside my stomach, rather than inside.”

When she was a kid, Stefani once witnessed Emmylou Harris breastfeeding in the middle of a show. While it’s unlikely she’ll borrow that idea (“I’m not sure he’ll still be nursing by then”), she does think the tour will be good for her and the baby. “Because we’ve traveled so much, he’s never got into a schedule. I think that this tour is going to be the greatest time to get him on one.” Kingston will have a crib on the tourbus, which will drive all night between venues. By the time they arrive, a room will have been set up with his toys, a changing station and a rocking chair. “So I’ll be rocking him to sleep in the dressing room every night before I go onstage and rock out,” she guffaws.

She has also just finalised the latest collection for her L.A.M.B. fashion label, which could explain why everything in the current range is half-price on its website. “Is it?” she asks, surprised. “I didn’t know that. I do the creative part.” It might explain why she’s not yet making any money from the venture. “It’s gonna take a lot of years before that happens,” she says. “But it’s something I’m passionate about that I can hopefully do for the rest of my life.”

There’s also, she says, going to be a new No Doubt album. “We actually all had lunch yesterday,” she says. “We had a heart to heart about things. I think it could be one of our greatest records because we’ve been starved of each other for a few years. It’s really exciting.”

Last but clearly not least, she’d like another child. “I’m gonna try and enjoy this year of touring and then hopefully get pregnant again. I’m on repeat. I just want to make music and babies.” With a car waiting outside to whisk her to an appearance on Charlotte Church’s chat show, Stefani walks over to pick Kingston up for a cuddle. “He’s going through a real mommy phase,” she beams. “He’s my biggest fan. Things are a lot of fun for me right now. I feel very lucky.”

Gwen Stefani received some jolting news this week while in Toronto to promote her sophomore solo album, “The Sweet Escape,” due in stores next Tuesday.

The pop superstar and her baby arrived in the city from the U.K. on a British Airways jet Tuesday, and later learned that traces of radiation that recently killed a former Russian spy had been found in some of the airline’s jets.

“We might have radiation too,” Stefani, 37, said with a slight grin when asked about the revelation in an interview on Thursday, her last day in the city. “No, I’m just kidding. I hope not.”

It’s not the first time the front woman for ska-punk outfit No Doubt, known for her signature red lipstick and platinum-blond hair, has faced drama while trying to visit fans in Canada.

Last winter, one of the production equipment buses for her Harajuku Lovers solo tour rolled over three times while on its way to Canada. Stefani was four months pregnant at the time.

The driver was OK, said Stefani, but they couldn’t salvage much of the gear.

“I was literally on the bus going, `What are we going to do? Half of our equipment’s in the snow,’ ” a flawless-looking Stefani said in a chair in a hotel room while her six-month-old son, Kingston, was being watched by a nanny in a bedroom nearby.

“Even though we didn’t have production, the shows were the best shows of the whole tour. The biggest and the best.”

“The Sweet Escape” is Stefani’s followup to her 2004 debut solo effort, “Love.Angel.Music.Baby,” which went quadruple-platinum with the hits “Hollaback Girl” and “What You Waiting For?”

R and B singer Akon produced and sang on the title track, Pharrell Williams co-wrote many of the tracks and sang on one, and No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal wrote three songs on the album. Hip-hop producers the Neptunes, who worked on No Doubt’s 2001 album “Rock Steady,” also had a prominent role in the making of the disc.

Stefani said her son was with her in the studio throughout the recording process.

“He was just like, sitting right there in a basket,” said the fashion-forward singer, who wants to have at least one more baby.

“He just kind of sleeps and then wakes up and nurses and I put him back and he’s so easy, he’s not like a cry baby. Although he does now have more of an attitude.”

The first single, “Wind It Up,” has Stefani yodelling over marching band beats peppered with traditional Swiss music – a homage to her favourite movie, “The Sound of Music.”

The video for the song includes the Harajuku Girls, a group of wildly dressed Japanese backup dancers Stefani trekked around with for her last tour and will do so again for her spring tour.

Her new monogram – a gold wind-up key with diamond-encrusted Gs for Gwen — is also a major theme in the video, and Stefani said she would consider selling the key under her Harajuku clothing line.

“Harajuku was more like a glorified merchandise line, like how bands used to put out T-shirts with their picture on it,” said Stefani, wearing skinny jeans, a fitted black sweater, Harajuku-style high, high heels and the wind-up key on a chain.

The California native did confirm that she will put out a fragrance next year under her other fashion label, L.A.M.B., launched in 2003.

“I’m just still working on it. I have practice ones on,” she said, smelling her wrists while aromatic candles flickered around the room.

Stefani, who has homes in Los Angeles and London with rocker husband and Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale, also plans to return to No Doubt some day.

