Stefani is happy to play the part. “Heaven for me is looking out at the audience and seeing so many young girls,” she says. “On one level, it’s so strange to me that anyone knows who I am, but feeling like I’m reaching people and still being respected as a woman is the most rewarding thing.”

But the Stefani that Williams first fell for is not the Stefani of Tragic Kingdom, or even Rock Steady. She married a rock star. Her L.A.M.B. fashion label, started in 2003, has been spotted on Eva Longoria Parker and Paris Hilton, among others. She set up a companion accessories line, Harajuku Lovers, in 2005. Her dance-oriented solo albums, featuring collaborators like André 3000, the Neptunes, and Akon, competed and won in the world of Xtina and Britney. For a time, she made public appearances accompanied by a quartet of Japanese lovelies dubbed the Harajuku Girls. (Think of them as Sanrio bric-a-brac—made of people.) To some, the fact that Stefani’s decade has been more ooh la la than oi! oi! oi! might seem like a regression.

Stefani doesn’t buy it. “I’m not doing anything now that I haven’t always wanted to do,” she argues, crossing her arms and furrowing her brow. “I’ve

“I UNDERSTAND ALL
THE SKEPTICISM
PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE
ABOUT A BAND GOING
ON TOUR WITHOUT
ANY NEW SONGS,
but this is not us
being a nostalgia act.”

TONY KANAL

always been interested in fashion. I’ve always liked dumb dance music, like Debbie Deb and Club Nouveau. I know it was weird to be on the same circuit with Madonna and Mariah, but I did it my own way. It was campy, it was funny. If people didn’t get it, that’s their problem. People gave me shit about the Harajuku Girls. Seriously? How do you see that that wasn’t meant to be ridiculous?”

She says she’s used to criticism. “When you’re a creative person—and that’s how I define myself—then you’re always going to make somebody mad. Fifteen years ago, when No Doubt started making poppier songs, there were hardcore ska fans who said, ‘Fuck you.’ ”

So it’s fair to say that No Doubt won’t be playing “Hollaback Girl”? “I’m so over dance music now,” she says. “I had a really specific sound and concept in my head, and I’ve squeezed it out. It’s done. Everyone wants to make it like I ‘left’ the band, but I never planned for my thing to be so big. I always felt like I was cheating on them when I was working with other musicians. In my mind, there was never any question that I was going to come back to No Doubt. Those guys are my best friends forever.”

An older country club member, wearing trousers pulled up to just below his neck, approaches Young, who is finishing up his ahi and brown rice. “That’s some haircut,” he says, motioning to the drummer’s crimson mohawk. The older man’s head is dotted with liver spots.

“Yeah, it is,” says a smiling Young. “You like it?”

“No, I don’t,” the man responds.

Later, Young wallops a long drive into the path of the distinguished gentlemen at the opposite end of the driving range. He says it was an accident. Then he does it again.

IF YOU ASKED me what I’d like to be doing every day,” says Tony Kanal at home in the Hollywood Hills, “the answer is playing shows with No Doubt. That’s been my life since I was 16 years old.” On this day, the band’s only childless member is wearing a blue plaid Western-style shirt and skinny black jeans. His black hair is dyed its usual blond. “I’ve always been obsessed with my band. That’s just how I am. But I understand that’s not realistic for everybody else. I’m sure I’d feel differently if I had kids.”

Kanal and his live-in girlfriend, Erin, an actress, have been talking about starting a family. He has the band’s blessing. (“I have two boys. Tom has two boys. Adrian has a boy,” says Stefani. “Tony needs to have a girl so the kids can start their own No Doubt.”)

Kanal’s house is a 1925 Spanish Colonial villa that was designed by Stiles O. Clements, the architect responsible for L.A.’s famed Wiltern and Mayan theaters. In a nod to Kanal’s heritage—his parents were born in India—a large statue of the Hindu god Ganesh takes pride of place in the foyer. Four cats scamper across the intricately patterned carpets. The modest recording studio on the third floor has an immodest view: On clear days, Catalina Island is visible 20 miles away. Looking northeast, the white dome of the Griffith Observatory rises above tall palm trees.

The studio is where Kanal, who has the slim build and springy step of a welterweight, retreats to write and record.

In the last two years, he produced an album for the reggae
singer Elan and did writing and production work on Stefani’s
solo albums. Along with Dumont and Young, he cowrote
“Paralysis,” a track on Scott Weiland’s recent “Happy” in
Galoshes. Lately, though, past triumphs are far from his mind.
“It dawned on me that the kids who bought Rock Steady
might have outgrown us,” he says. “There are people who
didn’t know Gwen was in a band. There are people who will
see No Doubt for the first time. It’s a weird thing. You know,
going back to when we were playing Fender’s Ballroom in
Long Beach in 1987, I had a good sense about who was coming
to the shows. Now I don’t really know. It could be anyone.”
The results of a survey posted on No Doubt’s website in late
2008 gave some clues. “The audience is a split you don’t usu-
ally see,” explains the band’s manager, Jim Guerinot. “Gwen
is an influence on very young people and brings them along
with her, but there’s also the traditional audience of people in
their 30s who have been following the band for 20 years. Concerts usually
get one audience or the other, not both. Presales for the tour were tracking
at 124 percent higher than they were for Gwen’s tour last year,” he says. “I
would’ve been happy if we’d been equal.”

From his lofty perch, Kanal professes allegiance to a power greater than market research. “I’ve had moments of doubt in my life,” he says, “and they’ve been resolved through music. It sounds weird to say, but it’s true.” He continues: “We can push ourselves in a new way. If I didn’t think we could do that, I would want to call it for what it is. I’d say, ‘Let’s call this a farewell tour.’ ”

Blong since faded away. The band will be back later in the week to listen to a final mix. As Stent gets back to work, Kanal tells Stefani about the radio interviews he was doing earlier that day. “They’re still talking about the same shit,” he says to Stefani. Kanal cops the smooth tones of a drive-time DJ. “ ‘I hate to touch ACK IN THE studio, the final notes of “Stand and Deliver” have

a nerve here, Tony, but didn’t you and Gwen used to date?’ ”

Stefani rolls her eyes. “That’s so lame,” she says.

“Try answering questions about thongs,” Young chimes in.

Stefani’s assistant, carrying Zuma, pops in to remind the band that they’re due at the singer’s house to discuss stage designs. Outside, the rain has stopped. The four bandmates get up to leave. Stefani, now holding her son, says anxiously and wistfully, “I want to be out there already.”

Then she speaks again, to everyone and no one. “We still have so far to go.”

58 MAY 2009 / SPIN.COM GETS STAINS OU T FAST