Thanks to Gwen Doll we now have some great scans of the Elle Icons supplement which has some gorgeous images of Gwen Rock Steady era right through to the Sweet Escape.

The magazine was released in 2007 and also features lots of images of Madonna and Debbie Harry from Blondie.

If you have any scans to contribute to the gallery please use the contact form and upload your pictures!

Beauty and the Beat

She’s sold over 30 million CDs, got a rock-star husband and likes nothing better than playing music loud on her headphones. So who better than Gwen Stefani to kick off our luxury hi-fi special?

The neoclassical interior of the London private club Home House, with its gold piped organ, gold candelabra and gilt-edged friezes, seems an appropriate place to interview pop’s golden girl. Not least because Gwen Stefani, who lives with her rocker husband Gavin Rossdale in the trendy north London enclave of Primrose Hill, says it was her love for all things British that brought her here from Los Angeles.

‘I grew up loving British ska bands from the Eighties – Madness, The Specials and The Selecter,’ she says.

‘I also love the way the British guys dressed in old movies. And then there’s the accent – that gets me every time.

‘I’ll always be a ska girl. I went through a period of only wearing black and white a few years ago. Listening to that kind of British music when I was growing up, it was like you had discovered something secret and amazing. No Doubt was just a bunch of people trying to imitate the music that they loved, which was ska. I never wanted to be a rock girl – I have no idea what I’m doing or how I got here.’

Stefani is on a sofa with her entourage. There’s a PA, her manager, her trainer, a security guy from Central Casting’s super-size black doorman template, a fulltime nanny and a couple of other extras. On seeing me she had immediately jumped up and hit me with her 1,000-watt smile.

Stefani’s career has kept her jetting between homes in LA and London. In the US, she is neighbours with another famous globetrotter, though this one is from the car-crash end of the celebrity spectrum – Britney Spears. She shakes her head and winces as she recalls how she – like the rest of us – has followed Britney’s public breakdown, sparked by those brutal shots of her shaved head.

‘It was really disturbing,’ Stefani says in a whisper. ‘It’s so sad. I feel like giving her a hug. I think she may move because of all the grief.

Every day there are 14 paparazzi cars waiting for her. I feel bad for her. It’s tough.’

Stefani knows what it is like to be in the maelstrom of madness that is modern-day stardom. But unlike Spears, she remains completely in control of her life, her family and her moral compass.

In the past few years, Stefani has become one of the most talked-about female performers in the world. After splitting from her band, No Doubt, she has become a multi-award-winning solo star – her latest album The Sweet Escape, released in December, has already sold 2.3 million copies. Her previous solo album, Love, Angel, Music, Baby, sold seven million, delivered four top ten singles in the UK and won her a 2005 Brit Award for Best International Female. And all this solo success comes on top of the 25 million albums she sold with No Doubt.

Every aspect of her life – from her looks to her friends to her marriage – is under the full glare of the media spotlight. But she handles everything with a cool, businesslike attitude and has turned herself into a one-woman, multimillion-pound corporation.

Unlike many other performers who use notoriety to sell records, the clean-living Stefani is far too aware of her image to damage her reputation with drink or drugs. She lived at home with her Irish-Italian Catholic parents until she was 30, and has only ever had two partners, Rossdale and No Doubt’s Tony Kanal. No wonder Courtney Love once said: ‘She can’t be a rocker, she’s too clean.’

When scandal hit in the form of her husband’s ex-lover, Pearl Lowe, claiming that her 18-year-old daughter, Daisy, was Rossdale’s love child, Stefani refused to be drawn into a slanging match. She was devastated when Lowe, the woman most famous for swapping partners with Jude Law and Sadie Frost (Lowe’s long-term partner is Supergrass drummer Danny Goffey), took the paternity battle to court, and it is the one subject that is off-limits today. It is easy to forgive her this one element of control. On all other subjects she is straight and open, and she even offers a good line in self-deprecation.

You can’t help wondering if the court case prompted her – at the age of 37 – into motherhood. Rather than involve herself too deeply in the messy affair, Stefani concentrated on getting pregnant herself, and since giving birth to baby Kingston eight months ago, she has focused on being a good mother. She seems to have led a life devoid of serious pain and says she has easily avoided the dark side of the music business that has cursed Robbie Williams and Britney.

‘I am very naive, but I keep myself to myself and do what I do,’ she says.

Stefani takes her work incredibly seriously. ‘I can spend a whole day agonising over what colour glass to put into my watches,’ she says, ‘and weeks trying to work out one five-second section of a pop video. I totally admit I’m a freak.’ Despite spending almost a decade touring, she is not a woman to be caught stumbling out of a club half-cut in the early hours of the morning. ‘Why would I want to do that?’ she says. ‘I have to get up in the morning. I have to work. This is my job and I want to do it well.’

But there is a twist to all the fame and fortune – and it is the one thing that drives her on above everything else. Gwen Stefani is consumed with absolute self doubt. She is the first to admit that she was not a natural born pop star. At school her nickname was ‘The Frog’, and she only tried her hand at pop when her older brother, Eric, pushed her in front of a microphone to sing with a band he’d put together.

‘I was a fat little nerdy kid who desperately wanted to be cool,’ she recalls.

‘People look at me and they think: “Oh, it’s so easy for her. She’s a rock star. She’s cool.” But inside my head I’m still that little geek struggling to make people like me.’ So imagine her surprise when Madonna called her out of the blue to suggest she bring her husband round to dinner to meet Guy Ritchie. ‘I was stunned,’ she says, ‘Madonna was my idol. Her music was my inspiration. I always admired the way she handled herself, and then there we were having dinner. She talked about what it was like for us American girls being married to these British guys. Guy and Gavin got on really well, too.’

Stefani is often credited with bringing good old-fashioned glamour back to the red carpet. So when the pop wannabes began to copy her style, she simply set up the most successful celebrity fashion line ever, L.A.M.B. (Love Angel Music Baby), worn by Hollywood icons such as Lindsay Lohan, Teri Hatcher and Nicole Kidman, with jewellery and a fragrance to follow. Today, she is wearing Stella McCartney skinny jeans and four-inch-heeled black Yves St Laurent shoes.

Her convict’s top is modishly high street.

The only vaguely glitzy bits are the almost cartoonish items of ‘G’ branding she wears. There is a gold belt with a back-to-back double ‘G’ buckle, and on her right index finger is an oversized, black, diamond-encrusted ‘G’ ring on loan from a jeweller. ‘It’s real and I’m hoping someone will buy it for me,’ she says. Hanging from a gold chain around her neck is the chunky double ‘G’ gold key made for the Wind It Up video.

With all those Gs it seems her insecurity has become part of her branding.

‘I do worry about how I look,’ she says. ‘It takes a lot of effort. Gavin jokes that my lips are permanently stained red because the lipstick hardly ever comes off. But I have to make sure I have it on before I leave the house – who knows if someone is going to take my picture?’ As a child, Stefani’s style was quirky.

‘I’d spend all my spare time going to fabric shops with my mum and getting her to help me make clothes. My prom dress was a copy of the one Grace Kelly wore in Rear Window, and one of the first dresses I sang in was a copy of a tweed dress Julie Andrews wore in The Sound Of Music. I guess I always had different tastes.

‘I wasn’t a girl that guys fancied. I was 10lb overweight and I wore odd clothes.

Then, when I grew, a lot of the weight just shifted up with me, so I was popular enough at the end. But when you have grown up like that, you still think of yourself like that. I’m still super-conscious about my weight – but I’d describe myself as a bit chunky. I’m never going to be one of those women who say I look like I do because that’s how I am.

‘I work out for a few hours every day to keep my shape, and I pay attention to everything about my face and clothes. If I start to slack off it really shows – that little chubby kid starts coming out again and I have to start reigning her back.’

You get little sense of the dark side talking to Stefani. Her approach has always been to do the job and avoid the parties. When she talks about her luxuries, it is the fact that she no longer has to pack. ‘I’m not super-demanding, but I don’t want to pack my clothes any more. Do you know how many times I have packed my clothes in my life? My assistant packs them now. I never want to hang up anything ever again.’

Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of plans – the album The Sweet Escape, a new single of the same name, more designs, a perfume to create and – more importantly – she and Gavin want another baby. But she takes nothing for granted. ‘I am a girl from Orange County who just got lucky. That’s it.’

Gwen’s golden ears

Gwen’s headphones are a unique pair of Kai Sounds SK-900 Ds – she had them gold-plated especially for our cover shoot. The Japanese cans date back to the Seventies but are no longer produced.

Madonna thinks she is ripping her off but who is the bigger star now?

When Madonna accused Gwen Stefani of copying her style last week – “She ripped me off. She married a Brit, she’s got blonde hair and she likes fashion” – it seemed like business as usual. With a new album to promote, her Madgeness has a habit of slapping down her best friends/rivals. But this time it was personal. Because for many, Stefani is the new Madonna, and her new solo album, Love.Angel.Music.Baby, is the album Madonna should have made.

It’s been a great year for Stefani, a genuine pop original in a sea of Jems and Nora Joneses and Didos. She was voted best international female at the 2005 Brit Awards and the and the album, which marries 1980s mutant electro-pop with hip-hop, has sold a staggering five million copies.

More remarkable still in the racially segregated world of American radio and MTV, Stefani, a white singer-songwriter, has achieved crossover to a black audience. The high-profile collaborators on her solo album include super-producer Pharrell Williams, rapper Eve and Outkast’s Andre 3000. The albums most polemical track, “Long Way To Go”, deals with race issues and ends with a quote from Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. Last week in concert Stefani dedicated it to the late civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

But not only is Stefani more than just a pretty face, she’s also more than just a singer. Known for her outrageous fashion sense (who else would dare to wear a fur stole with hot pants, accessorised with crown and sceptre, on her album sleeve?) she also runs her own diffusion label, L.A.M.B. Stocked by Harvey Nichols in the UK, the range already has a cult following which includes Cameron Diaz and Paris Hilton. In September, Stefani staged her debut catwalkshow in New York, and Anna Wintour, the steel-tongued editor of US Vogue declared, “We will soon see Gwen Stefani’s range L.A.M.B competing with Donna Karan’s DKNY.”

With her ash-blonde bleach and slash of carmine lipstick. Stefani combines old-fashioned Hollywood glamour with tomboy cool. After a cameo as Jean Harlow in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, it’s been announced that Stefani will play Richie Berline in Factory Girl, alongside Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgwick, doomed muse of Andy Warhol.

Stefani knows how to act the good girl while dressing the rebel. She’s never been snapped falling out of a club wasted. And at the grand age of 36, a dinosaur in rock terms, she has a huge teen audience. Despite her vampish appearance, her main audience is young women.

“When I think fans, I think girls, because my overall thing isn’t sexy” she says. Her sparky, self-deprecating lyrics mean that she is perceived as cool but authentic by her teen fans. A self-confessed “dork” and “geek”, she admits she has to watch her weight and makes no secret of the fact that her biological clock is ticking, as the first single from her recent solo debut, “What You Waiting For?”, chronicles.

According to Sarah Ivens, editor of OK! in the US, “Gwen is constantly daring to be different, and searching for all things radical and trend-setting, while remaining almost sugary sweet. She’s a girl’s girl and hangs out in her gang in a way that teenage girls across the country do – dancing, trying new looks and laughing about boys. Her songs aren’t just about love – they are about friendship and fights and standing up for yourself – useful things for teenagers to learn about”.

So is Stefani the sex goddess with the Minnie Mouse voice, or the earnest family girl who claims she has only ever had two boyfriends and who lived with her parents until she was 30?

“She seems very benign and wholesome” says Garbage singer Shirley Manson, who has know Stefani since the mid-Nineties, “but underneath lurks an incredible toughness and powerful directness.”

Stefani was brought up in Anaheim, California, one of four children in a close-knit Irish-Italian, Roman Catholic family. Her parents were “like, totally rad”, but also quite strict. A shy girl who spent most of her time in a bedroom plastered with Marilyn Monroe posters, she nevertheless assumed she was destined for greatness. “I’d always felt famous, at least in Anaheim”, she says. “But when it went worldwide, well that was just plain weird. I’m a very private person, and so getting used to that kind of limelight was never going to be easy.”

In fact, Stefani has been around a lot longer than you realise. She first came to notice as the girl singer with 1980s ska-punk band No Doubt, founded by her older brother, Eric, and guitarist Tony Kanal. “I had no idea I could even sing.” she says, “but my brother has always been my leader, and so I just went with it.” The band developed a cult following, but it wasn’t until 1997 when they released the No 1 single “Don’t Speak”, inspired by the torturous end of Stefani’s seven-year relationship with Kanal, that they achieved global status.

Stefani has spoken frankly about the depression she suffered at the time. But in 1998 she met Gavin Rossdale, frontman of British band Bush, and four years later they married at St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden, where Stefani wore a Galliano couture gown and the groom was escorted down the aisle by Winston, a sheepdog decked out in a rose-covered collar and lead.

Cue a fairy-tale happy ending? Not quite. Earlier this year a DNA test revealed that Rossdale is the biological father of Daisy, the teenage daughter of Pearl Lowe (from a brief fling 16 years ago). Stefani was reportedly devastated. But the marriage survived and earlier this year she quipped: “In my next life I am going to be a guy and I’m going to be a complete slut.”

After 8 years as a performer, she controls every aspect of her career, from videos to merchandising. The only true female rock star left on US radio or MTV, she has eclipsed all the competition.

When Mrs Ritchie, pop’s other big Italian-Catholic female releases her new album, also inspired by the 1970s and 1980s dancefloor, later this month, it promises to be a fascinating battle of the bottle blondes. Book a front row seat.

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.”

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.

A fashion label. A music career. A so-gorgeous husband. Welcome to Gwen Stefani’s world.

Picture this: You’re Gwen Stefani. You front No Doubt, one of the coolest rock bands in the world, and the guys in the group are so close they’re practically your family. You married Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale in a heavenly dipped-in-pink dress. You’ve launched a fashion label called LAMB that celebs are loving and you’re about to star in the Martin Scorsese film The Aviator. Can life get any better? Um, not really…

You’re known as a style icon. How did that happen?
When people started talking about how I dressed in the early days, I was always dismissive of it. If you’re in a band, it’s really uncool to talk about what you’re wearing. You just wear it. It’s [meant to be all] about the music, but obviously that’s not true. I do make a effort and I’ve always loved clothes.My mum loved clothes too and I think it’s in my blood. Every Christmas, my great-grandma would sew pyjamas, quilts and clothes for everyone in the family. I’d go to her house and her whole back room was full of fabrics. She would start on New Year’s Day and work all year long. My grandma made all my mum’s clothes. My mum didn’t even get a say in the matter. She’d come home and her mum would say, “Here’s your prom dress.” Then my mum made all my clothes. We’d go to the fabric store, look through the books and choose the patterns, the buttons and the zips. I love clothes and fashion – it’s an extension of my personality. It really isn’t important in life, but it’s fun.

Did you always love unusual clothes, rather than chain-store fashion?
I’ve always loved shopping and making my own outfits. When I was young and Mum said, “Let’s go to the mall”, I always replied, “Can’t I just go to the thrift store? You get really good stuff there.” I would buy the clothes and then alter everything on our sewing machine. My bedroom was always the one you didn’t go into – unless you wanted to get pins stuck in your foot. I was always doing projects and making my own clothes.

Have you always been close to your family?
My family is really tight. When the band started, everyone would come over to our house and Mum would drive them around. The Stefani’s were like the Brady Bunch. The day I got my nose pierced, we were playing a local show and my mum drove me there. We’re really close.

When No Doubt started, you were only a teenager. Did you make your own clothes then?
I’ve always made my own clothes. When we first went on tour, I sat around and made three outfits; they were Disneyland-cartoonish dresses. Then I got lucky, made more money and hooked up with a girl who made clothes for me. I could just call her, tell her what I wanted and she’d send me different fabric samples. So I’d be on tour and could ask for polka-dot pants in yellow and a top with black stripes. When you’re on tour, you don’t have time to buy clothes. Then I met Andrea Lieberman, a stylist who is so cool. She streamlined my ideas and improved them. I was blown away.

