Hello!  iHeartRadio has posted a backstage interview with No Doubt to their site, as well as a bunch of photos!

I’ve updated the gallery with some photos from the event.  I also added a couple recent magazine scans from Rollling Stone and Entertainment Weekly.

Hello!  I’ve finally uploaded videos from No Doubt’s iHeartRadio set to the videos section!  They were supposed to be up first thing this morning.  I started the uploads just before I went to bed, and not too long after that, my web host decided that would be a good time to do some work on the servers, so the connection was terminated.  I had to start the uploads again this morning, and they just finished!

The first two, Hella Good, and Spiderwebs, have some sort of duplicate audio track thing going on.  That seems to have happened for everyone that watched on Xbox Live.

Hello!  No Doubt’s performance at the iHeartRadio Music Festival will be from 10:30-11 ET tonight, and will stream live here!

ET has posted a new video interview from the set of the band’s Target commercial shoot. :

No Doubt tweeted earlier today:

“Tune in for an interview segment w/ @nodoubt this Sunday 9/23 on @CBSSunday at 9:30am ET. Local listings here – http://cbsn.ws/QslXBa ”

MTV has posted another video/interview regarding the upcoming Gibson shows here!

There is also a new CBS Local interview here!

Hello!  No Doubt’s iHeartRadio set will start tomorrow night at 7:30p PT / 10:30p ET, and will apparently last a half hour, as the next artist comes on at 8pt.  The set times have been posted here.  The live stream will be on the iHeartRadio site here, on Yahoo here, and on Xbox Live!

From the official:

“On September 24, 2012, E! will air an hour long special celebrating the release of Push And Shove and the 26 year career of No Doubt. Gwen, Tony, Tom and Adrian went deep into their personal archives to gather content exclusively for the feature. Pieces of this content will be revealed daily on the band’s Facebook Page, leading up to the premiere of E! Entertainment Special: No Doubt this Monday.
Tony had this to say after rediscovering “The Jamaica Sessions” and watching the series again over 10 years later:
“We’ve been going through a ton of older footage recently and we came across this four part series that documented our inspiring trip to Jamaica during the making of our Rock Steady album in 2001.  This footage brought back so many good memories that we wanted to share it with you again.  Hope you enjoy watching it as much as we do.” – Tony”

They’ve posted a playlist of the four Jamaica Sessions videos to YouTube:

They posted this awesome photo to their Facebook page today! :

There’s a new interview on The Guardian web site :

“In her tight black trousers, a loose top with more safety pins than fabric, toe-crunching high stilettos with a steel rod in place of a heel and heavy makeup on top of a creamy complexion, Gwen Stefani looks, initially, like a typical rock’n’roll veteran and the very image of the trendy celebrity mother frequently photographed in LA and Primrose Hill. And when she walks into the studio in west Hollywood and instantly bemoans the non-existent cold temperature, it looks worryingly as if she might be as high maintenance as the role generally implies.

Initial appearances prove to be misleading. Stefani is, indeed, a pop star and high-profile mother – the endless paparazzi shots of her with her sons Kingston and Zuma help to keep her in the public consciousness between albums – but beneath those punky safety pins is, it transpires, a sweet and endearingly unfiltered woman, one who is prone to being a little more honest than perhaps her PR would like. When asked if she and her British husband, singer Gavin Rossdale, who fronts the band Bush, ever discuss her songwriting together, Stefani replies, “Oh, he’s never been a fan of what we do,” and the entire room freezes, No Doubt bandmates and PRs alike. “He’s more into dark, indie stuff. But I’m not saying he doesn’t think I’m amazing,” she blithely continues. “Oh God, that’s going to be a headline, isn’t it? ‘Gavin thinks Gwen’s amazing’!” And the PR makes a strained little smile.

The announcement that No Doubt are about to release a new album, the first since 2001’s Rock Steady, prompts a similar sensation of pleasant surprise. In the year that even Chumbawamba have given up the noble fight, one has to ask whether a band so much associated with the 1990s really has a place in 2012. No Doubt have always had their hardcore fans, dating back to their formation in 1986 when they were a popular ska band that venerated Madness in their home state of California. They broke out of that pond three albums into their career with the then ubiquitous single Don’t Speak on 1995’s Tragic Kingdom and, while they never quite matched that success again, ska-inflected pop-based songs such as Hey, Baby and Just a Girl burst through the grunge landscape of their time to become part of the backing music of the decade. Yet even then, the band’s success felt more like an anomaly than the establishment of something long-lasting. When Stefani, always the band’s most charismatic performer, broke away to pursue a solo career, focusing more on dance music with 2004’s hugely successful Love Angel Music Baby and 2006’s The Sweet Escape, as well as starting up a fashion line and pairing up with hip-hop collaborators such as Eve (Let Me Blow Ya Mind, Rich Girl) and Ludacris (Luxurious), this seemed like both a natural progression and an inevitable end.

Eleven years is a generation in pop music. Without wishing to hold Justin Bieber up as the standard-bearer of modern music, when No Doubt last released a new album, he was seven and his fans were barely zygotes.

