Gwen Stefani calls No Doubt's last album Push and Shove 'confused' and 'a struggle' to make
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One might say the recording process for No Doubt's most recent album, Push and Shove, was a little b-a-n-a-n-a-s, at least according to the group's frontwoman, Gwen Stefani.
After a journalist compared the sound of Stefani's upcoming solo single, "True Babe," to that of the band's 2012 LP, the singer-songwriter rejected the assessment and opened up about the chaotic process of making that record.
"That whole time period was just a really hard time. Everything was like we were in molasses and nothing was coming easy," Stefani told Fault magazine, later adding: "I don't see how this song sounds like the Push and Shove record. That's interesting. I feel that record was where No Doubt was most confused. We just had come back together, and we wanted to do it so badly, but for me, I was completely depleted from my world tour and giving birth. So many things had happened and then we tried to write that record."
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic Gwen Stefani performs with No Doubt
She continued, "When you work with No Doubt, it's almost like you have to have somebody that's just there to make everybody happy so that everybody can have their little piece. It was a lot. That was a struggle, that record. But I'm happy that someone listened to it."
Push and Shove was No Doubt's sixth studio album, and their first in 11 years when it was released. Preceded by the single "Settle Down," it debuted at No. 3 on the U.S. charts.
In a March 2021 interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Stefani said she was unsure about forthcoming projects with No Doubt, which catapulted her to superstardom in the 1990s and early 2000s thanks to hit singles like "Don't Speak," "Ex-Girlfriend," "Just a Girl," and "Hey Baby."
"I have no idea what the future is with the band," she told the host. "I never would've imagined that we would've put the 30 years into it that we did in the first place."
Outside her work with No Doubt, Stefani released three successful solo albums, including 2004's Love. Angel. Music. Baby. — which contained her No. 1 single "Hollaback Girl" — and its 2006 follow-up, The Sweet Escape. Inspired by her separation from Bush's Gavin Rossdale, Stefani dropped This Is What the Truth Feels Like in 2016, notching her first solo No. 1 album on the Billboard 200.
Since then, she has recorded a handful of one-off songs, including two collaborations with her husband and Voice co-judge, Blake Shelton, one of which was 2020's "Nobody but You," which hit No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Stefani's "True Babe" drops June 23 as the lead single from her forthcoming album.
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