Gwen, Gavin and Kingston are featured in the current issue of OK! magazine in the UK.

Doing it for the kids

Jennifer, Seal and Gwen enjoy some family time

Back on this side of the Atlantic, it was nice to see Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale taking son Kingston for a stylish, springtime stroll in London’s Primrose Hill.

Gwen is also featured on the cover of Hot Stars which is an OK! supplement under ‘New mums slim down!’.

New mums lose their baby weight – in just weeks!

Gwen Stefani

How long she took: 6 weeks

How much she lost: An estimated two stone in six weeks

How she did it: The singer says she has been eating a healthy diet while breastfeeding, and has been burning off those extra pounds by doing regular exercise. She said: “There aren’t any tricks, it’s simple maths.”

Please note: those pictures of Gwen were actually taken 7 months apart, not six weeks! The pic of Gwen in the grey top was taken on July 7th 2008 and the pic with the black jacket was taken on January 9th 2009.

Finally! Some decent UK coverage… it seems like it’s been an age! Haha

This week a candid photograph of Gwen Stefani taken at the Men’s Wimbledon final was featured in the free UK paper, Metro. The photograph was positioned next to a short report on the outcome of the tennis match.

As Gwen Stefani, 38, prepares to have her second child with rocker hubby Gavin Rossdale, 42, she tells us she’s happier than ever.

Gwen Stefani

So, you’re ready to pop! We’ve got hot water and towels ready! Are you scared of becoming a mum for the second time?
No, I’m very happy now. I love being with my son Kingston and taking care of him. I can’t wait to do it all again.

Babies tend to strain relationships, so did it change your marriage to Gavin?
No, it’s good we have something together outside our crazy relationship! [Laughs] I feel we’re closer in many ways now we have a child. We’ve both become more romantic and caring for each other.

You recently had to look after Kingston while you were on tour. Was it hard juggling work and family?
Oh no! It was much harder on the last No Doubt tour when I was going on stage and performing while I was pregnant with Kingston. That was very hard for me. This time, it was awesome.

Do you feel guilty if you have to leave Kingston to go to work?
Sometimes I feel very stressed and think it’s insane to be having so much going on when all I want to do is relax and play with Kingston, but I’m in love with my fashion label. The simple reason I started L.A.M.B was to have something creative in my life other than music. I pinch myself every day, every second, when I think how far along things have come for me.

You’re a true fashion icon. Do you still enjoy dressing up?
I’ve always enjoyed being able to play with different looks. It’s the frustrated actress in me, I guess. I remember as a child dressing up all the time and imagining myself in films or in fashion magazines and posing and letting my head drift off into some fantasy world.

So can we expect you to take it easier when you have your new baby?
I never want to stop working. I don’t want to disappoint people and that pressure is kind of healthy. I never think that I’ve got it made. I have a good life. I’m happy, but you always worry about staying relevant and not living up to expectations. I’ve had my ups and downs, but it’s been more to do with things on a personal level. Work has always been my way out of despair or anguish because it focuses you and I’ve always drawn a lot of strength from the things I’ve achieved in my life.

Has having a family changed that drive?
I’ve already accomplished everything I originally wanted to. Most of my dreams have come true. What’s changed is that at this point in my life I also have the comfort that comes from knowing I have a family and that there’s a different meaning to my work. It’s a little more special now.

Gavin

It must be hard having your marriage in the spotlight…
You know, my only responsibility is towards Gwen. My parents have both been married I think three times each [laughs], so I always said when I got married, I only wanted to get married one time – or else I don’t want to be married. What’s the point?

How do you and Gwen keep your marriage hot with babies bouncing around?
By looking after yourself. I always want to look nice for her and make an effort. That’s how I think you keep that really essential part of life alive. We went trick or treating at Halloween last year, it was really fun. Kingston was dressed up as a tiger, and Gwen was wearing a cat outfit. But all the mums looked like they were beaten into submission. I couldn’t believe it. When we left, I told Gwen how much I loved her because I always appreciate what an effort she makes, because she always looks amazing and she always has that time alone to come out looking fantastic.

