Harpers & Queen (December 2004)

Rock idol

Equal parts punkette and starlet, gwen Stefani is about to go super-stellar. Scorsese’s new star and pop’s hottest hybrid, she’s far from just a girl, says Charlotte Sinclair.

Gwen Stefani is half way through our cover shoot when there’s a security breach at the country house that’s serving as our location. While on a tour of the building, a group of blue-rinsed ladies stumble into the music room where Gwen is being photographed. If the peroxide blonde with flowers in her hairs stirs recognition in the octogenarians, it probably owes more to their memories of Forties starlets than any familiarity with the sexy, stylish, stiletto-wearing tomboy who fronts the Californian rock band No Doubt. Gwen is non-plussed, and smiles graciously, arching a perfectly penciled eyebrow at the group as they are ushered outside outside onto the lawn, their chorus of interest (‘Goodness, wasn’t she pretty?’ and ‘Who was that?’) drifting in through the open window as the shoot resumes. The renegade OAPs could be forgiven for their ignorance, but Gwen Stefani – whose currency as a bona fide rock chick, fashion icon and budding actress is already soaring – is about to hit the big time.

A few days previously, I was led into a closed room as St Martins Lane hotel to listen to exclusive tracks from Stefani’s new solo album, Love Angel Music Baby. The clandestine circumstances say much about her exalted status. With the kind of secrecy usually reserved for top-selling global artists such as U2 and Madonna, I was allowed only a supervised listening of three of Stefani’s new tracks, the words of which I had to frantically scribble down before the lyric sheets were snatched back at the end of the session. There was no question of taking the CD home. The album is her ’side project’ – her first record without the No Doubt boys (ex-boyfriend and bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont, and drummer Adrian Young). As well as representing her solo debut, it marks her initiation into a more mainstream sound.

‘I had a very clear idea of the kind of record I wanted to make, as far as style and sound goes,’ says Stefani later. ‘I wanted to sound like Prince, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam and Club Nouveau.’ But the change in direction is not a snub to No Doubt’s sound. ‘It’s not like, “Gi, I’m Gwen Stefani and this is me; these are my true feelings because I’ve been compromising all these years,” ‘ she says. ‘That was the true me the whole time.’ The songs, upbeat dance tracks with a strong Eighties influence and plenty of attitude, include her first single, ‘What You Waiting For?’, produced with Linda Perry (who has written songs for Christina Aguilera and Cortney Love), and ‘Bubble Pop Electric,’ a frenetic beat-filled track produced with Andre 3000 of OutKast. The Neptunes, Dr Dre and New Order are among other collaborators. Gwen’s voice switches from a tremulous vibrato reminiscent of Kate Bush in ‘Cool’, a wistful song about past love, to a throaty Debbie Harry growl for such lines as ‘I’m itching, wish you could come and scratch me’ in ‘Bubble Pop Electric’.

Stefani’s half-street, half-sweet image reveals the contradictions in her. With an English husband (36-year-old Gavin Rossdale of the rock band Bush), a Primrose Hill pad whose elegance equals her own, and wholesome moral principles, commited Catholic Stefani has a classic, ladylike appeal. But equally, she’s a down-and-dirty riot-grrrl from Anaheim, CA, who has spent the past 17 years playing with the boys and sporadically dying her hair blue. ‘Being a girl in a band,’ she explains, ‘means that I want to do my own hair and wear cute clothes – but, when I get on stage, I want to rock out.’

Gwen has garnered a solid fanbase with No Doubt (with whom she has sold more than 25 million records and won three Grammys), but this temporary break from the band, plus her designs for burgeoning clothing line L.A.M.B, and a small but potentially career-break acting role as Jean Harlow in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, mean that everyone is watching Stefani now. As Missy Elliot, with whom she performed at the 2004 Brit Awards, says: ‘When Gwen does this, it’s not going to be just another record; it’s going to be an event.’

