The STEF OF LEGEND

No doubt, platinum goddess Gwen is back

By Manila Chansmouth

P Diddy and Tiger Woods were in the audience as Gwen Stefani took to the stage in Las Vegas with her No Doubt colleagues for the first time in five years.  Yet for once, hardly anyone noticed them.  

"You always remember your first show of any tour," the pop princess told fans a few songs into the concert, "and so far, so, so, so good."  

During the hiatus, many fans wondered whether Stefani's solo career would mean the end of the road for the Orange County band that launched her, but in Stefani's mind there was always No Doubt. Presently, Gwen and the boys are on a 45 city tour of the US.

The ska-pop outfit concentrated on their familiar hits, sending the 12,000 plus crowd at Mandalay Bay wild with their rendition of I'm Just a Girl.

Effervescent Gwen, who has since given birth to two boys (Kingston and Zuma) since the band last performed together, has explained why they don't yet have any new material:

“Playing live is a way of getting inspired creatively again. My plan was to get pregnant and write a record. But instead of writing, I just ate all the time," the singer told reporters.

All but one part of that plan has worked out. Musical inspiration for Stefani, who is the main songwriter of such No Doubt hits as "Don't Speak," "Ex-Girlfriend," "Just a Girl" and "Underneath It All," just wasn't there after she and Gavin Rossdale became expectant parents for the second time.

"It totally didn't work," Gwen said at the band’s Los Angeles press conference. "I don't know how other women feel, but I lose connection with myself because my body becomes this other vessel for this other human, even after a few months, you don't have your body back, you're not yourself. I was feeling not very modern, not very creative."

After a few months of fruitless writing sessions, Gwen, bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young decided the best thing they could do to get the creative juices flowing again was to follow the path that had first served them so well: Go out and play.

"Writing is always really hard for me - I hate it and hate it and then I do it, and I'm happy it's done," Gwen said. "I was blocked and I needed to get inspired, and I thought playing live would get the creative juices flowing again."

"We're not calling it a reunion tour, because the band never broke up," band manager Jim Guerinot said.

Hitting the road without new material after several years of relative silence might seem like a risk, but Guerinot, was delighted when the group approached him with the idea. "I think it's the right move," he says.

"Even though they remained friends throughout the hiatus, they've all been working on other projects and haven't spent a lot of time together. They've become more of a unit in the time they've been rehearsing together and played a few shows, and I think this will change things for the positive."

“Disbanding was never discussed,” Dumont, 40, said on the first of several days of band rehearsals. "In fact, it was specifically discussed as 'Let's not be one of these bands that breaks up and gets back together.' We don't hate each other, it was just time for a break. Gwen had some real specific things she wanted to do with her time."

The band started rehearsing together again in Hollywood, then set up shop in Atlantic City and New Jersey, to prepare for East Coast tour dates.

"As soon as the pressure to make a new album was off, it was like a weight was lifted," said Gwen. "I could get back into learning the songs and planning the show, and it was so much more fun than banging my head against a wall in the studio."

No Doubt wants to make it clear that it's not another '90s band looking to hit the road and cash in on the band's greatest hits. "I don't see us as being part of that '90s revival," Kanal says. "We were always a band, even when we weren't playing together."

The last time No Doubt toured was in 2004, performing just more than a dozen shows in conjunction with a hits compilation, "The Singles: 1992-2003." It was 2002 when the group last mounted a full-scale concert tour, following the 2001 release of their last studio album, "Rock Steady."

That's when Gwen realized she had some career steps to take outside the parameters of the Anaheim band she joined as a teenager, entering the group as "Just a Girl" singer before taking over the role of chief songwriter after her older brother, Eric, left the band to pursue his dream career as an animator for "The Simpsons."

Following No Doubt's 2004 tour, she intended to put out just one, as she often called it, "stupid dance record" on her own. "Love Angel Music Baby" ended up selling 4 million copies in the U.S. alone and yielded hit singles including "Hollaback Girl," "What You Waiting For" and "Cool," making Gwen a bona fide platinum-plus solo-artist. 

Not wanting to be too detached from their core audience of late 20-somethings and wanting to procure a new crop of fans, the band thought back to the old days.

"Tom had the idea to give the albums away electronically for free with the ticket purchase," Guerinot said. "A lot of (younger) people like Gwen's solo work but might not be as familiar with No Doubt. And there are people who might not have listened to the records in a while."

Dumont says that giving away the catalog seemed like an obvious added value to ticket holders. "Lots of bands give away their new CDs, but we didn't have one of those," he said. "I've always thought you should be able to go and buy an entire catalog in one click, so you could get a broad representation of a band's work."

In his mind, giving the music to fans is a continuation of No Doubt's time-tested strategy. "When we first started out, we had mailing lists and parties where we'd sit and lick stamps for hours. This is a more modern version of that."

The band is looking forward into the future, seeking a new approach to their sound, perhaps maybe even looking to redefine it. Looking back, though, all the heartache has proven worthwhile.

It was a breakup that led to singer Gwen Stefani's breakthrough. After her seven-year relationship with No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal ended, Stefani channeled the loss into No Doubt's 1995 smash album, Tragic Kingdom. Fueled in part by Stefani's trend-setting style, No Doubt went on to become a major influence on the '90s music scene. The band, as we know it, had been active since the late ‘80s but it was evident who the break-out star would be.

In 2004, the platinum blonde went solo and made waves with over-the-top fashions and an ever-present entourage of Japanese harajuku girls. Additionally, the multi-tasking performer appeared in her first film, The Aviator with Leonardo Di Caprio and later went on to create a retail fashion line called L.A.M.B.

After a very long courtship that began when No Doubt opened for Bush in 1995, she married fellow rocker, Gavin Rossdale – lead singer of Bush, in 2002. Hers may just be the rock – n – roll relationship to break the mold of rock star, supermodel, drugs and divorce.

With 40 encroaching this October, Gwen Renee Stefani is still rocking out with her signature rock-hard abs, crazy costumes and a familiar zest on stage with the band that propelled her into superstardom.