The singer-songwriter always knew No Doubt would rise again. No matter how long it took. By Randy Lewis

Gwen Stefani may be a superstar pop singer, hit songwriter, fashion maven and role model for millions of girls and young women, but on a brutally hot afternoon late last week, on a loading dock outside a largely empty sports arena in Ontario, she was just a mom, trying to keep her 3-year-old son entertained while she took on an impromptu decorating project.

“I don’t have time to do this, but you know me — once I get obsessed with something . . .,” Stefani said while splattering globs of sky blue, neon orange and electric pink paint across three large squares of white fabric. She and a couple of friends were creating tapestries that will hang in the backstage dressing rooms during the first full-scale concert tour in seven years by No Doubt, the once-scrappy ska-rock group that emerged from Anaheim to become one of the biggest-selling pop music acts of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Nearby, Kingston James McGregor Rossdale, the first of Stefani’s two kids with rock star hubby Gavin Rossdale, frolicked over a separate sheet of material reserved for him. Eager to include his 8-month-old brother, Zuma, in the fun, James (as Stefani usually calls him) plopped his hands on his young sibling’s head.

Inside the 6-month-old Citizens Business Bank Arena a short time later, Stefani, bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young were showing pretty much the same childlike exuberance and energy as they bounced around the gleaming white retro-futuristic stage set they were trying out for the first time before the tour kicks off Saturday in Las Vegas.

Following a group hiatus of five years while Stefani put out two multimillion-selling solo CDs, “Love.Angel.Music.Baby” and “The Sweet Escape,” No Doubt is back. From the early box-office response to nearly 60 shows across North America, the quartet is poised for one of the biggest tours of 2009.

During the break, many fans wondered whether Stefani’s solo career would mean the end of the road for the Orange County band that launched her, but in Stefani’s mind there was always No Doubt.

“The day I got home after my tour ended last year, I wanted to do a photo shoot with the group — I thought it was an important thing to do,” Stefani, 39, said during a lull in the show rehearsals. “This is what I told the guys: The plan was I wanted to do the dance record, go on the tour, come home and get pregnant — since I’m a pro at it now because I did it before,” she laughs, before elaborating on her plan. “I’ll write the record while I’m pregnant, then after I have the baby, we’ll go on tour and we’ll have a new No Doubt record. It’ll be amazing.”

Inspiration lacking

All but one part of that plan has worked out. Musical inspiration for Stefani, the main songwriter of such No Doubt hits as “Don’t Speak,” “Ex-Girlfriend,” “Just a Girl” and “Underneath It All,” just wasn’t there after she and Rossdale became expectant parents for the second time.

“It totally didn’t work,” Stefani said. “I don’t know how other women feel, but I lose connection with myself because my body becomes this other vessel for this other human, even after a few months, you don’t have your body back, you’re not yourself. I was feeling not very modern, not very creative.”

After a few months of fruitless writing sessions, Stefani, Kanal, Dumont and Young decided the best thing they could do to get the creative juices flowing again was to follow the path that had first served them so well: Go out and play.

“We’re not calling it a reunion tour, because the band never broke up,” manager Jim Guerinot said.

Disbanding “was never discussed,” Dumont, 40, said on the first of several days of band rehearsals in Ontario. “In fact, it was specifically discussed as ‘Let’s not be one of these bands that breaks up and gets back together.’ We don’t hate each other, it’s just time for a break. Gwen had some real specific things she wanted to do with the time.”

The last time No Doubt toured was in 2004, performing just more than a dozen shows in conjunction with a hits compilation, “The Singles: 1992-2003.” It was 2002 when the group last mounted a full-scale concert tour, following the 2001 release of its last studio album, “Rock Steady.”

That’s when Stefani realized she had some career steps to take outside the parameters of the band she joined as a teenager, entering the group as “Just a Girl” singer before taking over the role of chief songwriter after her older brother, Eric, left the band to pursue his dream career as an animator for “The Simpsons.”

Following No Doubt’s 2004 tour, she intended to put out just one, as she often called it, “stupid dance record” on her own. “Love.Angel.Music.Baby” sold 4 million copies in the U.S. and yielded hit singles including “Hollaback Girl,” “What You Waiting For” and “Cool.”

Guilty feelings

What she hadn’t figured on was doing a follow-up, which left No Doubt in limbo a couple of years longer than the musicians initially anticipated. During that time Stefani also launched her phenomenally popular L.A.M.B. fashion line.

“All I know how to do is follow my inspiration,” Stefani said in a separate interview in her dressing room. “That’s why I did those dance records, it’s where I wanted to be. . . . I really didn’t plan to do the second one. I felt guilty about it, and it was a real scary conversation to say, ‘Listen guys, I feel like I’m this close to another one, it’s really what I want to do right now.’ They were really so supportive and thank God I did it, because that tour was so rewarding, such a great thing for me to do.

“But as soon as I finished that second record, literally it was during mastering of that record I was like, ‘I know I need to do another No Doubt record now. I’m done with this.’ ”

While their celebrity band mate toured and appeared on one magazine cover and TV talk show after another, Kanal, Dumont and Young kept busy. Kanal collaborated with other songwriters, he and Dumont produced recordings for other artists, Young kept his drum chops up guesting with a variety of bands on the road and in the studio.

Dumont and Young also started families of their own, something Kanal and his girlfriend of 6 1/2 years hope to do as well.

“For the first time ever we have our own buses,” Kanal said. “That’s purely out of necessity because Gwen’s got her nannies and the babies on her bus, and Tom has his wife and his nanny and baby, and Adrian his wife, nanny and their son. That’s going to be an interesting dynamic, a little bit of a change, by default. It’ll be interesting to see how all that plays out.”

New fans

No Doubt is finding it illuminating to pick up where the group left off five years ago. Earlier this month the group played a couple of warm-up shows, minus the full stage production that will be unveiled publicly on Saturday.

During the band’s headlining set two weeks ago at the Bamboozle Festival in East Rutherford, N.J., Stefani asked how many in the crowd were seeing the group for the first time.

“I was just in so much shock by the amount of hands that went up,” Stefani said. “I’m still sort of like: Did they understand the question? Because it was like the whole audience. . . . I still don’t know if maybe they heard me wrong or what, but it was kind of exciting.”

Manager Guerinot says he hasn’t been completely surprised by the enthusiasm he’s witnessed so far. “They’ve been away for five years,” he said. “Gwen had spectacular success in the interim, people remember this band as a tremendous live attraction and I think there’s an awful lot of pent-up interest in whether we’d see No Doubt again.”

