NPR (March 13th 2016)
Comeback Girl: Gwen Stefani on Healing in Public
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: And we now move ever-so-gracefully from the sounds of one 1990s diva to another.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUST A GIRL")
NO DOUBT: (Singing) Take this pink ribbon off my eyes. I'm exposed, and it's no big surprise.
MARTIN: Of course, this is Gwen Stefani - rocker, fashion icon, mother of three and, for most of her career, the frontwoman for the band No Doubt.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUST A GIRL")
DOUBT: (Singing) 'Cause I'm just a girl, a little old me. Well, don't let me out of your sight.
MARTIN: The platinum hair, the steel-toed combat boots and that voice put Gwen Stefani in the center of the musical universe in the 1990s and 2000s with No Doubt and on her own as a solo artist. And as a judge on NBC's "The Voice," she has, today, attracted yet another generation of fans. I got to talk with Gwen Stefani recently and was struck at how quickly she opens up about her own insecurities.
GWEN STEFANI: When you walk in the room when you're me (laughter), like, everyone seems to know me. Yeah, but I don't know them.
MARTIN: I imagine that's really unsettling.
STEFANI: Well, it just makes you go - well, I wonder what their version of me is, and what they think I'm like, and what kind of talent they think I have or don't have?
MARTIN: There's a lot of that kind of introspection on Gwen Stefani's new solo album. It's called "This Is What The Truth Feels Like," and she says it's a direct response to a very painful and public breakup.
STEFANI: Last February, I think a lot of people know that my life fell apart. My family fell apart. Everything fell apart. And there was a moment where I was talking to my girlfriend. I felt quite embarrassed. And I just felt like, God, I have to - somehow I have to turn this around. Like, I can't go down like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME WITHOUT YOU")
STEFANI: (Singing) Take anything you want I'm ready. Take - you can take it, I don't care. I don't care.
I just knew that I needed to turn to music, and that's what this whole record documents is working through it, like, having faith and, like, believing in myself and wanting to do something about it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME WITHOUT YOU")
STEFANI: (Singing) Oh - and now I'm me without you. And things about to get real good. Watch me breathe without you. And things about to get real good.
MARTIN: Does it ever feel strange to you to have to be recording this stuff and singing these songs that are so incredibly personal and sometimes to strangers? And you end up being so vulnerable.
STEFANI: This is the first record I've ever made in real-time, where you're going through something. Like, "Used To Love You" came out three weeks after I wrote it. Like, it was literally happening. So...
MARTIN: And you were still - I mean, how long after your divorce had this...
STEFANI: I was having - I'm having it. (Laughter) I'm in the middle of it.
MARTIN: It's still happening.
STEFANI: It's still happening.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "USED TO LOVE YOU")
STEFANI: (Singing) Never thought this would happen, got to let it sink in. You're gone. Don't know - know what I'm feeling. I must be dreaming. You're gone.
MARTIN: Are there things you won't write about?
STEFANI: I don't know. I didn't edit myself at all. I - there's times...
MARTIN: You've never written a lyric where you thought - that's too personal - I'm not keeping it?
STEFANI: No. No because it's, like, I'm just writing what I feel. And, like, I really don't think I've done anything wrong, and I have nothing to hide. The biggest thing - the newest thing is, obviously - and I don't even like to bring up this - but my children, you know what I mean. You have to protect them.
MARTIN: Yeah.
STEFANI: But I think that when you're being honest and truthful it's, like - I mean, I just believe that's the best way to be. And ultimately, yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "USED TO LOVE YOU")
STEFANI: (Singing) I don't know why I cry, but I think it's 'cause I remember for the first time since I hated you that I used to love you.
MARTIN: You were working on "The Voice" when you were still nursing your third child (laughter). As a mother of two...
STEFANI: Dude, my baby just came out the belly.
MARTIN: I'm still, like - what?
STEFANI: I had literally - I got the call, and I had - you know when people come to see the baby for first time?
MARTIN: Yeah.
STEFANI: I was - they were all over when I got the call. My lawyer was there. My parents were there. My niece was there. And I can remember because we'd be on the set. And, you know, there's so many people working, and everybody there is so incredible that you have all these guys that have those little headset on.
MARTIN: Yeah.
