Celebrity Interview - Gwen Stefani
Sweet success of a proud mum
Gwen Stefani Sweet success of a proud mum
IT'S ONLY BEEN SEVEN MONTHS SINCE GWEN STEFANI GAVE BIRTH TO HER SON, KINGSTON, BUT THE SCORCHING "HOLLABACK GIRL" IS HARD AT WORK PROMOTING THE RELEASE OF HER SECOND SOLO ALBUM, THE SWEET ESCAPE.
With singles like the tortured lament Early Winter, co-written by Tim Oxley-Smith of the British band Keane, and the jarring Wind It Up, Gwen Stefani has shown with The Sweet Escape that she's evolved both as a woman and as an artist. But that hasn't dimmed her sense of humour or fondness for ironic statement. While the CD cover features Stefani in a gangster moll outfit inspired by Michelle Pfeiffer's "coke whore" look in Scarface, the Wind it Up single finds her imitating Julie Andrews' yodel from The Sound of Music's The Lonely Goatherd.
It features the former No Doubt front woman rapping, yodelling, moaning, and hollering over a queasy mash of Neptunes beats and Rodgers & Hammerstein strings. She's the only pop star who would dare to follow up her seven million-selling Hollaback blockbuster CD with such an odd yet endearing musical stunt.
"I love The Sound of Music; I had posters of Julie Andrews and the film all over my room when I was growing up," Stefani recall. "I had been thinking about doing something based on the film for a while, and when I finally heard Wind it Up I was crying with joy because the film and its music have stuck with me since I was a kid. It's always been an inspiration to me on many different levels. Just look at the story of Maria - she would sing and sew her own clothes. I did that when I was growing up and now I've been able to produce my own clothing line. A lot of my dreams have come true!"
Certainly Stefani's giving birth was a major event in her life and that of her husband, Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale. Their 10-year relationship has stood the test of time despite some ups and downs, and Stefani has never been afraid to unearth her emotions about her relationship to Rossdale in her previous work, most notably in her 2000 No Doubt single Ex-Girlfriend. But fate has been good to the 37-year-old Stefani, who looks hotter than ever in her platinum blonder gangster moll hairdo. And as the following interview reveals, Gwen's so smitten with her new baby and the idea of motherhood that she's conflicted about how to manage her upcoming tour with her parental duties.
So you're a mum! How does it feel?
There's nothing else that really matters to me. Every day Kingston gets more of an attitude and shows more of his character, and I'm just fixated on watching his face and seeing how he's evolving every day. It's the most incredible thing for me. I feel blessed about having Kingston.
What was giving birth like?
It's incredible to have a baby come out of your body. In my case, I had a caesarean because he was a breech birth and so it obviously wasn't a surprise to me since I was driving to the hospital and I knew that they would cut him out of me.
But when he came out of me, and I was holding him, I was wondering who this baby was because he didn't exactly look like me, which is normal when they're literally just minutes out of your body! And then I felt tired again from the anaesthetic and so I asked if someone could take him because I was like about to pass out.
Do you think you'll have more children?
Oh, yeah! I always wondered what it would be like to talk about being a mum. It's such a bizarre feeling now that it's happened and I'm talking about my baby boy. But Kingston is so great. I'm greedy. I would like to have more and I hope I'll be blessed with having more children. I have this dream about just spending time in my house with my kids.
In the meantime, though, you do have a tour coming up?
Yeah, it's freaky. What's so strange is that I found out I was pregnant just while I was starting my last (solo) tour. I was wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I didn't have the same energy. So I'd be in tears moments before I was ready to go on. I also had trouble breathing with the corset on and when you're pregnant you tend to get short of breath anyway so it was very tough. And what was worse is that we had nine costume changes during the (2005) tour and I was feeling sick a lot of the time.
But what kept me going was God who put all these really loving and happy young girls in the front row of the audience, and it was probably their first concert and they were looking at me like I was Cinderella.
So tell us about how you came up with this new solo album so soon afterwards and while you were in the process of becoming a mother...
It's so bizarre, but (Sweet) Escape wasn't even something I was really planning on doing. But there were some interesting backing tracks and songs left over from the previous album that I wanted to explore and it was always bugging me in the back of my head.
And then of course when I was sitting in the studio working on it I was having a hard time at first getting those ideas out. When you work on an album, there's always this feeling that you never have any ideas and then suddenly it just comes top you and you start building on that.
Do you find song-writing cathartic? Is it tough exposing your emotions in your music?
No, I just write and the emotions just flow. I have nothing to hide. I'm not afraid of revealing any deep secrets and when I do talk about problems or concerns it's actually comforting and a relief to talk about those things in my music. I never think about censoring myself. I just write about what is on my mind or in my heart.
Do you and your husband Gavin try out your musical ideas on each other?
Sure we do. We'll play each other's songs and sometimes it's the case that we're in each other's songs. I don't even mind if he's writing a song and I'm in it and it seems like he's angry with me. That's okay. I just love being in someone else's song. I feel honoured in a way that someone would want to talk about me or my life with them.
How does Gavin feel about sometimes being the subject of your songs in the past and in your new CD?
He doesn't mind at all. The lyrics are usually vague enough that no one really knows exactly what I'd be talking about or referring to anyway. And even though the lyrics and emotions in (Sweet) Escape are much more autobiographical than in my first solo CD, a lot of my thinking about relationships is as general as it is specific.