Actually, though, all these issues turn out to be moot as the new album, Push and Shove, is pretty great. Rather like Stefani’s look of “1950s platinum bombshell meets futuristic Japanese cartoon”, No Doubt’s sound has remained consistent and feels even remarkably undated, with some modern touches from producer Diplo and samples from his own side-project, Major Lazer. The first single, Settle Down, is as catchy as any of No Doubt’s finest and the video pays homage to the band’s heyday with Stefani wearing perhaps the most 90s outfit this side of floral dresses and DM boots. To original fans it will prompt nostalgia, to new ones that black vest, visible bra, shiny trousers and giant colourful watch will probably look like a very on-trend 90s fashion revival.

“It just feels so much more natural being back in this mode. The solo records allowed me to indulge my girly side but it was never meant to be taken seriously,” says Stefani, casually disowning several million record sales and a slew of Grammy nominations. “It was just like an art project that kept going longer than I expected. The group never ended – we always knew we’d come back to make this album.”

But the album almost never happened. The band, which consists of Tony Kanal, Tom Dumont and Adrian Young alongside Stefani, originally tried to write it in 2008 and found, for the first time in their 20-year career, that they couldn’t.

“I was just burned out. I’d done the two [solo] albums, the two tours, I’d had the two babies – there had been a lot of output in those years [since Rock Steady]. When you first have a baby your life doesn’t really change,” she says, possibly uttering a sentence that has never been said before by anyone, ever. “You’re tired but it’s nothing compared to when they grow and they’re humans and they need you. By the time we were making this record my toddler was becoming a little guy and school, and oh my God, it was soooper challenging.”

“All of us have kids now but, for the rest of us it’s much easier in the studio as our wives are looking after them,” says Kanal, the softly spoken Anglo-Indian-American bassist in the group. “But for Gwen it’s a whole different thing and seeing her struggle trying to be a great musician and great mum became the basis of the album.”

Work/parenthood balance might not sound like the most rock’n’roll of subjects for an album but it is a logical one for No Doubt. All of their albums and Stefani’s solo ones have been heavily autobiographical: “We’re not creative enough to do it any other way!” laughs Stefani, who is the group’s main lyricist. At times her solo songs sounded less like structured lyrics and more like a stream of consciousness (“What if they say that you’re a cloner / Naturally, I’m worried if I do it alone / Who really cares, cause it’s your life / You never know, it could be great.”) When the group decided to go on tour in 2009 in the hope – which was then fulfilled – it might inspire them to write their new album, the band’s eight kids all came along and they’ll do so again when they tour Push and Shove.

“If it happens during the school year we’ve decided to home-school them,” says drummer Adrian Young who, despite his outfit of cropped trousers, suspenders, brightly coloured hair and a bowler hat, talks with the seriousness of the driest accountant.

“Tour school!” chirrups guitarist Dumont.

Of course, No Doubt’s most famous song, Don’t Speak, was about one of the band’s most personal struggles: the end of Stefani and Kanal’s long-term relationship. Yet while the lyrics, coupled with Stefani’s pained vocals, made for a classic breakup song, it must have been pretty weird for Kanal to be standing behind his heartbroken girlfriend every night on tour while she belted out how miserable she was without him.

“Oh definitely,” replies Kanal while Stefani nods eagerly beside him. “We were on tour for Tragic Kingdom for 28 months. We were going through the breakup, and in every interview we were talking about it so we were opening this wound on an hourly basis. It was so brutal but I don’t know how we made it through.”

This breakup nearly broke Stefani. Even today, nearly 43 and with a hugely successful career, she gives off the air of a woman who loves to devote herself with girlish enthusiasm to the man in her life. She positively radiates when she talks about husband Rossdale’s “beautiful lyrics” and she can still recall, with painful candour, the devastation she felt when Kanal ended their seven-year relationship when she had been dreaming of marriage and babies. Yet this episode gave her not just a hit single but a career; it wasn’t until the breakup that she dared to try songwriting.

“Before, I was really passive, all I cared about was being in love with my boyfriend. I didn’t have any creative power, nothing. I don’t know that person any more. But I’d been really bad at school and didn’t know what I would do, I just sang in my brother’s band [Eric Stefani, who founded the group, left No Doubt after Tragic Kingdom to work on The Simpsons.] But after the breakup I just started writing all these songs and suddenly I was: ‘Oh I think I’m really good at this!'” she giggles.

Now Kanal and Stefani are so far past the pain of the breakup, even if they will forever be associated with it, that Stefani can announce that her ex’s girlfriend told her that she and Kanal had conceived a baby the morning after it happened.

“We’ll probably write a song about that at some point,” deadpans Kanal.

“Look it would be disingenuous to say that it’s been all smooth sailing. There have definitely been moments when we’ve talked about breaking up, like when Eric left and when Gwen and Tony broke up,” says Young. “But we’ve always treated each other with respect whereas maybe other bands that break up forget that, or there is a drug habit which compromises many things. And we just never reached that point.”

Instead, they have all remained firm friends, hanging out together in between albums. Kanal even produced Stefani’s solo work.