The group has sold out four nights at the 15,000-capacity Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine – they’ll play July 31 and Aug. 1, 2 and 4 – and three L.A. shows at the Gibson Amphitheatre in late July.

All four band members say they aren’t interested in milking the nostalgia circuit, and that they consider this tour a steppingstone in the creative process, much like the way they operated in the beginning, before their 1995 album “Tragic Kingdom” transformed them into one of the world’s most popular acts.

“It feels so much more right than I thought it was going to feel,” Stefani said. “Physically it feels right – I feel powerful again, I feel modern again. And I have my little baby, and everything feels so great in that kind of way. And on top of that, the welcome we’re getting: Selling out the four Irvine shows, we’re feeling bigger than we’ve ever been.”

I wrestled with myself about taking it from a waiting room but I decided to replace it with a new copy of Star magazine from the newsagent (which had no Gwen in it). Is that bad??

Anyway, so now I have this magazine that was only released for one day back in August 2007! You can read the full article which I have transcribed and see the scans in the No Doubt Scrapbook gallery.

If you like to read the articles, I have them in date order on the articles page and also a feed of the most recently transcribed articles is always in the footer so you can keep up with any updates!

Christina

Byline: Ian Hill

Aug. 22 – STOCKTON – Only about 50 people were in the crowd the last time Gwen Stefani performed here, in the early 1990s. The audience should be much larger when she comes back in November.

Stefani, now a pop star, will perform Nov. 1 at the Stockton Arena. Tickets are set to cost $37.50-$67.50 and go on sale Saturday, arena general manager Jacqui James said. Up-and-coming R&B singer Sean Kingston will open the show.

Stefani, 37, has achieved huge solo success while on a break from her gig as No Doubt’s lead singer. She was with the Orange County pop-ska band when she played here more than a decade ago at the now-defunct Pershing Avenue club Stockton Rocks. No Doubt had yet to release its breakthrough album, 1995’s “Tragic Kingdom.”

“There was not a lot of people there,” recalled Stockton promoter Middagh Goodwin, 40. “Me and a few friends from Modesto came up. A few people from (University of the Pacific) came out. “They played real well,” he said of the show.

“Tragic Kingdom” sold 15 million copies on the strength of the hits “Just a Girl” and “Don’t Speak.” It was followed with the release of the successful albums “Return of Saturn” and “Rock Steady.”

Stefani broke through as a solo artist by singing on Moby’s 2001 “South Side.” Her debut solo CD, 2004’s multi-platinum “Love. Angel. Music. Baby,” included the hits “Hollaback Girl” and “Rich Girl.” Its simple, radio-friendly pop beats were a departure from Stefani’s work with No Doubt.

“I like the image she portrays; she’s very real, very feminine. She’s a very strong woman,” said Stockton resident Rose Blackford, 17. “It sends a positive messages to girls.” Stefani’s now touring Asia and Europe in support of her 2006 release “The Sweet Escape.”

Some Stockton residents said Stefani’s stop in Stockton reflects the city’s growth as an entertainment destination.”Gwen Stefani, there’s no doubt she’s an icon,” said Sophan Sorn, 22. “I hope with the arrival of Gwen, people can say Stockton is happening.”

She’s got style, she’s got songs and, in her leopard-print jumpsuit, she’s got balls. At 37, with a one-year-old baby, Gwen Stefani has finally found pop stardom. She tells Craig McLean about motherhood, self-obsession and her fashion label.

She might be wearing her sparkly leotard-cum-dungarees ensemble. Or a pair of sequined red hot pants. Or a tartan schoolgirl’s uniform. Maybe she’ll have slipped into one of her favourite outfits: armpit-length black leather gloves and monochrome horizontal stripes (imagine an escaped convict hiding out in a burlesque joint).

If you’re reading this on Sunday morning Gwen Renée Stefani will be on stage in Australia, performing her idiosyncratic version of disco funk in front of thousands of tweens, teens and twentysomething pop fans in the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. For 90 sweaty minutes there will be no let-up in the costume changes, choreography – part Broadway show, part cheerleader rally, part hip hop face-off – and belting pop songs.

The ex-No Doubt frontwoman-turned-solo star is midway through a world tour. So far, Stefani has completed a run of 15,000-seater arenas in North America, Central America, South America, and New Zealand. Next week, team Stefani – six musicians, a squad of female dancers known as the Harajuku Girls, and a bunch of male breakdancers – move into the Far East and then Europe.

Finally, towards the end of October, following a final bow on the stage of Prague’s Sazka Arena, Gwen Stefani returns home. The only question then will be which home: the Los Angeles mansion or the huge townhouse that she and Gavin Rossdale, the British singer and guitarist, keep in north London celebrity enclave, Primrose Hill?

The Sweet Escape tour 2007 would be tough on a bunch of fresh-faced lads with guitars. Imagine how hard-going it must be on a 37-year-old multi-tasking pop singer, fashion designer and first-time mother who, when I met her in London before the tour’s launch was still breast-feeding her son Kingston, born in May 2006.

‘I don’t know when I’m going to stop breast-feeding,’ Stefani chirps as she motors into the hotel suite, fresh from another feed. ‘I’ll just keep going while I can – like, he’s getting his teeth so it is a little bit scary. He’s bitten me a few times!’

Gwen Stefani doesn’t do anything by half. Breast-feeding, she gushes, ‘is just obviously really convenient with my lifestyle’. Baby Kingston was ‘genius’ on the flight from Los Angeles to London. ‘He nursed then went to sleep. But he doesn’t sleep through the night,’ she says brightly. ‘He’s up every three hours to feed.’

Nonetheless, today Stefani looks as glamorous as ever. The colour scheme is black and white: vertiginous YSL heels, skintight Balenciaga trousers, Azzedine Alaïa sweater, crisp shirt (‘I can’t remember the designer’) and chunky, diamond-encrusted pendant.

I could put her speedy chat down to sleep deprivation and jetlag. But I’ve met her before and she chewed my ear off then, too. Imagine a torrent of Valley Girl and not much regard for punctuation. But don’t be fooled by the ditsy blonde you might have seen dolled up as Alice in Wonderland and goofing through lavish videos  like the one for her Grammy-nominated ‘What You Waiting For?’ single. On her own and with No Doubt, the Orange County band that California-born Stefani joined when she was 17, she’s sold 30 million albums. That include seven million copies of her solo debut  from 2004, Love.Angel.Music.Baby. It featured four top-10 hits andd won her the 2005 Brit Award for Best International Female.

