The Los Angeles Times (April 2nd 1992)

No Doubt Given Room to Grow

Young rock bands start out like saplings in a thick forest. First they must fight for room in which to lay down roots. Then they must break through a tangle of competing trunks and branches, in hopes of shooting into the sunshine.

After a five-year growth cycle, No Doubt is starting to glimpse daylight.

Early on, the band from Anaheim enjoyed an advantage, at least in some respects, over most beginning rockers: No Doubt had planted itself in the Southern California ska music scene, a narrow but fertile patch of soil with a ready-made following willing to adopt and nourish a new band.

For No Doubt, specializing in the lively, quick-stepping ska style, invented in '60s Jamaica and revived by British bands in the late '70s and early '80s, meant being spared the gritty prospect of scrambling for gigs and working its way up through clubland's dingier depths.

That's not to say that No Doubt wasn't tested.

During its first year, the band had to overcome the suicide of its charismatic front man. It also carried on despite indifference from record companies that members say were put off by the ska label.

That gave No Doubt time to branch out in other musical directions, incorporating funk, hard rock, swinging horns and even touches of traditional jazz. The band also developed a theatrical stage show centered on singer Gwen Stefani. A pretty blonde with a high, thin voice and a trademark outfit of trainman's overalls, she could be taken for a sweet-and-innocent younger cousin of Madonna.

Gathered recently at the small house in Anaheim where three of the five band members live, No Doubt knew that it, unlike the vast majority of bands, had reached the stage where it would at least have a fighting chance to grow into a sturdy tree.

The band's debut album, "No Doubt," came out two weeks ago on Interscope Records (also home to rap Adonises Gerardo and Marky Mark and college-rock darlings Primus). Just before the album's release, the band got its first taste of touring, a three-week jaunt through the West and into Canada that has No Doubt eager for more (joining the five core members on the road and in the studio is a sharp, three-man horn section made up of hired hands).

"We were really lucky to have that following early on. We went through the developmental stage and had time to work out everything," said keyboards player Eric Stefani, reflecting on the band's growth. With his dark good looks, Stefani, 24, bears a passing resemblance to actor Treat Williams. Other members, also in their early 20s, peg the low-key musician and cartoonist as the main creative engine of No Doubt.

"The timing is good," said Gwen, Eric's more animated younger sister. "If it had been earlier, it would have been too soon. Now we're all ready."

No Doubt had its beginnings in an ice cream parlor. The Stefani siblings, who went to Loara High School in Anaheim, used to work at a local Dairy Queen with a schoolmate named John Spence. They decided to form a band; bassist Tony Kanal, who went to Anaheim High School, was recruited into the lineup. The band name came from Spence, who used the phrase "no doubt" all the time as a pet expression.

At its early shows, No Doubt concentrated on covering the songs of such bands as Madness, the Selecter and the Specials, British interracial "two-tone" bands that had fueled the ska revival.

"Those bands had all broken up. We wanted to give their music to the fans again and just keep it alive," said Eric Stefani. No Doubt jumped into an active Southern California ska scene led by the Untouchables and Fishbone. "If you're into ska, you automatically go to all the shows," Gwen Stefani said. "It's a scene, a cult-following thing. So we had a head start" when it came to finding an audience.

Just before Christmas of 1987, when the band had been playing for nine months, Spence, who shared lead vocals with Gwen, committed suicide.

"He couldn't really sing, but he could yell, and he was really amazing on stage," she recalled. "He did back-flips, and was really energetic. He was the one who was so happy all the time. I knew he had problems with his family, I knew he had problems with depression in high school. But when it happened, things were so normal. It was awful. It was horrible."

Less than two weeks after Spence's death, No Doubt kept an engagement at the Roxy in West Hollywood. "Everyone in the audience was crying, and we were really depressed on stage," Kanal remembers. "A friend of ours came out and announced, `This is the last show of No Doubt.' "

But the band decided to carry on, figuring that Spence, to whom No Doubt's album is dedicated, would have wanted it to continue. And the band soon hit on the period of stylistic growth that took it beyond ska revivalism.

"A year into the band, it evolved," said Kanal (who has carried on a romance with Gwen Stefani since the early days of No Doubt). "We decided, `We're going to write with all the different music we like. We're not going to put a limit on what we play.' We brought in some punk and funk and metal, some hard rock. It just opened up."