You have your own fashion line now, LAMB. How is that?
To be here talking about it is beyond me. I didn’t know what I was doing, but it was so much fun. I got inspiration from designers, stole ideas from everyone, and then thought, “What do I want to wear?” I started making clothes and doing drawings. I had so many things going on; it became so overwhelming. I thought, “I can’t believe I’ve done this, what a mistake,” but by then it was done. It was a distraction from my music, but I’m only trying to please myself really.

Lots of stars just give their names to a clothing line. Are you involved with design or do other do most of the work?
I’m involved. I could easily go out and make tons of money cashing in – trying to do something my fans could afford at Target – but I’m not really interested in that. I’m passionate about designing and find it very artistic. I want to do it for real and make a brand that’s going to last. I want something that well be there for my 15-year-old daughter. I love it so much that if it got taken away, I’d be so sad. I want to cry just talking about it.

You do some mainstream fashion, making LeSportsac bags. How did that happen?
They asked me to be a guest designer and I thought, “Why not?” I remember them from when I was a kid. When the bags came out it was weird. I’d see a girl across the street, owning her bag, but it was my bag, you know what I mean? It’s a bit of a jealous feeling but it’s magical that people like my bags and clothes. One thing that saves me from that jealousy is that I have them the season before.

What skills do you need to be a designer?
The whole collection, of course, is just ripping off everyone else. That’s what I’ve done my whole life in music, style, everything. I don’t care who you are, it’s all about stealing and borrowing from everyone and making it your own.

Who’s your favourite designer?
One would be John Galliano. I can’t even believe I know him. Vivienne Westwood is another. The first fashion show I went to was hers. Talk about stealing ideas. I don’t know where she stole hers from but her clothes are so wearable.

Why did you call your clothing line LAMB?
Lamb was the name I used to call my dog. Her real name was Marilyn – after Marilyn Monroe – because she had blonde hair, but it developed into Lamb because, for the past few years of her life, she always followed me everywhere, like Mary’s little lamb. I then started calling anything cute “lamb” and named the clothes after my dog who passed away.

Do you call Gavin “Lamb”?
Hmm, interesting. No. Lamb has taken on a whole new meaning with the clothes, so it doesn’t mean what it used to.

Do you have any indulgences when it comes to clothes?
When I go to London I splurge on Vivienne’s clothes and come home with bags full of them. I’ll buy whatever I can because I love her clothes and they fit me really well. She’s spectacular.

Are there any similarities between creating a garment and writing a song?
It’s the same feeling. You write a song for yourself, from your heart. I don’t sit there thinking. “What kind of song can I write for my fans?” I write my song and then it goes out there and people embrace it as the backdrop to their life.

What does the upcoming solo album mean for No Doubt?
We’re taking a break but we’re definitely not breaking up. I wanted to make an ’80s dance record with fake drumbeats, kinda like Salt-N-Pepa, and I couldn’t do that with No Doubt. I haven’t finished it yet.

What do you think of the constant comparisons to Marilyn Monroe, Jean Harlow and Madonna? Are they annoying or flattering?
It’s crazy but it’s not annoying. It’s amazing to be playing Jean Harlow in this new film The Aviator [which also stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett. It's bizzare that I get to play the original blonde bombshell. She comes on the screen and she's a light bulb. Growing up in LA, I became really fascinated with starlets. My whole room was filled with Marilyn Monroe posters and I loved old musicals and early Hollywood. It was such a glamorous era. Madonna came out when I was at school and I was into other types of music. And admitting I liked a pop idol was not something I did very often. It wasn't until later that I really started to appreciate what an incredibly talented person she is.

Do you and Gavin hang out with Madonna and Guy in London?
Yeah. We've had dinner together and she's great. I like London. I get lots of attention and better tables in restaurants. I was talking to Madonna and she says she prefers her life in London because she feels more free. I know what she means, [In London] I get to have a break and have family time with Gavin.

Do you think you’ll get an English accent?
No. If I ever sound English, slap me.

Is your body natural or the result of grueling work-outs?
You want me to talk about my hot body? Before anyone has any ideas about me, I’d like to say that I have to work very hard to look as good as I do. I work out every day but wearing cute clothes is good inspiration. So if I want to eat pizza. I do. But if I want to wear cute clothes, I don’t.

Are you on a permanent diet?
I go through waves with food. I’m probably like everyone else. If something cool is coming up and I want to look good, I get into my healthy fitness rage and take care of myself. As soon as it’s over, it’s like “Hooray, let’s go get pizza.” I do whatever I want, I become a lazy slob and watch TV. Then I get motivated again. It’s the same old cycle and it’s the same for everybody I know.

Your busy with music, movies and the fashion thing. How do you find time to be with Gavin?
I make sure it’s a number-one priority. Everything else is second. Sometimes I have to say no to things because I want to be home with him and hang out. Relationships are work, like everyone says. You have to put the time in, but so far it’s been really fun work. He’s so talented, he’s good at everything and he’s an amazing cook – so I really scored. We have a great time together. I love being married. But I don’t have advice for anyone on relationships. If you read any of my lyrics you’ll see that! I’m finding my way like everyone else.

You talked about making clothes for your daughter. Are you planning to have children?
I hope so, sometime in the future. I do think about babies and kids. We really want them but at the moment we’re enjoying the marriage and being together without children. My life has turned out nothing like I thought it would. Things have kind of evolved. I believe there is a plan for me and it will happen.

Glamorous Gwen Stefani has become the ultimate music icon with that rare thing – a good reputation. Now, as Jonathon Van Meter discovers, she’s setting her sights on Hollywood. Photographed by Steven Meisel

Gwen Stefani’s house in Los Feliz has a vaguely spooky quality to it. The unease I feel when I pull up in front may simply be the result of my having watched Sunset Boulevard one too many times. Or perhaps the damp January chill has something to do with it. In any case, when the high gates swing open, I walk up the curving, rain-slicked driveway. I am greeted at the heavy wooden door by Stefani’s assistant, Pete, an affable young English fellow who is a childhood friend of Stefani’s husband, Gavin Rossdale.

The house was built in the twenties, and Stefani is only its fourth occupant, which is one reason many of its original details remain unaltered. The rotunda-like entry, for example, is dominated by a dramatic spiral staircase (worthy of Norma Desmond herself) with a complicated wrought-iron railing featuring a replica of a Spanish galleon. On the domed ceiling above, there’s a large fresco of once-famous conquistadors. Pete leads me through a dining room lined with dark paintings and bloodred walls, a medieval chandelier hanging over a long wooden table, and deposits me in an enormous kitchen that has been remodeled to look as if it were designed in the twenties—a sea of black and green ceramic tile bathed in warm, low light. There are candles flickering and religious iconography here and there. It’s as if Stefani’s entire home is a kind of Gothy take on old Hollywood.

While I wait for the lady of the house, I look at framed family photographs in one corner. There is a picture of Stefani as Jean Harlow, taken on the set of The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s forthcoming Howard Hughes biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Though she utters only a few lines in a movie-premiere scene, a cameo in a Scorsese film on Leo’s arm is certainly not the worst way to announce that she is ready for her close-up.

When Stefani appears in the kitchen moments later, her sunny presence throws the Dark Shadows aspect of her house into high relief. As she opens a bottle of Chardonnay, I ask about the photograph. At first she says that it’s the actual Jean Harlow, and even though a moment before I had thought it was Stefani, I fall for it because she does not look the least bit like the rock star we’ve come to know and love. “I’m kidding,” she says. “It’s me!” She seems pleased that I was willing to believe it might be Harlow. “That’s the key, right?” she says. As I lean in to look at the photograph again, she complains about her makeup. “I would have done it a little differently,” she says. “I’m always in control of my hair and makeup. I was like, ‘Are you sure you want the lips to be that thin? Jean Harlow’s were bigger than that. It’s not like I didn’t read two biographies and watch eighteen of her movies before I got here.’ But what are you going to do? They were in control. I couldn’t say anything. It was hard.”