Just 13 weeks after giving birth, she hired Keane songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley, producer Pharrell Williams, Depeche Mode legend Martyn Gore and released her second solo album The Sweet Escape. Even her acting debut was in an epic, playing Jean Harlow in The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s biopic of Howard Hughes. ‘I’m vain enough to want to do a movie again,’ she admits, but right now more roles ‘are the last thing on my list’. There’s too much else going on.

The initials of her first album gave her the name for her fashion label, L.A.M.B. When the line debuted on the New York catwalk in Fashion Week of September 2005, Stefani described it as ‘a little bit Sound of Music. A little bit Orange County. A little bit of the Rastafarian rasta girls. A little bit English Great Gatsby garden-party girls. Pretty much the same thing I always do, but different versions of it.’

A Gwen Stefani fashion label made brilliant business sense. She’s become one of those pop stars whose innate style – a sort of streetwise haute couture – means that she wields influence beyond the stage. Women watch what she puts on in the morning in the same way as they do with Madonna or Kylie.

‘I think Gwen is the ultimate 21st-century pin up,’ says Stefan Lindermann of Grazia magazine, which features Stefani time and time again. ‘She’s modern-retro – she plays on the pin-up thing with her vintage aesthetic, but she’s also ultra-modern. Like her music, her style is sexy but also out there – eclectic, almost aggressive. She’s no victim, and certainly no fashion victim. With someone like Victoria Beckham, you can see that a stylist has decided what she’s going to wear and put it together piece by piece, but Gwen’s style always seems organic.’

Sales of her label in the smarter department stores of New York, London and Tokyo have been healthy and Nicole Kidman and Teri Hatcher are fans. However there was a hiccup earlier this year when Stefani’s designer, Zaldy, left her to concentrate on his own lines, notable for Scissor Sisters.

‘It was unfortunate timing,’ she says. ‘I was like, “Don’t just plop this on me!” Now it’s just me and my stylist doing the Spring 08 collection. But I’d love to have a bigger design team. Someone like Marc Jacobs, I wonder how many people are working there, just feeding him ideas, feeding feeding feeding… I have, like maybe five people in my entire team. I’m very hands on with it, but it’s got to change, I’ve got to get more people.’

She does if L.A.M.B keeps expanding. She’s recently moved into handbags and launched a diffusion line, Harajuku Lovers. And what celebrity franchise is complete without a perfume? Her latest venture is a bespoke scent called L. ‘I would never have done a fragrance as ce-leb-ri-tee…’ she maintains, tapping the syllables out on her tongue, ‘just to do one for the sake of it. But because I have L.A.M.B it’s really the most milestone, prestigious kinda moment. Basically, you have an inspiration of a perfume that you like, whether it’s a flower or a certain direction.’

Gwen Stefani’s first stage appearance was at a school talent show, wearing a self-made copy of the drop-waist tweed dress that Maria wore while singing ‘I Have Confidence’ in The Sound of Music. She grew up with three siblings in a comfortable middle-class household in southern California. Her father worked in marketing for Yamaha motorbikes. Her housewife mother was a seamstress, and teenage Gwen made her own clothes, too.

‘My parents always pushed creativity on us, but they made it seem like the fun thing to do.’

Aged 17, at her older brother Eric’s invitation, she became the singer in his ska-flavoured new band. No Doubt was influenced by Madness and the Selecter, British bands who were curiously popular in California  in the early Eighties. No Doubt released their first album in 1992 but it wasn’t until their third, 1995’s Tragic Kingdom – which featured the huge single ‘Don’t Speak’ – that they found success. The two-and-a-half-year-long tour that came next put paid to Stefani’s college career. Tragic Kingdom sold a staggering 16 million copies and launched the front woman into the rock and pop stratosphere.

But 20 years since starting out in music, and a decade on from her arrival on the world stage, there’s another facet to Stefani’s appeal: women identify with her. She’s a pop goddess with a deluxe lifestyle but who experiences the traumas other women suffer too. For an A-list star she’s remarkably candid. ‘I try not to be but I’m super-neurotic about diet,’ she says. ‘I’m neurotic about trying not to be neurotic! I’m like every other girl. I have to try really hard my whole life to be fit. And I’m super-vain. And I want to wear cute clothes. You know, I was chubby when I was a little girl. And I have all those issues everyone else has. But I try not to. And I’ve learnt over the years that it’s such a waste of time. And people like me whether I’m a little bit fatter or not.’

Her personal life has had its fair share of dark moments too. For seven years she dated Tony Kanal, the bass player in No Doubt. Their break-up was traumatic, although it did inspire Stefani to co-write the best-selling ‘Don’t Speak’.

In 1995, she met Gavin Rossdale, then the singer with Bush, when the two bands toured together. In 2003 they were married, twice: in London and again in LA. But the relationship was, as the tabloids say, ‘rocked’ the following year by the discovery that Rossdale was the real father of the model Daisy Lowe. She’s the teenage daughter of Pearl Lowe, the singer, best friend of Kate Moss and partner of Supergrass drummer Danny Goffey. Until then Rossdale, and old friend of Pearl Lowe, had thought he was only Pearl’s godfather. The gossip magazines had a field day with the news, reporting that the upset had caused ructions between the newlyweds.

How, I wonder, does she and Rossdale’s relationship work these days, what with so much going on in their lives (he’s also embarked on a solo career, after the failure of his post-Bush band Institute)?

‘I don’t know,’ Stefani sighs. ‘It’s one of those mad love affairs that you can’t live with and you can’t live without, and you just keep going and going.’ Her smile is wide now. ‘And time goes by and you get the rocky times then you get the intense love times, then you get the reward of having the baby. It’s just this ongoing saga. I don’t know,’ she repeats. ‘I’m interested to see what’s going to happen next, you know?

I ask her what’s on the horizon. ‘Make babies, make music,’ she grins. ‘I’m on repeat mode.’ Just before flying to the UK she had lunch in Los Angeles with the rest of No Doubt. ‘It would be ridiculous to say there was no tension. Because my solo career has been going on and on. It was never supposed to be this long…’ But at last, having delivered two albums in quick succession, she’s ‘really inspired’ to go back and work with the band.

But before all that, the Sweet Escape Tour 2007 must travel around the world. If she was apprehensive during our London rendezvous she didn’t show it. For one thing, it won’t be as tough as her first solo tour, which she undertook even though she knew she was pregnant. Extra panels were sewn into her costumes to disguise the bump.

