Gwen Stefani wrote her first songs when she was reeling from a breakup. They were rendered in blunt lyrics and deep vibrato on Tragic Kingdom, No Doubt’s breakout album from 1995, and seven of them became singles. Twenty-one years later, it's the same story: Enough time has passed that Tragic Kingdom can drown its breakup sorrows at a bar, and Stefani found herself back, heartbroken, in the studio after a tabloid-messy divorce. Now she has This Is What the Truth Feels Like.
The "Leave" and "Too Little Too Late" singer is back, with some strong opinions on the music industry.
“I was so embarrassed,” she says. “And then I was just like, You can’t go down like this! You have to turn this into music. You have to try, at least.”
This has always been part of Stefani's appeal. She’s tough and resilient, with a nice-girl vulnerability and pinup aesthetics.
On Tragic Kingdom, there’s a real classic breakup song—"Happy Now." "Are you happy now? How is it now?” she cries. Of course, the best thing to do isn’t to yell at your ex about their happiness, it's to be happy yourself. She's figured that out now. Stefani's verve on "Make Me Like You" is bursting with her signature simper. She's got a buoyant album that seems to exist to show off that her happiness is the best revenge.
Hi! How’s it going?
I have a cough. If I cough in your ear, you’re not going to get it.
I'm glad phones work that way! Besides the cough, how are you?
I’m good. It’s a weird time. It’s been such a whirlwind doing a record during the craziest, most unbelievable time in my life. Normal people, in real life, we don’t talk to people we don’t even know about personal things! It’s such a weird process. I’ve done it half of my life since I’ve been in a band.
Oh, are interviews difficult for you?
Getting that attention feels good. I feel quite defensive about my record. It’s like, Well, this is my life, so what are you going to say about that? I’m just telling you what happened. That’s it. You can’t even judge it, or I’ll be mad at you! But it feels good. I don’t want to be done with making my record. It’s weird, because I kind of wish I was still writing it.
It’s like a graduation speech for your work, but you have to give it.
It does feel like that. It was so fun. Part of it wasn’t fun. "Fun" isn’t the right word. Magical and spiritual. I can’t believe all those songs came out. They’re going to capture that time period of my life in such a magical, perfect way. I got a hold of things by writing those songs and giving them a little place where they can live, instead of being all over the place in my mind.
Did you think this project was going to be a heartbreak album? It seems like a falling-in-love album. Was that a surprise?
You are right. I did not think anything. I wasn’t thinking. I was feeling and I was dying. And then I was just like, You can’t go down like this! You have to turn this into music. You have to try, at least. I was so embarrassed by just everything. I just didn’t want to be that person that just went down after all of that.
A lot of the time in the sessions, they weren’t letting me write. They were giving me tracks and doing it all. I was like, Why am I here? Then I got the perfect combination of people to really support me and make me feel confident. It was an amazing awakening. I walked into the session and I was like, You gotta know, I don’t care about anything except the truth right here.
Do you feel an obligation to correct gossip with your music?
Everything happens so fast. It’s all happening in real time in the sense that, "Used to Love You" came out only a couple weeks after I wrote it. The only reason I did that was just being honest. There’s been a lot of dishonesty around me, and I just don’t understand that because it’s just not how I live. I didn’t want to make a record: I just wanted to not die. That’s it. The fact that now I have a record and people are hearing it, it just blows my mind.
The album art has a strong, unfinished, journal-like quality. Do you keep a journal?
I’ve always been pretty insecure about being a songwriter. The first time, when I wrote Tragic Kingdom, I didn’t know I could even write songs. I didn’t know anyone would hear the music. I just had my heart broken and just wrote these songs. It was crazy. I don’t even know how it happened. I remember during times when I couldn’t write anything, thinking, How did I do that?
Music is so magical, especially if you aren’t schooled in it. I have no idea how to play an instrument. I can play a little guitar. Not with my "hooker nails" I have on right now. But I would keep a journal, especially during Return of Saturn. During Rock Steady, I was writing on my computer more. This time around I was like, I’m not going to waste my time watching Say Yes to the Dress and going online and looking at stupid gossip or dumb stuff that means nothing to me. I have to get this out.
I had a book, on an airplane. The songs were already in there. "Used to Love You" was already written in the journal before I even got into the studio. [I just needed] to find the songs and place them to melodies and finish them.
The doodles from the album art also have that spontaneous quality. Did you ever doodle on posters, like draw mustaches or anything?
I wasn’t a graffiti artist. I would be too scared to do that. I’m a goody-two-shoes. I had a friend that was a real graffiti artist. He put my name in rainbow bubble letters on the wall somewhere, when we were doing No Doubt in college. I was always really amazed by that.
When I was doing artwork, I didn’t want to get in the way of the purity of the record by having visuals that were anything more than "in the moment." I did all those doodles. Some of it was my real journal, like in the background. The record company didn’t want me to do it. They were like, we like it without anything on it. Even the girl I work with on all my creative stuff, she liked it with nothing. But I wasn't going to put that out. It needs to say something.