Greener Pastures: a No Doubt fan site

Archive for the ‘Update’ Category

Push and Shove!

Wednesday, August 29th, 2012

Ryan Seacrest premiered the radio edit of “Push and Shove” on his radio show this morning!  Listen to it here:

You can hear a better version of it streaming on this page I love it!  Repeat!!  :D

KROQ posted part of an interview with Adrian yesterday to their site. :

“Relaxing over a drink in his private in-home bar with Stryker, No Doubt drummer Adrian Young explained the story behind the ska-inspired title track from their highly anticipated new album, Push and Shove.

“Singing with Gwen (Stefani) is Jamaican dancehall rapper, Busy Signal. We worked on the track with Major Lazer, kind of a collaboration,” Young explained. “They kind of brought us back to our own roots on that song. They said, ‘When you were young, you were playing so much ska. We’d like to hear what that’s like in 2012. No Doubt playing ska.’”

“So we gave it a go, and we all get super excited every time we hear that song. Ska music in general is just exciting music. It feels natural to us. Anything you were doing as a teenager into your 20s or 30s… it’s a part of us, it’s a part of No Doubt.

Stryker dug deeper into the roots, asking the drummer how the song was born. “The roots of the song started with Tony talking to the guys from Major Lazer (led by superstar DJ/producer Diplo), and they came up with the initial groove. It sounded awesome so we jumped in and put our tweaks on it. We said, let’s make it more ‘No Doubt.’ We wrote the chorus, which is super different than the verses.” Young reflects on the early days of the band. “It’s like what we used to do a long time ago. We’d do ska verses, then go into some weird half-time chorus. But a long time ago when we were playing music like that, radio wasn’t playing us. First the first eight years of our band, we weren’t on the radio. So, I’m really excited to hear that kind of song, from us, on the radio.”

No Doubt’s Push And Shove hits stores September 25th.

– Jay Tilles, CBS Local”

We get to hear “Push And Shove” the song tomorrow!

Tuesday, August 28th, 2012

Holy shit! Ryan Seacrest just tweeted  “Just got confirmation, I’m premiering @NoDoubt‘s new song “Push and Shove” tomorrow 7a PT on @OnAirWithRyan!”

That’s 10am EST.  I have to work tomorrow at that time!  It will be streaming online at http://ryanseacrest.com/live/!  I’ll have to sneak off with my phone then haha!

Also, No Doubt tweeted that they will be on Ellen next month!:

“Just Announced: @NoDoubt will make their return to @TheEllenShow next month during #PushAndShove release week. More details coming soon!”

They wrote on their Facebook page:

“One of No Doubt‘s very first stops on their reunion tour in 2009 was The Ellen DeGeneres Show. It’s time to continue that tradition! The band will perform live on the show again next month during Push And Shove release week. Stay tuned for more details!”

LA Times had reported that they would be on Ellen Sept. 19, but it appears that they are now unsure of that date.:

Update at 3:13 p.m.: An earlier version of this post stated that No Doubt will appear on “The Ellen Degeneres Show” on Sept. 19. The date of the band’s appearance has not been confirmed.”

Happy Birthday

Monday, August 27th, 2012

to Tony Kanal!!  :D

Summer Sonic 2002 videos

Sunday, August 26th, 2012

Hello!  I’ve added videos from the 2002 Summer Sonic Festival in Japan to the RS videos section.

Happy Birthday

Sunday, August 26th, 2012

to Adrian Young!!

No Doubt to Kick Off the Festivities at the iHeartRadio Festival

Saturday, August 25th, 2012

From the official:

“No Doubt are pleased to announce they will kick off the festivities at the 2012 iHeartRadio event in Las Vegas, NV on September 21 and 22.  The band will be featured first at this year’s live performance on Friday night at 7:30pm, which will also mark the start of the live webcast and the subsequent television broadcast.

“Being asked to open a show like this is always an honor. Whether it’s an award show, a festival or any prestigious event, it gives us a chance to do something different for everyone watching” said No Doubt bass player Tony Kanal.  “We’ve got some amazing stuff planned.  You don’t want to miss the start of the show!”

The Friday concert, which also features performances by Green Day, Lil Wayne, Rihanna, Shakira, Swedish House Mafia and others begins promptly at 7:30 PM (Pacific) as does the streaming webcast. Organizers are recommending the audience be in their seats by 7:00PM; doors open at 6:30 PM.