How’s the second pregnancy been for Gwen?
It was difficult at first. She was really tired and suffering, which is kind of sad in a way. But right now she’s really blossoming and I’m just trying to be right there for her and help her get through it.

She’s really blooming at the moment. Do you know if you will have a boy or a girl?
Not yet. I just can’t wait. I’m so excited. Gwen just loves babies. She’s like “I don’t want Kingston to grow!”

What else do you love about her?
Her generosity, dedication and her honesty and sweetness – you know, that is Gwen in a nutshell. She’s also a product of the Western world where body scrutiny is more powerful than ever…

So you’re telling us Gwen Stefani is scared of getting fat?
Yeah. She’s just so dedicated. It’s very hard because everyone’s so judged the whole time, so she’s mindful of all that.

As well as having one child and another one on the way, you were recently revealed as the father of model Daisy Lowe, when you thought you were just her godfather. Do you have a relationship with Daisy?
No, not really. It’s too crazy – it’s too public. I hope there will be at some point. The mum’s [Pearl Lowe] just, like, nuts.

That’s a full-on claim…
Yeah. Every time I try and get in touch with Daisy, it becomes a public issue. It’s really sad. It just becomes so bitter and twisted.

So you’re not the absent father you’re made out to be?
No! I can’t keep going and having it thrown in my face when all I’ve done is comply and been really generous. I’m just waiting for the right time. And there will be a right time. My relationship with Daisy can only be private. That’s when it could blossom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Facing the critics, working with Keane, recording with No Doubt again and Britney’s meltdown… We talk exclusively with superhot singer Gwen Stefani.

No Doubt about it
I had lunch with my band yesterday and we were just talking about the weird journey we’ve been on.

I made the last record not to intentionally go solo, it wasn’t like there was any problems in the band, it was just a fun album to make.

Then it got kinda drawn out because it was more successful than I thought. Then I wanted to tour, and I got pregnant, and I couldn’t see me doing a No Doubt record.

It didn’t seem like the right time. Creatively I wasn’t inspired by it, but the moment I finished recording this last record, I was like: “I think I know I want to record with No Doubt now.” It was so obvious that’s what I wanted.
Second album syndrome
I haven’t really read the press too much, having the baby, it’s been really hard. So that’s news to me. I’ll be crying all day about it now – haha!

They’re always ready with the whip to beat you down on your second album. Of course, it bothers me – I’m a human being. I put my whole heart and everything into this record.

I read stuff here and there on websites, this and that, like anyone would. Then I read something bad and I end up not reading anything else.

Your confidence gets taken away, and if you don’t have that, how are you supposed to get up there?

I’m only making music for fun. I’m not like a brain surgeon, I’m a fucking singer from orange County.

Keane for a day
I wanted to do something with Tim (Rice-Oxley from Keane) on the last record – I think he’s on the same label as me. I got the Keane record and I listened to it on the way down to Anaheim, and was like wow, this is so good, it was so beautiful.

I really wanted to write a ballad so I called him up to see if he wanted to do it. He was so nice, with no ego and really talented, and fuck anybody that says anything about that. I get so riled up about it.

I call him the Clark Kent of songwriting, cos he’s all humble and sweet, and wears glasses, but actually he’s quite good-lookingm and when he takes them off he’s this amazing Superman songwriter.

Eternal fame
It’s fun. I’m milking it. Who knows how long it’s gonna last. There’s moments where people are gonna look at you and want your picture or autograph or whatever, but so what. It’s not a big deal.

When I was pregnant it got craxy because I got caught up in the whole celebrity pregnancy thing. These photographers lived outside of my house the entire time, they had lawn chairs and stuff.

That was a little hard because I wasn’t feeling my most glamorous, and pregnancy is such a personal thing. But then you have all the photos too. I tell my friends if you see any pictures of Kingston in magazines, send them to me and I’ll make a scrapbook for him.

