New album? New tour? A possible No Doubt reunion in the near future? No problem. But this time around, Gwen Stefani’s got a baby on board.

Gwen Stefani wanted to be sure that her return from a between-albums hiatus was going to be, well, a wind-up. “I was thinking about how you disappear and come back, and I’m kind of coming back from being gone a minute,” Gwen hollas back over dinner at hip London eatery, Nobu. “The idea was to focus on the word ‘escape.’ I started thinking about the idea of Houdini. His whole gimmick was that his wife used to kiss him and pass the key through her mouth to him, and he would escape from his traps.”

Pry as we might, we can’t exactly confirm whether Gwen and husband Gavin Rossdale [Ed: Swoon!] are well-practiced in such techniques themselves, but we do know one thing she can’t escape from: her status as the coolest California Girl in popular music.

While we here at Instinct don’t throw the two words “gay icon” around lightly, loyal readers know that not only is Gwen one of three total females to grace the cover of our prestigious circular, she’s the only one to do so twice. Draw from that what you will.

But thrilled as she is with this honor, Gwen’s got a crowded laundry list of chores to busy herself with after dinner; Album promotion! L.A.M.B. fashion shows! Baby Kingston! The Harajuku Girls! so let’s get to the inquiries.

Between its nod to Japanese fashion culture and retro, legwarmer beats and melodies, Gwen Stefani’s first solo album, 2004’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby., seemed to hit shelves-and iTunes-at the right time. Not only did it go on to sell seven million copies, but it’s pom-pom-shakin’ sass anthem, “Hollaback Girl,” became the first million-selling digital single. But Gwen’s not one to go down the same road again.

“All my inspirations were completely different on this record,” she says. “On the last one it was all about the 80s-inspired dance music-the music I danced to growing up. But this time, I was over all that and felt like I was in a whole different place. I called the record The Sweet Escape, which is basically a song on the album. But it was a perfect name for the album because the music takes you away, and it’s definitely a dancey, poppy, sugar-coated set of just delicious ear candy.”

INSTINCT: Somehow, a wig seems to have found its way atop your head lately.
GWEN STEFANI: The visual theme is all inspired by Michelle Pfeiffer’s character in Scarface-very glam, straight-angled-cut blonde bangs with the big eyegear. Also, my new logo is basically a “G” that looks like a wind-up key. It also kind of looks like a guitar. We kind of play on that whole [Houdini] story, with it basically being the key to getting off the dance floor.

Speaking of gear and accessories, where’s the love with L.A.M.B., your fashion line, Gwen? There’s not a darned thing for us boys to wear! You can’t forget the boys! I didn’t mean to leave the boys out.
I will definitely speak to my team about that. You’ll be the first to know. Look out!

Hmmm. Anyway, you worked with the incredibly dashing Tim Rice-Oxley-the keyboardist from Keane-on The Sweet Escape.
I wrote “Early Winter” with Tim, who I love. I discovered [Keane's] first record when it was given to me. I was actually sent a couple tracks from them for my last record. Do I want these tracks? I was kind of like, I don’t know. At the time, it just didn’t feel right. But this time around, I just really wanted to have a ballad on this record, you know? I know this sounds funny, but I wanted to write “Eyes Without A Face” by Billy Idol, or, like, “Killing Me Softly” or “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper. So I got together with Tim, who’d never written outside of his group before. I can describe him like Superman. He looks like Clark Kent. He’s really handsome, but in a subtle kind of way. We wrote three or four songs together, and “Early Winter” was the one that I liked. It’s beautiful and it’s so addictive. I’m very lucky to have worked with him.

Let’s talk about this sample of “The Lonely Goatherd” in your new single, “Wind It Up.”
It’s just a dream I’ve always had. The Sound Of Music is one of my favorite, favorite movies of all time, and one of my biggest inspirations is Julie Andrews. I don’t know, something about that film, it’s just touched me over the years, and so I’ve referenced it a million times for other things. I did a whole session with [producer] Pharrell [Williams] about a year ago, and we wrote four tracks that were all amazing. The first one was “Wind It Up.” I took the track and, against his will [Laughs], had a friend of mine do a remix with a mashup between The Sound of Music and “Wind It Up.” I actually cried! I know that sounds ridiculous, but it was so good and so fresh and amazing.

