Albuquerque Journal (March 22nd 1996)
‘Girl’ Anthem Puts No Doubt Back On The Map
No Doubt is a band that is in demand.
That kind of thing happens when you've got a hit single ("I'm Just a Girl"), your video is playing on MTV all the time and you're touring arenas with one of the biggest alternative bands of 1995 (Bush).
Still it's kind of strange to be waiting to do an interview and to see the subjects of your interview on "MTV News" just minutes before they call you.
As it turned out, that revelation was equally weird to No Doubt drummer Adrian Young, a wiry SoCal dude who sports gelled red hair shaped as horns rather than his usual short Mohawk these days.
"We did that a month and a half ago," he said, excusing himself for his flu-induced sniffles. "We went to MTV, did the news, 'Alternative Nation,' the '120 Minutes' interview and taped live stuff all in one day.
"I've already had a few people tell us about it. It's cool."
Yes, Adrian, it is.
Especially since No Doubt had fallen off the face of the musical planet after Interscope Records released the group's self-titled album in 1992.
That album, featuring the squeaky vocals of lithe, blond singer Gwen Stefani and infectious ska grooves, gave the band the title of "Great Ska Hope."
After that release, however, the band languished. According to Young, Interscope "wasn't ready" to hear the new material it came up with.
By the beginning of 1995, the group had gotten frustrated and began recording so it could release its own CD. "Beagle Street Collection," a collection of songs recorded at home and in cheap studios, came out in October 1995.
"(Interscope) had no reaction," Young said. "Contractually we weren't supposed to do it, but they didn't care. We didn't distribute it nationally, it was mostly local.
"It was basically for us and people in SoCal. We hadn't put out music in so long."
In the meantime, Trauma Records expressed an interest in the band and was given permission by Interscope (which distributes Trauma Records) to work with them. Stefani's keyboard-playing brother Eric quit the band to concentrate on his other career as an animator.
The direct result was that Gwen Stefani began writing her own lyrics and band mates Tom Dumont (bass), Toy Kanai (guitar) and Young began writing songs that strayed from the upbeat ska that got them noticed in the first place.
Then Stefani wrote lyrics for an anthem -- "I'm Just a Girl."
On the surface, the song could be taken as a self-deprecating '90s song. But when Stefani sings the lyric "I'm just a girl" it comes across more as sarcastic than world-weary.
"'Just a Girl' is a blast to play," Young says. "We're not tired of playing it. People go nuts for it. And Gwen always gets into it. We all do, really."
The song has given the band and Stefani an identity among the many faceless bands that grace MTV. It's also given young girls a role model of sorts.
"The girls that wanna talk about (the song) go talk to Gwen," Young says with a chuckle. "I don't get many girls that come up and say 'I feel like that's me.'"