Magic of motherhood
I never thought that this would be my life at all. It’s one of the things I find hardest to talk about because it’s hard to describe the feelings, it’s so magical. It’s been a very flawless and natural progression. I wasn’t uptight about it, it wasn’t scary, none of those things. It’s just great.

Plastic surgery, maybe?
I don’t spend a lot of my time thinking about that stuff. I definitely enjoy Surgery: 90210 – I love that TV show. They make it look so easy, don’t they? I dunno, we’ll see, you’ll have to check back, haha!

and… Britney
It’s disturbing. She lived on my block in LA for like a week, then she moved. I don’t know what’s going on with her.

Nobody really knows what’s going on so it’s hard to comment, but it’s a bit disturbing. Obviously you don’t want want someone who’s just had a little baby freaking out.

Would I shave my head? At this stage no, maybe when I was younger. I don’t think it would look very good.

If you’re not a fan of Broadway or Hollywood musicals, you might have heard Gwen Stefani’s current single, Wind It Up, and wondered: What’s up with the yodeling?

Those in the know immediately recognized the reference to The Lonely Goatherd, a song from The Sound of Music. Stefani is a die-hard fan of the film version and its star, Julie Andrews.

Like Andrews’ character, the fledgling nun-turned-governess-turned-wife and stepmother Maria von Trapp, “I’m a Catholic girl who sings and sews,” says Stefani, 37. “So there’s a lot about her that I can relate to.”

That now includes maternal responsibilities. In May, Stefani and her husband, British rocker Gavin Rossdale, 41, welcomed Kingston James McGregor Rossdale, who has since bonded with the stylists, dancers and other creative types on his mother’s sizable support staff.

“There’s this huge team of us always hanging out together, so he gets to see the same people every day,” Stefani says. “And he’s this very cool, chilled-out little guy. He’s just like another person, except that he’s super-cute and super-entertaining.”

Kingston was in the studio while his mother recorded her second solo CD, The Sweet Escape, which just entered the charts at No. 3. Though bested by R&B ingénue Ciara and a showcase for Eminem protégés, the album sold more copies in its first week than its predecessor, 2004’s multi-platinum Love Angel Music Baby.

The No Doubt frontwoman hadn’t initially planned on releasing a follow-up to Love so quickly, or returning to the road — where she spent the first four and a half months of her pregnancy, “which was gnarly” — next spring for another tour.

She attributes her energy to breast-feeding: “I’m still nursing, and I think it gives you superhuman powers.”

Still, the singer was “much more relaxed” while working on Escape, which features collaborators such as Pharrell Williams, Akon, No Doubt’s Tony Kanal and Keane’s Tim Rice-Oxley.

“The last one was such a concept album, though I was trying to make something fun, nothing too deep or serious,” Stefani says. “I was into the whole ’80s dance thing, trying to be more creative than personal. And for me, it’s really more natural to write personal songs.”

Yet when Stefani started planning her Escape, “I didn’t have any major direction. I don’t feel like having the baby really shaped my intentions; he was just this magical thing that happened to me.”

During her pregnancy, she acknowledges, “I wasn’t writing much. I tried to, but I guess I was already creating too much — I was on creative overload, you know? So I watched TV and ate.”

After Kingston’s birth, of course, Stefani was intent on whipping her lithesome frame back into standard sex-goddess proportions.

“That was one of the hardest things for me — the pressure of, ‘OK, I need to get into shape so that I can put this record out.’ If I didn’t have that pressure, I don’t think I would have gotten the baby weight off so quickly.”

Still, even with a CD to promote, a new concert to plan and, of course, her thriving fashion line, L.A.M.B., Stefani is already thinking about giving young Kingston a sibling.

“I pray that I can have another baby,” she says. “I mean, it’s such a miracle to have one. And there’s so much I still want to do, because who knows? Things could be a lot harder a few years from now. I mean, I’m not at the beginning of my career. I’m on a ticking clock. And I don’t want to miss anything.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gwen “I want more children!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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