The makeup artist must have been a nervous wreck. Is there anyone in popular culture today who is as identified with her makeup as Gwen Stefani? The powdered, pale skin, the scarlet lips, those high, arched brows. She has a very particular, almost dated relationship to “putting on her face.” She even wrote a song about it a few years back (“If the magic’s in the makeup/Then who am I?”). It’s so rare to see her out of makeup that when she appeared in a recent video jumping on a bed with a naked face, looking just pretty, she was almost unrecognizable. The image appears to be an homage to those famous shots of a natural Marilyn Monroe, another icon who always had her face on in public and on whom Stefani has been fixated since she was a teenager. “My whole room was Marilyn Monroe posters,” she says.

Today Stefani’s wearing a sleeveless T-shirt with wide red, green, and yellow stripes, and a pair of complicated new Levi’s jeans, worn low and long. Lacy underthings peek out from the top of her jeans. On her feet: sweat socks and Adidas flip-flops. Around her neck is a diamond choker that spells out WIFE in Gothic, diamond-encrusted lettering—a gift from Rossdale. Her white-white hair is a marvel of structural engineering, pulled back tight on the sides and piled high up on her head in a kind of squared-off, simulated Mohawk. Like so much of Stefani’s style, the do manages to simultaneously evoke forties Hollywood and early-eighties SoCal punk. It’s quite a trick.

Stefani has just gotten home from an audition for Brian De Palma, the director who’s partly responsible for making it seem as if something creepy lurks behind every gate in Hollywood. His latest project will do nothing to dispel that notion. He is casting The Black Dahlia, a film based on the James Ellroy novel, which is itself based on the true story of a young Hollywood starlet’s gruesome murder in 1947 (her body was found cut in half and disemboweled). Josh Hartnett and Mark Wahlberg have already been cast in the film as two detectives. Stefani tells me that this afternoon she had to read with “some young guy named Josh,” not seeming to know who he is. She can sometimes verge on ditzy, but, to be fair, this could just be a sign that she’s still sort of a stranger to the film world. “It was really humiliating and nerve-racking, but I feel like I did pretty well,” she says. “But I don’t know whether I would ever even do it if they offered it to me because it’s a kind of a racy part.” She amends her last thought slightly: “I know I’m not going to get it, because I think the character is so the opposite of me. She’s really dark and naughty and slutty. And she has black hair.” This is the first glimpse I get of Stefani’s self-image, which, despite her tough-girl stage persona, is surprisingly wholesome, if not prim.

Stefani claims she had never considered acting until she became famous as the lead singer of No Doubt and agents started calling. After she came off of touring for the band’s breakthrough album, Tragic Kingdom, in 1997, she settled on David Schiff from United Talent Agency. “All I ever do is go to parties with him,” she says. “I never do movies.” Spoken like a true Hollywood starlet.

At least he’s getting her through the right doors. The last film she auditioned for was Mr. & Mrs. Smith. “It was between me and Angelina Jolie, and I’m like, ‘Oh, great. I got a shot here.’ ” But then, she says, “the whole acting thing really feels like something I could do. Whenever I’ve done it, whenever I had moments where it works, it’s just like performing. You hit a moment. And that’s what movies are: a series of moments.”

Now we are sitting in her living room, whose artifacts speak to the curious mix of interests in her life, from haute couture to Hollywood history, from reggae to rock ‘n’ roll. The room is dominated by two plain white sofas and a dark-wood baby grand piano. Above the mantel is a huge black-and-white framed photograph of Bob Marley. Next to it is a red neon heart inside a Plexiglas box, a gift from Gwen to Gavin. Nearby are John Galliano’s framed sketches of her wedding gown. And there, in the corner, are Stefani’s two Grammys, to which she can now add a third, which she won in February for “Underneath It All,” a sweetly demanding little song she wrote about Rossdale before they were married. Lying on the coffee table are stacks of art books, including Icons & Idols, Great Hollywood Movies, and a book of Marilyn Monroe photographs.

At the moment, Stefani is curled up on one of her white sofas sipping a glass of wine. Right behind her head is a series of very glamorous Herb Ritts photographs of her and her husband, propped up in frames and lined up in a row on the piano. The images are, in fact, so glamorous that it’s tempting to want to place Stefani in the pantheon with Monroe and Harlow. “Isn’t it weird how there are icons like that?” she says. “Like Jean Harlow. They screened her movie Hell’s Angels for us. She was really bad in it, really awkward. But she’s so magical. She comes on the screen and you’re like, ‘When is she coming back?’ She’s just like this lightbulb. And it’s so obvious that she’s huge.”

Stefani could just as well be describing herself. Sophie Muller, who has directed seven of No Doubt’s videos, says she has “no idea” whether the singer’s prodigious screen presence in music videos will translate to film. “The difference between actors and singers who are great at videos,” she says, “is that they’re great at being themselves, but an even better, prettier, larger-than-life version of themselves. Actors are often people who don’t really know who they are and really love becoming somebody else.” Muller and Stefani first met nine years ago as they prepared to shoot the now classic “Don’t Speak” video. “She came to my hotel room and I just remember that she was all sparkly,” says Muller. “She had diamonds under her eyes and she looked incredibly glamorous. I just knew that she was a big star. You could see that right away.”

At 34, Gwen Stefani can sometimes seem much younger. She still talks in the patois of a teenager, beginning sentences with “Dude!” more often than not. Eight years ago, I briefly interviewed a 26-year-old Stefani over the phone. I had been writing a story about women in rock, and just as I was finishing a draft, I saw a video on MTV by a band I’d never heard of. The song was “Just a Girl.” Aside from the fact that the lyrics spoke directly to my point, I was thunderstruck by this new? person. She was clearly a post-Madonna, ironic blonde; she spent a lot of time in the video pouting and batting her eyelashes but had rock-hard abs, was dressed half like a boy and half like a cheerleader, and stomped around like a bad-ass rocker chick. I thought: I have to talk to her.

Despite the song’s defiant lyrics – “I’ve had it up to here” is the last line, though it’s sung in a cutesy, Betty Boop voice – Stefani claimed at the time to have no idea that it would resonate with feminists and tough grrrls.”The scene that I grew up in,” she said, “with female artists like Bikini Kill and Hole and all these more punk-rock girls, I always had the pressure of ‘You’ve got to be a feminist and you’ve got to hate guys. And you’ve got to cuss and be tough.’ And I was never like that. I grew up, like, a Catholic good girl. Total Brady Bunch family. That always kind of scared me, the pressure of having to be so cool or like, fuck you to the world. But I kind of got over that and realized that, yes, I love to dress up and I love to wear makeup and be myself. I like being a girl; I like having a door opened for me; I like all that traditional stuff and I won’t deny it.”

Nothing has changed since then. As Andrea Lieberman, a stylist who has been working with Stefani for the last couple of years, says, “Gwen is the girliest girl I know. She’s like a giant heart wrapped in a diamond-studded bow.” Stefani’s girlishness seems to be the direct result of the fact that she has lived in the protective bubble first of her family, then of her band.

Stefani was born on October 3, 1969, to high-school sweethearts. Her father, Dennis, who is Italian, worked in research and marketing for Yamaha motorcycles, and her mother, Patti, who is of Irish and Scottish extraction, was a homemaker. Stefani has an older brother and a younger sister and brother who all live in Los Angeles and remain very close. “I was very spoiled compared with a lot of people,” she says. “We weren’t rich, but we definitely had whatever we wanted.” The Stefani household was also very musical. “My parents were into Bob Dylan and were huge lovers of folk music.” Stefani distinctly remembers being taken out of Girl Scouts to go see Emmylou Harris perform at a local theater. Her parents took her to see movies and musicals, including The Sound of Music, which, as she likes to say, “changed my life.” Then there were the inevitable cast albums for Evita and Annie, which she would sing along to. “I don’t have a singer-singer’s voice,” she says. “I know what my voice is. But I knew that, physically, it felt really good.”

