The Orange County Register (April 11th 2000)

No Doubt About It

Gwen & the gang are back with their first CD in five years

It's the first day of spring, a time of new beginnings. It's also the first day that Interscope Records inhabits its just-opened offices in Santa Monica, the rearrangements causing bits of confusion as stacked boxes clutter walkways and employees search for space to conduct their work.

No Doubt's members, lacking no such accommodations, sit calmly in a makeshift conference room, while Interscope worker bees buzz in and out looking for a file, a pen, even a phone. But No Doubt isn't very concerned about the little levels of chaos that novelty or newness brings. If anything, its members are neo-traditionalists, as evidenced by the band's long awaited fourth album, Return Of Saturn, which skips so much of No Doubt's signature ska-pop sound for Missing Persons and Cure cues that it might as well be called Return of the '80s.

"I would be really happy if we could be the Cure, Part Two," chirps singer Gwen Stefani.

"It's really interesting that (the Cure's recently released Bloodflowers) is the third of a trilogy, because Return Of Saturn is the fourth of our octology," says bassist Tony Kanal. "There's eight records we're doing here."

"And we're going to write the seventh one next, right?" Stefani asks, playing along.

If that were true, that might explain this record's delay. But jokes about writing several albums at once aside, No Doubt took longer than most projected to finish the follow-up to 1995's eight- times-platinum, chart-topping Tragic Kingdom.

Originally scheduled to come out last fall, Saturn wasn't completed on deadline and took an extra six months.

Ask the band why, and there's a whole slew of answers, ranging from finding the right producer to honing songwriting chops to recovering from writer's block.

As the first album written without the creative guidance of band founder and Gwen's older brother, Eric Stefani (though he shares one songwriting credit on Staring Problem), Saturn features the first songs written solely by Gwen. Those two songs are ballads Suspension Without Suspense and Simple Kind of Life, which was originally supposed to be the first single.

"Initially, we were all a bit insecure because we hadn't been creative in so long," Stefani says. "For me, I was really embarrassed, 'don't look at me,' because it's such an intimate thing to do, especially when you're collaborating. It was really pretty scary, but also pretty exciting."

Some might imagine the enormous and unexpected success of Tragic Kingdom cemented No Doubt's writer's block. But Stefani says that the reverse is true, pointing out that there used to be a time where the label offered virtually no support, even passing No Doubt over to subsidiary Trauma. Back then, the band felt more pressure, because they felt they had to prove themselves.

"Now we feel validated as a band," Stefani says, "so there were no expectations this time, as far as we were concerned. We were pretty fulfilled. There was just the personal pressure, because we took this opportunity very seriously, and wanted to show some kind of growth. And now that we're done with it, I can see how much we've had. I make light of it, but it's a big deal. It took me 13 years (to write songs on her own), but I did it. We were talking earlier about how songwriting is still such a mystery. I still haven't figured it out."

Helping her - and the band - figure it out this time around were a string of producers, starting with Matthew Wilder, who worked with the band on its breakthrough smash.

Starting at the A&M studios in Hollywood more than two years ago, No Doubt felt almost too comfortable with Wilder, guitarist Tom Dumont says of the five-week session.

"He was our cheerleader when we really needed someone to push us," Dumont says.

"The vibe wasn't quite right. I like him, he's like family, but we needed to be in a situation were it was not so familiar. Maybe so we would be on better behavior, in a sense, work harder."

At this point, No Doubt scrapped the seven songs recorded with Wilder and flew to New York to meet with Hole/Marilyn Manson whiz Michael Beinhorn.

"He's a rock guy," Dumont says, "which we really liked. And he had a lot of cool comments about what we should do with the lyrics."

But after problems scheduling time with Beinhorn, who was perpetually caught up with helping the Verve Pipe with its last record, No Doubt switched producers yet a third time, opting to enlist Alanis Morissette's collaborator Glen Ballard to align Saturn.

"He honestly wasn't coming from a fan's mindset," Dumont explains.

"But he was very interested in who we were, not in changing or molding us."

"He has no ego, either," drummer Adrian Young adds. "He made it clear that, if we were willing, he would help us with songwriting, that he had done that before, but it was up to us. And he didn't have a problem either way."

Unlike most of Ballard's subjects, No Doubt chose to forego taking him up on the offer.

Not that they weren't tempted.

"The last record, we were like 23, 24, 25 years old, and we were just blossoming, just learning how to write," Stefani says. "And when Eric left, we suddenly had more responsibility to write on our own. When Tony and I broke up, I finally had a story to tell, something to express."

But this time around, there wasn't any huge story, no overwhelming heartache. So what did Stefani have left to say?

"Everybody goes through this stage," she says, "where you're done with school, or whatever, and you have to figure out, 'This is me now.' Growing up. And now I have all this experience behind me, because the last two years was this big growing stage, this big transition."

Turning 30 - as she did last October - helped Stefani move past the typical teenybopper concerns on Tragic and focus on her ambivalence and confusion about growing up.

Saturn could be read as one giant hint to her current boyfriend - Bush's Gavin Rossdale - to hurry up and propose.

In Simple Kind of Life, she sings of wanting to be a wife and mother.

And in the more obvious Marry Me, she confesses that she wants to cook him dinner" and "wouldn't mind if my name changed to Mrs." At the same time, though, Marry Me is rife with indecision - "who believes in forever?" the song asks.

"You know, I have to clarify this," Stefani says. "This record isn't about Gwen wanting to settle down. Everyone keeps thinking that, and it's not true. It's more about, 'How did I get here?' Like, I'm shocked, I don't know what I want. I thought I would be one thing, and now I'm another. I have this passion about doing the band, but I also had these hopes or ideas of wanting something more traditional.

"This has been the hardest year of my life so far," she says, pausing before she realizes her complaint might not earn her much sympathy and adds, "but I've had a really good life. People are going to get what they're gonna get out of it, though, so I might as well shut up."