MTV Online (Jan. 17th 1997)
It’s No Doubt, Not The Gwen Stefani Experience
When your highly successful band is fronted by a cute blonde, as is the case with the veteran ska collective No Doubt, the boys in the background can easily find themselves starved for press attention.
Gwen Stefani is the singer, of course, and her bandmates guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, and drummer Adrian Young deserve to be heard as well.
With their Tragic Kingdom album poised atop the Billboard chart for the sixth week in a row, the band is understandably psyched. However, the last year has brought plenty of tension within the group. While Stefani arose as a pop culture icon, the other band members felt a little left out, an issue they address in the video for "Don't Speak."
"The video speaks volumes about what bands can go through," Kanal told MTV News. "That whole situation was something that we dealt with for a year but we're kinda past it at this point. We've kinda like moved away from it, and we're concentrating on the future, and things that are important to us right now."
However, when No Doubt jumped in front of the camera again for the video for "Excuse Me Mr.," the band addressed the topic again, but in a more light-hearted way.
"The song is just your basic love song, and we wanted to give it a little more depth with the video," Stefani said. "Basically the whole thing is about me trying to get attention, and like hogging the camera."
The "Excuse Me, Mr." clip will debut on MTV this Sunday, at 6 a.m., and 5 and 9 p.m. No Doubt will then take their notoriously energetic show on the road when they launch another U.S. tour in April. Interview follows:
MTV NEWS: How did you get involved with the "Enough Already" Benefit?
GWEN STEFANI: Basically, we've known Sublime since 1989 and played tons of shows with 'em. And then, we lost a very talented and amazing singer/songwriter [Brad Nowell] because of drugs, a total waste. Basically, Troy, his wife, wanted to put together this show to bring awareness to people that we're not going to stand for it, and it is a big loss and a big waste. Of course, we're going to be involved. He was a great friend of ours, so that's basically why we're doing it. Also, they have a beautiful son, Jacob, and this insures that he's gonna' have college education and these kinds of things. It's amazing now to have the power to have people buy tickets so we can help people out. Ya' know, we did the benefit for C.H.O.P. last night, which is the Children's Hospital of Orange County. It felt really good to be able to give money for that too.
MTV NEWS: A lot of people might wonder why a band like you guys who haven't had any drug problems should get involved? Why should you care?
GWEN STEFANI: Just because we haven't done it, we've been surrounded by people that do do it. I mean, the whole music business is surrounded by it all the time. It's right in out faces all the time too and it's scary. So of course we want to be involved. It frightens me, really frightens me. I always used to have nightmares about stepping on needles and stuff like that. Heroin's, like, the scary one for me.
TONY KANAL: Some of the money raised tonight also goes towards the Musician's Assistance Program which was founded by Buddy Arnold to help musicians and artists who are having drug problems. It's a no questions asked program. It helps these musicians and artists who are having problems get the financial support and the emotional support to get through and come out on the other side. So, the money's definitely going to two good causes.
MTV NEWS: Do you think that programs like MusicCares and the Musician's Assistance Program are going to take off and do something positive?
ADRIAN YOUNG: It's hard to say how much these programs can do. Hopefully, they will educate people, but these drugs are so powerful that some people just can't be stopped. And unfortunately, it's been like that for many years. And I have a hard time picturing it really changing some people who are so compulsive about the things they do. And when you get a compulsive person that starts doing hardcore drugs, some can be stopped and some can't. It doesn't sound that optimistic, but some people can be stopped and some can't.
TOM DUMONT: It's definitely worth our effort to try to be a part of things like this to make whatever difference we can, even if we help just five people than that's definitely worth it for us to be able to help anybody.
TONY KANAL: It's important to reach those kids who haven't taken the step in the wrong direction yet and let them know there are other options out there in life. You don't need drugs to make you feel good. You can have music, music can be the best drug in the world. Once you're playing music or listening to bands you love to listen to, for me, that's my drug. It's better than any else I've ever experienced. So I think there are so many options out there for people who haven't taken that step to know that they have those options.
MTV NEWS: How weird is it to have been around for ten years and be nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy?
ADRIAN YOUNG: When I first heard about that, I was thinking, "This is going to be weird. I don't even know if we want to win this or if I'd even want to be involved with winning that."
MTV NEWS: Much has been made in the past couple years of the Best New Artist Curse.
TONY KANAL: The kiss of death?
MTV NEWS: The Kiss of Death, as they call it. Are you guys worried at all about that?
TONY KANAL: Tom was telling me at least it's not the fart of death. 'Cuz a kiss could be very passionate, ya' know? And if you're going to die, you might as well go out kissing someone or being kissed in a passionate embrace. I think that since we've been together for so many years, hopefully that will un-jinx us.
ADRIAN YOUNG: I don't think that we're going to win, honestly, anyway.
MTV NEWS: You've said before that you wouldn't be surprised if nobody knew who we were a year from now. Is that pessimism or realism or are you just grounded?
ADRIAN YOUNG: It was a realism before last week. Now that we're playing the Grammys, next year somebody in America will know who we are.
TONY KANAL: Your parents definitely still know who you are.
ADRIAN YOUNG: Exactly.
MTV NEWS: What's performing at the Grammy's going to be like?