And now you’ve single-handedly introduced a new generation to the Von Trapps!
I know a lot of people probably don’t know The Sounds Of Music, and hopefully this is my way of sharing something that I think is really great. Maybe people will go out and watch it. It’s a really good film.

Stefani, along with No Doubt-the Anaheim-based band she fronts-leapt out of the O.C. and into the homes of ten million record-buyers a decade ago. Their biggest hit implored us not to speak, but really we just couldn’t stop talking about how varied the group’s sound was.

“I grew up listening to a lot of different styles of music-everything from the LA punk scene to the local ska scene,” Gwen remembers. “Ska was a major part of No Doubt’s sound. I also remember bobbing along to pop or dance ditties I’d hear on the radio. I work really hard to try and reach into different genres, so I hope that comes through.”

Around the time of No Doubt’s early success, Stefani met Gavin Rossdale, lead singer of Brit-rock act, Bush. The two eventually married in 2002, and this past May, seven-pound Kingston James McGregor Rossdale was born in Los Angeles. Shortly after, as all brand new mothers do, she made a beeline to the studio to finish her sophomore solo album.

“I didn’t have the luxury that I had before, where I would just stay up all night,” Gwen says of the sessions. “I would go in to record and have the nanny there. She had to sit right there with the baby while I did this. I am very blessed because he’s such a chilled little guy. He’s seen me do my makeup four thousand times! He’s been in every studio in LA, every studio in New York, every studio in London. He’s been on a jet. He’s been on a helicopter. He’s been everywhere!”

And as jet-setting Kingston racked up frequent flier miles, mom finished the album, and is now preparing to hit the road yet again this April (her 2005 Harajuku Lovers tour was chronicled on a recently-released live DVD). “We’re going all over the U.S. and the rest of the world,” she says. Then, smiling toward Kingston, she adds, “This time around I’m going to bring something along that I didn’t have on the last tour.”

Let’s face it; your husband is hot! Please tell us he’s got at least one flaw.
Oh, you don’t have to tell me! He is amazing and supportive not to mention gorgeous! Also, he’s a wonderful father. What more could I ask for?

It’s been nearly six years since the last No Doubt album came out. Is there any truth to the rumors of a new project with the band in the next year?
A girl’s gotta have some secrets-wink, wink! I’m sure at some point we’ll be doing something. Right now all I can focus on is The Sweet Escape and the upcoming tour.

The last tour was your first one without the rest of No Doubt by your side. Did that affect you?
Definitely! It was a real adjustment in the beginning. I mean, I had the same guys beside me for 20 years, so it’s a totally different experience. And to some extent, it’s a different energy that you give as well as receive from the audience. But I started to find my ground and a whole other level of confidence in myself as the tour progressed. It was a real challenge, but it was also a great learning curve for me as a performer.

What can we expect from this new tour?
Complete mayhem! A lot of costume changes, of course, and just a great party. I’ve upped the crew, so there are a lot more people on stage dancing with me. I had a lot of fun auditioning the new dancers-four girls and four yummy boys! It’s really energetic and up. The production design is going to be quite elaborate.

Speaking of performing, say, for instance, you woke up one morning and realized you’re actually a drag queen, and you’ve got ten minutes before you go on stage. What’d your name, and how would your act go?
[Laughs] Hmmmm. How about Anna Heim? My act would cover a wide range of styles, from early ska/reggae classics to Broadway classics and a few ’80s dance tunes. Don’t forget the red lipstick and platinum blonde hair. Oh, and great backlighting! Always great backlighting.

Despite her hectic life, apparently flawless husband and that whole business of being a “superstar,” we still can’t shake the feeling that, at the heart of it, Gwen’s the kind of down-to-earth girl we’d love to pal around with. This leads us to wonder, Had we been BFFs roaming the halls of high school together in the ’80s, what kind of naughty shenanigans would we get up to?

