The Los Angeles Times (Dec. 31st 1998)
Alt.Rock.OC: 20 Years of Suburban Struggle
[edited version]
No Doubt Brings Light to the Tragic Kingdom
A gurgling, bouncing, guitar riff, a chunky drumbeat and an ironically sweet voice: "I'm just a girl in the world, that's all that you'll let me be."
This was the world's introduction to No Doubt.
Driving home from work one day in the fall of 1995, Eric Stefani heard his little sister Gwen's voice singing "Just a Girl" on the radio for the first time. He pulled off the road somewhere in Pasadena as tears rolled down his cheeks.
"After eight years, it was just such a rush to see we were making some impact," he said.
It was a bittersweet moment. Stefani was proud of the band he had shepherded to the brink of fame. But he was one of the casualties along its hard path to success.
Starting with the Stefani siblings' first performance together at a high school talent show, Eric had been the prodder, the guide, and Gwen the hesitant follower.
He latched onto Madness, the English ska band, in the early 1980s, and it became Gwen's favorite as well. When Eric began writing and playing music influenced by the British ska-rock bands of the era, Gwen became a performer, too.
"He used to force me to sing stuff," she recalled. "He'd beg me: Please, sing this."
Coming from Orange County, her reluctance was understandable. On the local alternative-rock scene, boys dominated and a girl was, well, just a girl.
No Doubt began playing concerts early in 1987, with Gwen trading vocals with John Spence, a classmate from Loara High School in Anaheim and a co-worker of the Stefani siblings at Dairy Queen. More a barker than a singer, he brought a gymnastic energy to the shows and also gave the band its name: "No doubt" was his pet phrase.
No Doubt quickly found grass-roots prosperity. Its sound, heavily influenced by the English "two-tone" ska bands and their rock 'n' roll adaptation of Jamaican rhythms, had a ready-made audience in the avid Southern California ska subculture.
No Doubt's first year on the scene proved as upbeat as the quick-stepping ska beat it played. It emerged as a strong draw and a musical peer of Fishbone and the Untouchables, the leading bands of the West Coast ska scene.
Then, Spence killed himself just before Christmas 1987, apparently overwhelmed by family problems. The band carried on, but Gwenhad qualms about being out front on her own.
"We were scared we would lose the hard edge" without a male foil, she recalled. So one of the horn players moved into Spence's slot. When he left in 1989, Gwen was ready to fly solo.
Without a manager, a record company or even a self-financed release, No Doubt managed to lay the foundation for a lasting career.
Through 1990 and '91, the band cultivated a following at area colleges. Promoters at Goldenvoice and Avalon Attractions liked the members' positive attitude and work ethic, and offered No Doubt opening-act slots at such major venues as Irvine Meadows and Anaheim's Celebrity Theatre.
Gwen Stefani developed into a theatrical, stage-strutting front woman whose bounding energy could get a crowd hopping. She had the savvy to develop a signature look centering on denim overalls, a fashion statement borrowed from Dexys Midnight Runners and their hit video, "Come On Eileen."
No Doubt's sound had grown as well, expanding far beyond its ska roots. Two new players--drummer Adrian Young and guitarist Tom Dumont--joined the Stefanis and bassist Tony Kanal, and the band adopted a musical philosophy: Try anything.
It also had a philosophy about how to conduct itself amid the perverseness, dysfunction and slacker chic of an alternative scene awash in drugs and gloomy grunge chords: They resolved to be who they were--stable, middle-class kids whose parents brought them up to be clean-living, pleasant and motivated.
Things looked bright when No Doubt signed with a hot, new label, Interscope. But "No Doubt," the band's 1992 debut album, flopped commercially. The second album called for in its contract would likely be the band's last chance. Making that album proved to be the trial that transformed No Doubt, but not without further losses.
Interscope, unimpressed with fresh batches of songs, doled out money for studio time in dribs and drabs, rather than letting No Doubt hunker down for a sustained creative push. With Nine Inch Nails, Primus and Snoop Doggy Dogg on its roster, the label had other priorities.
As No Doubt's primary songwriter, the bulk of indifference and rejection fell on Eric Stefani. His involvement ebbed as Gwen, Dumont and Kanal filled in, writing much of No Doubt's catchiest stuff. Gwen's lyrics focused on another casualty of band life--her long-standing romance with Kanal. Eric, already thrown by the changing band dynamic, knew he had to quit when he awoke from a terrible nightmare, looked out his window and saw five crows on a telephone wire--four together, the other apart.
"I looked back, and one had flown," he recalled. "That was a sign from God. It was telling me something about what I had to do to survive in this life." He had other creative outlets, including his job as an animator for "The Simpsons."
A few months later, a fairy godmother appeared. Executives at Trauma Records, an Interscope affiliate, heard No Doubt's nearly completed album and loved it. Fine, figured Interscope, see if you can take this Cinderella to the big pop ball.
"Tragic Kingdom" came out in October 1995, its title and cover motif--a profusion of rotting oranges--humorously reflecting the band's vision of the idyllic suburban dream gone wrong. "Just a Girl" soon was inescapable on MTV. A second, harder-rocking single, "Spiderwebs," also hit big, vaulting the album into the national Top 10.
Though most critics complained that No Doubt was a bunch of good-timey fluff, sales already had reached 2 million when Eric's parting gift paid a huge dividend: "Don't Speak," with lyrics by Gwen, became the omnipresent pop ballad of 1996-97.
In December 1996, "Tragic Kingdom" reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop album chart, a peak no other Orange County act had attained. It stayed there for nine of the next 10 weeks; U.S. sales eventually passed 7 million.
As "Tragic Kingdom" nestled at No. 1, Gwen Stefani went Christmas shopping at Brea Mall and got mobbed. Her new platinum-blond, navel-baring look had made her a fashion icon among legions of teens and preteens.
No Doubt's members wore their mass stardom with becoming modesty. "I hope we become good songwriters," Dumont, the co-author of "Just a Girl," said during the band's run at No. 1. "I'm certainly proud of the songs on 'Tragic Kingdom,' but I think, 'Maybe I got lucky, maybe I'll never write another riff as good as any of those.' "
"Our next album might be a little more focused," Gwen Stefani said. "We've always been struggling to do that. We've had so many different styles and wanted to create our own sound eventually. I don't know if that will ever happen."