TONY KANAL: I heard that they're making us play on the roof. They heard that we're the band that plays outside.
MTV NEWS: Are you nervous?
TONY KANAL: We're excited to play 'cuz for us, doing a live show is what we live for, what's kept us going for ten years. So just having the opportunity to perform makes us feel really good. We're gonna' have a good time, I think it is gonna be a black tie affair, but our parents are going, and our parents are getting into the moshing and stage-diving, and the whole thing, so I think they'll probably start the pit. I'm not too worried. My dad can get a really great pit going.
MTV NEWS: Was making the "Don't Speak" video therapeutic in any way?
GWEN STEFANI: Last night we played a show and my older brother Eric was there and so I dedicated "Don't Speak" to him, so he got very emotional. And then we played an old, old song called "Total Hate" afterward so he did a stage dive and totally hurt himself, like, really badly. He has this totally big bruise on his back. I thought that was really funny, because he's almost thirty...
TONY KANAL: That whole situation was something that we dealt with for a year, but we're kinda passed it at this point. We've kinda like moved away from it, and we're concentrating on the future and things that are important to us right now. The video speaks volumes about what bands can go through, but we're kinda moving away from that situation right now. We're happy.
TOM DUMONT: Whatever it is we've gone through, we've always persevered, and we've never had a problem being the best of friends after the tension was over. Kinda' like brothers and sisters, no matter what we go through, somehow this chemistry always keeps us together. No matter what happens, we always have fun doing this.
MTV NEWS: How does it make you guys feel to be this Orange County underground ska band that moms are totally dig?
TOM DUMONT: We've always done like, kinda' cheesy power ballads.
GWEN STEFANI: Ohhh. That's not what it is. That came from my heart.
TONY KANAL: Well, well, OK.
GWEN STEFANI: It's not cheesy.
TOM DUMONT: I don't mean it in a bad way, but we've always felt comfortable playing whatever style of music. It's just part of what we are, ya know? Every one of our singles is very different, ya know? "Just a Girl" is very different from "Spiderwebs," which is different from.... It's just always been about mixing this big salad of styles. We just toss the salad. "Don't Speak" is like the cheese on top.
GWEN STEFANI: The cheese!?!
TOM DUMONT: I don't mean... What? I love quesadillas! It's my favorite piece of food.
GWEN STEFANI: My favorite piece of food.
MTV NEWS: Is there a lot more pressure going into the next album, being number one?
TONY KANAL: Odds are against a band selling this many records doing it twice. It doesn't happen that often. The odds are against you even more. So we're prepared for whatever happens. Lots of bands have had big records and then the next record comes out, and it sells, like if they sold 8 million, it sells a million. And people go, ohhh. That's a million records! They still sold a million records! That's incredible.
GWEN STEFANI: We've been together ten years. If it was all taken away tomorrow, it's like, I think we all feel pretty fulfilled, ya know? It's reached way, way higher than we ever thought it would go. We didn't even think the record would come out, let alone go to number one. It's just ridiculous, ya' know? And then for 5 weeks stay at number one, hello? It's crazy.
TONY KANAL: But don't take it away.
GWEN STEFANI: Yeah, no, yeah.
MTV NEWS: Is all the stardom affecting the band's attitude?
ADRIAN YOUNG: I think when people go through something like this that's so uncommon, it's impossible to be the exact same person you were before. Uh, not that we've become pompous people or anything like that, but I think we've just maybe grown up quicker. Seen the world a lot in one year, and we hadn't seen hardly any of it before. And that really educates and makes you see things a lot differently. So I think there's definitely change, but I think most of it's been pretty positive.
GWEN STEFANI: I think everybody around us has changed, that's for sure. Suddenly everyone thinks we're cool. My parents are really proud that I'm like a total whore, slut, skank girl.
TONY KANAL: They could be referring to the dance that rude boys and rude girls do. It's called the skank. When you listen to ska music, you skank, and I think they got a little mixed up.
MTV NEWS: In the 1996 "Rolling Stone" year end poll, fans voted you one of the best new artists, but critics voted you one of the worst. How did that affect you?
ADRIAN YOUNG: I'm unaffected by it.
TOM DUMONT: I think they're idiots.
GWEN STEFANI: If you let people bring you down and bring your confidence level down, you're just gonna disappoint people that are into you.
ADRIAN YOUNG: I'm really happy to hear you say that. That's awesome. I wonder if, ya know, Gwen, cuz she has the most potential of being criticized or praised, and so I wonder if it's gonna effect her too much, especially the negative stuff. And it sounds like she's got a good grasp on it.
GWEN STEFANI: Yeah, I would just rather not read it. Because, I'm human. And to hear someone say I'm a lot of things, especially the things that I kinda always, like, I felt the same way that this writer is feeling about me, like oh, exploitation of women or these kind of things, and they're telling me that I'm doing them? That's when I start to go [makes fake crying noise] ya' know, wait a minute, I'm on your side, ya' know? And I have to look at myself and go, "Why do I show my belly button?" You know what I mean? I start questioning myself. I just write about what happens to me. I'm not trying to like prove anything or break any stereotypes or anything like that.
TONY KANAL: I think every band has its own place under the sun, ya know? Everybody does their own thing.