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NO DOUBT BIOGRAPHY |
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No Doubt formed nine years ago in Anaheim, California, at the
suggestion of high school friend John Spence, a charismatic kid
who was in love with the idea of being in a band and whose
subsequent suicide forced No Doubt to learn to overcome hardship.
The initial line-up included Stefani's older brother Eric on
keyboards (who was to remain in the band as keyboard player and
main songwriter until '95 when he left to pursue a career as an
artist), and Gwen and Spence sharing vocals.
"I never really thought about being in a band. I mean, maybe
when I watched Donny and Marie I thought, 'God, I wish I could
be Marie,' but that was the closest I'd come. John was the one
that said 'I want to be the singer of a band.' That was his
dream," remembers Stefani, whose personal heroes include Angelo
Moore of Fishbone and Kermit the Frog.
"When your friend dies like that and it's so unexpected it's
very traumatic. I think it taught us all a big lesson in how
much one person can influence so many different people."
The early music of No Doubt was "ska, because that's what we
were into and that's the only thing we really knew. It was
pretty easy music to play. " But as the line-up began to
solidify, with "Prince fan," Kanal, joining almost immediately,
followed by heavy metal guitarist Dumont in '88 and drummer
Young in '89, the wide range of styles encompassed by No Doubt
began to emerge, as documented by their releases.
No Doubt released their self-titled debut on Interscope in 1992,
an independently produced collector's item called The Beacon
Street Collection in 1995, and Tragic Kingdom on Trauma/Interscope
in 1996.
"We were labeled a ska band forever and it was always something
we were trying to get away from. We wanted to become our own
sound. For the first time on this record I think we were able to
do that? to mix up all the different influences without freaking
people out."
Stefani need not have worried. America has latched on to No
Doubt's brand of vibrant, tuneful rock, with Stefani's smoothly
intriguing show-tune vocals dancing in and out of a catchy stew
of varied bass lines and guitar riffs. No Doubt is easily the
band of the moment, and this fact is not lost on its members.
"We're just so happy that people even want to take notice of us
after all these years," says Kanal. "We went to New York to do
MTV and we were there on the set and Gwen and I just looked at
each other and said, 'I can't believe we're doing this right now.
I can't believe we're here.' It's really incredible."
And then there's the flip side: "It's weird. [We're playing for]
a lot of new people that aren't used to coming to [our] shows.
It's a different vibe. It's not as fun as it used to be," says
Dumont, who promoted a well respected club for a short while and
is known by Orange County musicians as a strong supporter of the
eclectic local scene. "I don't know, it just seems like [these
new people] don't know what to do, they don't get it."
The "it" to which Dumont refers is No Doubt's roots as an
underground band, a grounding all members want to maintain. "It's
like we come from a scene, a local Southern California scene
where we play all-ages shows and they're kind of punk and ska
audiences. You know people go to the shows and just go nuts and
have fun and dance and crowd surf and it's a very physical,
energetic kind of show," explains Dumont.
But despite the gripes, "This is something I've wanted for so
many years now and I never really thought it would happen. It's
like a dream come true to hear my songs on the radio. I know
that the music industry and people that listen to music these
days are pretty fickle and this may be our one hit wonder and it
may be gone tomorrow, but we're going to have a lot of fun in
the meantime. 99% of musicians, whether they are telling the
truth or not, want to make a living playing music. It's not
about selling out. It's about having a little fun for awhile and
not having to work another job and getting to play music all day
long, every day. It's really satisfying."
This spectrum seems little more than the varied emotions of a
band in flux, making the transition from local underground
heroes to national entertainers. All the members are thrilled to
be receiving attention, yet they talk as if it might evaporate
tomorrow. They all remain loyal to the local scene which housed
them for so many years. And they all attempt to make sense of
the incongruous blending of art and commerce, worrying about
being perceived as "sell-outs."
Kanal admits concern over how fans would react to their decision
to tour in a tour bus, as opposed to the vans they always used
in the past, despite inconvenience and issues of safety. He's
well aware of the distorting powers of fame.
"I think for the most part we're pretty nice people. I check
myself every day just to make sure this is the same person. I
really want people to tell me if they think anything has changed
about me. I think about that stuff all the time," says Kanal,
who is a few credits short of receiving a degree in psychology.
Dumont harbors the same concerns. "I haven't been able to hang
out with my friends much anymore because I'm so busy. I wonder
if they are like, 'Tom's too cool for us now.' They don't
understand that there's a lot of responsibilities and we're busy
constantly, all day long."
Stefani talks of the girls who approached her at a recent show,
feeling betrayed, and worrying that now "jocks and nerds" would
be audience members. "I totally understand that, because I had a
band that was 'my band'?adness?nd in some ways I wanted to wear
the shirt and tell everyone that they were my band but I didn't
want other people to really get into them, so I can understand
that. But at the same time I think a lot of people are really
happy for us."
The genuine excitement the group feels is more poignant when
coming on the heals of No Doubt's "Bleak Period", referred to by
all members in grand, sweeping, epic terms.
