No Doubt Scrapbook

No Doubt

Geared up to Rock Steady. By Jon Weiderhorn

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

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

Adrian Young’s Nonstop Skank

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

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

No Doubt’s Anniversary Party

In which we celebrate the union of Gwen and Gavin, the spectacular success of the little so-cal band that could and the arrival of a dangerous character known as the douche. by Neil Strauss

Thousands of Staind and Linkin Park fans are packed into the Universal Amphitheaters in Los Angeles, unaware that No Doubt are about to make a surprise appearance. And to tell the truth, no one is sure if these fans really care. No Doubt are the only band tonight with a female member, the only group more attuned to ska and reggae than rap and rock, and the only act whose current single “Hey Baby,” is full of New Wave electronics and drum machine beats. There is no aggression or angst to be found in “Hey Baby,” kids, just Gwen Stefani singing about sipping chamomile tea. Can you relate to that? Read the rest of this article »

What you hear is what you get

Back from its trip to Saturn, No Doubt is ready to Rock Steady. By Tom Lanham.

Gwen Stefani is late. Not really late, just 15 minutes or so. But the platinum-haired, pout-lipped, pinup-perfect ska-pop goddess has a good cause - her boyfriend, the similarly pout-lipped, pinup-perfect rock icon, Gavin Rossdale of Bush renown, is her wheel man this particularly crisp autumn afternoon. He must’ve missed a Hollywood-hills turn or two. And when this oft-photographed No Doubt diva arrives? Most assuredly, she’s ready for her close up, Mr DeMille; in a flowing, floor length, red cashmere cape (complete with wolf-wowing hood), Stefani sweeps into the spacious, sparsely appointed digs of her band’s bassist Tony Kanal. She doesn’t just walk - in her patent-leather pumps, camouflage pedal pushers and baggy V-neck sweater - but sweeps and ’40s film starlets must’ve swept on Oscar night. Read the rest of this article »

No Doubt

By Mar Yvette

It’s not often that a band can withstand its founding member departing, increasing creative uncertainty, weak record sales, mounting industry pressure and loads of internal (and extremely personal) tension. But that’s exactly what O.C. darlings-turned-world-famous wünderkinds No Doubt have done - and they’ve got their very own episode of VH1’s Behind The Music to prove it. Together now for almost 15 years, chances are many of you Mean Street readers got to experience the group’s kinetic live shows back in the day when Anaheim was known simply as Disneyland’s epicenter and Gwen wasn’t touted as a diva in fashion magazines; a term the gregarious lyricist laughs about. “I think of Aretha Franklin when I hear that word. I don’t wake up in the morning and go, ‘you diva!’ ” Read the rest of this article »

Tony Kanal Interviewed by Brandon Griggs

What made you guys enter the studio so soon?
We were just feeling the vibes. We finished touring in November of last year and we started writing at the beginning of January. The writing process moved quickly and was going so well that we were like ‘lets go into the studio and make this happen’. As smooth as everything was going, there was really no reason to wait.

So did you all help out on the writing of this album or did you have any outside collaborations?
Gwen, Tom and I wrote most of this record, but we did do a couple of outside collaborations. We co-wrote a song with Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics, and a song with The Neptunes (a hip-hop production team). Read the rest of this article »

Growing Up Doubtless

No Doubt’s Tony Kanal gains taste & maturity.

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

Mission to 1982

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

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

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

No Doubt

It’s 1992 and your career looks bleak.

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

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

No Doubt

Tom Dumont & Tony Kanal signal The End of Modern Rock

One this is for sure. The bell has tolled. Alternative rock is dead. Shut the coffin, tighten the bolts. After some brilliant contributions (Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth) to the music world over the last decade, the flame is now extinguished, sending its last, weakened plume skyward. Eh… better to burn out than fade away, right?

Though “serious” players may be breathing a collective sigh of relief at the news - alternative rock having served as a thorn in the side of many of you for quite a while - its death leaves a few questions unanswered. First how did it die> Wasn’t it just storming the airwaves? Second, what will take its place in the national market? And last, does anybody care? Read the rest of this article »