INFO:
I heart radio show featuring No Doubt
Friday, September 21st.  Doors at 630
MGM Grand.  Las Vegas”

BBC interview, album review…

Friday, August 24th, 2012

Stephen Bradley‘s birthday was yesterday!  So, happy belated birthday!  I said happy b-day to him on twitter yesterday, but also wanted to mention him here!  xxxooo

Gwen called into BBC radio today for a phone interview with Annie Mac.  You can listen to it starting at about 42:00 here!

Target is going to have a special edition of Push And Shove which will include “8 additional songs including an unreleased studio track, new acoustic versions and remixes“!  You can pre-order it on their site!

NME has posted an album review, which includes some new song info. :

“‘Settle Down

The lead single. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you really should. It’s classic No Doubt: catchy, clearly the work of kids raised on 1980s ska and new wave, and packed with quotable Gwen-isms: “Do you copy? Do you copy?”

Looking Hot

… whereas this is a surprise. It’s basically No Doubt Do Club Pop – imagine something produced by RedOne (Gaga, Enrique, J.Lo), but drained of the Euro cheese. Well, most of it anyway. Just as you’re getting used to the idea, they slip in a tempo-slowing eight that sounds a bit like reggae. And then Gwen delivers the baffling line: “Go ahead and stare at my ragamuffin.” We think she means her…

One More Summer

‘One More Summer’ is a great song title, especially from No Doubt, a band born and raised on California sunshine. Thankfully, they deliver the goods – this is sleek, synthy and anthemic, like The Killers if they unclenched their buttocks a bit.

Push And Shove

What do you think a No Doubt tune produced by Major Lazer sounds like? Erm, not like this. ‘Push And Shove’ lurches from jerky dancehall verses to choruses that recall No Doubt’s biggest album, ‘Tragic Kingdom’, but with added wompage. There are also guest raps and Gwen channelling her inner Nicki with the line “We be on another level like we doin’ yoga”. It sounds horrible, but it’s actually bonkers and brilliant.

Easy

This one’s more straightforward. All bubbling synths and New Order guitars, ‘Easy’ is a wistful cousin to the ‘The Real Thing’, an underrated moment from Gwen’s first solo album. The lyrics are interesting too. Rough translation: stop getting your knickers in a twist, Gwen, and go make up with him.

Heaven

On which Gwen goes all gooey over her “designer love-maker” – presumably Gavin Rossdale knows some tricks that the rest of don’t. Once you get over the bedroom envy, this is pretty sweet though – like something from a John Hughes movie, but with a dash of dubstep.

Dreaming The Same Dream

The album’s final track. Lyrically, this is a classic Gwen dysfunctional relationship song: “Just like the wind takes the leaf from the tree, you always know how to dismantle me,” goes the opening line. Musically, it’s a synthy midtempo ballad with echoes of Stevie Nicks’s solo career. That is, until the outro, when it all goes a bit ‘(Don’t You) Forget About Me’…

Obviously there are still four tracks to come, but on this evidence, ‘Push And Shove’ is just what you’d want from a No Doubt album in 2012. It’s a catchy, colourful mix of modern pop and 1980s retro that’s never scared to show off its ragamuffin.”

The band has decided to extend the logo design contest to 9/11, so you still have time to get your design in there!

Only about a month now until the album release!  I’m so excited!  It still seems like a (very good) dream!  Somebody slap me! lol  :)

larger Rolling Stone photo

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012

Hello! Here is a larger version of the most recent photo from Rolling Stone:

more new interviews!

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012

Hello! There’s a new interview with Tony on Rolling Stone’s web site! :

“By David Browne

August 22, 2012 9:00 AM ET

Most albums aren’t recorded overnight; just ask Steely Dan or Bruce Springsteen. However, No Doubt‘s upcoming Push and Shove, out September 25th, is one of the longest-gestating pop albums in recent memory. According to bassist Tony Kanal, it’s a triumph that the album – the band’s first since 2001’s Rock Steady – was completed at all.

“We always knew it was going to happen,” Kanal says, “but there was a lack of clarity as to when it would happen. We went through a period when we thought, ‘Wow, will this ever get done?'”