"If you would have seen us last year," Stefani begins, "we were
barely hanging on by a thread. We were ready to quit and save
ourselves from becoming a bunch of losers."
These hard times centered around, according to Stefani, "political
stuff with our label. The biggest problem was we weren't able to
put out music and it was like three years between records. I
remember the first year the band came together it seemed like so
much had gotten done and the last three years it was like
nothing happened. That's why we put out The Beacon Street
Collection, which is the CD we did in our garage. It was one of
the best things we ever did because we were able to take some
songs that would have probably gotten lost and document them.
But this was awesome because at the very end, when we were
mixing our album, we hooked up with these guys from Trauma,
which happens to be a subsidiary of Interscope, so now it's kind
of neat because we have Interscope and Trauma working for us.
Everything has turned around. It's flip-flopped. It's
unbelievable how fast it has changed, so we're just trying to
take every day and just enjoy it because we know it could be
gone at any second."
But in the process, No Doubt lost a member? keyboard player Eric
Stefani. "Eric was my biggest musical influence," says Gwen. "He's
the one that said 'you be the singer' when I was sitting on the
couch watching the Brady Bunch and being as lazy as possible. So
if it wasn't for him, I don't know what I would be doing. It was
really hard when he left because I felt like this was his
baby?is band. For me to take over was really weird and awkward,
but at the same time it was a long time coming. He taught us how
to write songs and we took it from there. In a lot of ways this
record has so much more meaning to me than the first one because
I was really able to participate, whereas on the first record I
was singing songs about my brother getting his wisdom teeth
pulled."
There are many connections between this latest record and the "Bleak
Period". The album's title is a pun on Anaheim's own Disneyland
(referred to as the "Magic Kingdom"), but the album is mostly
about the anything-but-magical hardships faced by No Doubt. The
break-up of Kanal and Stefani's seven year relationship inspired
many of the songs.
"You can imagine all the things that come with being in a band
with your ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend. It's odd. We just deal
with it every day," Kanal reveals. "We're still really good
friends. We were best friends when we were going out and Gwen is
really, really important to me."
Stefani holds similar feelings. "I think we've just been really
blessed that we can remain good friends. I love him so much."
"I've always thought of myself as being a really normal person,
with the most normal life, with a mom and dad and sisters and
brothers and a totally normal personality with nothing exciting
about it and then I step back and look at my situation and all
the, like," Stefani pauses, measuring her words. "How can I say
shit that's going on and I realize I am in the weirdest
incestuous situation. It's a weird life that I have been thrown
into, but at the same time I can't remember a time that I've
been happier. Things are so great right now and I'm really
enjoying my life, every second of it."
The music business is a weird industry. The methods of achieving
success are outwardly shunned and denounced, though secretly
sought after. No Doubt are achieving the kind of success every
other band, whether they would admit to it or not, secretly hope
for. After nine years ripe with the good and the bad, No Doubt
refuse to play the game. "It's funny, because at least now we're
not like total losers," says Stefani. "We had a video on MTV and
got to be on the radio and stuff. If it was taken away tomorrow,
we at least got to do that. Now we have stuff to show our
grandkids."
"Just a Girl", from No Doubt's third album, Tragic Kingdom, is a
catchy new-wave flavored song that proclaims the burdens of the
fairer sex, using the stereotype to point out its own flaws:
"Cause I'm just a girl, little ol' me/ Don't let me out of your
sight/ I'm just a girl, all pretty and petite/ So don't let me
have any rights/ Oh... I've had it up to here!" The song which
by now you've definitely heard on the radio and which was never
meant to be more than a reflection of Stefani's own frustrating
experiences (such as her father's concern over her driving to
ex-boyfriend Kanal's house late at night), rises to anthem-like
proportions when performed live. Stefani, all pouts, poses, and
kicks, leads the audience in a celebration of girl-hood, and if
only for a little while, the typical foundation on which rock
music stands begins to crumble.
So who is the real Stefani? Is she the creation strutting about
on-stage speaking in the little girl voice and basking in the
sensation of thousands of eyes washing over her lithe frame? Or
is she the earnest, soft spoken family girl who, according to
her younger sister Jill, "was always giving really good advice
about guys and about friends and about the superficiality of it
all"?
"I think I've been able to fool a lot of people because I know
I'm a dork. I'm a geek," says Stefani, giving hope to geeks
nationwide.
"I think [the on-stage persona] is definitely a part of me, but
I don't think that I go around when I'm offstage saying 'Fuck
you, I'm a girl' and running all over the place. It's definitely
two sides of my personality. "
One wonders how Stefani manages to keep her energy at such a
feverish pitch, night after night.
"Yesterday I looked in the mirror and I thought, 'God, I look so
old today. I look so tired.' So I just put on tons of make-up
and screamed up and down the hall to try to get myself worked up
and then I went out there and the audience was so intense
there's just no way you couldn't feed off that. These kids were
just on fire. They looked like a bunch of Rice Krispies!" |
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