Billboard (Dec. 8th 2001)
No Doubt keeps 'Steady' course
No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal recalls he and his bandmates being stuck in London Sept. 11. They were in the city to work on the band's forthcoming album, Rock Steady (Dec. 11), and he says it was "a really tough, anxious time to be away from home."
Comforting was "the fact that the four of us were together," he adds. "It was like being with your family away from home."
It was another example of the band members' ongoing allegiance to each other, even after roughly 15 years together and in light of singer Gwen Stefani's recent success away from the band on projects with Moby and Eve.
Kanal says the title of the act's new album is meant to describe that bond. (It's also a shout-out to the type of reggae that inspired Rock Steady.) The band will perform the album's first single, "Hey Baby," at the Billboard Music Awards Dec. 4.
After adopting a somewhat more serious, rock tone on last year's Glen Ballard-produced Return of Saturn, the genre-bending act-- born out of the Orange County, Calif., ska scene-continues its musical evolution on Rock Steady, which blends '80s new-wave with dancehall and hip-hop.
"I think we're going back to what we were originally about, which was just having fun," Kanal says of Rock Steady, which features songs co-written by the band and Prince, dancehall artists Lady Saw and Bounty Killer, the Neptunes, and the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart. The production included work by Sly and Robbie, Steely & Clevie, Nellee Hooper, Ric Ocasek, and William Orbit.
Making the album was "super fun," says Stefani, who compares the collaborations to "getting naked in front of someone you've never met before and trying to be creative."
Many of the songs on Rock Steady were written rather quickly (in minutes or a few hours), making the album sound fun and fresh. After spending nearly two years making Return-on which Kanal says the band members felt the need to prove themselves as songwriters and musicians, after the group's 1995 smash Tragic Kingdom sold upward of 12 million units worldwide-there was an emphasis on spontaneity on this album, tracked in Los Angeles, London, and Kingston, Jamaica.
Partially because the group had such a blast making Rock Steady, Kanal says fans should expect the band to continue to mix it up in the future. "We're inspired by bands that constantly seem to keep changing on their records," he says. "Bands like Queen and U2these guys are constantly taking risks and being brave, whether or not they're commercially successful. They're still changing and keeping things fresh."