“Oh, maybe hit a few clubs in the neighborhood, or maybe hang out at the house and watch one of my favorite movies,” she ponders. “I used to enjoy dancing and checking out new music while growing up. I don’t get to do that as much. Now I just love to hang out with Kingston.”

Ah, yes, Kingston, the small, cuddly reminder that Gwen Stefani is, after all, just a girl in the world. “I dedicated the album to him,” she points out, gathering her son up to leave. “I just want him to grow up and look back and to know how important he is. He’s just, like, the most delicious I’ve ever seen, I have no words for him. Isn’t he yummy?”

Both The Sweet Escape album and the Harajuku Lovers Live DVD are out now.

She’s So Unusual

GWEN ON ONE OF HER BIGGEST INFLUENCES GROWING UP:
“I would have to say Cyndi Lauper. She just blew me away. She really was unusual and unique. Aside from the great songs and the look, she gave you something that came from an outsider’s point of view. She knew what was left of center, and she made it okay for young girls like myself at that time to connect with that within themselves. I got the chance to meet Cyndi six years ago. She came to one of the No Doubt concerts at Irving Plaza in New York. Wow! What an experience!”

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.

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’s new single, “Wind It Up,” celebrates her lifelong obsession with Maria from ‘The Sound of Music.’ Yet the singer says her latest stylistic muse is Michelle Pfeiffer’s drug-addled bombshell from ‘Scarface.’ As she prepares to release her second solo CD, the new mom talks about the unlikely people, places, and events that have shaped her career, her wardrobe – and her yodeling. By Clark Collis. Photographs by James Dimmock.

These are a few of Gwen Stefani’s favorite things: ‘The Sound of Music,’ ‘The Sound of Music,’ and, oh yes, ‘The Sound of Music.’ “I’m like a Trekkie, but for ‘The Sound of Music,’ ” says the No Doubt frontwoman and solo superstar. “The first time I ever went on stage, at a high school talent show, the dress that I wore was the dress that Maria wears when she sings ‘I Have Confidence.’ The drop-waist tweed dress. I had that dress. I made it.”

More than two decades on, the 37-year-old’s enthusiasm for the classic Julie Andrews musical remains undimmed. This morning, perched on a bench in the basement of the Cuckoo nightclub in London, where her ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY cover shoot is to take place, Stefani is thrilled to sing a few lines from “I Have Confidence” should anyone request it (or even if they don’t). Further proof of her fanaticism: Stefani’s new single, “Wind It Up,” finds the singer mimicking Andrew’s yodel from the film’s “The Lonely Goatherd” – albeit over a rhythm track provided by Pharrell Williams’ production team, the Neptunes.

“I was threatening for a while to put The Sound of Music to a beat,” Stefani says. “When I heard ["Wind It Up"] for the first time, I was in tears. I was, like, That is the craziest s— I’ve ever heard! It’s bizarre how the movie has followed my life.” Indeed, the plots are similar: Naive and chatty but well-meaning young Catholic girl – who makes her own clothes! – goes out into the big wide world, where she survives assorted adventures and meets the man of her dreams. Of course, in Stefani’s case, the “assorted adventures” didn’t involve escaping from the Nazis but selling 26 million albums worldwide with a globe-trotting ska-pop band, then 7 million more with her 2004 solo debut, Love.Angel.Music.Baby. And the “man of her dreams” is a British rocker (Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale, 39, whom Stefani married in September 2002), not an Austrian naval captain. But both stories do have a happy ending, as is eveidenced in Stefani’s case by the 6-month-old bundle of joy named Kingston James McGregor Rossdale, right now nestled in a Bugaboo across the room from his mommy.

All of which raises the question: Why does the cover of her new CD, The Sweet Escape, find her dressed not as the heroine von Trapp, but in the style of Michelle Pfeiffer’s drugged-out gangster’s moll, Elvira, from Brian De Palma’s blood-drenched 1983 classic, Scarface?

