No Doubt:
More from the interviews with Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal, and Tom Dumont

Vocalist Gwen Stefani and bassist Tony Kanal:

After the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., life changed for everyone. Did it feel strange releasing and touring for such a happy, fun record after such a devastating tragedy?

Stefani: At first, when all of this happened I was like, "Oh shit, maybe it’s not appropriate to put this party record out." It made it seem so trivial compared to life. But now I feel like we have this special little treat, like a gift to give people that offers a bit of a diversion from everything else in their lives.

Kanal: Yeah, in the beginning you start to question everything you’re doing and it all starts to seem very trivial and small. But once you get a little bit of distance and perspective, you realize that people need music. And if what we’re doing can give some kind of release and relief to people and make them feel better and improve their lives and stuff, then it’s worth it no matter how awkward it might feel to step on a plane..

What were you after on Rock Steady?

Stefani: We were just really inspired by going out and dancing to dancehall music. When we were on tour for the Return to Saturn record, every night we had these after parties and we would just dance all night. I think when we came home it was what we were really inspired by, so we thought, "Well, we’ll go straight for that. Let’s try to write those kinds of songs." We wanted to write songs that we could dance to in the clubs. The clubs that we went to would play out song and we could dance to it. But I would have never thought it would turn out the way it did. I love it so much. It’s a record that we actually listen to.

Were these songs written differently than your other material?

Stefani: Usually we have an acoustic guitar, and then you use that to decide if it’s gonna be a ska song or a pop song or whatever, and what beat it’s gonna have, and then it develops into something. But this time we had a drum machine when we started off. We just went, "Oh, I think I’m gonna write a song like "Hold Me Now" by the Thompson Twins. And you try to sort of copy the beat and get the vibe and it’s just a different way of writing. And it went really quickly. Like, "Hey Baby," we wrote that song in an afternoon, recorded a demo of it, I wrote the lyrics, I sang them that night. And those are the actual tracks you’re hearing. The actual vocals and everything is stuff we did in Tom’s living room. So it’s been really cool to be able to use the Pro Tools because a lot of the producers came afterwards and just added on to the existing tracks that we’d already done.

Kanal: Each producer kind of built on top of the demos. It wasn’t like in the past where you do your demos and then you go into the studio and start everything again from scratch and say, "Now we’re officially recording the record." These demos sounded so good and the initial vibe and spark was so strong that we said, "Okay we need to bring someone in to just build on it."

You collaborated with a wide range of producers including reggae masters like Sly & Robby and Steelie & Cleevie, ‘80s guys like Dave Stewart and Ric Ocasek and space aged knob-twiddlers like William Orbit and Nellie Hooper. How did that all come together?

Stefani: It just kind of happened. Every time we tried to get a producer to do the record it was like, "Well he’s only available to do two tracks." We couldn’t block someone out for six months.

Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics was the first producer you worked with?

Stefani: We had written four tracks and I had to go to London for a little while to be with Gavin, and Dave Stewart was interested in doing something with us. So we went over to his studio and wrote "Underneath it All" in like 10 minutes. It was on one of these really fun afternoons. He’s written all these amazing tracks and he had all these stories to tell and it was really inspiring. And next thing we know, Tony’s like, "We’re going to Jamaica. We’re gonna work with Sly & Robby. I’m gonna make it happen." And suddenly we’re in Port Antonia, Jamaica working with the legendary Sly & Robby, which was so weird -- these white Orange County kids that have always embraced ska and reggae, suddenly recording these dancehall and reggae tracks with these legends. And they were so up on No Doubt. They were very current and they embraced us.

Kanal: I always think back on the Jamaican sessions with such fondness. Being able to spend every morning swimming and drinking rum and eating jerk food then getting in the studio mid-afternoon and working through the night. There were a lot of distractions and the vibes were so good it’s a wonder we got anything done, but man, we did. We got four songs out of those sessions. And we’re really proud of them.

You also did a track with Prince.