‘It was hell on earth.’ she confesses. ‘But to look out and see girls from the age of eight to 15 in the front row – who obviously didn’t know that I was pregnant even though I was feeling like a big fat huge whale – they were looking at me like I was Cinderella. And it was so… amazing. So rewarding.

‘But it’s really going to be easier this time, because I have two whole records to choose from, and I have the experience of doing a more theatrical show. And I won’t have a baby in my stomach!’

Her desire to start a family was well known – so much so the ‘tick tock’ motif in ‘What You Waiting For?’ was widely believed to represent her biological clock going into overdrive. But what, I wonder, was her biggest fear about motherhood?

‘Hmm,’ she ponders. ‘How I would fit him into my life? Would I be too self-obsessed to be able to care about him enough? I have a really extraordinary life and I obviously have a lot of passion about the things that I do. So I didn’t know if I could be selfless enough. But obviously I can! It’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.’

Around about now, Gwen Stefani will be coming off stage in Adelaide and Kingston James McGregor Rossdale will be waiting for her on the tour bus. ‘If I had to leave him at home and not bring with me everywhere then I wouldn’t do this,’ Gwen Stefani told me, ‘I know that it’s not going to last, and he’s going to get more demanding and there will be school and stuff. But for now I get to do it all.’

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!”

All hail the platinum blonde that made pop ace and Akon cool. I sat down with the Californian Grammy winner, who claims this is her last solo album… by Maddy Maspero

Last time you realized you’re an OG in this music game?
[Laughs] Yeah, it’s been a lot of years! I started in No Doubt when I was 17 and we were together for nine years before Tragic Kingdom came out. I’ve had this really long, slow career and I’ve experienced so many different sides to it. At the same time, it’s kind of like, “Oh man, I’m not at the beginning anymore.” But I’ve had such an incredible ride. It’s unbelievable.

Last time you thought about how fab your first solo album was?
You know, Love.Angel.Music.Baby was more like a record I wanted to make in my life. It was a dance record, a one-off. I wasn’t considering a solo career.

Last time someone asked you about your new album, The Sweet Escape?
Er, you, just now! After LAMB, I couldn’t creatively see myself going back, but I had a couple of songs in my computer. I went into the studio with Pharrell and wrote Orange County Girl, Wind it Up and Breakin’ Up. Before I knew it, I basically had a record. I actually ended up writing a lot of it after I had Kingston, which was weird because I thought I was done but I wasn’t. I kind of wanted to make one more. I’m greedy, I guess! I really enjoyed being able to indulge in my chessy, theatrical, fun, cartoony side. As soon as I finished recording it, I felt completed in that world and ready to go do a No Doubt record.

Last time you considered collaborating with your husband, Gavin Rossdale of Bush?
Well, I’ve actually sung a lot of background vocals for him, but it’s kinda like the generic, “Can you sing some background?” I’m in the house and I’m like, “OK”. I don’t know, I always thought it was sort of cheesy to work with your lover! Plus I kinda did that already with Tony so we’ve always kept it separate when it comes to creating things. Except for him (points at baby Kingston). I guess that was really creating something [laughs].

Last time you worked with a UK artist?
Well, Lady Sovereign is on my worldwide tour, and I personally requested her because I really liked her record. There’s not a lot of people right now that I would want to take on tour that mean anything,I just think she’s interesting.

Last time you worked with “hook-for-hire” Akon?
When I went into to work with Akon, I didn’t even know who he was. It was like my label forcing me to go to work with him and I said, “I really don’t wanna work with anyone new right now” so I cancelled it. They were like, “Cancel everything else, but don’t cancel this”. So I went in with him and he’s amazing. There was this instant friendship. We wrote Sweet Escape in, like, five minutes.

So is this really your last solo album?
As far as I know. I can’t predict the future. It’s all about the music and “What am I feeling musically?” I was feeling this ’80s dance record really hard… I just really wanted to do it. In my life, and where I’m at, I don’t want to waste any time. I want to keep doing this as long as I can, as you would if you were me. I feel very lucky and I don’t have any moments to spare. People are like, “Why don’t you take time off?” But why would I?

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.”

California dreamer Gwen Stefani has proven that she’s much more than “just a girl in the world.” Here the pop icon, new mom, and fashionista gets real about her baby, her band, and living in a bubble.

It’s Friday night in N.Y.C. when Gwen Stefani enters the conference room at the Ritz-Carlton, where I’ve been waiting for over an hour. There aren’t fireworks or rounds of applause or any big fanfare – actually, it’s not much different than when I entered the room, except that she’s Gwen Stefani and, well, I’m me. Her platinum hair is perfectly coiffed; her eyelashes are thick with mascara. She’s wrapped up in a long black coat that she seems to be getting lost in, and she’s holding her seven-month-old son, Kingston, who is decked out in a L.A.M.B onesie. It’s exactly what I imagined that scene would be like.

She sits down next to me and puts Kingston on the table; he smiles at me and I smile back, tempted to pinch his chubby baby cheeks. Gwen hands him off to his nanny and says she’ll see him in a bit. I feel a pang of guilt knowing I’m the reason for the handoff. She seems tired, leaning her head on her hand as we began to talk. Not surprisingly, she’s just as down-to-earth as she’s said to be. She doesn’t act like a rock star but more like an excited artist inspired by life. She reminds me of my friends.

It’s hard to imagine that it’s been almost 20 years since Gwen started her musical career, as a teenager singing backup vocals for her brother’s band in Anaheim, CA. In the years since, she’s succeeded in gaining widespread commercial success fronting No Doubt, as well as receiving numerous awards, but she’ll be the first to tell you, it’s still surreal. In 2002 Gwen married her long-time boyfriend, Gavin Rossdale, singer of British band Bush. A year later, L.A.M.B, Gwen’s clothing label, premiered with a line of bags by LeSportsac. That same year, No Doubt put out The Singles, a best-of record featuring songs from 1992-2003. With the band on a break, Gwen saw her chance to put out a solo record. In 2004, she released Love. Angel. Music. Baby, an ’80’s-inspired dance record. Then in May 2006, she gave birth to her first child, Kingston James McGregor Rossdale. With her second solo record, The Sweet Escape, out now, an upcoming world tour in April 2007, the Gwen Stefani Fashion Dolls, and two clothing lines – L.A.M.B and Harajuku Lovers – this 37 year old is only getting started, providing a bit of fireworks for old fans and new ones along the way.

When I asked one of the hardest working gals in showbiz questions about her life, music, and projects, she replies with well thought-out answers pulled quickly from her “I know exactly what to say” file. It makes me wonder if she’s protecting a secret or just protecting herself. She knows what we want to hear, and she says it. She’s not one to talk trash or start trouble. Gwen Stefani is happy being a good girl with perfect hair and perfect teeth. She doesn’t care what you say and, really, I love her for that.