Bolstering the rock side after they joined in 1988 and '89 were a lanky, amiable guitarist, Tom Dumont, and Adrian Young, a shaven-headed drummer with an up-tempo personality.

Both had played in hard rock bands but had their eyes on No Doubt (Dumont's old band had rehearsed in the same studio complex as No Doubt, and Young had been a fan before he took up the drums). Both jumped when guitar and drum slot openings arose in No Doubt. Young fibbed his way into an audition, claiming to have three years' playing experience when he had been drumming only a year. But, helped by his knowledge of No Doubt's material, he got the job.

For a time, Gwen Stefani continued to share vocals with a male front man, Alan Meade. But when he left in 1989 and the band couldn't find a suitable replacement, she was on her own.

Her voice isn't tough and full-bodied, but a high, airy, sometimes piercing combination of Madonna, Lene Lovich and Betty Boop. She said she worried at first whether she would be aggressive enough to front a high-energy band whose fans like to roil in a slam pit and do stage dives.

But No Doubt dropped material that didn't suit her, and she worked to develop a more kinetic stage presence. She traces her coverall-girl look to the 1983 video for "Come on Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners, a scruffy British band whose members posed as street urchins in homely denim overalls.

"I loved that; I thought it was so cute. But at the time you couldn't find them anywhere. I used to have dreams about buying overalls."

Her striped train crew coveralls-and the band's logo, a railroad crossing sign-tie in with "Big City Train," a funk-rock salute to the band's own ambitions. While it doesn't write songs with stage routines in mind, No Doubt has been able to put a theatrical spin on its material. On the album, Stefani compensates for her lack of raw vocal muscle with an almost vaudevillian flair for acting out a song's story line.

Originally, No Doubt set out to record and release an album independently. But early in 1991, the previously indifferent record industry began to take notice, and No Doubt landed its deal with Interscope.

Besides its mix of styles, which calls to mind Kid Creole and the Coconuts (though with less of a Latin-salsa influence), "No Doubt" offers a balance of themes and moods. The band has a natural effervescence and a downright silly streak, which comes out in such songs as "A Little Something Refreshing," about a gourmand's frenzied pig-out; "Paulina," about a young man's fancy for a high-fashion model; "Ache," which humorously chronicles the extraction of Eric Stefani's wisdom teeth, and "Brand New Day," the boisterous ode to optimism that closes the album.

Shading the record are such songs as "Sometimes," a pretty, regret-filled ballad, and "Sinking," a rocker in which an alcoholic downing in too much booze is likened to a leaky boat adrift and taking on too much water.

No Doubt is willing to write close to home: In "Sad For Me," writer Eric Stefani addresses his real-life girlfriend by name ("Miss Fried") as he tries to explain his need for breathing room in their relationship. (Asked whether she minds being named in the song, Eric pulled out a note she sent congratulating the band on its album). "Let's Get Back" features lets-give-it-another-try lyrics that Gwen Stefani wrote when she and Kanal were temporarily on the outs.

With a boyfriend-girlfriend and brother-sister relationship in the band, No Doubt would seem to be a candidate for more than the usual share of intra-band psychodrama. But members say that hasn't been the case.

"Brother and sister hasn't been a problem at all. Eric fights with everyone," Gwen said blithely. As for her romance with Kanal, she said "we're trying to keep it separate" from their roles as band members, "but it's bound to turn off and on" in affecting what happens within the band.

All of No Doubt's members have college educations still on their agendas. Everyone but Eric Stefani is enrolled at Cal State Fullerton; he has been a student at California Institute of the Arts (besides writing a majority of No Doubt's music, he has worked as an animator on "The Simpsons" and the "Mighty Mouse" children's cartoon shows). With their album out, and hoping for steady touring this year, No Doubt's members have taken leaves from college.

Currently the band is shopping for a manager (Kanal has been in charge of business affairs) and it is preparing its first video, a homemade take on its anti-television tirade "Trapped in a Box."

No Doubt's ambition now isn't to be the tallest tree in the rock forest, but to be a distinctive, firmly planted one. "We don't want to be huge on this album and gone next year. We'd rather have a small cult following and be back next year," said Young. "We want to do this for a long time."