But unlike her last tour, she would never go on the road again with a baby bump.

“I did notice that you get really short of breath, like, especially when you’re first pregnant,” said Stefani, who admitted to feeling “so gross” at times in her maternity days.

“So when I was touring it was like really hard because it was like, nine costume changes, corsets, the whole thing, tights, you know, it was high heels, it was really challenging.”

“The Sweet Escape” tour is slated to start in April and will take Stefani through Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

Gwen “I want more children!”

She may be busy promoting solo album number two, but Gwen Stefani reveals she’d far rather be gearing up for another baby.

Forget winning a Grammy – upon finding out she was pregnant with her first child while touring her debut album Love.Angel.Music.Baby in 2005, Gwen Stefani fulfilled a lifelong dream to become a mother. So it’s no surprise that, as she talks about her latest CD, The Sweet Escape, she raves about how much her love of baby Kingston and husband Gavin Rossdale have changed her life for the better.

How does it feel to be a mother?
There’s nothing else that really matters to me. Every day, Kingston gets more of an attitude and shows more of his character and I’m just fixated on watching his face and seeing how he’s evolving every day. It’s the most incredible thing for me. I feel blessed about having Kingston.

What was giving birth like?
It’s incredible to have a baby come out of your body. In my case, I had a Caesarean because he was a breach birth and so it obviously wasn’t a surprise to me, since I was driving to the hospital and I knew they would cut him out of me. But when he came out of me, and I was holding him, I was wondering who this baby was because he didn’t exactly look like me, which is normal when they’re literally just minutes out of your body! And then I felt tired again from the anesthetic, so I asked if someone could take him because I was, like, about to pass out.

Do you think you’ll have more children?
Oh, yeah! I always wondered what it would be like to talk about being a mom. It’s such a bizarre feeling now that it’s happened and I’m talking about my baby boy. But Kingston is so great. I’m greedy. I would like to have more and I hope I’ll be blessed with having more children. I have this dream about just spending time in my house with my kids.

In the meantime, though, you do have a tour coming up …
Yeah, it’s freaky. What’s so strange is that I found out I was pregnant just while I was starting my last [solo] tour. I was wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I didn’t have the same energy. I’d be in tears moments before I was ready to go on stage. I also had trouble breathing with the corset on and, when you’re pregnant, you tend to get short of breath anyway, so it was very tough. What was worse is we had nine costume changes during the show and I was feeling sick a lot of the time. But what kept me going was God, who put all these really loving and happy young girls in the front row of the audience. It was probably their first concert and they were looking at me like I was Cinderella.

So tell us about how you came up with this new solo album so soon afterwards and while you were in the process of becoming a mother.
It’s so bizarre, but The Sweet Escape wasn’t even something I was really planning on doing. But there were some interesting backing tracks and songs left over from the previous album that I wanted to explore and it was always bugging me in the back of my head. And then, of course, when I was sitting in the studio working on it, I was having a hard time at first getting those ideas out. When you work on an album, there’s always this feeling you never have any ideas and then, suddenly, it just comes to you and you start building on that.

Do you find writing songs is healing, or is it tough exposing your emotions in your music?
No, I just write and the emotions just flow. I have nothing to hide. I’m not afraid of revealing any deep secrets and, when I do talk about problems or concerns, it’s actually comforting and a relief to talk about those things in my music. I never think about censoring myself. I just write about what is on my mind or in my heart.

Do you and Gavin try out your musical ideas on each other?
Sure we do. We’ll play each other’s songs and sometimes it’s the case we’re in each other’s songs. I don’t even mind if he’s writing a song and I’m in it and it seems like he’s angry with me. That’s okay. I just love being in someone else’s song. I feel honoured in a way that someone would want to talk about me or my life with them.

How does Gavin feel about sometimes being the subject of your songs?
He doesn’t mind at all. The lyrics are usually vague enough that no-one really knows exactly what I’d be talking about or referring to anyway. And, even though the lyrics and emotions in The Sweet Escape are much more autobiographical than in my first solo CD, a lot of my thinking about relationships is as general as it is specific. I mean, all couples have problems, the same problems, the same kinds of issues to deal with. So why shouldn’t I talk about those things? It’s healthy. You shouldn’t hide your feelings or bury your problems or they’ll just surface in a bad way later on. That’s the beauty of being able to express yourself in a song. For me, that’s what it’s all about.