I mean, all couples have problems, the same problems, the same kinds of issues to deal with. So why shouldn't I talk about those things? It's healthy. You shouldn't hide your feelings or bury your problems or they'll just surface in a bad way later on. That's the beauty of being able to express yourself in a song. For me, that's what it's all about.
Do you ever feel you might go too far sometimes in revealing things about yourself or your private life?
No. But again, I don't worry about that. Gavin and I have been together for over 10 years and we've had our difficult moments like any couple which has stayed together for so long. But what's so wonderful is that we've been able to work things out and now we have a beautiful baby and life is really great. So our journey together continues and I'll be writing about that in future albums.
I need to be able to share my experiences in my music and I hope that audiences appreciate that I am trying to say something to them about my life here and there in my work. A song like Wind it Up may not be like that, but a song like Early Winter is very emotional and there are other songs about relationships in the album that people will be able to relate to.
Tim Oxley-Smith, who collaborated on Early Winter, says you were crying after working on that song for only 10 minutes...
It's true. I'm pretty emotional, especially when I'm writing and thinking about deeper things and just...trying to be real and talking about things which have affected me or made me sad. But that's just one aspect of the process.
I don't think people who see me on stage or have been fans of No Doubt would ever think I'm a particularly sad person. (Laughs) I've had a great life and as you grow older you tend to think a little more deeply about your life. But overall I'm someone who lives in the moment, for the moment.
What about No Doubt?
I'll probably go back to No Doubt after this album. There's just no comparison to being in a band and having the experience we've had. It's like winning the lottery many times over and our success is because of our fans and we're so grateful. I'm looking forward to going back to a group dynamic. I only finished my record a few months ago so I'm really just in the moment and not thinking so much about the future.
I don't know what our music will be like again in a group with live drums as opposed to the programmed drums from my solo albums. But I'm really happy about the idea of feeling that chemistry again, even though it's hard to picture that right now. But I don't feel that I'm so far from No Doubt.
Do you ever look back and get shocked by your own success?
As a teenager, I was pretty lazy and I didn't really have anything in my life that I was passionate about. Except The Sound of Music. Some people are trekkies, and I'm one, too, except I'm a trekkie for The Sound of Music! (Laughs)
And suddenly I kind of discovered that I was good at writing songs and that was it. That set me on my way. I couldn't stop after that because I had finally found my passion in life and that feeling has never left me. My journey in life is about my passion for singing.
Did you ever dream about success as a teenager?
No. About the only thing I really dreamed about was becoming a mother one day. And now that that's come true, it sort of makes me feel that my life has finally come together.
When you started touring clubs as part of No Doubt, did you ever imagine becoming famous?
No. I was never thinking about money or fame and we just loved ska music and starting singing and we got really lucky and we kept together for nine years, even though it was tough at times. Finally we got on the radio and our world changed overnight. It was like a miracle. I don't know how it happened.
When we were starting out and developing our style we just tried to play at clubs. We drove around in vans. Our first nine years were great but we had no commercial success. We had a lot of fun dong that and then we became successful and that's been great because I've able to travel around the world and experience things I never would have been able to otherwise.
You're also involved in your clothing line. How did that come about?
I learned how to sew when I was young and I was always fooling around with patterns and things and coming up with different ideas for outfits when I would go on tour or prepare for a music video. Like the whole idea for my look (Michelle Pfeiffer look from Scarface) on the new record came from when we were doing this music video in Lake Como (George Clooney's Italian village home is nearby).
I saw this dress Tony's (ex-boyfriend and No Doubt bassist Kanal's) girlfriend (Erin Lokitch) was wearing and I thought she looked so hot and it got me to thinking about these dresses that Michelle Pfeiffer was wearing in Scarface and how hot she looked like that. So, back to the clothing thing. I designed and sewed my own dress for my first stage performance and it was the same dress that Maria wore in The Sound of Music!
Is designing something you're going to get more heavily involved in the future?
No. I'm having a hard time as it is keeping up. I didn't expect that my line would take off the way it did and suddenly I had to come up with all these new designs last year after getting feedback from what kinds of clothes had been selling after four years of being out there on the market. So when I was touring and pregnant I was feeling very stressed by everything. So with Kingston a major part of my life now I'm wondering how I'm going to manage everything.
Do you enjoy coming up with different looks and clothes for your music videos and tours?
I love that part of getting ready for a tour. I like to have fun with my look because I think clothes are an extension of your personality and now that I've been designing clothes I think about it more than ever. But designing is more like work for me and music is pure passion. Designing is a very precise thing as much as it is creative. It's about the cut, the fabric, and a lot of very technical things which go into an outfit or a dress. It's hard work. I don't really feel emotional about fashion designing. It's more a greedy thing about creating things that I would like to wear personally. My music is more about being purely creative. It's the fire and fuel to everything I do.
Do you still look forward to touring even though you have a baby now?
Oh, yeah. Kingston will always travel with me. I love touring because your music and your record doesn't seem as real unless you're actually performing on stage and having the contact with the audience or meeting your fans on the street and talking to them about the music. For me, touring has never been an ordeal except towards the end when you're simply getting physically and emotionally drained.
I love the contact with the audience and it keeps me pumped. I've actually got depressed after finishing tours and suddenly being at home and wondering what the hell I'm supposed to do. Suddenly all that energy and excitement is missing and it takes a while to recover and get back into a normal life again.
Any interesting musical collaborations you'd like to take on?
I'd love to do a duet or something with Bjork. That would be rad! I mean, I don't want Gavin (Rossdale) and I to start singing Endless Love together or something like that! (Laughs)