The answer to this conundrum is connected to the clean-living, gym-frequenting, new-mommying Stefani’s obvious delight in being ever-so-slightly naughty. (She repeatedly uses the phrase “coke whore” to describe her newfound fashion muse – and does so with a mischievous smirk.) But, more specifically, the idea came to the singer early last year while shooting the video for her single “Cool” in Lake Como, Italy. Also on hand: Tony Kanal, 36 – No Doubt’s bassist and, many moons previously, a teenage Gwen Renee Stefani’s first boyfriend – and Kanal’s current steady, Erin Lokitch. “She had on this long, peach, polyester dress,” Stefani recalls. “I was looking at her silhouette going, ‘You look so hot.’ It was probably a late-’70s dress, and I started thinking about Michelle Pfeiffer and how amazingly styled she was [in Scarface].”

Needless to say, it is something of a leap from the hills being alive with the sound of music to the restroom stalls being filled with the sound of people hoovering up Bolivian marching powder. “Yeah, I know!” Stefani says, laughing. “I’ve never even done coke, so it’s hilarious. Do you know how many times I’ve said ‘Let’s look like a coke whore’ in the last two months?”

We’re guessing it’s a lot. With The Sweet Escape due for release on Dec. 5, Stefani – who, with Rossdale, has two houses in London and Los Angeles – is in the midst of a feverish, Atlantic-crisscrossing publicity tour. But album promotion is hardly the only thing that has been occupying chunks of Stefani’s diary. She oversees two fashion lines, L.A.M.B, and Harajuku Lovers (which a L.A.M.B source says are on track this year to post a combined $90 million in retail sales), and is preparing for an upcoming world tour, set to start this April. In addition, there’s the much-wanted Kingston to coo over and the much-unwanted 40-odd pounds of baby weight to remove from Stefani’s frame. Judging by her appearance today, the latter mission seems to have been accomplished already.

Or not. “I still have a little bit of, you know, skin or whatever,” says Stefani, lifting up her L.A.M.B sweatsuit top to reveal a stomach that would be regarded, as close-to-flat in any but these most size-0-obsessed times. “If I wasn’t having the record come out there’s no way I would have lost the weight. A year would have gone by [before] I’d be, like, ‘Well, s—, maybe I should start trying to get the weight off now!’ ”

Stefani has come a long way from her baby-fat days as a self-described “lazy” teen in Anaheim, Calif., who was fanatical about Sting and Madness singer Suggs. “At high school I would think, All I want to do is eat and sleep. It wasn’t until I discovered that I could write songs… Because when, I discover things that I’m good at, then I get really passionate and fiery and you can’t slow me down.”

Early last fall, Stefani learned that she was finally going to have her first child – and not even that could get her to ease up. The pregnancy was good news for someone, who like a true Sound of Music fan, has frequently expressed her desire for children. The bad news was that she was about to start her first solo American tour.

“I’d be crying before I was going on,” she recalls. “I couldn’t breathe, because when you’re pregnanct, you get short of breath. So I’m trying to breathe with a corset and high hells and the nine costume changes. I was in pain. I won’t go into detail, but I had really bad stomachaches. What saved me was God put these young girls in the front row; you could tell it was their first concert and that they were looking at me as if I was Cinderella. They just though I was great.”

To hear Stefani tell it, she hadn’t planned on releasing an official solo album – never mind spending the first half of her pregnancy traveling around the country on a tour that, as far as she was concerned, couldn’t end soon enough. Following the last No Doubt tour in 2004, she thought about making a low-key dance album, possibly to be released under the name “GS.” Her boss, chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records Jimmy Iovine, talked her out of it.

“I saw the potential for what she could accomplish,” Iovine says. “You have to remember, she’s one of the last rock stars. This isn’t a girl that was put together in a dance studio. She’s toured clubs for 10 years, no different from the Clash. I thought she could make a mark on the culture.”

The mark was the Alpine-mountain-size smash “Hollback Girl.” A late addition to Love.Angel.Music.Baby, it was recorded after Stefani decided the CD lacked a “Don’t f— with me” song. The result was a perfect, pounding meld of the Neptunes’ production wizardry and her feisty ska-rock chick persona, the first single to sell one million difital downloads in the U.S. and the inspiration for a number of, let’s say, “homages” by other artists (think Fergie’s “London Bridge”). In addition to making marching bands hipm Stefani’s song “connected with the clubs and the urban centers,” Iovine says. “It was not unlike Debbie Harry with ‘Rapture.’ With Gwen, the whole fashion thing comes through, so you actually move that cultural needle of how young kids react, feel, dance.”

