Tag: Return of Saturn

Power POP Orbit

Tom Dumont launches more hooks for No Doubt’s Return of Saturn. By Kyle Swenson.

The moment the world got smashed over the head with No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” from 1996’s Tragic Kingdom, it was widely assumed the band was an overnight sensation. Not exactly.

The band formed in 1986, watched their major-label debut album flop in 1992, and logged years of recording an performing before its new wave/reggae/ska sound made a blip on the rock and roll radar.

In fact, as Tragic Kingdom was exploding towards number one on the charts, lead singer Gwen Stefani stated on the band’s Web site: “Last year, we were hanging by a thread. We were ready to quit and save ourselves from becoming a bunch of losers.” Read the rest of this article »

Success the Road, and Surviving it all

The past couple of years have been pretty quiet for No Doubt, particularly compared with the media hype the band experienced after the release of their 1995 album Tragic Kingdom. Now, five years later, the band has released Return of Saturn. It’s the fourth album for the Orange County, California ska-pop band. The three previous titles include No Doubt (1992), The Beacon Street Collection (1995) and Tragic Kingdom (1995), their biggest success to date. Return of Saturn boasts an impressive studio line-up: It was produced by Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette), recorded by Alain Johannes (Eleven, Chris Cornell) and mixed by Jack Joseph Puig (Black Crowes). 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 »

Happy Returns

No Doubt are back on pop by Linda Laban

“If I could pick one word that would be the theme for this album,” says No Doubt’s singer and frontwoman, Gwen Stefani, “it would be confusion.”

Stefani is talking about the Southern California band’s fourth album, Return of Saturn, which will be released by Interscope on April 11. Although it’s still weeks away from store shelves, No Doubt have already put in considerable promotional legwork. By the time their US tour (which benefits the band’s favorite charities) brings them to Boston’s Avalon for a sold-out show this Wednesday, Stefani and company will have already spent three weeks whizzing around Europe, chatting up the press and TV. “It’s a little harder doing European press because of all the translation,” Stefani says. “You gotta be a little bit straighter instead of being real silly. But everyone has been really huggy and cuddling each other, welcoming us back in a way. It felt really good.” Read the rest of this article »

No Doubt

Like Anaheim, superstardom is a weird place to come from by Dave Wielenga

Three small orange trees grow along the curb in front of her stately mansion in an old-money neighborhood above Los Angeles, and the bright pink that has replaced brassy platinum as her hot new hair color glows all the way down to her scalp. No, Gwen Stefani has not forgotten her roots. But it’s going on five years since No Doubt, one of Orange County’s most enduring and identifiably local bands, experienced its overnight international sensation. Since then has come the 15 million-selling CD, the sold-out global tour, the fan zines and Web sites and MTV awards, the weekly photographic updates in Rolling Stone on every change of clothes, boyfriend or party itinerary—all of it laced with just enough rags-to-riches pathos and angst to green light an upcoming VH-1 Behind the Music special, which will be synergistically broadcast in April to coincide with the release of the band’s new album. By now, Stefani has been a bona fide pop Tinkerbell for so long that it’s sometimes hard to believe she was ever that just-a-girl who grew up near Disneyland. Her faithful little doggie—a 15-year-old Lhasa apso named Maggen that is one year older than the band—is still at her side, Toto-and-Dorothy-style. But the Oz they inhabit clearly isn’t Anaheim anymore. When No Doubt’s tour stopped for two nights at the Pond a couple of years ago, Stefani’s parents visited her in a hotel. “Something happens to you when you travel the world and embrace everything,” Stefani acknowledges. “Suddenly, you realize that the small, little back yard you came from is such a . . . like . . . Anaheim is such a weird place to come from.” 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 »

No Doubt about it

A deeper sound emerges

Gwen Stefani, looking like a hip Heidi in blond braids and a casually fashionable outfit of zippered jacket, blue denim jeans and leopard platform sandals, is kneeling, not sitting, on a red couch in a hallway outside a Hollywood record-mastering studio.

Snuggled beside her is a Lhasa apso named Maggen, her companion of 14 years–one year longer than Stefani has been singing for No Doubt. Sitting or milling about are guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, drummer Adrian Young and adjunct member Gabriel McNair. Read the rest of this article »