Artist Reference File
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    No Doubt Biography by John Bush 
With the return of the punks in the mid-'90s ca
    me a resurgence of their slightly more commercial rivals, new wave bands. No Dou
    bt found a niche as a new wave/ska act, on the strength of vocalist Gwen Stefani
    's persona -- alternately an embrace of little-girl-lost innocence and riot grrr
    l feminism -- exemplified on the band's break-out single, "Just a Girl." 
Formed
     in 1986 as a ska band inspired by Madness, the lineup of No Doubt initially com
    prised John Spence, Gwen Stefani, and her brother, Eric. While playing the party
    -band circuit around Anaheim, the trio picked up bassist Tony Kanal, born in Ind
    ia but raised in Great Britain and the U.S. Hardened by the suicide of Spence in
     December 1987, No Doubt nevertheless continued; Gwen became the lone vocalist a
    nd the group added guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young. 
￼ No Doubt's 
    live act began to attract regional interest, and Interscope Records signed them 
    in 1991. The band's self-titled debut a year later, an odd fusion of '80s pop an
    d ska, sank without a trace in the wake of the grunge movement. As a result, Int
    erscope refused to support No Doubt's tour or further recordings. The band respo
    nded by recording on their own during 1993 and 1994; the result was the self-rel
    eased Beacon Street Collection, much rawer and more punk-inspired than the debut
    . Eric Stefani left just after its release, later working as an animator for The
     Simpsons. 
￼ By late 1994, Interscope allowed recordings to resume, and Tragic 
    Kingdom was released in October 1995. The album served as a document of the brea
    kup of Gwen Stefani and Kanal, whose relationship had lasted seven years. Thanks
     to constant touring and the appearance of "Just a Girl" and "Spiderwebs" on MTV
    's Buzz Bin, the album hit the Top Ten in 1996. Stefani, who has made no secret 
    of her pop ambitions, became a centerpiece of attention as an alternative to the
     crop of tough girls prevalent on the charts. By the end of the year, Tragic Kin
    gdom hit number one on the album charts, almost a year after its first release; 
    the record's third single, the ballad "Don't Speak," was the band's biggest hit 
    to date. 
￼ No Doubt's much-anticipated follow-up, The Return of Saturn, was rel
    eased in the spring of 2000, and "Simple Kind of Life" and "Ex-Girlfriend" were 
    both critically successful at the mainstream and college levels. A year later, S
    tefani also hooked up with rap chanteuse Eve for the single "Let Me Blow Your Mi
    nd" (it went on to earn a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2002); howev
    er, Stefani also joined her band for the release of their fifth album. The ska r
    evival and new wave sounds of Rock Steady were issued hot on the heels of lead s
    ingle "Hey Baby" in December 2001. The album generated several major hits -- the
     heavy synths of "Hella Good" and the seductive reggae of "Underneath It All" be
    ing the biggest -- and the group continued touring the record over the next coup
    le of years, all leading to the release of the hits collection The Singles 1992-
    2003 in 2003. 
￼ The following year, the band took a hiatus of undetermined leng
    th as Stefani launched a solo career with 2004's Love.Angel.Music.Baby. This hia
    tus wound up lasting the better part of a decade, during which Stefani stayed in
     the spotlight via two hit solo albums (the second, The Sweet Escape, arriving i
    n 2006), while the other bandmembers pursued other projects, the most prominent 
    being Tony Kanal's collaborations with P!nk in 2008. 
￼ No Doubt eased back into
     action in 2009 with a reunion tour accompanied by the announcement of an impend
    ing new album. That record took a while to complete, but it was finally finished
     in 2012 and released as Push and Shove that fall. It was preceded by the single
     "Settle Down" and debuted at number three on the Billboard charts. In 2016, as 
    Stefani was in the midst of mounting a comeback with her third solo effort, This
     Is What the Truth Feels Like, Dumont, Kanal, and Young formed a new band named 
    DREAMCAR with AFI frontman Davey Havok.
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