The winding road to Push and Shove began in 2007 while lead singer Gwen Stefani was touring behind her second solo album, The Sweet Escape. In June, during the encore for one of her shows in Irvine, California, the other members of No Doubt joined her onstage for a four-song set that included their hits “Just a Girl” and “Hella Good.” “The response was so amazing that we said, ‘We have to start working,'” explains Kanal.

Not long after the show, the band convened to start writing new material, but Stefani was still exhausted from touring and was expecting her second child. The band was also hit with collective writers’ block. Those songwriting sessions and further ones in 2008 yielded little, and the band decided to give it a rest. “We know when it’s right and when it isn’t,” Kanal says. “We had to get that feeling again.”

Things only began clicking again in November 2009 after the band’s successful summer reunion tour. Kanal says he was skeptical of hitting the road and performing only old material, but the band was so energized afterward that they decided to give the new album another try. One song, “Undercover,” finally emerged, but work still progressed slowly throughout 2010, since Stefani was now the mother of two and only available three evenings a week. “We’d order in food and spend the first hour talking about life and kids,” Kanal says. “Between us, we have nine kids. But it was like, ‘This is fun again.'”

Finally, earlier this year, the band spent five months focusing on new material with producer Spike Stent (whose résumé includes Oasis, Madonna and Coldplay). Even then, the band frantically rewrote and tossed out material. One track, “Back in Love,” was almost scrapped until the band realized the intro could make a terrific chorus, resulting in an entirely different dance song, “Looking Hot.” When the album was almost done, Stefani suggested they needed a ballad, and out came “Undone” – but again, only after it was nearly abandoned. “Gwen went on a family vacation in England and emailed me from there and said, ‘I think there’s something here with this song,’ so we went back to work on it,” says Kanal.

The band’s love for reggae and dancehall still comes through in the lead single, “Settle Down,” and the title track (which featured a verse from Jamaican dancehall singer Busy Signal). “We want to sound modern, but we’re still influenced by ska, reggae and Eighties UK bands,” says Kanal. “There’s no way to escape who we are.” Kanal calls “Heaven” the band’s “homage to OMD, Depeche Mode and the Cure – the stuff we love to reference.”

The one thing Push and Shove doesn’t have are leftovers for future deluxe editions. “In the past, we’d write 20 songs for a record,” Kanal admits. “This time, our time was limited. So, no, no outtakes!” More seriously, Kanal adds, “For everyone, taking that long break was very healthy. Gwen needed to get that out of her system. She couldn’t have made those [solo] albums with No Doubt. And we’ve learned that if you try to force it, it doesn’t work with this band.”

_________________________________________________________________

There’s also a new interview with Gwen on Derek Blasberg’s site! :

“Full disclosure: The first time I ever met Gwen Stefani was in 2001, when I was a freshman in college, at the afterparty for the VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards. (Remember those, anyone?) It was at The Park on 10th Avenue and my brother was with me. She was wearing the wide-gage fishnet stockings, cargo pants, wife beater tank top and pointy toed boots that John Galliano had designed for Dior, and she standing on the patio on the second floor. Feeling a little tipsy, my brother, who is truly a lifelong No Doubt fan and only dated blondes who would entertain his SKA music preference, went up to her and asked for an autograph. We didn’t have paper or anything, so we found a pen and presented her with a pack of Marlboro Lights, which she laughed at (at us?) and signed. I still cringe every time I think of this.

Point of the story: I have been a Gwen fan for more than a decade. Since No Doubt’s 1995 record Tragic Kingdom, to be exact, though in the pre-internet world the record didn’t make it to Missouri till about 1997. (I’ve crossed paths with Gwen a few times since then, and I’ve told her the story of the brother and the nicotine autograph and she just laughs. Thank goodness.) Which is why I was so enthusiastic about seeing her again for Harper’s Bazaar’s September issue cover story. I’ll include that and some of Terry Richardson’s fabulous pictures below, but after the two of us finished dishing on her style choices – few women have done more for platinum blondes and red lipstick since Marilyn Monroe – we started talking about her new album, Push and Shove, which I can’t wait to get my hands on. So I thought anyone who is as a devoted fan of the Gwen songbook as I am would find some of these thoughts interesting. And then, for the rest of us fashion folk, check out the full article below.