Do you ever feel you might go too far in revealing things about yourself or your private life?
No. But again, I don’t worry about that. Gavin and I have been together for over 10 years and we’ve had our difficult moments like any couple which has stayed together for so long. But what’s so wonderful is we’ve been able to work things out and now we have a beautiful baby and life is really great. So our journey together continues and I’ll be writing about that in future albums. I need to be able to share my experiences in my music and I hope audiences appreciate I am trying to say something to them about my life in my work. A song like “Wind It Up” may not be like that, but a song like “Early Winter” is very emotional, and there are other songs about relationships in the album that people will be able to relate to.

Tim Rice-Oxley, who collaborated with you on “Early Winter”, says you were crying after working on that song for only 10 minutes.
It’s true. I’m pretty emotional, especially when I’m writing and thinking about deeper things and just trying to be real and talking about things which have affected me or made me sad. But that’s just one aspect of the process. I don’t think people who see me on stage or have been fans of No Doubt would ever think I’m a particularly sad person. [Laughs.] I’ve had a great life, and as you grow older you tend to think a little more deeply about your life. But overall I’m someone who lives in the moment, for the moment.

What about No Doubt?
I’ll probably go back to No Doubt after this album. There’s just no comparison to being in a band and having the experience we’ve had. It’s like winning the lottery many times over and our success is because of our fans and we’re so grateful. I’m looking forward to going back to a group dynamic. I only finished my record a few months ago, so I’m really just in the moment and not thinking so much about the future. I don’t know what our music will be like again in a group with live drums as opposed to the programmed drums from my solo albums. But I’m really happy about the idea of feeling that chemistry again even though it’s hard to picture that right now. But I don’t feel I’m so far from No Doubt.

Do you ever look back and get shocked by your own success?
As a teenager, I was pretty lazy and I didn’t really have anything in my life I was passionate about. Except The Sound Of Music. Some people are Trekkies, and I’m one, too, except I’m a Trekkie for The Sound Of Music! [Laughs.] And, suddenly, I kind of discovered I was good at writing songs and that was it. That set me on my way. I couldn’t stop after that because I had finally found my passion in life and that feeling has never left me. My journey in life is about my passion for singing.

Did you ever dream about success as a teenager?
No. About the only thing I really dreamed about was becoming a mother one day. And now that that’s come true, it sort of makes me feel my life has finally come together.

When you started touring clubs as part of No Doubt, did you ever imagine becoming famous?
No. I was never thinking about money or fame. We just loved ska music and we kept together for nine years, even though it was tough at times. Finally, we got on the radio and our world changed overnight. It was like a miracle. I don’t know how it happened. When we were starting out and developing our style we just tried to play at clubs. We drove around in vans. Our first nine years were great but we had no commercial success. We had a lot of fun doing that and then we became successful and that’s been great because I’ve been able to travel around the world and experience things I never would have been able to otherwise.

You’re also involved in your clothing line, L.A.M.B. How did that come about?
I learned how to sew when I was young and I was always fooling around with patterns and things and coming up with different ideas for outfits when I would go on tour or prepare for a music video. I designed and sewed my own dress for my first stage performance and it was the same dress that Maria wore in The Sound Of Music!

Is designing something you’re going to get more heavily involved with in the future?
No. I’m having a hard time as it is keeping up. I didn’t expect my line would take off the way it did and suddenly I had to come up with all these new designs last year, after getting feedback from what kinds of clothes had been selling after four years of being out there on the market. So, when I was touring and pregnant, I was feeling very stressed by everything. With Kingston a major part of my life now, I’m wondering how I’m going to manage everything.

Do you enjoy coming up with different looks and clothes for your music videos and tours?
I love that part of getting ready for a tour. I like to have fun with my look because I think clothes are an extension of your personality and, now that I’ve been designing clothes, I think about it more than ever. But designing is more like work for me and music is pure passion. Designing is a very precise thing as much as it is creative. It’s about the cut, the fabric, and a lot of very technical things which go into an outfit or a dress. It’s hard work. I don’t really feel emotional about fashion designing. It’s more a greedy thing about creating things I would like to wear personally. My music is more about being purely creative. It’s the fire and fuel to everything I do.

Do you still look forward to touring even though you have a baby now?
Oh, yeah. Kingston will always travel with me. I love touring because your music and your record don’t seem as real unless you’re actually performing on stage and having the contact with the audience, or meeting your fans on the street and talking to them about the music. For me, touring has never been an ordeal except towards the end when you’re simply getting physically and emotionally drained. I love the contact with the audience and it keeps me pumped. I’ve actually got depressed after finishing tours and suddenly being at home and wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do. Suddenly all that energy and excitement is missing and it takes a while to recover and get back into a normal life again.

Any interesting musical collaborations you’d like to take on?
I’d love to do a duet or something with Björk. That would be rad! I mean, I don’t want Gavin and I to start singing Endless Love together or something like that! [Laughs.]

Thanks to Rosie (Lamb83) for transcribing – what a star!