No Doubt Scrapbook

Growing Up Doubtless

No Doubt’s Tony Kanal gains taste & maturity.

This summer marks 30 years since Tony Kanal was born and 15 since he took up bass. For nearly 14 of those years, Tony has played in the service of No Doubt, a band that began in Southern California’s third wave ska underground and became one of the defining groups of ’90s pop. With the 1995 Interscope album Tragic Kingdom, and its worldwide, bass-heavy hits “Just a Girl,” “Spiderwebs,” and “Don’t Speak,” No Doubt seemed to come from nowhere to international stardom. But this was no overnight success; Tony and his bandmates had struggled to make it since high school. Read the rest of this article »

Mission to 1982

Tired of Ska, Bored with bindis, and suffering from writers block, No Doubt looked back to the 80’s for inspiration, conjuring a new-wave fest that would do Missing Persons proud.
Now only if a certain person would propose…

In bed with Gwen Stefani! Bliss! Rapture! Total listener-contest dream come true!

That is, if you’ve haven’t already spent two years in a tour bus with Gwen Stefani. Or a thousand hours at soundchecks with Gwen Stefani. Or 18 months in recording studios with Gwen Stefani. Or untold nights in cramped, urine-smelling, graffiti-mottled backstage dressing rooms with Gwen Stefani. Read the rest of this article »

No Doubt

It’s 1992 and your career looks bleak.

Your first record couldn’t have been less adept to the climate: In the midst of gloomy, distortion-saturated sounds emanating from Seattle, you’d gone and released a peppy, pop-infused ska/new wave record that plunged into obscurity almost upon release. Your label has pretty much shelved you, and your key songwriter is about to bail, What do you do?

If you’re No Doubt, you just keep to your game plan - and get famous. 1995’s Tragic Kingdom scored the Anaheim, California quartet a slew of hit singles and an eventual resting place a Billboard’s No. 1, but that’s not all. Critics who’d dogged the band early on as throwaway pop or simply more product from the Orange County ska scene were now praising them for their infectious zeal and singer Gwen Stefani’s potent stage presence. And fans were continuing to gobble up Tragic Kingdom, eventually rendering it platinum 15 times over. So what do you do for a follow up? (Gulp.) Read the rest of this article »