Today, Stefani is a bona fide A-lister who was recently asked to host a fundraiser for President Obama at her house in LA. “My kids had a complete meltdown when Michelle Obama arrived. The exact opposite of what you want to happen when the First Lady turns up at your house,” she smiles and Kanal looks at her proudly.

To the delight of the British paparazzi, Stefani has also spent time in London. When asked what she liked about living in the city she cites, after only a brief pause, “the little shops” and, somewhat less convincingly, “uh, the food”.

“But then it rains at noon and you’re like, what? Then you have to stay inside your house all day. It’s hard,” she says solemnly, her face full of fret. She’ll probably write a song about it.”

Hello!  iHeartRadio has posted a couple of video clips! :

“No Doubt is looking forward to playing cuts off their new album at the iHeartRadio Music Festival on Friday”

“No Doubt talks about the scary feeling of playing new music for fans”

Hello! There is a new official Settle Down remix single available on iTunes, featuring the Major Lazer remix, as well as one by So Shifty. Click here to download.

New York’s Fresh 102.7 posted a great new interview with No Doubt on their site!  Click here to listen.

The band is going to be on the UK’s Johnathan Ross Show on the 29th, according to their updated events page!

I’ve added a few more video downloads: Deeper With No Doubt, King Of The Hill ND episode, 2003 Superbowl performance, and an ET behind the scenes clip from that Superbowl.  Click here to view the videos section sorted by date added.

No Doubt is nominated in the “best pop” category for the MTV European Music Awards!  Click here to vote for them!

Fuse is airing a ”No Doubt Takeover” on 9/25 from 6am-4pm EST!  Awesome!

OC Weekly posted an article about No Doubt and Sublime! :

“No Doubt is back with a retro-new wave album called Push and Shove after a 10-year-hiatus. This week’s cover story has the fab four from Anaheim talking about the challenges of making the album and more. According to Tazy Phillips, two bands — No Doubt and Sublime — bust the door open for ska in the early ’90s. As friends and colleagues, Brad Nowell and Gwen Stefani and co. paved the way for third-wave ska getting radio airplay and going mainstream. Here, Sublime’s original manager and producer Miguel Happoldt talks about how the two bands’ fates intertwined.

On No Doubt, then and now:On one end they were the coolest people we’d ever met in terms of humility. It’s cliche but they’re such cool people to this day. I could pick up the phone and call Tony right now. We’re so stoked for their success. They’re a great band, so they were going to do good, whether in the ska scene or not.

Sublime vs. No Doubt? There was no competition– there was no chance. They were always rehearsed, all the songs arranged, they looked good, you know what I mean? Sublime showed up in the van half-drunk and played whatever they wanted to. Sublime loved that about No Doubt and No Doubt loved that about Sublime. No Doubt was like Richie Cunningham and Sublime was like Fonzie. Brad admired the professionalism. He said, “One day we’re going to have to be like that.”

That Classic Sublime/No Doubt Moment: One time we were at Aspen and we showed up at a show really late. But we had an excuse–we just rolled our van! While we were telling them, “Just 35 minutes ago, we were upside down in our van,” we were drinking beer trying to calm our nerves. And they’re doing stretches, putting together tight set lists, Gwen’s doing her vocal exercises. And we just almost died and we’re just drinking beer. And two minutes later we went onstage to play.

On No Doubt opening for Sublime that once (If you missed it, read it online here): I kind of felt deflated that night when I had to pay them to open for us. It was like, if you guys can’t make it, how are we going to make it? But as Flea said, “You’re only a verse and a chorus away from greatness.” Even if Brad lived we probably never would’ve caught up to them, because they were first, you know? They were already huge when Sublime was a garage band.”

The band has posted webisode 6 to YouTube! :

From the official:

“With the release of Push And Shove a little over a week away, it’s time for another inside look at the making of the album. Webisode #6 takes you through the band’s final days in the studio recording the track “Undone.” It also contains exclusive interviews with the band and never-before-seen studio footage of their last full day of recording with producer Spike Stent.

In addition to being the final song recorded for Push And Shove, “Undone” was also the last song that the band wrote for the album.

Listen to a clip of “Undone” on iTunes now and preorder Push And Shove here before it’s released on September, 25th. A deluxe iTunes edition of the album is also available and features 4 additional bonus tracks including an exclusive, pre-order only download remix of “Settle Down” by producer Baauer.
There are still two webisdoes left, so be sure to follow @nodoubt on Twitter as well as @gwenstefani, @adrianyoungND, @tomdumontND and @tonykanal and Like No Doubt on Facebook to stay up-to-date with No Doubt news.”

The web site EntertainmentRocks.com is having a contest to win tickets to one of the upcoming shows!  One person will win:
Pair of PIT Tickets to one of their shows at the Gibson Amphitheater
Free Parking
Backstage Access (NO meet & greet)
VIP Bar
Private Entrance
VIP Restrooms
VIP Merchandise Store (where applicable)

There’s going to be a No Doubt special on E! September 24 @ 9:00 PM, ET/PT!  From this web site:

“Members of the iconic band sits down with E! to share their fascinating story of how a group of teens who just loved making music skyrocketed to fame and dominated the billboard charts. The entire band – Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal, Tom Dumont and Adrian Young – opens up about their unique history, their personal relationships, their creative process and family life with the help of close friends and family members.