But not everyone warmed to Stefani’s “whole fashion thing” – in particular, the showcasing of her admiration for Tokyo trendsetters via an entourage of four Japanese women that she called the Harajuku Girls. The Girls silently accompanied her on photo shoots and to public appearances, and subsequently appeared on her tour. Stefani regarded the Girls, all of whom looked as if they had come straight off the streets of the capital city’s hip Harajuku district, as a figment of her imagination brought to life in a culturally positive manner. But last year, Korean-American comedian Margaret Cho publicly decried them as “a minstrel show”.

“She didn’t so her research!” spits Stefani, who says she’s been a fan of Japan and its mix-and-match fashion sense since first visiting the country with No Doubt in the mid-’90s. “The truth is that I basically was saying how great that culture is. It pisses me off that [Cho] would not do the research and then talk out like that. It’s just so embaressing for her. The Harajuku Girls is an art project. It’s fun!” (Cho told EW via e-mail, “I absolutely agree! I didn’t do any research! I realize the Harajuku Girls rule!!! How embaressing for me!!! I was just jealous that I didn’t get to be one… I dance really good!!!”)

Stefani continues: “I was surprised how racist everybody was about them. Especially when I came over here and they’d make all these jokes, like Jonathon Ross.” Ross, a British TV host, asked Stefani whether an “Imaginary hand job” from one of her “imaginary” dancers would count as cheating on his wife. Stefani responds, “Everybody’s making jokes about Japanese girls and the stereotypes. I had no idea [I'd be] walking into that.”

The Harajuku Girls make an encore appearance in the “Wind It Up” video (as von Trapp children of course). Also returning to Stefani’s side for the Sweet Escape project are the Neptunes and Kanal, who helped Stefani pen her favourite song on the record, “Four in the Morning.”

After Kingston’s May 26 birth, Stefani sought out new collaborators, including rapper Akon, producer Sean Garrett (Beyoncé’s B’Day), and Tim Oxley-Smith of the British band Keane. The latter co-wrote a tortured and not un-Keane-like lament called “Early Winter.” “She likes to write from the heart,” Oxley-Smith says. “She’s obviously quite an emotional person. Within 10 minutes of us sitting down, she was crying. I played her a little bit of a thing that I’d been working on just before she came in and she welled up about it.”

Though Stefani made her solo-career mark with the upbeat “Hollback Girl,” it was the melancholic 1996 ballad “Don’t Speak” that took No Doubt from a little ska band to serious platinum recording act and made Stefani a celebrity. Their first No.1 single, “Don’t Speak,” dealt directly with Stefani’s tortured, drawn-out breakup with Kanal. Stefani also got personal on the 2000 No Doubt single “Ex-Girlfriend,” in which she references a brief separation from Rossdale: “I kinda always knew I’d end up your ex-girlfriend.” Given all that, it seems reasonable to ask how much fans should read into the heart-wrenching lyrics to “Early Winter,” the chorus of which finds Stefani singing, “And I always was, always was, one for crying/ Always was one for tears/ No, I never was, never was one for lying/ You lied to me all these years.”

“The lyrics on this album are probably more autobiographical than the last,” she concedes. “A song like ‘Wind It Up’ isn’t about anything. But there are definitely a few relationship songs on there.”

But does Rossdale ever say, Look, if you put this on the album people are going to be thinking, What’s going on here?

“No, of course he doesn’t,” she replies before continuing, hesitantly. “I mean… I think it’s like… It’s vague enough that it’s… And… To be honest, everyone has the same problems. We all have the same problems. And there’s nothing to hide about that. I could have a problem with Gavin at some point in our marriage. I’ve been with him for over 10 years. I’m not ashamed of it. It’s just, like, working through it. And good songs are so good at helping you get through things. I think it’s a really good way to put things behind you and document it and move forward. I’m not ever scared to share my situations with people.”

