No Doubt: Talking With Kurt Loder

Five years ago, the still-scuffling Orange County band No Doubt -- already eight years into its career -- released its third album, "Tragic Kingdom," and not long thereafter embarked on a tour in support of it. Singer Gwen Stefani told her folks, with whom she was still living at the time, that she might be gone for as long as two months. It turned out to be two and a half years, as the ska-fueled "Tragic Kingdom" evolved into a world-wide pop phenomenon, ultimately selling some 15-million copies.

That seemingly endless tour -- during which Stefani's long-running romance with No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal came to an end, and she fell in love with singer Gavin Rossdale of the British band Bush -- wound up providing a lot of powerful lyrical material for No Doubt's extraordinary fourth album, "Return Of Saturn," a collection of tough and often gorgeous songs that contemplate the emotional confusions of turning thirty and the sudden and unexpected attraction of such un-hip things as love and marriage and the possibility of parenthood.

This is not your standard pop-tune lyrical fare, and Stefani's unflinching honesty throughout -- especially on an album on which so much is riding careerwise -- is admirable. The songs work not only because of her artful lyrics and ravishing vocals (in this current era of great big ballads, you're not likely to hear any bigger, or more beautiful, than "Too Late"), but because the band behind her is composing material with a harmonic sophistication that's rare in rock music today, and playing it at a peak of ensemble precision. There are an unusual number of really irresistible songs here -- do try to hear them.

Anyway, No Doubt played a club called the Avalon in Boston last week, and just before the show, we had a talk with Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal. (Gavin Rossdale was there, too, winning boyfriend-of-the-year honors for taking a lone day off from his own tour to fly in and be with Gwen, but that's another story.)

By Kurt Loder - MTV.com