Gwen Stefani has shocked her fans with a surprise announcement that most of them weren't expecting. Photo / Invision
Gwen Stefani has shocked her fans with a surprise announcement that most of them weren't expecting. Photo / Invision
Gwen Stefani, an American pop singer and songwriter, stunned her fans with a surprise announcement that not many would have expected: she will be reuniting with her former bandmates from No Doubt.
The news follows widely circulated reports that Stefani was in a quarrel with the three other members of the band. Stefani is the lead singer of No Doubt, while Tony Kanal plays the bass, Adrian Young is on the drums, and Tom Dumont plays guitar.
In a video posted to No Doubt’s social media pages, Stefani is first seen on her own recalling the time she spent as part of the band.
When she quickly sends Kanal a text, the quartet shows up together in a Zoom meeting. Stefani exclaims: “Wow, how are you? What are we doing - why do we not hang out?”
Young replies by saying, “Maybe we should do a show?” with the other three members swiftly agreeing.
Members of No Doubt: Tony Kanal, from left, Gwen Stefani, Adrian Young and Tom Dumont in Los Angeles, California in 2015. Photo / Invision via AP
A post soon after revealed one popular place where fans would be able to catch the band playing as part of this reunion: California’s wildly infamous and star-studded Coachella festival, which spans two separate weekends in April.
Fans were left shocked by the news that the four former members of No Doubt will reappear as one again for the first time since 2015.
No Doubt first emerged in 1986, releasing its self-titled debut album in 1992 yet receiving minimal reception for it.
It wasn’t until the release of their third album, Tragic Kingdom, in 1995 that the band was flung into the global music spotlight, with songs like Don’t Speak spending 16 weeks at No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart and Just a Girl cementing the band’s success.
The band continued on with the release of two more albums yet decided to go on hiatus in 2003. Stefani decided to pursue a solo pop career during this time, where she won three Grammy Awards and became a defining artist of the 2000s with hits like The Sweet Escape and Rich Girl.
However, the band’s reunion in 2012 may have been too little too late; the release of their returning album Push and Shove quickly lost its hype and the band went on hiatus again the following year.
No Doubt last performed together in 2015 at a time when they did sporadic shows and performances at festivals. It was soon after that reports began to circulate of a feud between Stefani and her bandmates.
Fans pointed out how Dumont and Young no longer followed Stefani’s Instagram (which has not changed since), while the former No Doubt members created their male-only band, Dreamcar, in 2016, employing Davey Havok as lead vocalist.
When Stefani was asked about the new boy band in a 2017 interview, she replied: “I’m just so happy for them because they’ve always been that guy band, wanting to do their own dude thing.”
Even in a recent interview with Variety in 2021, it seems that she was not expecting to get No Doubt back together any time soon.
“We had done some big shows together, a bunch of festivals probably six years ago, and we knew that was kind of the last thing we were going to do together,” revealed Stefani.