Back at the Cuckoo Club in London, around 20 people have arrived to help with, or observe, the photo shoot. The star of the show, however is sound asleep. We refer, of course, not to Gwen Stefani but to baby Kingston, whose beatific, slumbering, Gavin-favoring face is being inspected with utter devotion by Stefani, her UK-visiting parents, and assorted Rossdale in-laws. (Gavin himself is recording in Los Angeles.)

Stefani admits she too could do with a doze, having wrapped The Sweet Escape just a week before. (In fact, following the shoot, she goes straight to bed and gets under the covers with Kingston.) “I was literally doing vocals and mastering and mixing all at one time” in a race to make the release date, she says. She swears that her fellow No Doubt members were happy about her decision to record a second solo CD, despite the fact that the band hasn’t released an album of new material since 2001. At least they were happy when the plan was for her CD to come out in 2005 – and before she decided to embark on a full world tour in 2007.

“I’m sure they were, like, bummed that I was going on tour,” she says. “But everybody’s busy. It’s not like they’re sitting around going, ‘Where’s Gwen?’ They all have their projects. I need to do the tour to complete my life journey of this whole thing. I felt like I got ripped off on the last tour because I was pregnant. Although I can’t believe I’m going to do it, especially with Kingston.”

Speaking of whom, has Stefani thought about the possibility of a little brother or sister for the nipper? After all, as every good Sound of Music fan knows, there were no fewer that seven von Trapp children. “I really want to have more,” she says with a big smile. “One solo record, two solo records. One baby, two babies. I always want more of everything!”

Becoming Gwen Stefani

So what made her the global megastar she is today apart from The Sound of Music? British ska, the land of the rising sun, and Uncle Walt, of course.

Vivienne Westwood
“The only time I ever spend money on clothes is when I f—in’ spend it on Vivienne Westwood. But I get a discount.”

Disneyland
“Totally an influence. My brother was a huge animation fan, so I had a very cartoon-driven upbringing.”

Madness
“I wouldn’t be sitting here without them. My brother started playing this Madness record ‘Our House,’ and it never came off. That got us into ska. And that’s why we started the band.”

Japan
“I first went there with No Doubt. I love the naive recycling of cultures, the way they suck everything in and make it their own.”

Sting
“The guy is so talented and he’s cute! He was probably the first famous person I ever met. He was really rude to me. Years later I told him the story. He was, like, ‘I was such an a–hole.’ “

On her second solo album, Gwen Stefani takes on The Sound of Music by Ross von Metzke

If my mom ever slid on a pair lederhosen and channeled the Von Trapp family on national television, I’d like change zip codes. But when your mom is Gwen Stefani and her single is one of the fastest climbing song on the charts, things work a tad differently.

Of course, little Kingston, her son with husband Gavin Rossdale, isn’t even a year old, so he’s got some time before he needs to worry about being embarrassed by mom. And since Stefani is single handedly responsible for inspiring half of the fashion trends we see on runways around the world today, you’ll forgive her the sudden Julie Andrews outburst.

With Tuesday’s release of her sophomore solo album The Sweet Escape, Stefani will likely cement in American’s minds why she’s become such a cultural icon. We sat down with the singer/fashion designer to talk motherhood, the new album and why the love of her gay fans finds her humbled.

Let’s just start with the first single, Wind It Up. What does it mean to you—that phrase—and what does it mean in the context of this record?
Wind It Up basically is just the idea of the music getting you wound up. To me, that’s what the idea was. It’s pretty simple. There’s (laughing) not a lot of depth to it. It’s basically about trying to get the energy up and get people dancing on the dance floor.

Is that your goal in terms of a song like Wind It Up—to get everyone out there and ready to party?
It’s really weird because I basically was on tour and then I found out I was pregnant. And I had done the record like a year ago. So, I really wanted to put it out last Christmas. So, it’s kinda been sitting for a while. So, I’ve been wound up about this single for a long time. Now it’s finally coming out, and I was hoping I was gonna be this excited about it, knowing that I’ve had it for so long. I even played the song on tour. But it’s still just as exciting, and it never gets old.