Since this interview is going to appear in BUST’s “Love” issue, what are you lovin’ these days?
Well, everything I love has to do with that guy that was just in here. It’s really hard to focus on anything else. I really love having him in my life. It’s so insane, ’cause it makes everything so much funner, as you can imagine. Do you have any babies?

No. But I have a niece. She’s six. She’s rad.
I understand that, ’cause I have my niece who’s 11 now. She lived with me from when she was 2 until she was 5. And now, I have a nephew that’s 2 1/2. But when they’re yours and come out of your stomach, it’s really crazy.

Do your niece and nephew get along with Kingston?
Um, everybody’s obsessed with him.

Yeah? [laughs]
Like, we were sitting down at dinner the other night, and my stylist and hairdresser were trying to tell me how much they love him, and my video girl that makes my videos – they’re all, like my best friends – they’re like, “But you don’t understand, I don’t know why I love him so much,” and starting to cry.

Awwww!
And I’m like, “I know, it’s so crazy!” And then we’re all kind of crying about how much we love him. And we don’t really know why. Just that he’s so great. And he has such a great personality.

So, will there be more?
I hope so. You know, I was always worried about how I was going to fit [having babies] in.

Is is hard?
It’s definitely hard, but it’s nothing like I thought it would be. He’s just so chilled out and he goes everywhere with me, and I’m really lucky, because I have a job where I can take him everywhere, and it doesn’t matter. Like, I could have kept him in here with us if I really wanted to, but it would probably be distracting…

[Laughs]
…so, I was, like, I’ll get [the interview] done and then go have my hamburger upstairs with him. But I’m just really lucky, ’cause I can take him everywhere with me, and I have a nanny that can help me. If I had a job where I had to leave him somewhere and then go to work, that would be really hard. I wouldn’t wanna do that.

What do you think is the most important thing to teach him?
You know, I feel like I’m in this mode right now of trying to live in the moment. Gavin and I always wondered about things like, when are we gettin’ married? Where are we gonna live when we get married? If we have kids, where are we gonna raise ‘em? If I have a baby, how will I fit him into my life? But what I’m learning is to not to worry about those things and just let it happen. So, I’m not gonna think right now about what I’m gonna teach my son, I’m just gonna take everyday and love him, and let him have as much fun as he can. You can’t predict the future, but obviously, I also want him to be a good person. I never thought my life would be like this. I always just thought I’d end up being a mom and having kids. I mean, I do worry about “How will my life affect his life?” and I wonder if he’ll look back at me and think, “What a weird mom I had,” you know what I mean? [laughs]

What was growing up like for you?
I had a rad, super, really cool family. My parents met in high school. They fell in love. All they ever wanted was to have four children. And they had four children: two boys, two girls. Catholic. Everything was about us – every project, every weekend, every holiday. So I was really blessed. Also, my parents were really creative; my mom sewed, my dad did music.

So is that how you got into sewing? I know that you used to make your own clothes back when you first started No Doubt…
[I was sewing] before No Doubt, even. Like, my whole life. My mom made my clothes when I was a little girl, so every time we would have something come up, we’d go to the fabric store. We’d pick out the patterns, material, zippers, and buttons.

Does your mom still sew?
Well, she made Kingston one outfit so far. It’s this little outfit she makes for all the grandkids. Like, it’s not a christening outfit, but you know, it’s a cute little white thing.

So your mom’s a role model, obviously.
Oh, yeah. I guess you’d say my mom would be the one person that I look up to. She’s an amazing person.

What does she think of your life? I mean, I guess she’s used to it, by now…
You never get used to it.

Are you used to it?
Oh, no. You never get used to it. You still go, “Woah, this is crazy.”

Right, and you can’t just go like, “Oh, no. We’re out of milk. I’m just gonna run to the store.”
Yeah, it’s gotten kind of weird in that way. But the thing that I’ve been really lucky about is that it’s taken years to get to that. I mean, I started in about ‘87! In the ’80s!

Crazy.
So like, I’ve been doing this forever. And the first nine years, I was just a big fish in a small pond. It wasn’t until I was 26 that we started having commercial success, so it was this gradual kind of thing, over this long period of time. But it has gotten kind of crazy on a different level, recently, with the baby and everything. I mean, I’ve always had paparazzi at my house, but not at that level where they’re there every single day, in lawn chairs waiting for me. It was, like, really to another level.

You have some pretty serious fans. Is it more guys or girls?
I have more of a girl audience, which is really awesome. The one thing that got me through my whole pregnancy tour was seeing those girls from around age 8 to 14 at their first concert. I look out and I see myself in ‘em, and there’s just something about that. I just always have this place in my heart for that age, you know, where you’re just getting into music and you’re getting into your style and defining who you are through what you’re into.

What were you like at that age?
In eighth grade, I was chubby, and my little sister, my brother, and I were just getting into Madness and discovering England, all the ska music – Fishbone, and the Untouchables, and the Specials, the Selector, Bad Manners. My friends and I were into that music, so that defined our group of people. I thought we were really cool ’cause we had that. We knew that we were not part of the popular group, but we didn’t care, because we were into this [music]. I loved that time period. It defined who I was.

I read somewhere that Courtney Love was talking about how you were such a good girl and you have a good-girl image. Is that true? Do you have a bad girl side?
No, I’ve always been pretty much a goody two shoes. I never saw the point of trying to be bad. I want to be a good person. I just like being creative and making things. I don’t wanna be a drug addict. I don’t wanna miss part of my life because I did that.

Do you consider yourself a feminist?
Well, I’d have to get a definition of it, first. I mean, I’m pro-woman, and I feel like I’m in an exceptionally lucky position being in an all-guy group and being able to do music. And clearly, I work with a lot of women — my video directors, my stylists, my management. Working with L.A.M.B and all the people around me, I definitely have been able to see the power of my position. So I guess I don’t want to say I am a feminist because nobody will ever define it for me.

Do you think women play an important part in rock?
It seems like rock is pretty much nonexistent at the moment and pop and hip-hop have taken over, and in the hip-hop world, I see that it’s been very male-dominated. The pop world is pretty much female-dominated, but it’s embarrassing, you know? I love pop music, and I’m very easily entertained. And I’m not very hypercritical, but there’s a lot of really bland, manufactured, disgusting stuff out there.

Like what?
I’m not going to give you specifics. I’m no good girl if there’s bashing on people.

