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3/13/2016 Gwen Stefani Climbs Back From the Abyss The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/arts/music/gwenstefanitruthfeelslike.html?ref=arts 1/6
http://nyti.ms/1QOI5El
MUSIC
Gwen Stefani Climbs Back From theAbyssBy CARYN GANZ MARCH 10, 2016
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. — In February 2015, Gwen Stefani joinedMaroon 5 onstage at the Grammys to perform the ballad “My Heart IsOpen.” After the awards, she got Mexican food with the band’s singer,Adam Levine, a fellow coach on the NBC realitysinging competition “TheVoice.” For a pop superstar of two decades, it was a relatively normal night.But when she woke up the next morning, “My life was literally blown upinto my face,” she said.
For 10 weeks, those closest to her had known the secret that ultimatelyended her 13year marriage to Gavin Rossdale, the singer of the band Bush.Ms. Stefani won’t discuss the details, partly to protect her children, butsaid: “If I could, I would just tell you everything, and you would just be inshock. It’s a really good, juicy story.” (The tabloids say Mr. Rossdale washaving a severalyearslong affair with a nanny caring for the couple’s threesons.)
Ms. Stefani, 46, was reeling. “I’m gonna die,” she said, recalling heremotional state. “I am dead, actually. How do I save myself? What am Igoing to do? How do I not go down like this?”
Sitting at the long marble table in an office in her sprawling home here,dressed in a sheer white blouse and shiny red stilettos, Ms. Stefani laid outthe answer: She plunged herself into her first love, songwriting. “I have to
3/13/2016 Gwen Stefani Climbs Back From the Abyss The New York Times
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make music out of this. That’s what God wants for me,” she remembersthinking.
The result is “This Is What the Truth Feels Like” (Interscope), her firstsolo album in a decade, which will be released on Friday, March 18.
The album’s 12 tracks are more direct and less whimsical than herprevious two pop records. There are fiery songs about secrets and infidelity(the swaggering “Red Flag” and “Naughty,” delivered in Ms. Stefani’sspeaksung pseudorap) and ballads that capture the rawness of a longrelationship’s premature end (“Used to Love You”). And thanks to Ms.Stefani’s budding romance with her “Voice” costar, the country singerBlake Shelton — which began after news of her split with Mr. Rossdalebroke last August — more than half of the tracks are about discovering thespark of a new love. The songs aren’t as dancey as much current pop; theyretain the bouncy, synthdriven sound of Ms. Stefani’s earlier work. In afield dominated by young starlets, she’s made a grownup pop album,confessional and sleek, without the oddball “BANANAS” flourishes ofher past hits.
As Ms. Stefani began writing, she said she didn’t worry about potentialsales, what it means to be a 46yearold pop singer in a youthdominatedfield, or pleasing her record company.
She talked to a new contact at her label, Aaron BaySchuck, and felt aglimmer of hope. (“I was like, wow, this guy, I think he might actually getme.”) And then she started sessions with the team that became her “Truth”squad, including the songwriter Justin Tranter and later his frequentpartner Julia Michaels, who together had written highprofile tracks forSelena Gomez and Justin Bieber.
Ms. Stefani’s directions were clear: She wanted to capture her history— if it didn’t happen in real life, it wasn’t going on the album. And thefloodgates opened.
“Being in that room and being creative, it was the only place that felt
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good — I was like, I love the smell of this room,” she recalled. (Ms. Michaelssaid there were a lot of laughter and tears during the sessions, which Ms.Stefani attended in her signature look: “The red lip and big nails and thejewelry.”) Songwriting had saved her before, Ms. Stefani said. She describedherself as having been a “passive girl,” an unremarkable teenager, until sheuncovered her talent. “It’s almost like one of those movies where theydiscover they have magic,” she said. “When I was able to first write a song,that’s when I found my whole self.”
Ms. Stefani’s label, however, had reservations about the highlypersonal music she was churning out. On a phone call that felt like “fivepeople punching me in the stomach,” she said she was told: “We supportyou, you should put out an artistic record, and don’t go for radio. It’s overfor you, basically.”