And it’s, oh, so different from the last album and all my inspirations were completely different on this record, you know. I mean, the last record, it was all about ’80s-inspired music, the music I danced to when I would go dancing growing up. But this time, I kind of was over all that and felt like I was in a whole different place.

You’re getting known for these very unlikely combinations of songs from different eras and Broadway and what-not. How do you discover that these things will work?
Honestly, I didn’t come up with it. It was just an obvious—something that I’d talked about doing for a long time. It’s just something I’ve always loved my whole life. And then I thought, ‘Gosh, put a beat to the Sound of Music, that would be ridiculous,’ you know?

It was just somethin’ I said. And then when the fashion show came around, I just did it. And when I heard it, it was like, ‘I have it.’ I have it all on film, actually (laughs) because my brother was filming me at the time and we were doing the fashion show, and I just remember the first time I heard it. I know a lot of people probably don’t know the Sound of Music. And, hopefully, this is my way of sharing something that I think is really great. Maybe people will go out and watch it now. It’s a really good film.

Hollaback Girl and What You Waiting For? were inescapable in gay clubs all over the country for months. Were you aware that you were becoming an official gay icon?
I’m always in awe of the energy, love and support I get from my gay fans. I wasn’t surprised as much as I was ecstatic and humbled. I worked really hard on that album and to see it connect with everyone on so many different levels—it makes what I’ve worked so hard for, all the more worthwhile. I want the community to know that I feel ‘em and I’m glad they are feelin’ me.

Justin Timberlake was put on the spot to give his opinion when fellow ‘NSync-er Lance Bass came out of the closet. So, how would you react and what would you say if any of your No Doubt band mates ever came out of the closet?
I would support him, or anyone for that matter, 100-percent in coming out.

Let’s talk about fashion a little bit. Why do you think fashion and music mix so well?
I always look at it like this. You work so hard on the music. It’s such an emotional, kind of outlet and it’s kind of, for me personally, the hard part of everything. But it’s also the fire for everything because it’s so emotional. And when you’re all done with it, to get all made up and celebrate and show it off to everyone, that’s the obvious thing to do. It’s a self-expression of your personality and it shows who you are without having to say anything.

Were you able to test-drive some of these songs on the runway? Did you play them for your shows?
Yeah, last year, right when I got out of the studio with Pharrell, I had, I think it was four new songs with him. I took all those tracks and I did this big mash-up for the whole fashion show. And tracks like Orange County Girl and Wind It Up I played on tour ‘cause I was just so excited about them. And I really didn’t know if I was gonna do another record so I was, like, ‘Well, might as well play ‘em right now, they might get wasted.’ The one thing that’s always hard for bands is when you go out there with your new songs you’re so excited about—but nobody wants to hear them. They just want to hear the old ones. The response was just so good. I never had that with any other songs live, playing new songs. Usually it takes a minute, but those were really instant, which was fun.

So you had a good indicator. Is there a fashion trend that you just don’t get, no matter how hard you try?
Fashion trend that I don’t get? Not really. I mean, usually there’s a reason behind every fashion thing and, you know, even someone that wears… I dunno. I don’t even want to say something rude about anyone, so never mind.

With the writing of these songs did motherhood seep into the songwriting? Did it affect you as a mother? Did you dedicate the album to Kingston?
Yeah, I dedicated the album to Kingston, ‘cause I just want him to grow up and look back and just know how important he is. He’s just like, he is just like the most delicious… I can’t even—see, I have no words. I have no words for him.

It was definitely scary for me because I didn’t want to miss any of that. Because it’s just the greatest thing that you could ever experience. And it goes so fast. And everybody warned me, but it goes so fast. And he’s just growing up so quickly. It’s a shame that it has to go so quickly, you know. So, to be able to go into the studio and put the time in and the hours… I didn’t have the luxury that I had before where I would just be like, ‘Oh, I’ll just stay up all night.’ It wasn’t like that. I was really condensed and focused and like, ‘Okay, I’m going in, I have the nanny, she has to sit right there with the baby while I do this.’ He was in so many studios. He’s been in every studio in LA, every studio in New York, every studio in London. He’s been on a jet, he’s been on a helicopter. He’s seen me do my make-up four thousand times (laughs).

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!