Entertainment Europe: No Doubt Pt 1 - No Doubt reveal all about their new single 'Hey Baby'
TAPE: EF02/0092
IN_TIME: 14:27:05
DURATION: 5:48
SOURCES: APTN/Universal Music
RESTRICTIONS: music video/performance rights must be cleared
DATELINE: January 2002, London
SHOTLIST
1. Video clip 'Hey Baby'
2. SOT Gwen Stefani (on musical inspiration for single): "Musically it came from the whole dance hall vibe. We were really getting into dance hall in the last year and a half. Tony is actually the one who kept playing these tracks ever night after the shows - we had these big dance hall parties right? That's kind of where the musical inspiration came from."
3. Video clip 'Hey Baby'
4. SOT Gwen Stefani (on single's lyrics): "I guess lyrically I just always thought it was really interesting that I was in this band with all these guys for fifteen years. I have like front row centre viewpoint on what it's like to be in a rock band, but I'm a girl so I can just see what goes on backstage. I kinda see it all and I thought that maybe I should share that with people a little bit. But yeah, also just these parties that we were having all the time and everyone coming back. These girls coming back, and it was just a very interesting situation that goes on back there and how the girls really want to get with the guys and how they really don't know how to act around me cause they can't really seduce me or like want to go and make out with me or anything so it's just a kinda song about that."
5. Video clip 'Hey Baby'
6. SOT Tom Dumont, guitarist (on video): "The video was awesome. I have to tell you, like a week before we did the video they sent over a book we were planning the video. And this book, full of pictures of hot chicks - 'Ok, which chicks do you want in the video?' 'That one, that one'. Oh, that was kind of fun to hire hot chicks you know, cause we wanted them to be dancing and stuff...which they were."
7. SOT Gwen Stefani: "Grinding on you."
8. SOT Tom Dumont, guitarist: "Grinding? No, they weren't grinding us - well, a little bit."
9. Video clip 'I'm Just A Girl'
10. SOT Tom Dumont, guitarist (on difference in style from old albums): "Stylistically, the only real difference between this and the other records is there's less guitar and more keyboard - that's one difference. And a little bit more like drum machine and a little less real drums, but there's still real drums and guitars all over it. But that's I think honestly it, just more keyboards but all of a sudden it sounds different. The songs are the kind of the same songs we've always done."
9. Cutaway Tom Dumont, guitarist
10. SOT Gwen Stefani (on difference in style from old albums): "We wrote differently though. We wrote differently and it was a fresh way to write because normally we would write on acoustic guitar and then we would develop a song into whatever song it's going to be. But this time, with the help of the computer, we were able to like program a drum beat, just to get the vibe of where you want it to be, like what kind of beat you want it to be, and then you write the chords on top of that."
11. Video clip 'Hey Baby'
12. SOT Tom Dumont, guitarist (on new approach to making album): "We took on like a different approach this year and it was really easy and spontaneous and fun. And we would just get together every day, have a a little like home studio thing, and we'd get together every day and write a track, or try to write a track. Me and Tony would be sitting on the drum machine and the keyboards and we'd come up with the stuff and once we'd got something going...and Gwen definitely took part as well - you were doing keyboard parts and all that."
13. SOT Gwen Stefani: "Yeah, I did some string lines and some keyboard parts."
14. SOT Tom Dumont, guitarist: "Gwen's good with those melodies and stuff. And then she'd sit on the couch and write words."
15. Video clip 'Hey Baby'
16. SOT Gwen Stefani (lack of pressure this time): "I mean, we really had a blast. I was sad when the record was finished cause for us, to record a record and put it out in less than a year, is pretty much a miracle. We need like an award or something, some kind of prize for doing it cause it usually takes...'Tragic Kingdom' took 3 years, 'Return of Saturn' took two years so...
17. SOT Tom Dumont, guitarist: "3, 2, 1."
18. SOT Gwen: "Yeah, exactly, in 1 year."
19. SOT Tom Dumont, guitarist: "We're getting better."
20. SOT Gwen Stefani: "It was a lot different this time though, it was just so much fun. There was no pressure, we were totally free, we weren't proving anything to ourselves any more - we didn't have anything to prove, we didn't have anything to lose - we were just doing it and enjoying the process of it."
21. Video clip 'Hey Baby'
GWEN STEFANI SHARES WORLD OF GROUPIES WITH WORLD
No Doubt singer GWEN STEFANI is determined to share her experience of groupies with the world, in the band's new single 'Hey Baby'.