What do you think about the critics calling your new record “pop fluff?”
They’re exactly right. It’s called The Sweet Escape. That was the idea. I didn’t want this process to be painful. I made [the album] right after I had the baby, and some of it I did when I went down to work with Pharrell, which was like a year ago. When I was doing those songs, there was really no direction; there wasn’t anything so deep, it was just the idea of dance music. Although I did end up writing “Orange County Girl” because I was thinking, “Flying first class into Miami to work with one of the greatest producers of modern times — how the fuck did I get here?” Like how did this happen to me? How can I be so lucky?

Do you write all your own songs?
I’m part of every single song. When I came out with both of these records, I told everybody they weren’t solo records, because they’re collaboration records. What happens is, you go in and they’ll have a track for you, and sometimes there’ll be a hook, meaning a chorus or a melody for a chorus. Most of the time, it’s the words I’m doing on these records. And the idea is to just go in and collaborate. It’s hard on your ego, especially if you’re used to doing the whole thing yourself or with a band. But there’s also something great about being part of collaboration.

This might be shit-talkin’ but I read on a blog somewhere that someone said that Fergie is totally biting your style. Agree? Disagree?
You know, I took Black Eyed Peas on my last tour, and she’s a really nice girl, and if she bit anything off of me, it would be a compliment.

That’s a great answer.
But it’s the truth. I have seen a bit of wake from the last album – of things that happened [that seem to be] inspired by [it] – and it’s a really incredible feeling. It really is inspiring to me, because it makes me move forward. I’m not saying, “She did that and I’m moving on” or anything, I’m just saying that anything that happened after that record is inspiring me to move forward.

How do you handle the critics?
The thing is, I never do anything for anyone but myself. It’s very selfish. I don’t do anything unless I’m completely passionate about it, so what can you do? You put stuff out there, and they’re always gonna say something negative. There’s just no way around it. And, sometimes when they get it so wrong, I’m like “That’s so wrong. That was so not the way I intended for you to see it.”

What about the stuff that Margaret Cho wrote on her blog about the Harajuku Girls being a racist stereotype. How do you not let that hurt you?
It didn’t hurt me. It made me embarrassed for her, because she did not do the research. She’s totally wrong. Basically, if you look at the lyrics of “Harajuku Girls,” all it is is me glorifying a culture and saying how great and how stylish and how much of a fan I am of these girls and how inspired I am. And if you go to my website, HarajukuLovers.com, you can see interviews with all the girls talking about where they came from, who they are. They inspired my entire last album. The whole thing was my fantasy come true. It’s an art project. She embarrassed herself. She needs to go back and do the research before she talks shit.

When you’re at home and it’s just you and your family, what’s home life like?
I don’t have a lot of spare time. Like, if you want a day-in-the-life kind of thing, I’ll wake up with my baby and nurse him. I’m still nursing, so that’s one way that I get to make sure that we’re always together. Then I go and have to work out, which I hate doing, and I do it because it makes me feel good. And then it’s e-mails and we’re just there at the house. There’s never any real free time. I mean, like tonight after this [interview], I’ll go back up to the hotel room and I’ll have my hamburger, and I’ll play with Kingston, and we’ll go to sleep.

Are you gonna take Kingston on tour? Does Gavin go on tour also?
We haven’t fully figured that out yet. I mean, Gavin did go out on the last tour, but it wasn’t for very long. Kingston will probably come out to a lot of it, I’m sure. Gavin is working on a record right now, too. We’re kind of used to being apart from each other. Something kind of makes it good, ’cause when you have time apart, you have time to be yourself and be creative and be selfish, and then when you have time together, you get to be excited about each other. I think it’s kind of a good for the relationship.

Do you ever face temptations when you’re on the road? I mean, do you have groupies?
Oh, you mean all the guys that wanna get with me and wanna marry me? I don’t really have that problem. Never have.

What about Gavin? I’m sure he has groupies.
Well, Gavin’s always gonna be a chick magnet. And I always have to have a gun right in my pocket, just in case. [laughs]

Do you have any crazy stalker fans?
I don’t, really. I’ve been living in a bubble, you know what I mean? I just moved to a new house that has a gate behind a gate, because it was just getting out of control at my other house; you couldn’t really go anywhere. Now that I’m in the new house, my life’s a little more normal again, because I can go places and there’s not 100 cars following me, you know what I mean? It’s not the people that make it weird; it’s the paparazzi that make it weird. It’s nothing that I’m complaining about, ’cause it’s just part of it and it’s not gonna be forever. It’s just a moment, but it’s more normal now that I have more privacy in that house.

Are you living in California?
We have a place in London, too, ’cause when we met, [Gavin] had that place, and we just go back and forth. But mostly we’re in LA, especially since the baby. But you know, I’m really busy most of the time. When I’m not doing music, I’m designing, and I work a lot out of the house. I don’t really go that many places. And I really like it. I really like what I do. Like I said, I usually try to work out every day, and then I have my meetings, and everyone comes to me. So like, you know, they come over, and all the bags that I just designed will be spread all over the house. We fix them, we talk about it, we create the next ones. And the meetings go by like that [snaps], and Kingston will be sitting on my lap. We’re playing and ordering lunch from Jerry’s Deli and everybody’s over and it’s superfun. Next thing you know, four hours have gone by, and then I have to do e-mail.

What do you do to chill?
I like to lie in bed and watch movies and eat. I don’t cook, but Gavin cooks. And we just like that kind of stuff, chilling out like that. Just hanging out and eating and watching TV and playing with the baby.

I remember No Doubt had a Vans shoe. Is there gonna be a Gwen Stefani Vans shoe?
Well, there’s the tennis shoe that L.A.M.B did that are really cool. I just came from the L.A.M.B showroom, and there were big boards up of all the fantasy clothes that I’d ever want, and then you just try to convince everyone on the team that they’re gonna be great, and then we make ‘em. And I’m also developing a fragrance. This is it. See if you can smell it. [holds out wrist]

Ooh, I can.
It’s really amazing to be able to do a fragrance. The creative process has been so fun. Yesterday we had this long meeting with “the nose” – the chemist that develops the fragrance. You smell all these different versions and my friends will come and I’ll be like “Spray this one, spray that one, which one do you like?” This is all day long. You keep trying to get that right smell – “Add a little more of this, add a little more of that.” It’s a weird, creative process.

Cool.
That’s just everything outside of music, which to me is the thing that defines who I am, that really makes me most proud. The other stuff is just fun. It’s creative, but not emotionally draining and exhausting. It’s kind of like making cookies.