STEFANI: And they'd be, like, time to breastfeed.
(LAUGHTER)
STEFANI: And, like, they would literally be like - I'd be, like, why do they have to say breastfeed? Like, can't they just say Gwen needs a break? Like, and it would be, like, in the thing - like, in the speaker. And everyone would know that I was going off. And it was pretty amazing to watch - like, have Apollo there and everybody got to watch him kind of grow up, you know, and it was an incredible time.
MARTIN: I don't want to pry into your kids' life. But I am curious about what kind of - how you've changed as a mom. How you doing third time around?
STEFANI: Oh (laughter). When I first had the baby, the first baby, I was like, oh, I'm not different. I'm not different, uh-uh-uh. Like, you know what I mean? Like...
MARTIN: You're, like, I'm a pop star.
STEFANI: You know, you just don't feel that different. You just have this new, like, amazing thing that you drag around everywhere. And you keep your life going. Everything is the same (laughter). You know, as they grow, obviously, you have to evolve and change. And, you know, it's weird because you think of - when you're a little girl, you think I want a baby. You don't think I 10-year-old. Do you know what I mean?
MARTIN: Yeah.
STEFANI: It doesn't cross your mind.
MARTIN: I've never thought that ever.
(LAUGHTER)
STEFANI: And I, for sure, will say out of everything I've ever done in my entire life, it's the hardest thing. And I never thought it would be how it is right now, which is, you know - my parents are still married, and they met in high school.
MARTIN: Are they?
STEFANI: Yeah. My sister and brother-in-law - my brother and my sister-in-law, they've been together since they were 15. They have - you know what I mean? It's weird to me to be in this place, but I guess, you know, you just never know what's going to happen next.
NB: This part of the interview wasn't included in the final broadcast.
Rachel Martin: This is your first solo release in many years, and the process took a while: You wrote some songs, and then you scrapped them. What happened?
Gwen Stefani: I had done the No Doubt record Push and Shove, and that was a real challenge for me: I think after the giving birth twice, going on multiple tours, all the stuff that I had done, I really got quite burned out after that. Sometimes life is so crazy, you have to go through something to be able to find out what you're supposed to talk about next, and I think that's what happened to me.
I had gotten pregnant with Apollo, and I didn't plan on that — it was just such a beautiful miracle. Four weeks later they called me and, like "Do you want to do The Voice?" It was this incredible opportunity to do something different. It's not about me — it's like, "How can I help you?" And when you give like that, you receive so much. It was an incredible experience, but it also gave me that bug: I wanted new music so badly.
So, I was trying to cheat a little bit. I was like, "OK, maybe I can just do it the way everyone else does it: just get other people to write my music for me, and I can kind of tell them what to write, and curate it." I just gave birth, I'm nursing, I'm on a new TV show and I have two other kids. It's impossible! So let's do it the way we can. And I tried that for a while, and actually had almost a whole record. I put out a song called "Baby Don't Lie" — I don't know if you remember that one. But overall, it just didn't feel right.
Am I right that you were working on these songs with Pharrell?
You're kind of right: I did write a song with Pharrell. He had called me right after I gave birth and was like, "Do you want to do Coachella with me?" It was right at the height of "Happy," and my boys were so obsessed with him. So I got a tour bus, and the first time I walked outside my house after giving birth to Apollo was to do "Hollaback Girl" onstage.
It's not like we were super close, but he is one of those people that always pointed me in the right direction. He's quite spiritual, and always said really poignant things to me that changed my life, let alone the music we wrote together.
Like what?
He can read people, you know? He can tell your insecurities and kind of be like, "Why are you letting everybody control you?" Things that tap into something inside you that you already know. That's why he's so good on "The Voice" — he just has that gift. And so, when we were on the show, he came to my dressing room and was like, "I got a beat! I got a track!" That was "Spark the Fire," the song that we wrote together, and it was the first bit of writing that I had done in a long time.
I think after doing Push and Shove and having it not be successful, I lost a lot of confidence. Songwriting, for me, has always been traumatic, and I've always made all these excuses. But I've realized that you have to just accept that it was a gift: "I don't know where it came from, I don't know how I did it, but I did write all those songs, and I gotta do it again."
Why is songwriting traumatic?