Stefani: That actually happened so long ago. I got that call, "Prince is on the phone," which is so crazy. And he wanted me to be on his [1999] record, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. And his thing was, "You be on my record and I’ll do whatever you want -- produce, write, do something with the band." And I was like, "Cool!" We had this track that we had written for Return to Saturn called "Waiting Room" but something wasn’t right about it, so we ended up sending him the demo and saying, "We’re trying to work on this track. What do you think? What can we do to make it better?" So he generously flew the entire band out to Paisley Park and when we got off the plane, I called him because they were like the Artist wants to speak with you. And he was like, "Okay, Gwen, I had to re-write it." And I was like, "What?" We get into the studio, and he has re-written the song and recorded this track and we were floored. To me, it’s amazing and it was way ahead of its time because it didn’t fit anywhere in with the Return to Saturn record, but it fits on this one perfectly. It was like we made it for this record.

Two tracks you did with two of the most popular producers in the music business didn’t make the record. Are No Doubt too good for Timbaland and Dr. Dre?

Kanal: [Laughs] No, we just never really got those songs to completion. They were great experiences and we will eventually finish them. But there’s only so much time in the day, and certain songs juts take your focus. We were just more focused on the other stuff. Also, we felt like the album was complete and we wanted to put it out this year so we didn’t finish those. Dre track is called "Wicked Day" and the Timbaland track is called "Fight Song" but at this point they’re just uncompleted ideas.

What do you look for from the crowd?

Kanal: The most important thing is to feed off their energy. When you’re feeding off that energy you’re able to give so much more back. You have to be able to gauge the audience and make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Stefani: Playing the songs and having people like them is totally what keeps the fire going. You get up there and hear people singing the words back to you, and that’s what motivates you even when things in your life aren’t going well.

–Jon Wiederhorn

Guitarist Tom Dumont:

How have the U2 dates been?

We just did one in New York last week and then Monday we start back up for nine more shows.

How has it been going?

So far it's been cool, the first show was great. We got an adequate sound check, which was really beautiful, and we got the stage sounding good; for us is half the battle. As long as we can hear each other well onstage and it sounds good, it makes the performance really easy. It's been a while since we've opened for bands in that kind of setting, but sometimes you don't get soundchecks…the fact that we had thirty or forty minutes for soundcheck made a big difference.

When you’re in a situation where you don’t get a soundcheck, what's it like when you get on stage?

What will happen is the monitor guy will try to guestimate how it's gonna all be. But by the end of the first song everyone's shouting "vocals up," or "get her vocals out," or "drums up," or whatever.

Talk about the other players besides the core band of you, Gwen, Tony, and Adrian?

We have two other guys. They've been with us for maybe 6 or 7 years at least. In the past they were horn players. Gabrial McNair played trombone and Stephen Bradley played trumpet. As we've evolved, we've taken on new duties. Gabe took on keyboards during the Tragic Kingdom tour, 4 or 5 years ago. And they both started doing backup vocals at that time, and Stephen does a lot of percussion. And now this year, Stephen's doing keyboards as well, and then myself and Tony are doing keyboards in certain parts of the show, as well.

So Gabe and Stephen are both playing keyboards?

Yeah. Steve is doing a part time keyboard thing. The basic reason is that our new record has so much keyboard stuff that we're trying to fill out the sound.

And they both do the harmony vocals?

Yeah. They've got their plate full. Gabe's doing keyboards, trombone, background vocals. Steve's doing keyboards, trumpet, and actually Steve does a lot of percussion, too.

So they do play live horn stuff?

More on our older songs they play horn parts. One of the new songs is kind of a reggae number and Steve takes a trumpet solo. [The horns are] still mixed into the sound.

Talk about the putting together the keyboard parts on Rock Steady?

We have a pretty naïve approach, Tony and I to it. In some cases we worked with a few producers on the record where they did some of the keyboard or some of the keyboard programming as well. The stuff we did was kind of Star Wars-y like blips and bleeps. Almost a Devo-esque kind of approach. We don't have those kind of keyboards, either, but we delved deep into the ones we do have. We have Access Virus, Roland Juno 106.

Access Virus?

It's like an analog modeling synthesizer. It's a couple of years old, but it sounds pretty rad. Juno 106, and then I have an E-mu sampler.

Is it an E4?

Yeah. I've got a pretty generic collection of samples. The thing is the stuff that comes free with it, they give you this little CD library. There's some pretty rad stuff in there. It's actually a couple of years old. A lot of the sounds you get are like 5,6,7 years old, so they're actually almost cool and retro right now, even though they're kind of passe in a way.