But before the boys get too excited, she's not admitting to indulging any female fans herself, just recording their antics with her male band members.
She explains: "I have like front row centre viewpoint on what it's like to be in a rock band, but I'm a girl so I can just see what goes on backstage. I kinda see it all and I thought that maybe I should share that with people a little bit. But yeah, also just these parties that we were having all the time and everyone coming back. These girls coming back, and it was just a very interesting situation that goes on back there and how the girls really want to get with the guys and how they really don't know how to act around me cause they can't really seduce me or like want to go and make out with me or anything so it's just a kinda song about that."
Guitarist Tom Dumont had no trouble making the video to fit the song's theme: "The video was awesome. I have to tell you, like a week before we did the video they sent over a book we were planning the video. And this book, full of pictures of hot chicks - 'Ok, which chicks do you want in the video?' 'That one, that one'. Oh, that was kind of fun to hire hot chicks you know, cause we wanted them to be dancing and stuff...which they were."
"Rock Steady" is their first album since 'Return of Saturn' in 2000. Out since late last year, it is just 40,000 copies short of going platinum, but it is difficult not to notice how different the new single, with its bump and grind "dance hall" feel is to much of their earlier, punk inspired work.
So is this a new No Doubt? Tom Dumont thinks not: "Stylistically, the only real difference between this and the other records is there's less guitar and more keyboard - that's one difference. And a little bit more like drum machine and a little less real drums, but there's still real drums and guitars all over it. But that's I think honestly it, just more keyboards but all of a sudden it sounds different. The songs are the kind of the same songs we've always done."
But Gwen will admit the band have recently discovered the joys of the drum machine. She says, "We wrote differently and it was a fresh way to write because normally we would write on acoustic guitar and then we would develop a song into whatever song it's going to be. But this time, with the help of the computer, we were able to like program a drum beat, just to get the vibe of where you want it to be, like what kind of beat you want it to be, and then you write the chords on top of that."
No Doubt was formed in 1987 and played their Madness influenced Ska on party circuit around Anaheim until they were signed by Interscope Records in 1991. Their first release an odd fusion of '80s pop and ska flopped and Interscope refused to support any more of their albums until 1995, when they released 'Tragic Kingdom', which served as testament to Stefani's break-up with No Doubt Bassist Tony Kanal. Constant touring and MTV's playing of 'Just a Girl' and 'Spiderwebs' helped the album achieve top 10 success. And when the album's third single, 'Don't Speak', became a massive hit around the world - their could be no doubt that No Doubt had arrived.
And they think they're also improving musically - their last few albums involved long hard slogs in the studio, but 'Rock Steady' was comparatively easy.
Says Gwen: "We really had a blast. I was sad when the record was finished cause for us, to record a record and put it out in less than a year, is pretty much a miracle. We need like an award or something, some kind of prize for doing it cause it usually takes...'Tragic Kingdom' took 3 years, 'Return of Saturn' took two years so..."
Could it be that being massively successful had something to do with it: "There was no pressure, we were totally free, we weren't proving anything to ourselves any more - we didn't have anything to prove, we didn't have anything to lose - we were just doing it and enjoying the process of it."
So nothing to do with Gwen being loved up thanks to new fiancee Gavin Rossdale, otherwise known as the Bush frontman. Gavin, 34, proposed on New Year's morning (1JAN02) at his London home and 32-year-old Stefani happily accepted. It will be the first marriage for both singers, and is scheduled to take place in 2002, although not before Gwen and the band have finished their North American 'Rock Steady' tour.
The tour kicks off Feb. 26 at the Long Beach Arena in California, when the band joins Weezer and The Offspring for a benefit as part of the Concerts For Artists Rights -- a series of shows being organized to raise money for an artists' rights lobby group.
The tour proper stars March 14 in Puerto Rico, before heading to Venezuela and then returning to North America.
MUSIC CLEARANCE DETAILS
TITLE: Hey Baby
ARTIST: No Doubt
WRITER: Stefani/Kanal/Dumont/Price
PUBLISHER: Universal Music
LABEL: Interscope Records
TITLE: Just a Girl
ARTIST: No Doubt
WRITER: Stefani/Dumont
PUBLISHER: Knock Yourself Out Music
LABEL: Interscope Records Inc