As it happened, her father may have been the first to really recognize that her loopy, unpredictable voice was actually rather surprising. “I remember giving my dad a demo tape of a song I wrote called ‘End It on This,’” she says, “and he would listen to it on the way to work and he played it for people. I remember two things he said to me. One was ‘Everybody’s saying that your songwriting is really good and you should just keep going.’ And the other was ‘Don’t ever take lessons, because your voice is really unique. There’s just something about it.’”

Even No Doubt was a family affair. Founded by Stefani’s brother Eric and his friend John Spence in 1986 as a ska band, No Doubt had very humble beginnings. Gwen was invited by her brother to be the co-lead singer; shortly thereafter the bass player, Tony Kanal, joined the band and they began playing small local venues. A year later, Spence committed suicide, and Gwen stepped into the spotlight. She also became the girlfriend of Kanal, a relationship that lasted seven years and whose breakup she has painstakingly detailed in several songs (most famously in “Don’t Speak”). “I was very passive,” she says. “My brother did everything. I was like, ‘I’m just the sister.’ And then after that I was ‘Tony’s girlfriend.’ And that was good enough for me! I never really had any ambitions or goals or dreams.”

When Stefani’s grandmother died, everyone in the band but Gwen and Kanal moved into her house, and it became known as the Band House, cementing the notion that No Doubt was a family. “I look back on the band, our little family, and how we made it into one. We had a lot of rules that we made up. The band was always number one.”

The group slowly and steadily gathered a sizable and very loyal following in Southern California—but there was no game plan. “We never thought we were going anywhere, really; we just wanted to see the next show. It was just a really homemade little fun thing we did literally in our garage.” Their big break came in 1990, when No Doubt got signed by Jimmy Iovine to his then-fledgling Interscope Records. “Jimmy took me aside and said, ‘Gwen, you are going to be a huge star in six years.’ I was like, ‘First of all, who the hell are you?’ And second of all, ‘I’m not going to be in this band six years from now. I’m going to be having fourteen children and be married.’ Then, practically to the day, ‘Don’t Speak’ was number one around the world. It’s pretty spooky. We always laugh about that.”

In 1995, No Doubt went on tour in support of their second album, Tragic Kingdom. Stefani dropped out of school for a semester thinking she’d be gone for only two months. But two months turned into two and half years, and Tragic Kingdom sold 16 million copies. When the tour finally ended, Gwen came home to her childhood bedroom in her parents’ house in Anaheim, older and wiser and rock-star famous. She had outgrown her own life.

Three weeks before I visit her in LA, I meet up with Stefani in London at Home House, a swanky members-only club where she and Rossdale held their wedding reception in September 2002. It is late in the afternoon on a weekday and we are sitting in a quiet, shabby-chic room with a few fussy little sofas and tables scattered about. There are a couple of middle-aged men pretending not to listen, but I can see them peering over their newspapers. Stefani’s wearing a pair of wide-leg pin-striped Gucci pants and a short little tan thrift-store jacket over a very tight Vivienne Westwood camisole and a pair of Sergio Rossi red silk stilettos. Perhaps it has something to do with her getup, or maybe it’s this old-world setting, but the first thing that strikes me about Stefani is that she is surprisingly ladylike.

While Stefani grows tired of being likened to Madonna, the comparison is irresistible. Madonna filtered her Hollywood-starlet persona through the prism of pop; Stefani has done something very similar through rock’n'roll. Like Madonna, Stefani has begun to drift away from a street-punk aesthetic and into the front rows of couture shows. And then, of course, there is the English husband and dual citizenship. In fact, Gavin and Gwen were recently invited over to Madonna and Guy’s house for dinner, just the four of them. “We do have a lot in common,” concedes Stefani.

But while Madonna’s efforts to grow up and act like a lady have always felt a bit forced, Stefani seems innately poised and well mannered. As rough-and-tumble as she gets on stage, Stefani leaves that attitude behind when the concert’s over. There are no Courtney Love histrionics, no Janet Jackson-style wardrobe malfunctions, no J.Lo diva routines. She’s a rare rock star who has it both ways.

Once again, her family seems to have protected her from the worst excesses of her chosen profession, as well as instilled in her a strong set of values. “My mom was really conservative growing up; everything was plain and simple and tasteful, and I couldn’t wait to rip my shirts and cut things up.” To Stefani, the cover of Vogue represents the pinnacle – more important than even Rolling Stone. “When I told my mother I was going to be on Vogue, she started crying.”

Mama Stefani is also beside herself with joy about the fact that her daughter is finally putting out her own collection, L.A.M.B, which debuted in February. “She was looking through the designs in my book, and she got really emotional.” Here, she imitates her mother crying: “It’s in your blood! This is for Great-Grandma!” Turns out Gwen comes from a long line of seamstresses. “My great-grandma used to start on New Year’s day, which was her birthday, and she would sew every person in her family a quilt and, like, flannel pajamas and then the next Christmas you’d get it. Her daughter, my mom’s mom, made every single thing my mother wore, to the point where she didn’t get to choose her own clothes until she was, like, engaged. And then my mom made our clothes. I used to be kind of bummed. Like, ‘Can’t I go to the mall?’”

One of the reasons Stefani’s look has been so distinct from the very beginning is that she has made most of the things she wears on stage herself. When she became successful and began to tour constantly, she felt she lost her way. Then she met the stylist Andrea Lieberman. “I never really knew anything about fashion,” says Stefani. “Andrea made me a lot sleeker and calmed me down. Before I would just wear everything. She matured my style.”

Lieberman had been admiring Stefani from afar. “I remember when I saw her wearing Viktor & Rolf pants in a video and I was like, ‘She is so fly!’ She always had that mad fantastic style, but I felt like nobody had opened her up to the world of couture and designers. But she’s like a kid in a candy store. Her eyes are wide-open. She loves to throw it all on and I’ll come in and be like, ‘There’s something to be said for restraint at times.’ Part of the joy of working with her is that she has this innate understanding, this cool factor. The It-girl thing.”

Their “inspirational tennis match,” as Lieberman puts it, led to Stefani’s designing and launching L.A.M.B. And while the line is pretty much youthful Gwen-style, is there anything more ladylike and feminine than picking up needle and thread?

It’s as if Stefani is trying on the role of womanhood. As she and Rossdale have been seen ringside at the shows in Paris, you get the sense that she enjoys being the soignée bride of an English gentleman. “Being married does make you feel like a woman,” says Stefani. “Other people treat you differently too. They have a respect for you as a duo. It’s kind of cool.”

It’s hard not to wonder if the wedding and her subsequent married life have met Stefani’s very high (and conventional) expectations, which, two albums ago, she addressed head-on. One song was titled, simply, “Marry Me” (“? I wouldn’t mind if my name changed to Mrs. …”), and in another she yearned for a “… simple kind of life/all I needed was a simple man/so I could be a wife.” When I ask her about this, she says, “It’s weird because when I was a little girl I was always looking at bridal magazines and drawing what my wedding dress was going to be like. But it was nothing like that. I was on tour and I came home and Gavin had literally planned the entire thing. And John Galliano made my wedding gown, chose the color, everything. It’s weird because you think you’re going to do all that. I can remember being on tour, crying, ‘I’m missing out on my life!’ But then I got home two weeks before and got adjusted. And it was very romantic because it just felt like Gavin did it all for me.”

One hopes that the 36-year-old Rossdale has a healthy ego because while Stefani’s star has been ever-ascendant, his has cooled off considerably over the last few years. When I ask her what he’s like, she says, “He’s one of those multi-taskers – good at everything. He’s an incredible cook. I totally scored. I’m a big, huge pig and I love eating, and I married a guy who loves to cook.” Rossdale was a serious tennis player when he was young but gave it up when his coach died. “We were in LA at a dinner party, and this guy was like, ‘You should come over to my house and play tennis.’ And that was it. Now he’s playing in celebrity tournaments. He’s a maniac. He plays like three hours a day.”