However, if she’s feeling the pressure, it’s not showing. It’s a yawning, sleep-fogged Stefani who walks into the old manor-house for our shoot. Pushing open the huge oak doors into the Tudor hallway, wearing a white tracksuit and trainers, she says in her surprisingly little voice: ‘This place is ridiculous!’ ‘Ridiculous’ and ’sick’ (Californian teen patois for fabulous) are trademark Stefani words that, sprinkled into conversation along with ‘dude’, ‘crazy’, and ‘magic’, make her sound younger than her years. She is someone who is visually defined by her make-up – the indelible slash of red lipstick, the long black Cleopatra kohl line on her eyelids – so her bare face comes as a shock. She stands in the dim and dusty hall, her skin clear and almost translucent, and her face dominated by huge brown eyes. A sliver of her famous washboard stomach flashes at her waist as she pushes away a strand of white-blonde hair from her eyes. ‘She ruined her hair on tour with bleach and hair pieces,’ says her stylist and friend Andrea Lieberman. You’ve got to admire Stefani’s commitment to peroxide. She even dedicated a song to her ravaged locks on No Doubt’s last album (the dancehall-influenced outrageously catchy Rock Steady), called ‘Platinum Blonde Life’: ‘I want a platinum blonde life/So I keep bleaching out the color.’

Against the back drop of faded glamour, Gwen plays the imperious and errant lady of the manor for the camera. She sings along to one of her new tracks, ‘It’s My Shit’, standing on the lawn in a floor length silver sheath dress.’ ‘Damn,’ she shouts over herself. ‘This song doesn’t match my dress.’ Stefani plays her part with élan, at one point standing in a revealing silk basque, throwing her head back, her hand on her forehead in mock faint, as 16 spectators look on. ‘Oh my God!’ she yells cheerfully on seeing the Polaroid. ‘Dude, I look like a mannequin. I had to wear this dress yesterday that was so tight my kidneys were squashed to hell,’ she adds. ‘It was amazing.’

Gwen Stefani has been experiencing a renaissance over the past couple of years. At 34 years old, she has become the kind of celebrity whose presence in the front row of a show lends instant kudos to the designer; gossip columnists adore her. At a time when Chloë Sevigny and Sarah Jessica Parker are revered for their offbeat fashion sense and quirky looks, it’s no wonder that Gwen, who can carry off dancehall-inspired ragga wear and Louis Vuitton prom dresses with equal ease, has become a style leader. And all without losing a shred of musical credibility. A collaboration with Moby, the ghetto-fabulous parody ‘South Side’ brought her to a new dance audience in 2000. Moby said: ‘She’s incredibly technically proficient and just a really remarkable singer.’ And last year’s hit, ‘Let Me Blow Ya Mind’, produced with rapper Eve, gave her approval with the hip-hop crowd, and further cross-genre appeal. The Eve video, the first for which Stefani used a stylist (‘Before that I always did everything myself’), also launched her new look: a slicker, slimmer Gwen whose colourful style had been refined with ‘that bling R’n'B lustre’, according to Danny Eccleston of Q magazine.

Sitting in a dusty armchair in an attic room filled, appropriately with vintage costumes, Gwen Stefani is voluble, launching straight into the story of her album. ‘I’m just going to go for it, OK?’ She is refreshingly honest and artless throughout, readily admitting her insecurities in going solo. ‘I don’t really know why I’m doing this record, either,’ she says. ‘I’m just as scared as the fans are for me, and I have been uptight about the whole thing. But I just want to do it.’ Stefani also understands how exacting her standards are. She tells me about a quarrel with Linda Perry over a song they wrote called ‘Wonderful Life For Him’ about Stefani’s first high-school crush, who died a few years ago. ‘I wasn’t finding the right way to say it, and Linda wrote these lyrics and it was the last straw. I was PMS-ing and just wanted to break out in tears,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘So I left and didn;t go back. But months later when I listened to the song again, it was beautiful – so I ended up recording it.’ She smiles, contritely spreading her hands.

A highly ambitious perfectionist, last year she launched herself into a punishing, itinerant recording schedule. ‘I wanted to take time off to get inspired but I was really feeling the clock. The ongoing joke between me and my husband,’ she says, rolling her eyes, ‘is that we went on vacation to the South of France when I got off the Tragic Kingdom tour. That was seven years ago. And there was our five-day honeymoon, which was the only other vacation we’ve ever had.’ And what of Rossdale? The pair met on a No doubt tour in 1995, when Stefani was 25. After a somewhat shaky courtship (during one break-up, Stefani famously dyed her hair pink, cut a fringe and got braces on her teeth), they married in 2002, once in St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden (‘by a Church of England vicar who was Gavin’s religious-studies teacher’) and once in LA; Gwen wore a John Galliano dress at both ceremonies. ‘It’s great to be married,’ said Gavin at the time. ‘It makes us feel our love is a lot deeper.’ I ask her how she copes with having a long-distance relationship. ‘For years, we were apart, which I think is a great thing when you’re creative people. Anything more than three weeks is really screwed up, and causes problems. But we know that it’s not going to be like this for ever,’ she says. ‘I think marriage goes in spurts. Sometimes you just can’t take it anymore and then, all of a sudden, you’re in love like you just met again.’ Babies are high on Gwen’s list, although when she will find the time is another matter. Fans have expressed concern about whether the couple will have enough time to devote to raising a child. ‘We’re just as worried about it as they are.’ says Stefani. ‘But it’ll happen when it happens.’