On the new record’s sound: “It’s really upbeat, which is surprising, it’s kind of a combination of everything we’ve ever done. It has that reggae thing in it, it has a lot of 80s sounds, it’s very happy and upbeat, but it’s confessional too. My last records and my solo stuff were not to be taken too seriously. They were dance records. They were, like, silly. They’re not about being deep, but [this record] is a little deeper. This is more like a No Doubt record. I think it sounds like us. It sounds so much like us, but fresh. In a new way. I definitely think it’s the best work we’ve ever done. I’m sure everyone says that about a new record and I am always like, my favorite thing is whatever I’m working on. But it’s true: this is my favorite thing.”

On being nervous about releasing a new record: “Yeah, I’m nervous. I haven’t put a record in a long time, and there’s so much passion that you put into it. And then all of a sudden, it’s out. This is the best part because no one has heard it, because you’re so proud of it and you love it, and no one has criticized it. I’m really excited for the people I know who have followed us and are supporting us. They’re going to love it. If I love it, they’re going to love it.”

On getting back into the groove: “I would be with the baby all day, do the baby stuff, and the fashion stuff, and all the stuff that I do, and then at 4pm I would go to the studio and say, ‘Let’s write this record.’ Before, when we would write, we’d stay up all night. But now, it’s like, how do I force myself to write? What do I write about? I mean, I’m married. Know what I mean? So weird. Then, when we wrote the first song, which is called Undercover, it was like, oh my god, we can do it.”

On writers block: “To be honest, by this point in a career, it’s hard to get inspired. You’ve already sort of done it all. [When you’re starting out] you don’t have that house, and you don’t have that car. There’s ambition. Look, we had to fight for it, and all that desperate-we-want-to-do-it-so-bad is what made it so good. It’s really an inspired record.”

On being shocked by No Doubt’s early success: “We weren’t working towards fame. That’s what’s weird. We were working toward playing shows and getting more shows, but not because we ever thought we’d break through. We were in a scene that we thought would never go mainstream. The idea of getting on the radio was beyond all possibility. This is in the middle of grunge, remember. I’m sorry, but why would that happen? It was Nirvana. And then it just got on the radio. And then Tragic Kingdom came out and we went on tour and we never came home.”

 On writing lyrics now: “Do I write in a diary? Not now. I used to have journal, of course I did. But now with the kids and stuff, it’s like, when? I don’t have time to go to the bathroom, let alone do a journal entry. This was the first time I wrote with someone else, besides when I did my solo stuff. [Tony Kanal and I] just sat on the couch and we actually wrote lyrics together. Normally, I would write all the lyrics, but I couldn’t do it. I needed someone to go, ‘What about this?’ I needed someone to push me. Piece it all together, torture torture torture, and then we’d have the whole string of the song, and then I’d just have to write the lyrics. Which was a whole other thing: what am I going to write about? But, interestingly, even though I have so many blessings in my life, there’s always something to complain about. That’s life.”

On the last song that made it on the album, Undone: “The last song we we wrote was a song called Undone. I had gone to London and I said I’d go work on it, and they were like, ‘She’s not going to do it, she doesn’t work on anything when she’s not here.” But I got to London and one night when the kids were at the their grandparents’, and I was looking at old videos, watching Garbage videos, and the stuff you do when you have the luxury of that time. And I said, I’m going to pull that song out. I did it. I wrote the words. I got back to LA and they were like, ‘What? You did something?’ That turned out really good. We didn’t struggle over it. Sometimes it just happens.

On the color pink: “You know, I’m feeling pink again. Ten years ago, when I did pink the first time, I was like I never want to see that color again. It represents girls. It’s like I had that line in ‘Just A Girl’: Take this pink ribbon off my eyes.”

On the song, Just a Girl: “When I wrote that, who knew? Who knew! I can remember sitting on the my bed, and my sister was on the phone, I’m at my parents, it’s three in the morning, and I’m writing this song. It’s so weird, right? I didn’t even think anyne would ever hear that song, let alone it become a hit. Recently, we just did some small impromptu acoustic things, and we did that song and I was wondering,’How is this song going to work now? Am I the other girl that I used to be? But it totally still works. Obviously, I’m not that girl anymore, but it still works.”

video update

Tuesday, August 21st, 2012

Hello!

I’ve uploaded a few videos to the TK interviews section.  The interview that aired on Channel V from when No Doubt was in India in 1997, in three parts.

Also, an interview with the band that aired on the show “Red Jam” in Australia.  I was able to add that one to YouTube (the Channel V one was blocked for some reason). I love this one, especially the part where Adrian talks about his fear of high drum risers lol:

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