Sunday Herald Sun (Nov. 26th 2006)

Solo Stefani’s Sweet Success

This energetic songstress and mother has spent the past three months producing a new album while caring for her infant son, Fiona Hudson reports

Gwen Stefani's voice chirrups through tinny speakers in a London hotel suite: "I know you've been waiting, but I've been off making babies."

An hour later the lyrics from a song on Stefani's soon-to-be released second solo album The Sweet Escape are still on high rotation and there's no sign of the rock chick.

The new mum is running late because between a hectic schedule of promotional duties she must feed and burp six-month-old son Kingston.

When the energetic star finally appears there's not a hint of new-parent sleep deprivation on her carefully made-up face and no trace of baby vomit on her tomboy outfit.

Talking so fast even the tape recorder can barely keep up, she seems oddly abashed.

"I never intended to do another solo record. It's, like, kind of embarrassing talking about it," Stefani, 37, explains.

"I had a couple of amazing leftover tracks from the last one… but I wanted to have a baby. Now I have both. I'm just going with the flow."

The new offering is a turn-around from Love. Angel. Music. Baby, the eclectic blend of pop, R&B and hip-hop that launched her solo career.

"The last one was a total dance record. Not serious, very light. This one is way different," she says. "The inspiration for this one is `it doesn't have a direction', which makes it very modern."

Most of the new album was completed in the past three months, after the Grammy nominee gave birth.

Since becoming a mother, Stefani no longer compares the creative process of delivering an album with having a child.

"I used to always refer to it that way when I made records… now that I actually have a child I know it could never touch that.

"Everyone asks did motherhood change me -- I feel like it made my life better, more fun and richer and deeper."

The lyrics on The Sweet Escape are heavily autobiographical. "On the last record I was trying to be a bit more balanced, trying to play more character roles and be light-hearted. I fell back into my normal patterns on this one," she says. "I don't edit myself. I'm not scared to share myself with people."

There are, for example, several references to her feelings about husband Gavin Rossdale's recent revelations that he secretly fathered a child with another woman 15 years ago.

But the album is by no means all heavy-going.

The first single, Wind It Up, samples The Lonely Goatherd from the musical The Sound of Music. Stefani dons a nun's garb in the video and yodels and her wacky back-up entourage, the Harajuku Girls, wear identical blonde wigs as the Von Trapp children.

"I've always wanted to put The Sound of Music to a beat, it's been a fantasy of mine," she laughs.

Stefani agrees that, like Kylie Minogue and Madonna, she seems to have an amazing capacity to reinvent herself.

"It keeps getting evolved," she says. "I don't regret certain looks from the past. I look back and remember being that girl."

SHE pays homage to her roots on the new album with the track Orange County Girl, which to cynics could come over as an obligatory J-Lo-style "I'm still Jenny from the block" reassurance that she hasn't forgotten her past.

The girl from Anaheim, California seems genuine as she speaks of her surprise at the path her life has taken.

"I wanted to write a song about where I came from. I thought, `What has happened to my life?' I'm normal and this life is not," she says.

Stefani, who splits her life between Los Angeles and London's Primrose Hill, points to recent newspaper headlines hinting at a feud with Madonna as a sign of the madness. (Madge reportedly bitched that Stefani was copying her life and knocked back a gift of some clothes from Stefani's fashion range intended for her adopted African child.)

"It's a creation," Stefani sighs.

"She's been nothing but nice to me. She's invited me to her house for dinner… and clearly she's a huge inspiration musically."

Stefani again collaborates on The Sweet Escape with super producer Pharrell Williams and also joins forces with Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley.

Showing an unusual lack of self-confidence, she claims to have felt insecure about her abilities working alongside such talent.

"It makes me shrivel up. You feel in the shadow of greatness when you're in the studio with these people. When you're me… you think wow, that's a nice blank page -- I hope I can find something to say," she says.

Stefani feels less pressure when designing clothes for her successful fashion label L.A.M.B, worn by such celebs as Cameron Diaz and Paris Hilton. After a recent catwalk show in New York, US Vogue editor Anna Wintour said: "We will soon see L.A.M.B competing with Donna Karan's DKNY."

"The idea is to do the fashion for the rest of my life. I hate saying it, because if it folds everyone will know how much it hurts," says Stefani, once voted world's best dressed woman by Harpers & Queen magazine.

"It's fun and rewarding, but doesn't really drain you," she says.

The thought of the jetlag that will result from flying to Australia next year is offset by the thought of a chance to see the wildlife.

"I can't wait to take Kingston there to see the kangaroos. I know it sounds touristy, but I loved that when I was down there last time," she says.

The singer is puzzled by her popularity Down Under. (Two singles from her last album made it to No.1 -- What Are You Waiting For and Hollaback Girl).

"I have no idea why people like me. But I'm looking forward to going there and figuring it out."