Tony interview
Hello! There’s a new interview with Tony on mlive.com:
“No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal is pleasantly surprised with his band’s reunion tour. Not only are the bandmates having the time of their lives, but fans are as well, he reports.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Kanal, calling from Virginia Beach, Va., where No Doubt was to have a show in a couple hours. “It’s so much fun. I think we’re pleasantly surprised it is this big and the response has been phenomenal. We’re just having a great time.”
Kanal explained that when No Doubt, which also includes singer Gwen Stefani, drummer Adrian Young and guitarist Tom Dumont, stepped on stage for the first time after a four-year hiatus, the chemistry was tangible.
One of the first shows we did was headlining the Bamboozle shows in New Jersey (in early May),” Kanal said. “It was a huge audience, like 30,000, 35,000 people. Gwen asked the audience, ‘How many people are seeing No Doubt for the first time?’ I would say the majority of the people responded, which was very interesting and cool to see that there’s a whole new generation of kids who haven’t seen us before, who are getting turned on to us now.”
Kanal chalked up the new audience to Stefani’s solo career. Stefani released her debut solo album – “Love. Angel. Music. Baby.” – in 2004. Inspired by music of the 1980s, the album featured the single “Hollaback Girl,” reportedly the first U.S. digital download to sell 1 million copies. Her follow-up solo album, 2006’s “The Sweet Escape,” spawned “Wind It Up” and the title track.
“I think (Stefani’s solo work) maybe exposed (No Doubt) to a whole new audience,” said Kanal, who, during the break wrote songs for Stefani and Pink, as well as others. “When you look out into a No Doubt audience tonight, it’s really diverse. I think you’ve had the people who have been following us for many, many years. You’ve also got those same people bringing their kids now. Then you’ve got a lot of people who were turned on to No Doubt through Gwen. They were fans of her solo work and they’re aware that she’s in a band, and for the first time they’re coming to see her band, the band that she’s been in for all these years.”
Next up for No Doubt, when the U.S. tour wraps up in Hawaii in mid-August, is a new album. The band members began writing the record before they headed out on tour.
“We got in the room, we started playing, writing,” Kanal said. “There was about two or three sessions that I did with Tom and Adrian where we just went in with our producer, Spike Stent, and put a bunch of ideas down on tape. Then last year we – Tom and myself – did a couple sessions with Gwen. We have a bunch of really, like, exciting seedlings of ideas but nothing really in shape enough to say, ‘This is a song and this is a song.’ So, it was at that point that we just said, ‘OK. We need to go play some shows and get out there again, instead of banging our heads against the walls and trying force a record out. Let’s get out there get inspired, reconnect with each other, reconnect with our audience and come back and make a record.”
“And that reconnection is going well, he reported. Kanal said it feels like No Doubt is exactly the same band that they were 22 years ago.
“I feel that we have the same energy on the stage and we have the same connection on stage and we have the same amount of fun that we’ve always had,” Kanal said. “It’s just awesome. It’s a different dynamic behind the scenes. My bandmates have all have their kids and their families out. So it’s a little bit different as far as that goes. But it’s just a refreshing, nice change. We’re so fortunate and blessed that we get to experience all these things together still as a band, including now having kids on the road with us.”
Happy birthday to Dennis Stefani! Happy 4th of July to you US peeps, too!!!!
