99Xpress (December 1996)

No Doubt: More Than Pleasing To The Eye

You've heard of No Doubt.

That new California band? "Just a Girl," "Spiderwebs?" Long-legged, bare-midriffed beautiful blonde backed up by a few studio musicians, pogo-ing through a frenetic set of ghostwritten pop/punk/ska tunes? That's them, right?

Wrong. Turns out this outfit has been bouncing around L.A.-area clubs for nearly a decade, ripping through shows and taking their time, slowly building to their current status as pop's Big Thing of the Moment.

Starting out as a Southern California ska band, No Doubt has morphed into a combination of high-energy musical styles. The upbeat melodies and sometimes synthesized sound of their songs has led them to be called the Last New Wave Band. Cover your ears and blur your eyes, and that could be Debbie Harry and Blondie up there onstage.

Of course, it's little wonder what most folks' eyes are drawn to. With platinum-blonde hair framing a maddeningly cute pout and a penchant for belly button-baring ensembles, singer Gwen Stefani is a million-kilowatt bug light, zapping her millions of new teenaged fans into a starry-eyed oblivion. She hops around stage, whipping crowds into a frenzy, sucking up all their hormone-addled adulation.

The other three, the high-octane engine underneath Gwen's shiny exterior, can sometimes fade in and out at the fringes of her canopy of starlight. But make no mistake -- bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young are corners of this band.

Riding the success of the aforementioned two singles and the band's latest release, "Don't Speak," No Doubt is enjoying life at the top these days. Their current tour took them all across the United States and beyond, playing Europe, Australia and Asia before Gwen's voice gave out. After spending all of last month allowing her to recuperate, the band will make a run down the East Coast this month and head abroad once more next year to make up postponed dates.

A long way to go for a group that started out in 1987 playing parties at high school buddies' houses. "I can't believe this is my life," Gwen marvelled recently in Spin. "This is my loser band?"

No Doubt formed that year when classmate John Spence persuaded Gwen and her brother Eric Stefani to get together and play music. The Indian-born Kanal, whose family had migrated back and forth between England, Canada and the U.S. before settling in Anaheim when he was 11, joined the group a few months later. And shortly thereafter, Gwen and Tony formed a partnership of their own.

Much has happened since. The singer/bassist romance ended a couple years ago, providing emotional fodder for much of Gwen's lyrics. One might think Kanal would feel awkward onstage now, knowing that the unnamed other in love-gone-bad tunes like "Happy Now?" and "Don't Speak" is him. Not quite.

"The thing people don't get the opportunity to know is me and Gwen are still friends," Kanal says. "It's not this bitter divorce thing. It's not like these songs are statements by one person trying to hurt the other; these are little pieces of art that came together at a particular time in our lives, and they represent something that happened at that time."

Far from bitter, Gwen confesses to occasionally climbing into her bandmate's bunk to cuddle on those long trips between gigs. Intra-band breakups can sometimes spell doom for a group, but No Doubt had cleared much higher hurdles than this one.

Not long after Kanal joined the band, Spence committed suicide. Without him, Gwen took sole responsibility for singing duties. Dumont, a confessed metalhead, turned in his hairspray and spandex to become a fledgling ska guitarist. "I'm not ashamed of those days," Dumont manages, "but I wouldn't ever go back."

Throw in Young, one of the band's early followers, and the lineup was complete. The band built a following around the L.A. area, relying on their wild stage performances to draw fans. "Our live shows were really zany affairs," Dumont recalls. "We'd dress up sometimes in weird costumes and just do crazy shit."

1992 saw the release of No Doubt's eponymous debut, followed by more touring and a fit of songwriting. But more success equaled more frustration for Eric Stefani, a budding cartoonist who worked part-time on "The Simpsons." In a decision that made life easier for all involved, Eric left the band last year to pursue his animation career full-time, and he now spends his days happily inking Bart and Homer.

In early 1995, the band self-released a record called the Beacon Street Collection, a handful of songs they knew would not make it on the soon-to-follow Tragic Kingdom. The latter marks No Doubt's first effort under the Trauma/ Interscope label.

"Just a Girl," the band's first hit single, holds close to their ska/two-tone roots and gives Gwen a chance to vent her frustrations about being female in the '90s. When doing the song live, she sometimes closes by slowly curling into a fetal position onstage, whispering the chorus, "I'm just a girl/in the world," before exploding for the finale with the scream, "Fuck you! I'm a girl!"

Unfortunately, just a girl is what more and more people have been coming to view the band as since Tragic Kingdom made it big. With Gwen's looks and her singing anchoring the band's performances, she has become No Doubt. And though the other three choose their words carefully, it's evident they are uncomfortable with this, if for no other reason than when a band decision is needed on a matter and all four members are not around, third parties often defer to Gwen.

"The first thing to realize is that none of it is her fault," Kanal says flatly. "So for us, it's just something that's happening out of our control, and it's pretty new to the band. I mean, you hear about other bands having problems with it, but you don't really realize how intense it can be until you actually get to that point and it's happening to you, daily."

"I kind of like it, because it takes the attention off of me," Dumont says. "But the dynamic between us has changed a bit. Gwen's lyrics and melodies are probably the biggest part, but musically it's very much a collaboration."

Still, despite whatever tensions it might cause, No Doubt is learning to deal. "For the most part, we're over it now," Dumont continues. "We realize this is what the band is all about now, and this is just a different monster than it used to be." He also is quick to laugh the whole thing off: "Still, we get to play rock music every day; we're pretty lucky, y'know?"

Indeed, life at the top can be pretty fun. Kanal proudly announces he has a videotape of a recent performance in Washington's RFK Stadium, a festival in which No Doubt played alongside Foo Fighters, The Presidents of the United States of America and Garbage in front of 55,000 screamin' meemies.

"That was definitely the biggest show we've ever done," he says. "It's just phenomenal to watch the tape, because it's filmed from behind the stage, like us looking out. To watch the audience go nuts, it's pretty awesome."

Asked whether he's adjusted to having Made It Big, Dumont laughs, "No, I'm still pinching. We played at the Universal Amphitheater in L.A., and it's so surreal to walk onstage in a place like that, where I've seen so many concerts and so many great bands, and to realize that we're doing it. It's our thing, we're playing and we're pulling it off, and people seem to like it."

But nearly 10 years of playing shows, watching friends die and leave the band, and just getting to know the music industry has taught this band that success, while no doubt "bitchin'," can be fleeting.

"You have to adopt a philosophy of hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, because things change overnight," Kanal says. "It's human nature to want things to get better and better, but you know what? Things are about as good as they get at this point."