“We weren’t struggling for fame, really. We were excited just to play the next show!” – Tom Dumont

“When I think back to all the different stuff that happened in this band it feels like I’m making it up because it’s so dramatic.” – Gwen Stefani

“When my son came… what I want to be best at is being a dad. There’s no room for sucky dads, and that’s another thing I’m proud of, my band mates for – they’re all really good parents.” – Adrian Young

“From when I was a really little girl, I always thought, you know, I want to get married and be a mom. Now that I am a mom nobody told me how hard it was going to be!” – Gwen Stefani

“There are only three other people in my life that have the same experiences as me. And that’s Gwen, Tom and Adrian. And to now share this new experience of raising a family all together is pretty awesome after, you know, being together for 26 years.” – Tony Kanal”

MTV has posted a new interview from the 12th on their site, which includes video. :

“No Doubt weren’t particularly concerned about staying current with “Settle Down,” the lead single off their first album in 11 years, Push and Shove.After all, for more than two decades now, they’ve gleefully mashed worldly beats — ska, reggae, dancehall and electro — with radio-friendly pop … and it’s just been over the past few years that the rest of the industry has caught up with them.

Then again, despite the prevalence of globe-spanning pop on the charts these days, No Doubt don’t consider themselves to be pioneers. In fact, for them, melding styles and genres has always been part of their plan … even if, more often than not, they’ve never really had a plan to speak of.

“We don’t know what we’re doing,” Gwen Stefani laughed. “Everything’s basically a series of accidents and mistakes.”

And that was exactly the same, uh, method they applied to Push and Shove (due September 25), which seems them not only working with the dancehall duo of Major Lazer and reggae artist Busy Signal, but continuing to push the boundaries of pop and rock. It’s what they’ve been doing for 25 years now, and, as the old adage goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

“Honestly … we just make music that we love and we want to play. We get inspired by something, and we kind of go with it,” bassist Tony Kanal said. “We’ve always been huge fans of ska and reggae music, and when we were making the Rock Steady record, we were super into dancehall — we still are.

“And on the Return of Saturn tour, before we made Rock Steady, we were having dancehall parties every night, and I feel that really fueled and fed into making Rock Steady, so much that we actually went to Jamaica and recorded with incredible Jamaican producers down there,” he continued. “I think if something inspires us, we go with it, we know when it’s working and we just kind of run with it. It seems to work for us.”

Hello!  Two new posts from the official:

“The submission period for the No Doubt logo design competition ended at 10AM PT this morning and the voting has officially begun. Vote now for your favorite No Doubt logo designs here and if you’ve entered a design, post a link to it on the band’s Facebook page for everyone to view.

There is a limit of two votes per logo (once through Facebook and once through Twitter), but there is an opportunity to vote for as many logos as you’d like. The voting officially ends on September 18th and both winners will be announced on September 25th, the same day that Push And Shove is released.

No Doubt have received the highest number of submissions for any campaign in the company’s three year history! The previous record was beaten last night, approximately 15 hours before the submission period ended.

Great work everyone and good luck to all of the entrants!”

“The dates for No Doubt’s appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in September have just been confirmed!  The band’s performances and interview with Ellen will air over two days – Tuesday, September 25th AND Wednesday, September 26th. That’s right… No Doubt will be featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show twice that week on two completely different shows – first on the release date of Push And Shove, September 25th, and then on the following day, September 26th!

No Doubt will be performing two songs from their upcoming album Push And Shove.

Currently in its tenth season, The Ellen DeGeneres Show airs weekdays at 3:00 PM on NBC.”

Adam from Clear Channel e-mailed me regarding the upcoming iHeartRadio Music Festival, asking if I’d like him to send me any media/content that they create for No Doubt, to which I answered yes, please!  Can’t wait to see what he sends.  Thanks, Adam!

OC Weekly has posted their entire interview with no doubt on their site!  It’s awesome!  And, Jenny from BSO is quoted in it!  :D

“No Doubt In Their Own Words

An oral history of OC’s greatest band and their newest album, ‘Push and Shove’

The biggest band to ever come out of Orange County have come to terms with juggling parenthood with their music careers, their OC roots and international fame, Gwen’s solo career, and the realization that No Doubt have been together for 26 fucking years. All that, as Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal, Tom Dumont and Adrian Young get ready to release their sixth album, Push and Shove. Of course, everyone has an opinion about No Doubt, so OC Weekly talks to the band, their producers, their peers, their fans, and the movers and shakers of the OC ska scene from back in the day.

I. YOU MAY ASK YOURSELF, HOW DID I GET HERE?

THAT 10-YEAR HIATUS BETWEEN ROCK STEADY AND PUSH AND SHOVE
Adrian Young, drummer: A lot has happened since the release of Rock Steady—we toured it in 2002 and in 2003; we had a Greatest Hits record that we toured in 2004. And the beginning of the decade was when we all started having babies as well. So there was a lot of energy going on. Gwen went on to record two solo records, and after that, we started writing. We thought it wasn’t working out, so we said, “Let’s just go on tour” [in 2009]. We were definitely tighter and ready to go after that.

