Tag: Rock Steady

Gwen Stefani: “I’m a very different girl than I used to be”

Gwen Stefani’s own brand of sexy-cool has made her a style icon. With her first solo album and a line of clothes she’s designing herself, Stefani races into the future. Here, the songstress talks about staying true to herself through the firestorm of fame, her hope for a baby, and the real reason she wears those big, baggy jeans. By Susan Swimmer.

After years of fronting the Grammy-award-winning band No Doubt, Gwen Stefani decided it was time to branch out. She’s “on fire right now,” and who can argue? Her first solo album, a hip-hop inspired dance fest called Love. Angel. Music. Baby, was released in November 2004 and has already gone platinum; she’s just completed a European tour; the clothing line she designs, called L.A.M.B for short, is wildly successful; and a line of accessories and T-shirts called Harajuku Lovers - directly tied to her album - is set to launch this fall. It’s no wonder Stefani’s quirky sense of cool is now the backbone of her very own fashion empire - her sexy-sweet, gender-bending looks have inspired everyone from mall rats to rap moguls, changing the way the world thinks about style. For Stefani, life doesn’t imitate art, her life is her art. Read the rest of this article »

The Greatest Show on Earth?

Well, No Doubt’s greatest hits, anyway - which is what they’ll be playing on their last tour before Gwen Stefani drops a solo CD. By Chris Willman.

Shooting what little breeze there is on a hot, insufferably still LA day, Gwen Stefani suddenly feels the need to cull a statistic from a bandmate. “How many times do you think you’ve thrown up in your life, Tony?” she asks. Tony Kanal looks like he’s not certain he wants to play this game. “I’m not sure it’s a lot,” the bass player answers with a nervous chuckle. Better to focus on the immediate future. “This time,” he insists, “it’s gonna be much more mellow and healthy.” Fifty points if you’ve already figured out our subject of the day: rock touring. Their little O.C.-teem-ska-band-that-could, No Doubt, is hitting the amphitheater circuit in June, pairing up with blink-182 for one of the summer’s most anticipated tours. (One of the most economical too: Ticket prices top out in the mid-two-figure range, or about $250 cheaper than it’d cost you for a similar seat to see Madonna.) It’s a nationwide victory lap in honor of their recent blockbuster hits collection, The Singles 1992-2003, whose new song, a cover of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life,” afforded them yet another top 10 smash (their tenth). This could be the optimal point in their history to catch the band: They’ve been together long enough to almost count as seasoned elder statesmen - 17 years, which is about 170 in rock years - but, being still in their 30s, they’re vigorous, scrappy, and in no danger yet of outgrowing their audience. Read the rest of this article »

Rock Ready

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. Read the rest of this article »

Fearless Synth Bass

Diving In: No Doubt’s Tony Kanal

Tony Kanal tried his hand at keyboard bass for the very first time when recording No Doubt’s latest Interscope CD, Rock Steady. He ended up using synth bass for four of the album’s cuts: “Hey Baby,” “Start the Fire,” “Detective,” and “Running.” “I had no idea what I was doing when I started playing keyboard bass lines,” Tony laughs. “And I still wouldn’t consider myself a real keyboard player. But that was the cool thing about the way we recorded Rock Steady: We just let go of everything we had done in the past. It was just about trying something completely new.” On many of the CD’s songs Tony tried playing both “real” bass and keyboard bass; a few of them ended up having both, like “Detective.” Read the rest of this article »

Nine girls and a guy

Gathering on the sultry streets of New York’s Meatpacking district, nine reigning female musicians were delighted to pose for Annie Leibovitz, not least because of talent No.10, the mojo-rific Barry White, perhaps the only man who could single-handedly balance the lineup

When the Concorde bringing Gwen Stefani to New York from London “nose-dived” (her word) shortly after takeoff this morning of our cover shoot, all hell broke loose. The plane went back to Heathrow, all Concordes were grounded for the rest of the day, and Stefani was in the British Airways lounge, on the phone, sobbing. But ever the trouper, she got on another flight, did her makeup over the Atlantic, and arrived - albeit seven hours later than originally planned - to take her place (for the second year in a row) in the lineup of superstars for V.F.’s Music Issue. That spirit exempliefies Stefani, whose pop-rock-ska band, No Doubt, has persevered since their start in California’s Orange County a decade and a half ago. “After years of being a really dorky band, people decided we were cool,” says the platinum blonde singer-songwriter, whose offbeat yet glamorous personal style has created a generation of “Gwennabes.” Having achieved stardom - No Doubt’s five albums have together sold more than 19 million copies - Stefani, 32, fulfilled another lifelong wish this fall, marrying her boyfriend of seven years, Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale. “The dream of my life has always to get married,” she says. “Everybody in the group wants to have a family and normal lives - we all come from that kind of situation.” But don’t expect her to become a housewife just yet; this month the band launches yet another U.S. tour, headlining a bill with Garbage. Read the rest of this article »

Rock Steady

Hip chick and No Doubt’s front woman Gwen Stefani gives us the lowdown on music, marriage and what it takes to get the flattest stomach in pop.

Who didn’t have Hey Baby stuck in their head for, like, weeks? No Doubt’s number two smash (their first biggie since 1997’s Don’t Speak) is so hip-swingingly addictive that it’s still being played like crazy on the radio. And as for Gwen Stefani’s smash collaboration with Eve (Let Me Blow Your Mind), well, it just goes to show she’s one of the hottest divas around. With bags of talent, a shiny, new ghetto fabulous look and fiancé (she’s getting spliced to Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale), she’s poised to take on the world, despite her protests that she’s just “a normal girl from Orange County.” Read the rest of this article »

She’s a rebel

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… Read the rest of this article »

This girl rocks!

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? Read the rest of this article »

No Doubt

Geared up to Rock Steady. By Jon Weiderhorn

A touring rock band has to evolve and adapt to survive. Fans might embrace a group’s original style and image for a while, but if a look and sound remains constant for too long, a band can become stale, its music bordering on self-parody.

The members of No Doubt are keenly aware of that phenomenon, which is why the band’s live performance over the years has changed as much as its music. In 1987, No Doubt was a high-octane ska/punk band armed with simple staccato songs, delivered by musicians who pogoed as they performed. Not long after, the band added ’80s pop melodies to their music and began playing with a sharper stage focus. In 1993, they downplayed the pop elements and amped up the punk-rock anger, reflecting the alternative angst of the time. The band began turning heads with its powerful concerts and the onstage energy of its front woman, Gwen Stefani. Read the rest of this article »

Adrian Young’s Nonstop Skank

No Doubt’s Drummer dusts off his ska roots, teases the Mohawk, and proceeds to party on with the release of Rock Steady

It’s a Psycho-suburban dream come true: Adrian Young was a striving young drummer living in suburbia, playing golf, drumming at home, and playing in a local band called No Doubt. Fifteen years and seventeen million records later Young is a striving young drummer living in suburbia, drumming at home, playing golf and playing in a famous band called No Doubt. Read the rest of this article »