Stefani was born in 1969, into a musical family; her childhood memories are of her parents playing Bob Dylan and folk records. In 1986, she was asked to sing with her brother Eric and friend John Spence’s band, No Doubt. When Tony Kanal joined, he and Gwen started dating – he even took her to her senior prom. ‘My mom remade Grace Kelly’s dress from Rear Windowfor me to wear,’ she says. She has been with the band ever since. (‘I’ve been famous since I was 17 – I could go into Tower Records and be recognised,’ she says proudly, giggling.) But the band nearly collapsed when Spence committed suicide, and Eric departed. It was then that Gwen found her voice as a songwriter; in 1995 the band produced their hit album Tragic Kingdom, which sold more than 16 million copies. ‘Before, I was this Gwen, the little sister or girlfriend, and I was satisfied with that. I thought I could never have any kind of effect on anyone. Then I learnt I could write songs – I realised I had a talent and a power.’

This creative period also coincided with her break-up with Kanal. ‘Suddenly, I was this independent person who was happy and didn’t have to depend on my lover. Before that, I never really had anything of my own.’ The two have remained friends; the lament that resulted from the experience was the No Doubt hit ‘Don’t Speak’. Gwen really can write. Some of her lyrics are beautiful – for example, the phrase ‘Born to blossom and bloom to perish’ in Beauty Contest’. And with references to Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and Janis Joplin on No Doubt’s second album, Return of Saturn, Stefani proved herself to be anything but the dumb blonde.

It was the video for ‘Don’t Speak’, in which Gwen is seen moaning plaintively into a microphone, swaying barefoot in a blue polka-dot dress, that kicked off her reputation as a style leader. ‘I got that dress at a thrift store, five years before we shot the video,’ she says. ‘It smelled so bad that I never wore it. It’s a beautiful fabric, that really old rayon that just hangs beautifully.’ Her knowledge of how a fabric hangs is genuine. ‘It’s in my blood. My grandma made all my mom’s clothes, and my great-grandmother always sewed. Then, all through high school, and in the band, I made my own clothes,’ she says. ‘I used to make corset-style drop-waist dresses with a cheerleader skirt. Underneath I wore my boxer shorts, fishnets and Dr Martens. For years, though, I never wanted to talk about my style because I was more concerned with music.’ However, she now confesses that ‘the visuals on this record are as important as the music.’ She now understands the importance of image innately. ‘I had a very clear idea of how I wanted to look, and I prepared for it.’ She relates the story of her first ‘fashion moment’ with the gusto of a true addict. ‘I bought a Vivienne Westwood corset for $800 – with my own money – and wore it in a video. Then I got to meet her, which was like meeting the Queen. I was just like, “Aarrgh!” ‘

Stefani’s style aesthetic serves as a welcome foil tot he homogeneous Britney look predominant in the music industry. Gone is the unpolished grunge look; in its place is subtle overstatement with lots of colour. Knuckleduster rings and hound’s-tooth check culottes mix with McQueen gowns. Her body is taut and muscular, all traces of the ‘chubby child who had to join the swim team’ erased. ‘I’ve always had to work at it. I have a trainer, and when I’m at home I work out five days a week.’ Standing in a Dior dress with built in hips and a bustle, she says: ‘What was the point of all that dieting? On tour, we all went nuts. We were training all day and by the end of it I was like, “Damn!” I didn’t even recognise my own body. I just wanted to do the show naked.’ And does she feel the pressure to stay thin? ‘Beauty Contest’ has the lyrics: ‘How’d my vanity get such a mess/Reduce myself, I’ve got the strict restrictions.’ Gwen sighs. ‘Even if I wasn’t famous, I’d still feel the pressure because I think we all do.’