With thanks to Jenny Fowler at Beacon-Street.net

From pop-punk queen to fashion icon, Gwen Stefani has forged a one-woman empire. She exclusively tells ELLE’s Kerry Potter about her rock-star marriage, being a beauty junkie and how hard she’s worked for that body.

Four hours in hair and make-up and Gwen Stefani, 37-year-old multimillion-selling rock star and fashion icon, finally takes centre stage at the ELLE photoshoot. She’s immaculately painted, cartoonishly flawless and Amazonian in stature. White-blonde hair fiercely straightened, wearing a tiny pair of shorts with giant heels, she glares at the camera as her entourage (stylist, hairdresser, make-up artist, US record company execs, nanny) look on silently. So far, so intimidating, until we’re introduced and she immediately breaks into a broad, sunshiney smile. ‘Hey there!’ she says in a girlish all-American drawl and takes my hand. A few days later, we meet again, at a hotel, and this time I remember not to judge a book by its cover. Gwen turns out remarkably unassuming, chatty, free of pretentious pronouncements about her ‘art’, and strangely honest about everything – from how hard she works to stay trim to the problems with a long-distance love affair (she’s married to Brit Gavin Rossdale, former singer in Rock band Bush).

Beneath the laid-back Californian exterior, though, there lurks a steely-eyed determination and control-freakery that comes with the territory when you’ve spent 20 years being famous and building you one-woman empire (see also: Kylie, Madonna).

Gwen Stefani may not overtly act like a megastar, but off-duty she still looks like one. Stefani is never knowingly underdressed. Today she’s resplendent in tight indigo Stella McCartney jeans, a blue cashmere jumper from her clothing line L.A.M.B and black lace-up Alexander McQueen stiletto boots. The hair is artfully piled high, her face punctuated with the neatest eyebrows ever and a slash of sheer red lip gloss. A unashamed grooming fanatic, she’s one celebrity you never see papped looking spotty, drunk, picking her nose or buying a pint of milk in her pyjamas.

‘If you’re going out of the house, it’s better to realise you’re probably going to have your picture taken, to get ready properly and think, well, it’s just part of my life,’ she says, helping herself to a bottle of water before sitting demurely next to me on the sofa. ‘And even if I’m not getting my picture taken, I’ve always enjoyed the process of getting ready. I have a high tolerance of the make-up chair. I’m the kind of person who spends most of my time getting ready for a party, when I finally get there I have to leave within half an hour because I’m bored!’

It’s a good job Stefani is so Zen about those prying lenses, as her pregnancy and subsequent arrival of son Kingston, now six months old, were the source of a million paparazzi shots. ‘It was weird being pregnant in a fishbowl situation. Especially on the days when you feel really fat and disgusting and not cute. Pregnancy was challenging in a way I didn’t expect. I was on tour and I was so sick. It was like PMS times a million.’ Of course, we don’t like our celebrities to be fat, baby belly or no baby belly. Stefani admits she felt the pressure. ‘I worked out with my trainer throughout the whole pregnancy until about two weeks before. I cried during my last session. I was, like, “I can’t breathe, I can’t do this anymore. What am I doing?” It was crazy. All my life I’ve had to work hard to stay in shape. I’ve always struggled with it. I was a little chubby when I was younger, and I didn’t want to be that person for ever. I became a swimmer at school – but only because I wanted to be skinnier! I’m extremely vain – I like wearing cute clothes,’ she grins. On cue, her sweater rides up an inch or two to reveal abs that’d give give David Beckham a run for his money. Six months on from giving birth she looks so healthy and toned it hurts. How did she do that? Boring, old-fashioned hard graft, I’m afraid. ‘There aren’t any tricks, it’s simple maths: you put this much food in, you burn that much working out,’ she says. ‘I gave myself three months – but if I didn’t have an album coming out, there’s no way I would have got back into shape in that time. I worked out with my trainer five days a week, with weekends off. I would really recommend doing weights. I’m not into yoga and Pilates – they don’t work for me and I don’t have the patience. I’m more like a man, I like going to the gym and lifting weights or doing a little boxing.’

Stefani got back into a healthy eating regime thanks to her mum, Patti, and dad, Dennis. ‘Gavin was away working, so my parents came to stay with me and Kingston, and we all ate healthily together. Once you start seeing the results, it’s great – like when I could actually fit into my size Large sweatpants again! And I had three collections of L.A.M.B [her clothing line] sitting in my closet, size 6 [UK size 10], going “Wear me, wear me!’ ”

Now back in her size 10 jeans, what does she make of the size 0 debate, I wonder? ‘It sucks that that’s what is supposed to look good and that’s what everyone strives to be. There’s more to life than being on a diet. Clearly, I spend time thinking about it and it’s something I’ve had to deal with in my life. As I get older I try not to focus on it, it’s boring, it’s a waste of life. What I have learned is that whether I am fatter or thinner, people seem not to mind, they like me either way. It’s more in your own mind than anyone else’s.’ She’s similarly level-headed on womankind’s other current favourite body obsession: cosmetic surgery. ‘Each to their own. I enjoy a great surgery TV show as much as anyone – I watched a lot of those shows when I was pregnant! But it’s pretty bizarre that that’s where we’re at – that you can place an order for how you’re going to look. People take it pretty lightly, but it’s a big deal. I’ve thought it over but I’m not at that stage yet.’

When she’s not making records or designing clothes for L.A.M.B, Stefani likes ‘laying around watching TV, doing nothing’ with Kingston and Gavin in their new LA house (they have house number two in London’s Primrose Hill but are spending the majority of their time on the West Coast at the moment). Stefani and Rossdale, 41, met in 1995, when she was touring with her ska-punk band No Doubt and he was doing the same with Bush (although British, they were huge in the States, but not at home). After conducting an on-off-on again romance for years – they eventually got serious and married in 2002. Is it hard having a two- rock-star household? ‘There are negatives and positives but, for the most part, it works. He can tell me about things going well or badly and I can totally relate to that. But when we’re both working it’s hard to see each other.’ They try to keep those job-related absences down to a minimum. ‘We know that after three weeks it starts to get messed up. We were very lucky to find each other and we have this ongoing crazy love affair, with its hills and valleys, like everyone else’s.’ Presumably one of those valleys was the discovery in 2004 that Rossdale was the father of his old friend Pearl Lowe’s then 15-year-old daughter, Daisy. The DNA paternity test and subsequent court case, the outcome of which has never been made public, were said to have deeply upset Gwen – unsurprisingly – but the marriage survived and she’s clearly moved on. ‘Having Kingston has been the most romantic thing to have happened to us,’ she smile.