Talk about preparing the background tracks for stage

What we're doing is going through all the Pro Tools multitracks and making stereo pairs, there's like a stereo track of blips and bleeps from a song, and a stereo track of misc. percussion or like loopy elements.

Is Adrian the only one who hears the click onstage?

Adrian, and then Gwen gets it at certain parts. I think she gets it in and out, our monitor guy kind of tweaks her click. Mostly Adrian, and the rest of us play to Adrian.

Is it weird to have to deal with such a static tempo?

So far it's been cool.

What kind of guitars do you use?

I use Hamer guitars. Usually I'm playing what they call a Standard, which is kind of like a Gibson Explorer.

What type of pickups?
Two humbucking pickups. They're the stock pickups, Seymour Duncan pickups. Two of those, one's a backup. And I've got another new Hamer called an Artist Korina, it's like semi-hollow, it's really nice. And I've a Flying V by them that they call the Vector. That's it for this particular tour. I'll probably add an acoustic on the next [part] I use a Takamine.

What kind of amp do you use?

A Soldano SLO100.

Is it a combo?

I think it's a 100W head. And the effects loop has a TC Electronic unit {QQQ what model?] in it. And I'm going to be adding a Line 6 Echo Pro, it's a rackmount unit. I think it's brand new. I'm going to integrate that with the TC Electronic and I have to figure out how to do MIDI switching with that stuff, it's pretty tricky. The Line 6 stuff sounds cool and it's kind of easier to use in some way, it's just got knobs. Those two things, very short cables in the effects loop of the SLO. And the SLO runs two Fender 4x12 cabinets. Kind of silver, black, kind of vintage-y looking cabinets.

A pretty simple setup.

For our band, I feel like there's so much going on, it's just easier to just have a simple, pure guitar tone and have that come across pretty clear. There are moments in the set, with the TC thing where I use like a vibrato sound or sometimes a delay, or an octave patch programmed in for a low octave and that sounds pretty cool.

Do they mic your amp or do you go direct?

They mic it. With two mics. A [Shure] SM57 and then another one that I don't know.

Do you use high tech cable?

Monster cable. Other than that my setup is really simple. I plug straight into a tuner, one of those rack mount ones. A Korg DTR-2.

Talk about when you play keyboard.

The controller that I'm holding is a Roland. It's a battery operated unit, I've got a 30-foot MIDI cable and it goes to Steven Bradley's EMU [EK4] keyboard behind me and I'm triggering from his keyboard. It's kind of like a sampler. It's like the keyboard version of the E4

What sort of gear does Gwen use?

She pretty much keeps herself on an ignorant level about the equipment. I think we've been using Shure wireless mics.

When will the us headline tour be?

It will probably be in the spring. We'll be finishing the U2 dates. Between now and March it will be promotional date stuff, doing the odd show here and there. I think starting in April, we're planning to do a headline tour.

Has the terrorist stuff affected what you’re going to do?

It might. We haven't been afraid to fly. …Hopefully it won't get any worse, not to be selfish, but for us. But places are already closing off. Last year we played in Malayasia and I have a feeling we'll never go there again. And we've played in Indonesia, and I don't think that will happen. We've made a point to play everywhere we could afford to go, which has been great. But, yeah, it's going to be really limited this time, which is sad because there's nothing better than getting to see the world for free.

Has the security been tighter at your shows?

At the first U2 show at Madison Square Garden, the whole block leading to the backstage entrance was barricaded by police. And then into Madison Sq. Garden, our car was searched by a cop, and they had a bomb sniffing dog which is good. I don't know what it's like for the audience but I'm sure it's pretty heavy, and it surely makes everyone feel a little safer in that kind of situation.

Did you feel nervous on stage?
Leading up to that show I thought, "You know what, after we play I'm getting out of there, I don't want to hang around." But once I'd had a drink or two, but I didn't seem to worry about it so much.

Do you do a lot of warming up?

No. I don't do a single lick. But our stuff, I have a lot more stuff to do with my right hand, rhythm playing, more than any dexterous lead playing. I don't need much warm up.

–Mike Levine

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