It is an intriguing role reversal: While Stefani tours the world and seemingly launches one new career after another, Rossdale plans weddings, cooks, plays tennis, and buys art for their two homes. In a funny way, he’s living the life that she’s always dreamed of. And even though they’ve been together for eight years, it seems they’re still getting to know each other. “We never lived together and we never lived in the same country,” says Stefani. “So, all told, we’ve only been together for, like, two years.” She laughs. “We toured so much separately. The most time we would ever spend together before we were married was like four weeks. But this whole past year, we’ve been together almost every day. Which has just been, like, amazing.” She exaggeratedly wipes the back of her hand across her forehead and says, “Phew!” Big laugh. “We like each other!”

Between quietly taking on Hollywood, getting married, and finally designing her own line of clothes, Gwen Stefani is clearly coming into her own. Nowhere is this more evident than in her music. No Doubt’s 2002 album, Rock Steady, was a huge success, both creatively and commercially, spawning four hit singles. After nearly fifteen years of being a freakishly successful ska band, No Doubt finally collaborated with other songwriters and producers. The result was a glittering collection of brilliant high-end pop that jumped all over the musical map. In the meantime, Stefani also cannily laid the groundwork for her solo career in 2001 when she collaborated with Moby on the ghetto-fabulous send-up “South Side” and, again, with Eve, on her single “Let Me Blow Ya Mind.” Suddenly Stefani became a kind of genre-jumping girl wonder, just as at ease in hip-hop, R&B, and dance music as she has been in the rock world for so long. The surprise for Moby, he says, was that “her voice has this very unique timbre and a very distinctive quality. But after spending a day with her in the studio I also realized that she’s incredibly technically proficient and just a really remarkable singer. And she worked really hard.”

As if to prove there’s nothing she can’t do, Stefani is currently putting together her first solo album, which she’s calling “a dance record.” To that end, she’s collaborating with a stellar lineup of producers and songwriters, including André 3000 from OutKast, Dallas Austin, and her ex-boyfriend Tony Kanal. “I really thought this record was going to be easy and fun and short. I’ll do a couple covers, I’ll work with some really talented people, I don’t have to do all the writing. It’s a dance record, so it can’t really be emotional. Well, I’ve written about seventeen songs, and only two of them are good enough.”

Iovine, chairman of Universal’s Interscope division (whom David Geffen recently called “the foremost record executive in the world today”), believes that Stefani’s future has never looked brighter. “It can be as big as she wants it to be. She’s a driven person, and she’s tough on her music. She’s got just enough insecurity to get herself where she is. There’s no arrogance.”

One of things that everyone who works with her seems to agree on is that Stefani is utterly guileless. “There’s no front to her,” says Muller. “It all just kind of pours out. And she’s always kind of in awe of her life. To have done as much as she has and still be grateful and amazed is fantastic.” Or, as Iovine puts it, “She doesn’t exploit herself. She’s not overselling it.”

I ask Iovine if he thinks there are any other female rock stars who are as big as Stefani. “No,” he says. “What Gwen’s got is that she moves the culture. You are truly great when you can move that culture meter—when you can make the needle jump—and I think she’s going to move it a lot in the next five years. She just will. She’s that kind of artist. I’d bet the store on her.”

Let’s face it: A big part of Stefani’s allure is the killer body. She works out religiously, preferring old-school running and weight lifting to yoga or pilates. Not surprisingly, she has been working out extra-hard lately, denying herself the food she loves so much, for her Vogue photo shoot. But after a glass of wine on an empty stomach in her LA living room, she has decided we must go out and get something to eat. “I feel like if I don’t eat, I might lose one more pound.” She pauses. “But I’m starving.” She invites me to join her upstairs while she gets ready and on our way up says, “When I’m home, I work out five days a week. It’s a battle, I have to say. I have to stop myself from eating. Ask anyone around me: I have to struggle to have this hot body!” She laughs. At the top of the stairs, there’s the master bedroom with a giant, dark wooden canopy bed. Over there, in the corner, is her vanity, a minimalist little moderne shrine to makeup and brushes and potions. There’s an office, a guest room, and then, finally, the vast, roaring closet. It’s a converted bedroom, actually, with plush white carpeting and racks and racks of clothes. “Look at how lucky I am,” she says.

This is the biggest closet I’ve ever seen, I say.

“Hello. Haven’t you seen Paula Abdul’s on TV? She has those circular racks, like they have in stores. I was so jealous.” She picks out a pair of boots (brand-new John Galliano pointy neo-Victorian) and sits on the floor to lace them up. Then she goes to the racks and pulls out a ratty yet elegant vintage cardigan with stains on the elbows. And then she throws on a sort of peacoat, and off we go.

We climb into an insanely luxurious Range Rover with a computerized dashboard. “This is Gavin’s,” she says. “I don’t have a car right now.” She pops in a CD and turns it way up. It’s a demo of one of her new songs, called “Crash,” reminiscent of Kelis’s song “Milkshake” and just as infectious. “Japanese or Italian?” she shouts over herself. We settle on Italian, and she points the car to a neighborhood joint where she’s a regular. “It’s nothing fancy-pants,” she says. When we arrive at the restaurant, it’s packed, and we are forced to wait outside on the street. I can see that this makes her a little nervous and maybe a touch annoyed. In London she admits, with refreshing honesty, that “there are certain things about being famous that I love, like being taken care of when I go to a restaurant. I love the attention. It’s fun.”

If Stefani’s career is tied to her physical beauty (it’s hard to imagine her maturing into a chanteuse), then there’s little doubt that she’s in her prime. Once we’re seated, I ask her if she worries about there being a time limit on a female rock star’s career. “When you get past a certain age, you start thinking about life and how much time ’till you die and you start panicking. I want to have a family, and I haven’t even done that yet. I’m worried that I only have a few more years to do this solo record because I don’t think I’ll care about this record when I’m 45. I don’t know. You can’t predict how you’re going to feel.” Then she tells me about a lyric she wrote years ago and has been trying to get in a song ever since: “Born to blossom, bloom to perish.”

But for now, Stefani’s immense appeal shows no signs of waning. A few tables away, there are two young girls who look as if they’re about to burst because of her presence. Stefani notices them and waves. We return to our dinner, and when the plates are cleared, a waitress approaches with a note. “The little girls in the back wanted me to give this to you. They are so terrified.”

“Will you just tell them that they can come say hi to me?” says Stefani. She unfolds the note and says. “Omigod. Oh. My. God.” Turns out one of the girls, Jana, went to school with Gwen’s niece, Madeline. A moment later, the girls appear at our table with their mother. “Jana, you are so cute,” says Stefani. “How old are you?” “Eight,” says her mother. “I can’t believe you know Madeline,” says Stefani. “It’s so weird because she called me last week and she said I’m her favorite singer. For the first time!”

“Has she not said that every day?” says the mom.

“No!” says Stefani. “Because, hello. Have you heard of Hillary Duff? I finally made it onto her radar. I’m taking her to the Grammys, so watch TV. I’m making her a really cute outfit.” (Sure enough, there was Stefani’s niece in the front row of the Grammys in some crazy getup.)

As we drive back to her house, Stefani tells me that there’s a videotape she wants to show me. It’s edited footage of the early days, when Gwen was still the kid sister in her brother’s rock band. Once we arrive, she takes me into a dark, cave-like TV room and pops it into the VCR. Suddenly, a girl appears on the screen. She has long brown hair, a round face, and schlumpy clothes. The only reason I know that it is Gwen Stefani is the voice. The eighteen-year-old girl on the TV looks nothing like the glamorous creature before me. “I don’t even recognize myself,” she says. She fast-forwards through the tape. “I want to show you where my hair goes blonde so you can go, ‘Whoa!’ OK, here it is. See. The blonde hair changed everything. We’re playing at Disneyland. We wanted to do it just to say we did it. That’s the dress I wore on the cover of Tragic Kingdom that I bought for $14 at Contempo Casuals.”

Wow, I say, I can’t believe how different you look.

“Dude, that was a long time ago,” she says. “Let’s face it. I’m way cooler now.”

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!

No one tells Gwen Stefani what to do – thank God! We get to the roots of her rock’n'roll style. By Gia Kourlas. Photographed by Gilles Bensimon.