Gwen Stefani, lead singer: We had to go on tour to get inspired. Just by playing all the songs we’d written together and being up on stage together and doing what we think we did best—which is perform live—it just calmed me down a lot. I realized that [the fans] are there waiting for us, and I didn’t have to be in such a rush. I had done so much—I’d done the two solo records, had two babies. It was the first time I was writing the record with the band since I had gotten married. Life had changed so much, and there was so much pressure for me to come up with [new music] in the middle of having a brand-new baby and a toddler—and it was a lot.

Spike Stent, Push and Shove producer: I moved from London to Los Angeles for six weeks to do this record and ended up staying five years! Adrian called me initially, and we started doing sketches of songs. That’s how it started. We didn’t think it would be 10 years in between projects.

Sophie Muller, music-video director for “Settle Down” and “Don’t Speak”: In the “Settle Down” video, we had to address the fact that they hadn’t been together for 10 years, so I think the obvious thing was to have the idea that they were all coming from different places—Gwen is coming from Harajuku, Adrian from Vegas, Tom from suburbia and Tony from India—they’ve come from faraway places for a long time, and they come together to be No Doubt at the party in the parking lot, where they meet and be No Doubt again. I think it fit well for that song; the chaos of the scenes of Gwen’s life is the sort-of dance-party bit.

* * *

THE CHALLENGES OF MAKING PUSH AND SHOVE
Tom Dumont, guitarist: The album title sums up a little bit of what it took to make this album. This is the first No Doubt album for which we’re all parents—it changed the way we made this album, in that we just all have a lot less time. In the old days, the band came before everything. This time, it was a daily struggle to physically get to the studio together. Tony, Adrian and I all had babies last year in the middle of making the album. When you have a baby, sleep itself is something that kind of goes away. All of us would go to the studio in the afternoon and ask, “What time did you sleep last night?” and talk about our night schedules because we’re all pretty involved dads, and we’re up early, so by the time we get to the studio, it’s been a long workday as parents.

Tony Kanal, bassist: When you get to the studio, it’s not like a 9-to-5 job. You really have to find those moments in which magical things happen, and you can’t really put a schedule on that, and that was why it took longer than the previous records had taken because we are so focused on so many things now between our families and life and everything else.

* * *

BEATING WRITER’S BLOCK
Kanal: We would get together at my house and start at 4 p.m., and we’d spend the first couple of hours just talking about stuff. Like, we’d literally just catch up on life every time we’d get together, and that was really important because when we were taking a break as a band, we all went off and did writing with other people and other projects. One of the most important things about being friends for so long is that there is that family feeling, so sitting down together for the first couple of hours, [talking] about life and kids is a really great way to spend the day.

Stefani: I think we finally settled in by just getting together and hanging out—me, Tony and Tom would listen to something that we wish we had written, like anything from our childhood or through high school, and listen to the song in a new way, where you actually listen to lyrics and hear and see things you’ve never seen before and getting into that mental place to get that vibe. We followed that pattern through the whole making of the record.

* * *

SONG LISTENING, SONGWRITING, SONG REVIEWING
Stefani: Tony and I wrote all the lyrics and melodies, and Tom wrote all the chords. It was a different form of writing, and once we had a basic form of demo, we would bring in all these programmers who would do remixes. So the whole beat could change after that, and we’d pick out our favorite parts, and we’d rework the song to be the song it ended up being. It was a lot of rewriting, reviewing and just trying to get it right.

Kanal: So we’d hang out for a bit, and then we’d start getting into music, and we’d write into the evening and hope something cool would happen. I would have a mic, Gwen would have a mic, and Tom would put some chords down, and we’d sing over those chords, and just do it over and over and over again. We’d develop a couple of songs, and we’d say, “That’s a great chorus; now we have to come up with a verse.” Then we’d say, “Well, that verse is even better. The chorus isn’t good enough; let’s rewrite the verse,” and we just kept doing it until we felt the songs were done.

Dumont: We wrote our first song for Push and Shove at the end of 2009. In the past, it seemed as though every album has had a clear theme, as to musical direction where we were going, and this one didn’t. What emerged with Push and Shove was kind of a big mix of influences of everything we grew up listening to, from U.K. music from the ’80s to reggae and ska music to the new-wave stuff such as Depeche Mode and OMD.

Stefani: We just said, “Let’s try to write songs that are going to be really catchy.”

Stent: No Doubt cover so many different areas of music, and their music has changed so much over the years that it’s a reflection of who they are and what they’ve been doing through the years. Some of these tracks, we did them god knows how many different ways and styles. And that was just because we wanted a new approach for everything.

* * *

PUSH AND SHOVE FAVORITES
Stefani: I love “Push and Shove.” I think that song feels like everything we’ve ever been and everything we’ve ever loved. It’s definitely a fun song, and being able to work with [DJs/producer duo] Major Lazer was really cool.

