Sydney Morning Herald (Oct. 13th 2000)
Girl Trouble
Gwen Stefani went from No Doubt to self-doubt, but now she's back, writes NATASHA SKRIVANKOVA.
She was MTV's pin-up girl; a neon-haired jolt of energy in an era of angst-by-numbers guitar bands. Gwen Stefani and her Orange County skate/punk/ska/pop band No Doubt were also an overdue reminder you can rock and keep your sense of humour.
The album was 1995's Tragic Kingdom and the single was Just a Girl - Stefani's tongue-in-cheek analysis of the everyday perils of being a girl. Girls and boys got the message, turning No Doubt's live shows into what Rolling Stone magazine described as "one seething, hyperkinetic party".
Explaining the process, No Doubt's bassist (and Stefani's former lover) Tony Kanal said: "What's cool is that because we have a female singing, Gwen gets the girls into it, lets them participate. With a lot of other bands it's just a testosterone thing."
Tragic Kingdom sold 15 million copies and dispatched the band on a relentless world tour for two-and-a-half years. When it finally drew to a halt, Stefani stopped, took stock of her life, and freaked out: "I realised that I couldn't go on any more and I was totally depressed," she says.
The band's new album, Return Of Saturn, charts her struggle through an ensuing transitional phase, when she became plagued by self-doubt. It is moodier, more reflective and more romantic than the band's previous three albums and moves away from the ska-feel which defined their earlier work.
The title of the album, for which Stefani wrote all the melodies and lyrics, refers to the notion that it takes 29 years (the same time it takes for the planet Saturn to orbit the Sun) before someone can begin to understand who they are.
"It's really hard to keep the balance when you're in a band that you're so dedicated to. It takes everything to write and record. That's why I have a lot of songs about my flawed love life, because that part of my life always seems to get neglected."
She's referring to her ongoing relationship with Gavin Rossdale, heart-throb frontman of English rock group Bush. On Saturn, Stefani's relations with her beau range from the day-dreaming of Too Late - "I'd put you on like a diamond/so I can sparkle and be the envy of my friends" - to her recognition of the fear, jealousy and misunderstandings that dog any long-distance relationship.
"It [love] gets a little crazier the older you get," says Stefani, who turns 31 this month. "I think I'm more lost now than I've ever been."
On the upside, chart success means No Doubt can command an unlimited budget and time frame in which to produce its music.
Stefani: "We've experienced it all: we got to be the garage band, the up-and-coming buzz band, the worldwide hit band, the popular band and we got to experience making a record and being told to take as long as we want and spend as much money as we want. It feels good to be at that point and have so much freedom. I'm pretty lucky."
After a month-long break, Stefani says she's excited about hitting the road, and that she's even excited about coming to Australia, despite the fact that previous trips here seem to have been jinxed: "The last time I was in Australia, my dog that I'd had for 15 years died, "she says. "[But] it's going to be good this time ... it's going to be fun."