Gwen Stefani doesn’t like to be made over and why should she? “I always do my own makeup and hair,” she declares. “Every time I’ve experimented, it’s been a disaster.” Once you get past the obvious – that her powerful vocals have been a trademark of No Doubt for 15 years and that she writes most of the music herself – the coolest thing about Gwen is that totally original look. And at 32, she says she’s having more fun with her look – and her life – than ever. No Doubt’s latest album, Rock Steady, is an irresistible dance party in disc form, and Gwen’s relationship with fiancé Gavin Rossdlae of Bush seems pretty rock steady too. Great! Because what we really wanted to grill Gwen about was her personal style, and, lucky for us, she was willing to play along…

Were you a nonconformist in high school?
Well I think that for young kids, it’s all about being like everyone else. So I had to have my sports shirt, and there was the zip-up sweatshirt that I wore every day. But when I hit puberty and found music, all of a sudden I wanted to be unique. In high school I did a lot of sewing and thrift-store shopping. My mum sews a lot of clothes for me when I was growing up, so I spent loads of time at the fabric store. Every dance that came up, we would buy fabric and make my dress. For prom, I made Grace Kelly’s dress from the movie Rear Window.

Wow, really?
My mum made me that dress! [Laughs] It was black velvet with a white chiffon skirt. We also made the dress from The Sound Of Music that Julie Andrews wears when she sings I Have Confidence. It was tweed with a drop waist, and I wore it the first time I was ever on stage at the school talent show.

Do you still have that tweed dress?
I have all the dresses we made.

What happened to the 40s dress you wore in the Don’t Speak video?
I got that at a thrift store, like five years before we shot the video. It smelled so bad that I never wore it. It’s beautiful fabric, that really old rayon that just hangs beautifully. But it’s a real mess!

Did your mom sew pretty much all of your dresses or did you also?
My Mom – but I made a lot of my own stuff, too. I could never do zippers very well. When we were on tour right after the first record came out, I made three or four dresses, which were all from the same pattern that I’d created myself. It was kind of a corset-style drop waist with a cheerleader skirt, and it looked like there was a white blouse underneath. I always made them in cartoon-y bright colours like bright reds, blues and yellows. Underneath I wore my boxer shorts and fishnets and Doc Martens. I had my little vibe going on.

Have you ever thought about starting your own clothing line?
Yeah! I want to. I talk about it all the time, especially now that I’m inspired again. But it’s hard to do a lot of things at once well. That’s why I haven’t had a kid yet. I want to do that well, and I want to be a good wife, but I’m so busy and I have so much passion for what I’m doing… I’m having a great time! [Laughs] So I think that if I do a clothing line, it has to be like everything else I do – it has to be homegrown, it has to be real. I wouldn’t just do it to make money, because I could do that easily. All I would have to do is the say the words – “Here’s my accessory line” and it would be nuts. I love that our fans get inspired and show up to our gigs in home-made gear. That is the coolest thing – I’ll never get sick of that. They inspire me.

Who else inspires you? Let’s play a word-association game with the names of some stylish ladies.
I don’t know everybody, but okay.

Grace Kelly?
Gorgeous.

Stevie Nicks?
I love her. Cool as hell. I relate to her a lot. And there are lots of similarities in the stories of our bands. [Laughs]

True enough. Veronica Lake?
The “Hey Baby” video, because I tried to copy her hair! [Laughs]

Debbie Harry?
Me on the last record. I really tried to rip her off hard on that one.

Jean Harlow?
She was dope-ass, she had those skinny eyebrows and attitude. She was way ahead of her time.

Madonna?
I can’t give you one word. I have to give you a long winded explanation of my relationship with her. [Laughs]

Yes, please.
When I was in high school, I was really into ska music. And I was 15 or 16, so there were lots of rules. If something was really popular, you’re like “I’m not into that.” Madonna was huge, but I was really into ska. I was like Madonna? Whatever.
But I think that, secretly, I was interested. I went to her concert in ‘87 at Anaheim Stadium, because I was in love with Tony [Kanal, No Doubt’s bass player] and his mum worked for the council and got free tickets. So we went and we kissed in the parking lot and saw the show. It was amazing. But I was never really a huge fan of hers until recently. I just look at her body of work now, and I have a whole lot of respect for her. I know what it’s like to be a girl in a man’s world. I’ve met her a few times. She is such a cool girl. The thing is that I relate more to someone like Deborah Harry, because she was in a band. It’s like two different worlds. But as far as paving a little space for some girls could come after her [Expels breath] – Madonna did that.

What do you think of Britney Spears and her image these days?
There’s room for everybody, and there’s always room for pure entertainment. But I’m surprised at how fast she’s moved on. I think when you’re in a band, the cool thing is that you have time to grow. Like I only just started wearing heels and getting more comfortable with my sexual side. Before, my whole vibe was based upon the idea that I wanted to be a guy – but I wanted to wear a lot of make-up. Being a girl in a band means that I want to do my hair and wear cute clothes, but when I get on stage, I want to rock out. But lately I feel that if I show a sexier side – and if you put on high heels, then you automatically do – it’s okay. I’ve earned my way.

It’s like a rite of passage?
Exactly. I feel that some of the younger artists should just hold on to their youth a little longer – it’s like, dude, you have so much ahead of you! But I can’t say anything, I could never imagine myself having commercial success at that age. I would go crazy.

If you hadn’t got into music, would you be a stylist or a make-up artist or something like that?
I was a make-up artist. I worked at a department store at Anaheim Plaza, which was a pretty low-grade mall with dollar stores. Different types of she-males would come in wanting to get their makeup done. [Laughs] It was such a rewarding job to help people feel better about themselves by putting on a little of this and a little of that. But if I hadn’t gotten into music I don’t think I’d still be working at the mall, I would have completed college. I can’t imagine going back now. I learned all the important things I needed because I didn’t want to feel like a stupid person – but as far as art classes go, I’d love to go back.

Your style is so immaculate, so put together. Do you ever just kick back in a sweatshirt and no make-up?
[In wonder] Immaculate! Oh, dude, yeah! Of course I do. On tour, for the most part, I have two outfits that I wear every night on stage. I just rotate the colours. During the day I wear my workout clothes. Publicity time is really fun because it’s all about the clothes, and lately I’m really into it again. I feel all energized. I went to the fabric store to make a skirt for my sister’s wedding and I freaked out! I was like, Oh my God, I haven’t been here in so long! I bought fabric and had loads of pants made up.

What do you think about the way Joan Rivers and everybody else – including this magazine – critique celebrity fashion?
I get totally seduced by it all. I love to open People to see what everyone’s wearing. But it’s different when it’s me. What’s that one I always get in? “When bad clothes happen to good people.” [Laughs] I kind of consider that a compliment. The clothes they consider bad I usually like!

Does Gavin have a favourite outfit?
He has really good taste. He’s influenced me a lot, to grow up a bit with the way I dress. He’s really anti bright colours – everything I am! He doesn’t have a favorite outfit. But I definitely try to impress him. He influences me when I’m shopping. I think, Will he like this?

Do you go for more conservative things now?
Maybe I just don’t go for the really bright colours as much. [Laughs] I have to grow up. I can’t just stay the same forever.

How have you evolved as a songwriter?
With the last album, Return Of Saturn, I decided I just wanted to get really good at writing. I started keeping a journal, and I’d never done that. I got the lyrics and poems of Joni Mitchell, which are just genius – the most beautiful way of putting thoughts down. She really inspired me. And then Gavin told me about Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and I was so inspired by that – and by her journals. But with Rock Steady we wanted it to be a little more free. I tried to make my writing more conversational. I didn’t get into my whole “being inspired” thing – I would be inspired by a day. even a moment. And I didn’t labor over it – I tried to write stuff in an afternoon and then go and record it.

You’ve collaborated with so many great people - Eve and Moby, and now Prince and Sly and Robbie on Rock Steady. Who else would you like to work with?
The Thompson Twins. I would love to make a rap song with those guys. Or have them remix one of our tracks.