Dumont: “Push and Shove” starts off in a really traditional kind of ska beat, and it’s funny because we used to be known for being a ska band in the old days, and we’ve never had a song that had that particular beat and groove, so that song kind of reminds me of our past but is completely new and different. Vocally, it’s amazing. It’s kind of like a ska “Bohemian Rhapsody”—it’s epic.

* * *

DISCOVERING NO DOUBT DNA
Stefani: On this record, it was more like we went back a lot to the music that was the fabric of our life. The music that we discovered when we were just discovering who we were as people.

Young: A lot of our records come from ’80s inspiration—that’s what we grew up on. So it always finds its way into what we do, but when we try to go for a certain vibe, it always ends up being a No Doubt song because we can’t escape ourselves. That’s just the way it’s always been.

Stefani: All the songwriting that I do—besides on the solo records, which are about having fun and not getting too deep—I just try to draw from my life as things are going on. Anything from being in a relationship to being overwhelmed—and I have a lot of overwhelmed feelings. When I started 10 years ago, when I got married and started my clothing company and had my two babies . . . I didn’t know I would be doing everything at once. I feel like it’s impossible to do and be all these things all at once, and I think I wrote a lot about that on this record.

* * *

PRIORITIZING PARENTHOOD
Stefani: When you have a family and get married, your priorities change so much. The band has become something that’s so special to us because it’s fun—life is so serious once you have a family. It’s so amazing, but you have to grow up and be a parent. So the band is a fun way to escape, in a way. To be able to go and hang out with my friends and play music is a total luxury compared to going to school and not sleeping at night. But this year has been super-challenging. Gavin [Rossdale, Stefani’s husband and lead singer for Bush] has been on tour all year, and this is the first time that that’s happened. Up until this point, with the kids, we’ve been really lucky that we’re all together. . . . And [the rest of No Doubt] all have wives. Neither one of us has a wife. [Laughs.] I think everything will work out; these things usually do.

Kanal: I don’t know if we’re bringing all the kids on all the tour dates; you have to do what the right thing is for the kids—but you know what the good thing is? Lots of Skype.

Adrian: The goal that we’re really going for is to bring our families with us. It’s different than the old days; there’s definitely more parenting and less partying. It’s a great vibe, but it’s also very grounding because being in a very successful band is sometimes so self-indulgent that it’s good to not think about ourselves when we go offstage and just think about how are the kids doing. We’ll take the kids to the movies or a park on off days, instead of being self-indulgent rock stars.

Stefani: My kids definitely get into our music. Every time my son hears our song on the radio, his face just goes AAAH! Like, “Oh, no, it’s on!” Like, he’s excited, and he’s embarrassed. I think it’s quite weird for them to see me perform; they don’t like to share me, but that’s just a natural thing for a child to not want to share Mom.

Kanal: My daughter Coco’s almost 2 now. She goes “ge ge ge” whenever “Settle Down” comes on the radio. She flips out—like, I gotta pick her up, we gotta do a dance party, she puts her hands in the air, and anybody else around us, if they don’t start dancing with us, she’s like, “Hey! Hey! Hey!” They have to join in. It’s pretty incredible.

II. YOU MAY ASK YOURSELF, HOW DO I WORK THIS?

GWEN GOING SOLO
Muller: Gwen’s solo career hasn’t dented the band relationship at all. It’s refreshing for her to go back to them.

Kanal: I never, ever thought we were ever going to break up [when Gwen went solo]. I just didn’t realize how long our break was gonna be. Gwen had to make those records; she was so inspired, and she creatively needed to have that output. She couldn’t have made those records with the band—she had a whole different vision for what she wanted to do, and as a friend, I was so proud of her. She created an empire of fashion, and those records were tied into that.

Dumont: We’ve known one another so long, and we have a great trust among one another. . . . When Gwen talked to us about going to make her first solo album, she was really clear with us—”I’m not leaving the band; we’re not breaking up. We’re going to take a break and let everyone breathe for a year or so.” It was planned to be a year-long break, and it took three.

Young: The plan was always that we were going to make another record.

Stefani: When I was writing the solo record, I had this fantasy of being in Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. I was making a dance record, and lyrically, a lot of dance records aren’t really that deep, so I think I was just more of a creative writer in that kind of way.

* * *

ON STAYING TOGETHER FOR 26 YEARS
Dumont: The single thing I’m most proud of is we’ve been able to make it this far. We’ve had ups and downs, and we’re still together. We still have fun, we’re still friends, and we get to share this incredible thing that we’ve built together, and we’re forever bonded by that. We’ve made it through intact and happy. Coming into rehearsal every day is something I’m excited to do.

Stefani: It doesn’t really feel that that kind of time has gone by.

Muller: Their dynamic hasn’t changed that much. In some ways, they’re easier on one another than they were when I first met them. When you’re first making it, you’re far more anxious and scared and unsure and insecure about what’s going to happen. When [Gwen] got attention then, they felt that they wouldn’t be taken seriously or that they wouldn’t be a band. Whereas now, they know it’s not going to happen; they’re safe in the band. And I think that’s the biggest change. They feel much more confident in the band around one another.

