The Times of India (Dec. 1st 2002)

And the band plays on...

Pop bands aren't supposed to be around after 15 years. By their nature, they capture the mood of a moment, and no one looks twice at the Next Big Thing cluttering America's used record bins. So the rise of No Doubt, once a marginal band on the fringes of LA's punk movement, is one of rock's most unlikely success stories. The band started playing at college halls, and now, it's fourth and latest album, Rock Steady, has recently been certified Platinum with one million units sold, buoyed by the peppy and bass-heavy single Hey Baby. 

"We've been through the experience of being in high school and starting a band," says Tony Kanal, the child of Sindhi immigrants, who settled in suburban Orange County and the band''s bassist. "Then we were also a garage band, while we were going to college, trying to make ends meet. Then we finally got a van, and started to tour around the country, playing for no money."

The band's vocalist Gwen Stefani, guitarist Tom Dumont, drummer Adrian Young and bassist Kanal survived the suicide of one of its founding members, John Spence, in December 1987; and the commercial letdown of its 2000 album, Return of Saturn. And when Kanal and Stefani ended a seven-year relationship, the whole world learned of it in the smash hit song, Don''t Speak, off the album Tragic Kingdom, which sold an astounding 12 million copies.

"We've experienced everything together," says Kanal, of the band. "But we also get to travel around the world together and see all these incredible things. It's a beautiful thing, being together for 15 years. I don't think anyone can relate to me as well as my band-mates can."

Tony Kanal was born in Kingsbury, a suburb of London. His father, Gulab Kanal, originally from Sukkur, Sindh (in what is now Pakistan), and his mother, Lajwanti, from Mumbai, were living in Britain but moved to the US in 1981.

Gulab Kanal started a shop called Kanal's Gift and Fashion, in Anaheim (near Disneyland), and unlike the stereotypical Indian father, openly encouraged his son to express his creative urges. By age 15, young Tony was playing saxophone in his high school's jazz ensemble, but found his punk and underground rock leanings at odds with the jazz band's scrubbed, wholesome school-approved persona.

When he first saw No Doubt play at a punk club in 1987, Kanal liked the band's sound: brash, frenetic and jumpy, inspired by the overcaffeinated reggae beat called ska. The band announced that their bass player was leaving the band. Intrigued, he showed up to audition in baggy pants and sandals, and was immediately accepted as No Doubt''s bassist despite the fact that he'd never played in a rock band before (some say it was because Gwen was drawn to his dark good looks).

In California, the Kanal household was always filled with the smells of Indian cooking and the sounds of Indian music. It was here, hanging out with Tony's family, that Gwen became interested in Indian culture, and through her it became the source of the bindis-'n'-mehndi trend that was later to adorn millions of American teens and start a full-on fashion craze.

"We dated when I was 16 up till I was 23," explains Kanal. "Those were very formative years for both of us. Just her spending time with my parents, and being influenced by Indian fashion and food and culture, and coming to Indian events and functions with us, kind of turned her on."
Stefani recalled those days in a recent interview with Rolling Stone: "They're such beautiful people," she said of Kanal's parents, "and they have such open minds. Especially in their community, because all their friends' kids are rich and going to Harvard. And here was Tony. In a band. With a white girlfriend."

But paradoxically, the Indian culture that Kanal grew to share with the world has had little influence on his own art. "I'm not that familiar with bhangra or Bollywood music," he says. "Maybe it's just a reaction that kids have, that you don''t really listen to stuff your parents listened to. I didn't think it was cool."

But he and his bandmates thoroughly relished their only visit to India in 1997, and Kanal is dying to get back. "It was spectacular. We played one show in Bangalore in a field where they'd never had a rock show before and when we got there, they were actually cutting the grass with scissors. And we went to Delhi for the Channel [V] Awards. It was great," he reminisces. "One thing we discovered was that everyone responds the same way, because now, everybody has MTV. It's very much a world culture now."