As is often the case with new parents, the Stefani-Rossdales enjoy hanging out with other couples with kids. One of those couples is Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. ‘We saw them one time after we had our babies, which was really fun.’ Did Shiloh and Kingston play together, I ask. Gwen goes gooey: ‘Yeah! They were like two blobs when they met.’ Maybe they’ll get married when they grow up? ‘That’d be cute!’

Stefani’s new album, and the thing she keeps politely but firmly steering our conversation back to, is called The Sweet Escape, the delayed (blame Kingston) follow up to 2004’s Love Angel Music Baby, Stefani’s phenomenally successful solo debut, which saw her branch out from No Doubt’s trademark ska-punk sound into hip-hop, dance music and pure pop. Stefani has been in No Doubt, currently on hiatus, since she was 17. It was her older brother Eric’s band (he later left to become an animator on The Simpsons) but, after the suicide of depressed singer John Spence in 1987, the band decided to regroup with little sister on lead vocals. They plugged away on the local California rock scene for many years, living on a smelly tour bus and out of a suitcase. Stefani was certainly no overnight teen pop sensation. It wasn’t until 1997’s Number One single Don’t Speak (remember Gwen’s blue polka dot tea dress in the video?) that No Doubt struck gold, and Stefani found her songwriting mojo. The song detailed her painful split from Tony Kanal, her bandmate and boyfriend of seven years but, despite effectively washing their dirty relationship linen in public, the two remain firm friends to this day.

Although Stefani has been on our collective radar for a decade, it was Love Angel Music Baby that propelled her to stardom in Britain, selling 1.2 million copies along the way, thanks in no small part to first single What You Waiting For? and its ubiquitous, trippy Alice in Wonderland-esque video. Musically, The Sweet Escape sees Stefani sticking with what she knows (insane single Wind It Up aside, with its Sound of Music-inspired yodelling), and many of her collaborators remain on board, notably Pharrell Williams and Linda Perry. The latter, a former rock singer who’s sprinkled her writing and production gold-dust on the work of Christina Aguilera, Pink and Courtney Love of late, has known Stefani since the mid 1980s, when they were the only two girls in bands on their label, Interscope. ‘Gwen is humble, very intelligent and very dorky – and I really like that about her,’ says Linda. ‘She’s like a secret weapon – her humility means you don’t realise how powerful, talented and focus she is at first.’

Visually, like any self-respecting pop chameleon, Stefani has moved things on for this record, binning the Alice stuff and Harajuku girl dancers who trailed her during the last campaign (the result of a longstanding love affair with Japanese fashion), plumping instead for a trashy-sexy new look inspired by Michelle Pfeiffer’s character Elvira Hancock in the classic 1983 gangster movie Scarface. ‘I was in Lake Como filming a video and went out for dinner with a girlfriend who was wearing a really long, clingy, peach polyester dress. It really reminded me of that movie. I worked the look into my spring/summer 2007 L.A.M.B collection, and it rolled over into the music, too.’

Although the celebrity clothing range is often shorthand for ego gone wild, Stefani, who launched her quirky streetwear line in 2005, does seem genuinely enthralled by the process of designing clothes. Yes, it’s an extension of Brand Stefani, a lucrative merchandising opportunity, but, to give the girl her due, Stefani does have previous experience. With a grandmother and mother who loved to sew, she grew up in an unremarkable southern Californian town Anaheim (Orange County – but less The OC, more Swindon) making her own clothes and scouring thrift stores, gradually developing a sense of style, that in a world of glossy Hollywood clones, is unique. As her stylist Andrea Lieberman puts it, ‘She touches on the glamorous, the tomboy, the rockabilly girl, the disco queen. Without a shadow of a doubt, she’s the most innovative woman in music.’ Believe it or not, though, Stefani’s entry into the world of fashion was a nerve-wrecking time. ‘I was so naïve growing up. I knew about buying fabric from the store and making clothes, but I didn’t know about real fashion. I didn’t go to a fashion show until I was 30, and that was Vivienne Westwood in New York. I met her and it was scary – it was like meeting the Queen. She’s got such an edge, I was shaking when I met her.’

But the respect is mutual. ‘I love that she loves clothes and getting dressed up. You have a much more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes,’ says Westwood. Around that time, Stefani also attended a John Galliano Dior couture show and admits to being reduced to awestruck tears. ‘That show was mind-blowing – that someone can have those ideas… It’s like a living, walking art show.’ She composed herself enough to meet and become friends with Galliano, and he designed her wedding dress in 2004, which she wore to her LA and London ceremonies. ‘John seems shy at first and you wouldn’t believe he had all that in him. But then, when he starts to talk about what he loves, it’s just… the passion.’

Stefani see L.A.M.B as a long-term career, not a short-term cash-in. ‘It’s something I want to do for the rest of my life. I’ve always done it,, but I’m doing it on a larger scale now. And I don’t care if anyone criticises it. It’s not going to make me give it up if someone says “Oh, you’re a celebrity.” I know I’m right at the beginning and I have a long way to go. But I’ve got really far, really fast compared to the music. Every collection gets better.’

Inevitability, Stefani has always dabbled in the movie world. She auditioned for Mr & Mrs Smith, the film that brought Brad and Angelina together. How different the celebrity landscape would have been if Stefani rather than Ms Jolie had played Mrs Smith… ‘I don’t know if I nearly go it but I certainly put a lot of effort in. They were clearly looking for a certain girl, and you couldn’t get more opposite than me and Angelina.’ she says. Stefani eventually made her movie debut in 2004 in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, playing 1930s screen siren Jean Harlow to Leonardo DiCaprio’s Howard Hughes. Yes it was a thirty second cameo, but it became an Oscar-winning Scorsese movie. Have the offers been flooding in ever since? ‘Not at all!’ she pouts hammily. ‘Of course, if Scorsese calls me up again tomorrow, I’d be there in a second, but it’s not something I’m thinking about all the time. A film is a big commitment. Right now, I’m enjoying the music, the fashion and the baby.’ And so she must leave, to tend to said baby (she’s the first new mother I’ve ever heard describe her child as ‘rad!’). Life, she concludes, couldn’t be sweeter. ‘I still read a menu and go, “Look at the price – I can get that.” I still think “I’m in First Class, this is awesome,” It’s insane what’s going on in my life – I just can’t believe my luck.’

Gwen Stefani’s new album, The Sweet Escape, is out now.

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.