Young: We still get along, as a band, miraculously. I don’t know how, but we do. That’s one way to stay together for 26 years.

Jon Halperin, booker for the Glass House and founder of ska label Vegas Records: I think they’re still around ’cause they take breaks and they don’t burn everyone out. They don’t put out that much music, so people anticipate their return.

* * *

ON NO DOUBT’S LEGACY
Halperin: They sort of held that ska flag out there for the rest of the world, and I loved that they helped out bands such as the Vandals. I love that they proudly held up that ska banner. No Doubt made that three-letter word a household word.

Aaron Barrett, lead singer of Reel Big Fish: They were always rock stars. You could just feel the energy. They were always important; it was just a matter of time until the rest of the world knew. I still have a signed No Doubt picture in my wallet. We still look up to them and aspire to be that big.

Kevin Lyman, founder of the Warped Tour: Everyone loved No Doubt. Everyone loved touring and working with them. They were a band that crossed over and helped break out of the Orange County scene. That’s when people started paying attention to OC.

III. SAME AS IT EVER WAS

HOW NO DOUBT CAME TO BE
Stefani: When we started, we were trying to make music that was so the opposite of what could possibly get on the radio. We were doing it because we discovered this music that defined us, so it’s crazy that we keep going. It’s a miracle, and we really are appreciating it more than we ever have before.

Kanal: I was 16 years old when I joined No Doubt in 1987. I could play at bars, but they were 21-and-over, and I would have to sit outside and wait until it was our time to go onstage.

Young: We always prided ourselves on being a live band. I think that’s what we do best, and we were crafting that early on—we practiced so much. As we were going to high school and college, it was always, “I can’t wait to go to band practice to get ready for that next show.”

Kanal: The thing about OC, growing up, there weren’t a lot of great places to play. Fender’s Grand Ballroom in Long Beach was one of our favorites, and it was a super-duper dive, incredibly punk-rock venue, and it was the most incredible place.

Jerry Miller, lead singer of the Untouchables: We played at Madame Wong’s West in Santa Monica, and this girl invited them over to her apartment to listen to music and hang out before the show. When they showed up, they brought seven large pizzas. And before we were going to play the show, the whole band just started cleaning up! They vacuumed the house, washed dishes, took out the trash. . . . It was the coolest thing. They were probably 15, 16, yet they had the wherewithal to show their appreciation and cleaned up this girl’s house after bringing us food to eat. They’re good, clean kids.

Lyman: I worked with Goldenvoice and Paul Tollett, and we had No Doubt on lots of shows back in the day. In the late ’80s and the early ’90s, we put them on lots of shows. We used to do a lot of ska shows, with 10 or 12 bands on the bill, and they’d be third or fourth from the bottom. When Tragic Kingdom came out in ’95, they did part of the first Warped tour, that first year.

* * *

ON THEIR BREAKTHROUGH ALBUM, TRAGIC KINGDOM
Stefani: When I wrote Tragic Kingdom, I was very open because I didn’t think anyone would hear it—I didn’t even know I could write songs! We worked really hard for eight years, and we finally had a record, and we went from being this big fish in a really small pond to, like, having this commercial success we’d never experienced. Having to face everybody with all our private lives was really complicated.

Tazy Phillips, founder of Ska Parade: When Tragic Kingdom came out, I thought they had overshot in terms of it was so good. It wasn’t only something you’d hear on KROQ; it was something you’d hear on KIIS-FM. It was too pop—but in a good way. It was pretty obvious to me that “Just a Girl” was a smash.

Muller: When I met the band, it was a really big thing for them to wear Orange County on their sleeves. People didn’t know anything about Orange County. In some ways, they still have that homegrown feel, even though they’re much more world-class and have done everything everywhere all over the world. They still feel like a gang from OC. You still have the feeling they’re approachable. . . . I had been hired to shoot the “Don’t Speak” video, and it was so intense. I remember Gwen was all sparkly—remember when she used to wear the jewels around her eyes? She was very charming and really excited and sweet. They’d been a struggling band [getting famous], and, of course, Gwen was an extraordinary artist, so she was getting loads of attention. The band didn’t like it, and it was causing huge problems for them, and it was really embarrassing for Gwen because it wasn’t like she asked for it—it just happened. They were so open and said we’ve got nothing to hide, and I was so impressed—why wouldn’t we make a video about what was really going on? I really admired them for it.

Barrett: No Doubt were already local heroes when we discovered them. When Tragic Kingdom came out with those hit songs, everyone started writing articles about that. As soon as they got big, that helped us. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have gotten a record deal; we owe it all to them.

Phillips: I made a ska compilation for KROQ that included No Doubt and Sublime’s “Date Rape.” And Sublime weren’t the easiest band to work with, so it got to a point where you had to think, who would you rather work with? The band that lights up in the studio with Jed the Fish, a recovering addict, or No Doubt, the band that was a total dream to work with, wrote great songs, had a pretty girl who made freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies and brownies for the DJs? The answer was more than obvious.