Because when you write a great song, it just blows you away. When you write a song that connects with people around the world — I mean like it actually transcends language barriers — you see how it can affect people, and it's quite a tall order to follow up on. I think when I first started discovering I could write songs, I was so naive. And it was after I got broken up with and had my heart sliced up into a bunch of little pieces that I was like, "I'm going to say this." I didn't even know how to play guitar.
We should say — you're talking about your relationship with your bandmate, Tony Kanal. A lot of the songs on Tragic Kingdom, which was a big breakthrough for No Doubt, were written in the context of you two splitting up.
But it's funny — my point is that that record was so naively made. We'd been a band for nine years, never trying to make it. We were making music that was the opposite of grunge and what was popular on the radio, and we were fine with that. And for a garage band, we were massive! We were already successful in our own minds. So when that record came out and made such an impact, and people were relating to it, it was like my life on a plate; it was intense. So, I think I took songwriting real seriously after that, but I never knew how I did it. Because it's not a button that you press.
Is this new album confessional in the same way? Did you have to plumb some of those same emotional spaces to get the songs you wanted?
Well, when I started the first version of this record — the fake, cheating version — the intention was like, "What can it sound like? I want to be back on the radio. I want this, I want that." Then, last February, I think a lot of people know that my life fell apart.
You got a divorce.
I got a divorce. The D-word.
From your husband of many years. How long were you married?
Fourteen. Together 20. You just crumble, you know? I was down — I was all the way down. And I just felt like, "God, I gotta turn this around. I can't go down like this. I have to know that this is happening for a reason." And I knew that I had to turn to music.
I went to the studio and I wrote the first song, and it was this really weird drive on Santa Monica Boulevard, crying the whole way, thinking, "Why am I going to torture myself even more? I'm already dead." But I did it — I wrote a song and it felt so right. It was the only thing that felt good at all. That's what this whole record documents — working through it, having faith, believing in myself and wanting to do something about it. And this is the first record I've ever made in real time: "Used to Love You" came out three weeks after I wrote it.
It must put you in a vulnerable place. Are there things you won't write about?
I don't know. I didn't edit myself at all.
You've never written a lyric and thought, "That's too personal. I can't keep that"?
No. Because I'm just writing what I feel, and I really don't think I've done anything wrong that I need to hide. The biggest thing, and I don't even like to bring it up, is my children — you know, you've gotta protect them. I have people that are affected by what I do, what I say, and that would be the one place where it gets complicated. But being honest and truthful — I just believe that's the best way to be.
MARTIN: This is the part of interview where I have to ask you about Blake Shelton. But I have a real question because...
STEFANI: Who?
MARTIN: Yeah, I know. Who's that guy?
This is, as you have described it, you know, you were going to some dark places as a form of catharsis to get over a breakup with his album. But from reports from your social media, you look to be happy and in a new relationship. Is it as easy to find inspiration and creativity in the joy of a new relationship as it is in the pain of an old one?
STEFANI: I think that's what so kind of magical about the album is it starts off angry, sad, mad, angry, angry (laughter) and quite sarcastic. And then it really does take a huge to, like, hope. And so, to have a friend come along when I just thought it was over for me, like, is just a real true miracle, and I'm so - I feel like, if anything, like, people would want to say - like, how do you evolve as a musician or in your sound? Or, I mean, the biggest evolution is writing a song that's happy for God's sake. I mean, it's so great - do you know what I mean? - to be able to write a record that's mainly about being happy. And that's something new for me. So - not that I'm not a happy person, but we know about my past.
MARTIN: I'm glad you're in a good place. That's great.
STEFANI: Thank you. Yeah.
MARTIN: Gwen Stefani, her new album is called "This Is What The Truth Feels Like," and it comes out Friday, March 18. Gwen, thanks so much for talking with us.
STEFANI: Wow, you're awesome. Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAKE ME LIKE YOU")
STEFANI: (Singing) I was fine before I met you. I was broken but fine. I was lost and uncertain, but my heart was still mine. I was free before I met you. I was broken but free. All alone in a clear view, but now you are all I see. Hey, wait a minute...
MARTIN: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAKE ME LIKE YOU")
STEFANI: (Singing) Wait a minute. No, that's not fair. Hey, wait a minute. You're on me like jewelry. I really like you, but I'm so scared.