No Doubt reflect on their past

By MIKE HOULIHAN

Californian band No Doubt have had one of the busiest times of their lives. Within the past few weeks the Anaheim four-piece have released a greatest hits compilation, a four-disc boxed set and a concert DVD.

And next week? Well, that's the $64,000 question, guitarist Tom Dumont says. "I don't know if we'll be doing any touring at all for the next year," he laments.

Dumont, Tony Kanal (bass) and Adrian Young (drums) have long fought what looks like being a losing battle to avoid being overshadowed by singer Gwen Stefani.

The quartet has striven to be recognised as a band, and Dumont and his fellow instrumentalists have had to endure several snubs — including famously being airbrushed out of a music magazine cover shoot in favour of a shot of Stefani only.

Through it all they have remained No Doubt, but now Dumont is asking questions. Stefani's solo career as an actress and a musician is taking off and is set to start eclipsing the time available for No Doubt.

Without being prompted, Dumont often returns to what is obviously a vexed question — the future.

"I feel so comfortable over the situation we are in now — putting out a singles collection and being busy doing No Doubt stuff — but Gwen's making a solo record and making movies and maybe starting a family at some point. Despite that I'm still pretty happy. Our history together is too real and too solid for it to fade or for us to fall apart.

"It is like a family: no matter what happens in the short term there will always be No Doubt. We will always have these experiences that will bind us together."

Almost in the same breath, though, Dumont says the future is "certain and uncertain". With everyone still getting along he doesn't believe the band "has plans to hang it up or anything. It's kind of a weird place to be."

Whether No Doubt's hiatus is a fullstop or some less final punctuation mark, the
Singles collection and associated releases allow for a reassessment of where the band stands in the musical spectrum.

For many they will be viewed as an oddity which emerged out of the Californian ska/punk scene and mysteriously struck it big in 1997 with singles such as Just A Girl and Don't Speak before fading.

Certainly No Doubt have not revisited the heights of the 12 million-selling hit album Tragic Kingdom, and the follow-up release Return of Saturn was underwhelming. But No Doubt's recent album, Rocksteady, was more diverse and a record Dumont now views as the prime example of what he considers his band stands for.

"The more hardcore fans, have always been there and been carried along with whatever we've done. The press sometimes didn't get it, and a lot of times our record label didn't get it either," Dumont says.

"We are kind of an oddball weird band musically, and there have been many times when they didn't get behind us. We had to persevere through that and in some ways it was good because it taught us not to give up in the face of rejection.

"When Return To Saturn came out it didn't have to be such a difficult experience; there were a lot of doubters out there, and the people we were working with didn't quite believe, and that made it hard to do what we were doing. At the same time, we came out the end of it happy with where we were.

"The thing about us is that we hate repeating ourselves. On Return Of Saturn we could have tried to rewrite Tragic Kingdom but we tried to find something else.

"We might not have found the thing that worked best, but it felt like we had to go through that to write Rocksteady, where we did find something different that worked. I'm sure the next thing we do next time will be very different too." Assuming there is a next time.

- NZPA

No Doubt: The Singles 1992-2003 is out now.