Muller: If you remember the beginning of the “Don’t Speak” video, when Tony bites into an orange that was rotten inside—that was symbolic of their relationship with Orange County at the time. It was beautiful outside but filled with worms. In the [“Settle Down” video], he grabs an orange in the truck and wants to eat it because it’s fresh and ripe. A lot has changed.

* * *

‘HOO-LY SHIT, THEY’RE BLOWING UP’
Stefani: I’m lucky because we were in our band nine years by the time we got commercially famous. [The fame] doesn’t really feel real—when you say, “fashion icon,” that makes me giggle. But the older I get, the more I’ve realized it is a responsibility and I do have an influence on people. I just try to be a good person; I just am me. I do things I’m comfortable doing, and it’s really nice that I feel I don’t do anything that would hurt anyone.

Jenny Fowler, founder of and webmaster for No Doubt fansite Beacon Street Online: I’ve looked up to Gwen since I was 12 or 11, when Tragic Kingdom came out. I know it sounds corny, but she’s always been such a good idol to look up to. She’s such a good girl and always true to herself. And the band—they’re such respectable people. Their dedication to one another is great. And their style is always changing and evolving, but they always remain true to themselves at the same time.

Halperin: I think if you’re a fan of No Doubt from before, and you grew up with them, the new music . . . still stays true enough to its roots that they’re maintaining that core fan base.

El Mac, artist for Push and Shove’s cover: I remember being a teenager and having a crush on Gwen, so I guess you could say I’ve been a fan for a little while. And when you’re that young and you’re into something, it stays with you, so there’s a certain amount of respect there.

Miguel Happoldt, manager and producer of Sublime: In 1995, when we played the World Beat Center in San Diego, Sublime headlined and No Doubt were a supporting act. It was weird—for one heartbeat, Sublime was a little bit bigger than No Doubt. I had to pay Tony $500, and he gave me and Brad [Nowell, Sublime lead singer] a two-song cassette, and we listened to it on the way home, and Brad said, “We’re done.” It was “Just a Girl.” It was like, “Jesus Christ, we’re going to be opening for them for the rest of our lives.” Within two weeks, every time we’d go to 7-Eleven to buy beer, we’d hear that damn song. It was like, “Hoo-ly shit, they’re blowing up.”

Hello again!  Thanks to Taylor for the heads up, OC Weekly has posted a preview of  the apparently “huge” No Doubt cover story they’ll be running later this week!   In the days leading up to the article they will be running preview articles. :

“Ten years after Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal, Tom Dumont and Adrian Young ushered in the 21st century with the release of the electro-bopped, dancehall-infused Rock Steady, No Doubt is back. At the forefront is a retro-new wave album called Push and Shove, which juxtaposes 80s synth pop with modern house beats and dubstep drops. What else is new? There’s a more fanatical Stefani following, all new Twitter handles, and fashion icon status for model-esque frontwoman. But the biggest change is that there are more children for the band all around (eight in total). On Thursday, OC Weekly’s cover story will have Anaheim’s fab four talking about the challenges of making the album. Here, they talk about what it’s like to be rockstars with families.

On doing it all: Gwen Stefani never imagined she would be married, in a band, own a clothing company and have two babies 10 years ago. “I could’ve never predicted that I would be doing so much at one time. I started the clothing line because I wanted to be creative after I did music and while I had kids. I didn’t know I would be doing everything at once! [Sometimes] I feel like it’s impossible, and I think I wrote a lot about that on this record.”

On their kids dealing with rockstar parents: Stefani says her kids [Kingston, 6 and Zuma, 4] definitely get into No Doubt’s music. “They’re really into their dad’s music and they love music — especially the little guy… It’s kind of fun to see them but I think it’s quite confusing and weird for them to see me perform. They don’t like to share me, but that’s just a natural thing for a child to not want to share their mom.”

Drummer Adrian Young says his kids think his job is cool — “But that’s all they know, too. That’s what they’ve seen from day one. So they don’t go, wow, you are so this or that. In fact when people at school say, ‘Oh your dad is a huge rock star,’ my son feels like that’s weird that people are talking about his dad like that.”

On No Doubt as a family: There’s something to be said for 26 years of togetherness, says guitarist Tom Dumont. “We’ve had ups and downs and we’re still together, we still have fun and we’re still friends. And we get to share this incredible thing that we’ve built together and we’re forever bonded by that.” He adds, “We’ve grown up together. In that sense getting back together was really comfortable and it’s almost comfortable the way siblings are, like coming home for Christmas….”

On the extended No Doubt family: According to the band, their kids all get along. In fact, guitarist Tom Dumont’s older boy is Stefani’s sons’ best friend. When she has to go to rehearsal, she says, “I have to make all these plans and tell them you’re going to [the Dumonts’] to play and I have to draw a picture of them on the trampoline having the time of their life!”

On being a mom: Stefani says, “When I had my first baby I felt I was a mom and the word didn’t feel right. It just was odd to take on that role. I think being a mom is another amazing role to play and it’s definitely is the hardest one.”

There is another new interview with the band from CBS Local here!

Fuse also has a new video interview with No Doubt here!