San Diego Union Tribune (May 29th 1997)

Welcome to No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom

Some musicians measure success by the numbers. Number of Top 10 singles. Number of albums sold. The numbers cha-chinging in their bank books.

Others do it by the perks. Limos. Personal chefs. Aromatherapy on demand.

And then there are the members of No Doubt, who measure fame by their right to sing stupid Beatles songs with impunity.

"At the end of the show, we always bring out the opening act and make them sing ‘Ob-la-di, Ob- la-da' with us, and it's so awesome to throw away any feelings that we're too cool to do something cheesy," said No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal, who joins the band for a show Tuesday at the Sports Arena. "We're just up there onstage having fun with our friends, and we don't care what people think. It's the most rewarding thing about being at this level."

He is far too low-key to spell it out, but when Kanal says "at this level," what he really means is, "at the top." After 10 years of the usual scuffles and a rather large ration of heartaches, Kanal and the Anaheim-based band - vocalist Gwen Stefani, guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young - are bigger than the Matterhorn and more ubiquitous than Mickey Mouse.

Since its release in October 1995, the album "Tragic Kingdom" has sold 7 million copies. The singles "Just A Girl," "Spiderwebs" and "Don't Speak" have all gone Top 10, and No Doubt has gone from playing clubs to gracing magazine covers and filling arenas.

It is the kind of whirlwind that could mean swelled heads, bloated expectations and major attitude problems. But for Kanal and the band, it just means more big fun.

"It was a gradual process, but there were a few milestones along the way," Kanal, 26, said from his Indianapolis hotel room. "Like when we first heard ourselves on KROQ, which is the station we all grew up on. They played us between U2 and the Offspring, and it was like, ‘What's going on here?' We couldn't even believe it. Then we started doing shows with other bands we love, and that was just too much. And now, we're like, ‘I can't believe we're on the same stage as the Foo Fighters!'"

Weathering hard times

Say what you will about No Doubt. Say the music is lightweight. Say "Don't Speak" sounds an awful lot like Aerosmith's "Dream On." But don't say No Doubt does not know how to rock. Because rock ‘n' roll is what No Doubt knows best, and there were times when it was the only thing keeping this fun-loving band from falling apart.

No Doubt was formed in 1987 by the ska-loving Gwen Stefani, her brother Eric and a high-school classmate named John Spence. Kanal, who was born in India and raised in London, joined the band later that year.

Inspired by the high-stepping sounds of Madness and other antsy Brits, the group fired up local bashes and the occasional club marathon with a mix of ska and punk and whatever else the kids had time to master between classes.

As high school party-bands go, No Doubt was extremely popular. But before the band could celebrate its first birthday, Spence committed suicide. Then a second vocalist left to get married. That left Kanal and the Stefanis to carry on, and with the newly recruited Dumont and Young on board, carry on is what they did.

"Our early years were incredible. The memories are very vivid for me, and I look back at that time with real fondness," Kanal said warmly. "We were always fortunate to have a good following from the get-go. We got to open for bands we loved, like Fishbone and the Untouchables and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

"We'd be sitting in class and thinking about the weekend and the shows we were going to play, and it was so exciting. We would be concentrating more on writing our set lists in class than listening to the teachers, because we knew that what we were doing was the most important thing in our lives.

"We were young, we were friends, and we were going to conquer the world," Kanal said. "It was awesome."

No Doubt continued on its merry way for years, as the band drew progressively bigger Southern California crowds and the band members juggled gigs, school (Kanal and Dumont are near- graduates of Cal State Fullerton) and a dazzling array of day jobs.

Then No Doubt got a deal with Interscope Records and released a debut album, and the happy campers found themselves smack dab in the middle of Bummerland.

Change partners

Released in the wake of Nirvana's "Nevermind" and Pearl Jam's "Ten," 1992's bubbly "No Doubt" was a bright bauble floating on a sea of plaid, and it sank like a Day-Glo stone. But even after Interscope denied the band tour-support money and the chance to make a follow-up album, Kanal and the band refused to slip away quietly.

"It would take awhile to explain it in detail," Kanal said of the Interscope turmoil. "But it's safe to say that the album was released into a radio environment that was not friendly to the kind of music we were playing. What we had to offer was not welcome, so at the end of the year, everyone decided that the record was done and we were OK with that.

"Then we spent the next three years trying to put the next record together," Kanal added. "Nineteen-ninety-three through 1995 was a tough time for us."

A wrap-up of those dark years goes like this: Eric Stefani left the band. (He now works as an animator on "The Simpsons.") Longtime couple Kanal and Gwen Stefani broke up. The band was moved to Trauma, an offshoot of Interscope. And somewhere in there, No Doubt recorded "Tragic Kingdom."

"We were always trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel, but it was hard," Kanal said. "We were struggling with the record company, which led to Eric leaving. But that is in the past, and we can look back and think maybe this is what was supposed to be.

"Any band that is struggling is hungry, and that frustration can come through and people can see that the music is real. ‘Tragic Kingdom' is a very honest record, and I think people caught on to that."

Did they ever. Thanks to the slyly subversive "Just A Girl," the wistful "Don't Speak" and the effervescent "Spiderwebs," No Doubt stormed the charts, gathering a swarm of "Gwennabies" (girls who imitate Stefani, down to the bare midriff and the beauty mark), nabbing two Grammy nominations and making waves from Finland to Australia, and many points in between.

From the photographers who focus only on the lovely Stefani, to the reporters who focus on Stefani and Kanal's relationship, to the very real possibility that it's all downhill from here, there is enough peripheral nonsense to distract even the most dedicated worker bees. But after 10 years, Kanal and the band love their jobs more than ever, and no amount of static is going to clutter their rock ‘n' roll frequency for long.

"We've experienced everything a band can experience, from success to failure, from people leaving to people dying, and that has prepared us for anything," Kanal said. "We know we're working in a fickle industry, and we know that the chances of having a successful record are very low, and the chances of having a successful records are extremely low. We know the reality of the situation, so we won't be setting our sights real high.

"What's most important to us is that we make another record we're proud of, and that's what we're concentrating on. You can't put your finger on why things happen the way they do, so you just try to roll with the punches."