Doubtless, she forgives John Galliano for the extra Dior-enhanced curves. Her relationship with him is prolific, and culminated recently in Gwen wearing Dior in the video of No Doubt’s cover of Talk Talk’s ‘It’s My Life’, directed by David LaChapelle. ‘I got invited to my first Christian Dior show, and I cried,’ she says, slipping into ditsy LA speak. ‘I could not believe that someone made that look up.’ The respect is mutual. Galliano says: ‘She has a great energy. I love her personal style – she carries it off with such aplomb.’ Gwen leans forward conspiratorially in her chair. ‘I had John over to dinner the other night. It’s so weird; he was describing the whole couture show that he had just done and then today I’m wearing the dress!’

I ask Gwen if the white angora sweater she’s wearing is Westwood. ‘No, it’s one of my fall pieces. I think it’s gorgeous.’ She’s talking about L.A.M.B (which stands for Love, Angel, Music, Baby), the name of her fledging clothing and accessories line – as well as that of her new album – and yet another feature in her cap. Stefani clearly thrives on multitasking. Her design partner, LeSportsac’s CEO Tim Shifter, had his first encounter with Stefani at a Dior catwalk show. ‘Flashbulbs went off and the paparazzi started going crazy. At that moment I really understood what star she has. She is creative, full of ideas, and really has a sense of what her fans want.’ For Gwen, it is a far more selfish endeavor. ‘I’m not trying to impress anyone except for myself. I sit there and say, “What do I want to wear?” Then I make it.’ She giggles, as if she can’t believe her luck. L.A.M.B bestsellers include her punk-inspired bags with metallic zips. More than a mere vanity project, her bags are selling well. ‘For a while, I thought, “Why am I doing this? I just don’t have the time.” But Andrea helped me, and I’m going to keep getting good at it because I want to do it for ever. I’m not going to be dancing around for the rest of my life.’

An awareness of the limited longevity of the female of the female rock star could explain Stefani’s interest in film roles. ‘I’ve never acted but I always wanted to. I’ve tried out for films before [including Fight Club, Chicago and Girl, Interuppted], which is humiliating but fun.’ Having harboured a fascination with the Forties actress Jean Harlow for years, Gwen was ‘on the floor’ when Martin Scorsese sent her the script for The Aviator. ‘I was like, “You’re fucking kidding me!” ‘ she yells. Scorsese had seen Herb Ritts’ photographs of Gwen styled as Harlow, and asked her to come and meet him, ‘and dress like a lady’. The part only involved a couple of lines, but she auditioned in front of Scorsese and Leonardo Di Caprio, who plays Howard Hughes. Not bad for a debut. ‘I must have been there for about an hour, talking about the band and everything, and then they called, and I got it.’ Stefani considers it an auspicious start. ‘In the movie, Hughes gives Harlow her first role, in Hells Angels, so for me it’s like Scorsese giving me my first role… And it’s Jean Harlow, which is just so frickin’ weird,’ she laughs, shaking her head.

Stefani’s father, Dennis, in town on business, turns up to wait for his daughter to finish the shoot. As soon as he arrives, Gwen, standing the grounds in a transparent chiffon Lacroix skirt, starts to act the little girl. ‘I forgot to put my skirt on Daddy, don’t look,’ she shrieks. Between shots, she pleads with him not to read the gossip about her on the internet. ‘They even say I’ve had a boob job,’ she says, looking at her flat chest in horror. ‘You mustn’t read it Daddy.’ Theirs is a close relationship, and he appears quietly protective of her, despite her age. ‘I feel very stable because of my Catholic upbringing,’ Gwen has said. I ask Stefani Snr if his daughter has always been a star. ‘No, she’s always been regular. She never dressed sexy as a teen, not like Christina Aguilera. She had a ska tomboy look,’ he says. ‘She only got style when she started getting famous.’ He smiles, proving that celebrities have embarrassing parents.

For now, Stefani is happy – creatively fulfilled and settled in her marriage. She has even befriended fellow Londoner Madonna, although she doesn’t necessarily see her self as the same kind of feminist role model. ‘I always respected girls who were tough and could stand on their own. But I was making a stand. I was just a normal girl who didn’t know what was going to happen next; the normal one, over there, with the fat butt,’ she laughs loudly, pointing to an imaginary, plumper Gwen in the corner. The self-deprecation is difficult to accept from someone so assured. It’s far easier to believe the sass and ego of her lyrics in ‘What You Waiting For?’: ‘Look at your watch now/You’re still a super-hot female/You got your million-dollar contract/And they’re all waiting for your hot track/What you waiting for?’ Gwen’s face splits into a scarlet smile as she hears her own words. A super hot female? ‘Dude, you’d better believe it.’