Alternative Press (January 1999)

No Doubt

WORKING ALBUM TITLE

TBA

PROJECTED RELEASE DATE

Summer 1999, on Trauma/Interscope

WHY IS IT ANTICIPATED?

This record follows up 1996’s multi-million-seiling Tragic Kingdom, the album that bridged the gap between ska, punk and mainstream pop like nothing; before it. When they recorded that album, they were relative unknowns. Will massive success affect their music?

WHAT'S IT GONNA SOUND LIKE

No-Doubt vocalist and certified pop diva Gwen Stefani is not “just a girl" anymore. “I don't even recognize: myself or my life at all anymore,” she says in the Los Angeles studio where No Doubt are wrapping up pre-production for their upcoming album. “You never know what a record’s gonna be like until it's done because you don’t know what songs you’re gonna write or what they’re about. But I do keep finding that the same subjects are coming up [in my songwriting], and that’s like: ‘Who am I?' and ‘What the hell's gong on?' And I think that has a lot to do with being on another planet for the past two-and-a-half years.”

Stefani will get the chance to realign with her identity this winter in New York City, where the band—which also includes drummer Adrian Young, bassist Tony Kanal and guitarist Tom Dumont—will spend three months in the studio with producer Michael Beinhdrn (Hole, Marilyn Manson).

“I think [the album’s] gonna sound more mature," says Young, "I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I think we’re gonna be very cautious not to be a middle-of-the-road VH1 band.”

The pressure’s mounting, for sure but are the band members feeling it?

“I think we’re in a fishbowl right now," Kanal says, “When we made Tragic Kingdom, nobody really cared. We were just doing it to do it. But now that we’re in this fishbowl, well, I don’t know if people care, but they are watching. And that can change everything if you let it.”