SPIN (February 2002)
Tony Kanal
The No Doubt bassist gets psyched to Prince, blisses out to the Cure, and really misses Sublime
“I never had a cool older brother or sister to turn me on to cool music,” says No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal. “I had to discover it for myself.” Calling just before his band’s The Singles 1992-2003 hit stores, the London-born, Orange County-bred Kanal, 33, spun the soundtrack to his far-flung musical upbringing. As an added bonus, Gwen Stefani sat in the background correcting his grammar (‘“Gwen and /,’ not ‘Gwen and me’ ’’) and ticking off her own supposed favorites (“Michael Bolton, Kenny G, Celine Dion”).
A. MEN AT WORK BUSINESS AS USUAL (CBS, 1982) "This is the first record I ever bought. I was starting junior high, and I wanted to be in the [school] band, but I didn’t know what instrument to play. My dad was driving me to school one day, and ‘Who Can It Be Now?’ came on the radio. He said, ‘That’s a sax.’ So I started playing sax.”
B. PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION PURPLE RAIN (Warner Bros., 1984) “We had just moved from England, and I became obsessed with Prince. I was on the swim team, and I had to get up at 6 a.m. for practice. I listened to this tape to get myself up. There’s an instrumental part on ‘Computer Blue’ that I'd keep rewinding to get the adrenaline flowing.”
C. SIGUESIGUE SPUTNIK FLAUNT IT (EMI, 1986) “During the summer between ninth and tenth grade, we went on vacation to India and then England. I decided to buy some records that I couldn’t get at home. I picked this because it was on the front rack of the store, but also because I loved the cover. They were so ahead of their time in making sophisticated new wave—they even put commercials between songs.”
D. BAD BRAINS I AGAINST I (SST, 1986) “Bad Brains are so underrated. It's weird—we've worked with people in the reggae world, and nobody knows about them. I Against I doesn’t have any actual reggae songs, but, to me, this is their most consistent album. They're doing hardcore stuff, but there are also amazing metal grooves.”
E. THE CURE STARING AT THE SEA—THE SINGLES (Elektra, 1986) “This is the rare greatest-hits record that takes on a life of its own— it’s not just a compilation that was thrown together. ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ was the first song I learned on bass. There was a period around '96 or '97 where I thought it was really fun to have sex to Cure records. The girls liked it, too. It added a surreal Twin Peaks element."
F. THE RED HOT CHILLI PEPPERS THE UPLIFT MOFO PARTY PLAN (EMI/Manhattan, 1987) “I'd go see them just to see Flea, who was such a huge influence on me to be a bass player. To be 16 or 17 and hear ‘Fight Like a Brave’—the world seemed so fresh and exciting. I remember buying this on vinyl when it came out around Christmas 1987. Around the same time, we bought tickets to see them, and [original No Doubt singer] John [Spence] killed himself a week later.”
G. BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS CONFRONTATION (Tuff Gong, 1983) “I got this in 1988 just as I was starting college, and my first few years were all about this album. I love [bassist] Aston ‘Family Man' Barrett. He played the sort of bass lines I’ve struggled with all my life—that less-is-more reggae concept. When we went to Jamaica to work with [legendary rhythm section] Sly & Robbie, Sly forced me to play with my thumb, because he said I was playing too aggressively.”
H. THE SPECIAL A.K.A. IN THE STUDIO (2 Tone/Chrysalis, 1984) “This was another album that made up the sonic landscape of the '80s for me. It’s really experimental and sophisticated ska, but it also has cool songs. Lyrically, ‘Racist Friend' is one of the greatest songs ever written."
I. FISHBONE TRUTH AND SOUL (Columbia, 1988) “Fishbone are probably the band that influenced us the most. We got to know them by opening for them. We got an advance tape of Truth and Soul back when getting an advance tape seemed like a big deal [laughs]. I can still remember hearing them do the songs at sound check."
J. SUBLIME 40 OZ. TO FREEDOM (MCA, 1992) “This is really raw and pure. It captures how fucking brilliant a songwriter Brad Nowell was and how amazing and innocent these guys were when it came to music. I remember getting a demo of theirs, and me and Gwen wore it out in the car. You never knew what you were going to get with them. They played at my 22nd birthday party—Sublime in our suburban Orange County home, singing about licking pussy.”