You grew up in the ’80s but don’t seem embarrassed by ’80s fashion. Do you really like it?
I love the idea of something that’s really bad becoming really good again. The ’80s were an awesome time for music. And plus it was the backdrop of my life, so of course I love it and embrace it!

Did you have fun on TRL in December?
Yeah. We’ve been on so many times, but we were so excited and nervous. I didn’t think I could get that nervous again! We kind of came off as nerds, but oh well.

Do you consider yourself kind of dorky?
[Pauses and giggles] I’m pretty cool now. I always get really freaked out when I start thinking about how people see me. It’s a weird lifestyle. We have this web fan forum, and you can read everything the fans have to say. There’s a lot of negative stuff, and I don’t know if I’m going to read it anymore. No Doubt’s never done anything that anyone’s told us to do. Like I don’t wear anything that anyone tells me to wear. The whole idea of No Doubt is freedom – creating something on your own. To try to get better and grow. It frustrates me when people get that wrong and think that they own you. The idea of fans is amazing, because they give you your life, but the idea of anyone, a fan or not, trying to tell you what music you should do? I don’t do it for anyone except myself in the first place. It’s an art.

No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani on Britney, learning to walk in heels and the trouble with zippers.

Gwen Stefani is the kind of girl that other girls want to be. She’s in control and in No Doubt… where she writes most of the songs and gets to live out her rock-star fantasies night after night. Then there was that video with Eve, the platinum blonde hair (and life), bee-stung lips and the gawky grace of her sun kissed bod. And did we even mention the fact that her snuggle-bunny is Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale?

But the main reason why we’d want to be Gwen is the mountains of clothes and accessories (so we’re shallow, so sue us) that she’s accumulated over the many years she’s been fronting No Doubt. So although we love No Doubt’s just-released album, Rock Steady, an irresistible CD shaped dance party if ever we heard one, what we really wanted to grill Gwen about is her personal style…

Were you a playground rebel?
Well I think that for young kids, it’s all about being like everyone else. So I had to have my sports shirt, and there was the zip-up sweatshirt that I wore every day. But when I hit puberty and found music, all of a sudden I wanted to be unique. In high school I did a lot of sewing and thrift-store shopping. My mum sews a lot of clothes for me when I was growing up, so I spent loads of time at the fabric store. Every dance that came up, we would buy fabric and make my dress. For prom, I made Grace Kelly’s dress from the movie Rear Window.

Wow, really?
My mum made me that dress! [Laughs] It was black velvet with a white chiffon skirt. We also made the dress from The Sound Of Music that Julie Andrews wears when she sings I Have Confidence. It was tweed with a drop waist, and I wore it the first time I was ever on stage at the school talent show.

What happened to the 40s dress you wore in the Don’t Speak video?
I got that at a thrift store, like five years before we shot the video. It smelled so bad that I never wore it. It’s beautiful fabric, that really old rayon that just hangs beautifully. But it’s a real mess!

Tell us about you adventures with needles and thread
I used to make a lot of my own stuff, but I could never do zippers very well. When we were on tour right after the first record came out, I made three or four dresses, which were all from the same pattern that I’d created myself. It was kind of a corset-style drop waist with a cheerleader skirt, and it looked like there was a white blouse underneath. I always made them in cartoon-y bright colours like bright reds, blues and yellows. Underneath I wore my boxer shorts and fishnets and Doc Martens. I had my little vibe going on.

Have you ever thought about starting your own clothing line?
I talk about it all the time but it’s hard to do a lot of things well at once. I’m so busy and I have so much passion for what I’m doing. So I think that if I do a clothing line, it has to be like everything else I do, home-grown; it has to be real. I wouldn’t just do it to make money, although I could do that easily. All I would have to do is the say the words “Here’s my accessory line” and it would be nuts. But the thing I love about our fans is that they get inspired and show up to our gigs in home-made gear. That is the coolest thing, I’ll never get sick of that. Our fans inspire me.

Who else inspires you? Let’s play a word-association game with the names of some stylish ladies. Grace Kelly?
Gorgeous.

Stevie Nicks?
I love her. Cool as hell. I relate to her a lot. And there are lots of similarities in the stories of our bands.

Veronica Lake?
I tried to copy her hair in the Hey Baby video!

Debbie Harry?
Me on the last record. I really tried to rip her off hard on that one.

Jean Harlow?
She was dope-ass, she had those skinny eyebrows and attitude. She was way ahead of her time.

Madonna?
I can’t give you one word. I have to give you a long winded explanation of my relationship with her. [Laughs]

Yes, please.
When I was in high school, I was really into ska music. And I was 15 or 16, so there were lots of rules. If something was really popular, you’re like “I’m not into that.” Madonna was huge, but I was really into ska. I was like Madonna? Whatever.
But I think that, secretly, I was interested. I went to her concert in ‘87 at Anaheim Stadium, because I was in love with Tony [Kanal, No Doubt's bass player] and his mum worked for the council and got free tickets. So we went and we kissed in the parking lot and saw the show. It was amazing.
But I was never really a huge fan of hers until recently. I just look at her body of work now, and I have a whole lot of respect for her. I know what it’s like to be a girl in a man’s world. I’ve met her a few times. She is a cool girl. She created this space so that other girls could come after her and make their mark… Madonna did that.

What do you think of Britney Spears and her image?
There’s room for everybody, and there’s always room for pure entertainment. I’m surprised at how fast she’s moved on. I wish that some of the younger artists would realise that it’s OK to hold on to their youth a little longer. It’s like, “Dude, you have so much ahead of you!” But I can’t say anything, I could never imagine myself having commercial success at that age. I would go crazy.
I think when you’re in a band, the cool thing is that you have time to grow. Like I only just started wearing heels and getting more comfortable with my sexual side. Before, my whole vibe was based upon the idea that I wanted to be a guy – but I wanted to wear a lot of make-up. Being a girl in a band means that I want to do my hair and wear cute clothes, but when I get on stage, I want to rock out.

If you hadn’t got into music, would you be a stylist or a make-up artist or something like that?
I was a make-up artist! I worked at a department store at Anaheim Plaza, which was a pretty low-grade mall with dollar stores. It was such a rewarding job to help people feel better about themselves by putting on a little of this and a little of that.
But if I hadn’t gotten into music I don’t think I’d still be working at the mall, I would have completed college. i mean, I’ve learned all the important things I needed because I didn’t want to feel stupid, but I’d love to go back to do something creative, like an art class.

You always look pretty immaculate. Do you ever just kick back in a sweatshirt and no make-up?
Oh, dude, yeah! Of course I do. On tour, I have two outfits that I wear every night on stage. I just rotate the colours. During the day I wear my workout clothes. That’s why I love doing photo shoots and TV appearances, because it’s all about the clothes, and lately I feel like I’ve rediscovered fashion. I went to the fabric store to make a skirt for my sister’s wedding and I freaked out! I was like, “Oh my God, I haven’t been here in so long!” I bought a ton of fabric and had loads of pants made up.

Does Gavin have a favourite outfit?
He has really good taste. He’s influenced me a lot, to grow up a bit with the way I dress. He doesn’t love bright colours, which is everything I am! I suppose that I do wear slightly more conservative things now, or maybe I just don’t go for the really bright colours as much. I have to grow up. I can’t just stay the same forever.

Do you think this new, grown-up outlook on life has influenced your music?
With the last album, Return Of Saturn, I decided I just wanted to get really good at writing. I started keeping a journal, and I’d never done that. I got the lyrics and poems of Joni Mitchell, which are just genius – she has the most beautiful way of putting thoughts down. She really inspired me. And then Gavin told me about Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and I was so inspired by that and by her journals.
But with Rock Steady we wanted it to be a little more free. I tried to make my writing more conversational. I would be inspired by a day. even a moment. And I didn’t labour over it – I tried to write stuff in an afternoon and then go and record it.

How do you think you’ve changed in the years since the band started?
Things have changed. We have fans now, which is amazing because they give you your life, but we’re still rebels at heart. Like I don’t wear anything that anyone tells me to wear. The whole idea of No Doubt is freedom; creating something on your own. To try to get better and grow. And I’m pretty cool now. or at least I hope I am!