The All-Star

Dusan Reljin; styled by Andrea Lieberman

ELLE: After 25 years, what still motivates you?
GS:  Music has this emotional thing to it, and it touches people in crazy ways. The power of having that power is something that, once you have it, you don't want it to ever end.

ELLE: But your passion for it must have waned at some point?
GS:  I don't know. Right now, I can't picture touring. I just think about it and I'm like...[She sighs and goes limp in her chair]. It's so ­physical, and I'd have to prepare for that mentally. I just don't know how we're going to do it, because now Kingston is going to be in kindergarten. Now we all have kids. But it's so different for me. Those guys have wives, so they can be like, "Oh, we'll meet you out on the tour at the end of the semester." But I'm so lucky—I mean, who gets to do all this stuff?

ELLE: I've read two different stories about how you came to be No Doubt's lead singer—that your brother pushed you to join the band, and that you were begging your brother to be in the band.
GS:  Well, both are true, sort of. When we started the band, there was a talent show at school. It was sort of like, "We're going to do it, and you're going to sing." I don't even remember thinking about it or wondering if I should do it or being asked, but it was just happening. I was telling my girlfriend Sophie Muller [the British music-video director who has worked with Eurythmics, Blur, and Garbage and directs many of No Doubt's and Stefani's videos] last night, "Sophie, I've always had success. Everyone thinks it happened in like 1995, '96, when I was 25, 26. But no—when I was 17, 18, when No Doubt started, the first show we played, people started coming to see us." I would get recognized. When I went to Tower Records, that was it. People knew who I was.

ELLE: Did you have an inkling you might become a huge pop star?
GS:  Doing the music we did wasn't about making it. That wasn't commercial music. I didn't even know what "signed" was. It was so ­innocent, the whole thing. I would go, "Dad, can I please have five dollars? I got to rent the microphone." Then we would go to this place called Stomp Box and rehearse every Thursday and Sunday. We did have a mailing list and someone who sold shirts. We had a P.O. box—we'd pick the mail up, we'd read it, we'd write our fans back. We were all going to Cal State–Fullerton. We knew we ­needed to have a backup plan. And then we did a showcase, and Jimmy Iovine [chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M] said to me that day—which, I didn't know who he was; I didn't really care—"You're going to be a star in five years." And I was just thinking to myself, like, "In five years, I'm going to have kids, and I'm not going to be doing this," because five years at that age seems like forever. And then, five years on the dot, we had a number one around the world, "Don't Speak"—it was the weirdest thing.

ELLE: Your brother left the band just as No Doubt was receiving major recognition. Do you think he made the right ­decision?
GS:  Oh, I don't think he ever had second thoughts about it.

ELLE: Are you two close now?
GS:  We're not as close as we used to be. He's an amazing guy, and he has his own life. One of his big instruments now is the accordion, so he'll come over at any kind of family stuff and play the ­accordion with the kids—he's crazy. Our family is all very close.

ELLE: Were your mom and dad supportive of the band early on?
GS:  They were. They were just really into music. Bob Dylan ruled their life. The first concert I ever went to, they took me to the Palomino Club to see Emmylou Harris play, and I remember she had just had a baby. She was so beautiful, with long black hair. I couldn't believe I was seeing her in real life. The place was about as big as this room. And then she's like, "Excuse me, I need to go nurse my baby, I'll be back." As a little girl, you're like, "Gasp, oh my God!"

ELLE: Writer's block is a major theme in your songwriting. You seem paralyzed by it at times.
GS:  It's true. And every time it's the same, and I get so down about it. It's so frustrating. But then when it happens, it's so exciting. I think that's the addiction.

ELLE: Does the song have to be a hit to get that high?
GS:  Once you have a hit, there's not much point in ever writing a song that doesn't have the intention of being a hit. I'm always a hits girl. A lot of people, like my bass player, Tony, will be really into playing a small club. For me, if I'm going to put that much effort into it, I might as well play for 300,000 people right now. I like the bigger-scale stuff. It's the same with the fashion show—they'll be like, "Oh my God, you're in the big tent," and I'm like, "It was, like, 500 people. What's the big deal? This is nothing."

ELLE: You want the L.A.M.B. show at Madison Square Garden.
GS:  I do! Why wouldn't you want that many people listening to the songs that you wrote? There's no way to go back after you have had it. So the intentions of even the solo records were always about ­trying to write those guilty-pleasure albums that just get in your head and you can't get out. I'm not cool, I'm not into the B-sides. Prince, who is one of my idols, gave me some advice when I worked with him: "Have you ever just tried writing a hit? Like, don't just try writing a song, try and write a hit song." I ­remember him saying that and me thinking, Yeah, you're right. Why would you write anything else?

ELLE: Do you know when it happens?
GS:  I remember writing "Hollaback Girl" with Pharrell, and we had written all these other songs, and we just knew, we just knew. We were jumping all over the couch, we were doing the Tom Cruise, we were like, "Ahhhhh!" We got the champagne, brought in Jimmy; we were like, "We got the song!" There's a song on the new ­record called "One More Summer." I'll tell you right now, that song is going to be a huge song.

ELLE: You feel it?
GS:  There's no way it's not. Normally, every time we work I get a CD and I drive with it. Back and forth to the studio is when I do it, and I'm obsessed. It's embarrassing—it's like when I got my iPhone, how many pictures I took of myself. It is obsessive. I cannot stop listening to it. I had to break the CD before I came here ­because if those got out and it's the wrong version, it would be heartbreaking. You don't want someone to see you before your makeup is done. You know what I mean?

ELLE: You mean because it could be leaked online?
GS:  Yes. It's different, it's sad. Normally, I would have the music with me the whole time. Every record that I've ever made, I listen to it so much before it comes out. As soon as it comes out, I never listen to it again. It's, like, over.

ELLE: So you never pop in Tragic Kingdom or Rock Steady?
GS:  Never. I mean, sometimes we listen back, when we're writing, because it's inspiring—especially when we were trying to write and we couldn't. We were like, "Oh my God, these songs are great! We wrote these!" God. And they bring you right back to that ­moment in time. Because it's really weird to sing a song to 25,000 people and have your kids on the side of the stage, and you're singing "Simple Kind of Life." Whatever the lyrics mean to anyone else is one thing, but no one will ever know what they really mean to me, you know? It's pretty intense.

ELLE: Is it because so many lines in that song are about wanting to get married and have a family?
GS:  Yeah, just about questioning everything, and some of the ­answers are standing right there, watching, bored a little bit.

This Is A Developing Story

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