L
ed by the glam icon Gwen Stefani, No Doubt went through the years and the success and shows serenity which is rare nowadays. Interview with one of the most popular groups of these two last decades. Magneto.
Par Fleur Lempinsky.
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It’s been 10 years the group has not registered in studio. Why this lasting break?
Adrian Young :
we don’t see that really like a break because we did a lot of things, some around
No Doubt and others completely different like, for example, the birth of 8 children if we count the babies of the four of us ! After the release of Rock Steady, we did a tour in 2001 and 2002.
In 2003 we recorded “It's My Life" and we released the compilation of our singles. In 2004, we were again on tour and after that, Gwen released her first album solo.
Gwen Stefani:
After Rock Steady we all decided to have a break. We’ve never really had a break! I can’t stop myself so I wondered “maybe I can make an album". One album should have been released but finally there were another one. Then, I gave birth to two children.
So two albums, two tours and two babies. All of that brings us to 2008 when we decided to make again the album No Doubt. Everybody says we had a break but when you think about it, we didn’t have time for that!
Adrian : We were recording musics and having babies…We still do stuffs !
Gwen, is it true you had a lack of inspiration a few years ago ?
Gwen Stefani : Yes, in 2005. I was ready to go on tour after the release of Love. Angel.
Music.Baby. and I got pregnant which was surprise. I gave birth to Kingston, then I went again on tour during 8 months, a total of 105 shows.
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When I came back, I gave birth to Zuma and at that moment I told myself "let’s record a new album of No Doubt!" and I was starting to compose it. I was exhausted of what have just happened. And at that moment, we say “let’s go on tour to have fun ! " So I brought my 8 months baby on tour with us.
You say that the inspiration got back during the US tour in 2009, the first tour in 5 years.
Gwen Stefani: Be on stage again with these guys was so natural and inspiring. But it was more than that. Having my two babies and singing these titles which are about my past, at that moment, I had tears in my eyes every night. It was very moving.
It is one of these moments in life when you say "Wow, it happened so much things and we are still friends the four of us and still can do what we like”.
This is this energy wh put in the album sharing these moment on stage and thinking “we wrote every song we play this night, song that people knew and which were on radio. We know how to write songs, so let’s do it”!
Tony Kanal: We did again what we used to do in 1987, that is to say playing in concert. It’s the only thing we could do very naturally.
The composition has always been a challenge but when we are all on stage we feel like at home. It was the biggest tour we did without even releasing a new album! It felt so good.
It gave us confidence to go back in studio.
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How did the writing of this new album go?
Gwen Stefani: We wrote it in a very different way. We would meet at 16h, nothing was happening before the sunset, but we would pretend, try some things. And then around 21h, during 15 minutes, something magic would happen. It was very slow. It was like that during one year before we could finish the album.
Tony Kanal: It was very different between the writing of this album the one of the others. Before, we would have between 20 and 30 songs and we would take the 10 best ones for the album. We spent so much time on each song. The refrain had to be as good as the verse, the verse as good as the bridge. It wasn’t the case, we could spent weeks trying to correct all of that. We learnt that we can’t hurry the writing, if you do it, you end up with stupid texts.
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There, as soon as we opened the door of the studio, the songs would float around us.
How do you feel with the release of your album « Push And Shove » ?
Gwen Stefani: We always were a group made for live. The writing is always the difficult part and the fact we play in live, it’s like recompense. Once, you’re on tour, you meet people who go to concerts and that are what incite making music. We feel really alive when we go on tour.
Tony Kanal: It was the case during our tour in 2009, such a memory! Yes, go on stage, we play our songs, we do our show for the pleasure of communicating all of that to exceptional people.
Gwen Stefani: Peaple who care and like our music worth the hours spent to write our songs!
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PUSH AND SHOVE
Interscope Records.