John Janick, the chairman and chief executive of Interscope GeffenA&M, said he “absolutely” remembers the uncomfortable call — because hewas the one who had to make it. “I said, ‘I’m not sure you have the songthat’s going to really connect with people,’” he recalled. “And two days later,she sent us ‘Used to Love You.’”
The label immediately got in touch to say, “You have a hit,” Ms. Stefanisaid, noting with some glee that it was the most personal song she’dattempted to write. “That’s never happened in my entire career.” (The songwound up peaking at No. 52 on the Billboard Hot 100. A second single,“Make Me Like You,” for which Ms. Stefani created an intricatelychoreographed live video during a commercial break on this year’sGrammys in a multimilliondollar partnership with Target, is at No. 54and climbing.)
After a few weeks in the studio, Ms. Stefani returned to her other jobon “The Voice,” burdened with knowing her marital issues had not yetbecome public. “I’m not a secret girl,” she explained. “I tell everybody whenmy period is coming.”
But she soon learned that Mr. Shelton, whom she refers to as “one of
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my coworkers,” was also in the throes of a personal crisis. He “had been
going through literally the exact same thing in literally the exact same timeframe,” she said. Her friendship with him blossomed.
Her collaborators noticed a change instantly. “We had anger, we hadsadness, we had flirtation, we had sexy, and now we’re madly in love,” Mr.Tranter said. Ms. Stefani described the shift with one of her frequently usedterms — “crazy!” — and added, “Never in my wildest, craziest dreams wouldI ever have seen this coming.”
Ms. Stefani, unguarded and reflective, spoke quickly in torrents ofwords, pausing only to sip tea from a cup that, like most of her décor, wasblack and white. She thought back to her childhood in Anaheim, Calif.,where she presumed she’d one day lead a happy family like the one herparents had built. “I literally was so sheltered and naïve, and that’s a lotwhy I think I got myself into so much trouble, in a way,” she said. Shelamented that because of her split from Mr. Rossdale, she now has her sons50 percent of the time. “It’s like, the most unjust, unbelievable system,” shesaid, adding that the “blessing” in it was she had time to heal and write.Atop her work table sat a book of photos from her youngest son’s first year,two pairs of sunglasses, her journal and a tin of Dr. Martens WonderBalsam.
No Doubt, the band she cofounded in 1987, had already sold morethan 20 million albums worldwide when it took its first break following its2001 LP, “Rock Steady.” Her first thought: “dance record.” The result was“Love. Angel. Music. Baby.,” a 2004 album of wacky, hiphopinflectedsongs that blended her fascination with Japanese fashion and ’80s synthpop. Pharrell Williams, now a longtime friend, collaborated on its signaturehit, “Hollaback Girl.”
“Gwen is a true heroine, whose creativity represents all the youngfemale rebels at heart,” Mr. Williams said in an email.
She got pregnant with her first son, Kingston, before embarking on her
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first solo tour and returned to the studio to make a followup album, “TheSweet Escape,” when he was just eight weeks old. The cycle almostimmediately repeated itself: a worldwide tour and a pregnancy, with hersecond child, Zuma. Her growing empire now included fashion andfragrances.
And she wasn’t done yet. No Doubt had been awaiting her return, soshe hit the road with a toddler and a nursing baby and completelyexhausted herself. “I felt quite trapped on so many levels, because when youhave that much success you feel like you owe everybody,” she said.“Everybody depends on you.”
Sessions for the band’s first album in 11 years, “Push and Shove,”followed, and Ms. Stefani wasn’t brimming with ideas. The LP failed to takeoff commercially, and when the band returned to the studio — this timewith collaborators including Sia, Greg Kurstin and Mr. Williams — Ms.Stefani got pregnant for a third time. “That’s when I started to really findmy faith again,” she said. “It’s like a miracle, at my age.”
Weeks after giving birth to Apollo, the offer to become a coach on “TheVoice” arrived, and Ms. Stefani found herself relishing her new role asmentor. “I needed so badly to do something different, and I needed so badlyto be in a different role, a giving role.” Freshly inspired, she felt the urge tomake music and mulled a solo album. “I started to think, well, I’ll justcurate a record, and I’ll do it like every other pop girl does.”
This was the first time Ms. Stefani had dipped a toe into the new popeconomy, where ace songwriters for hire shop tracks from artist to artist.“Every song that people would write for me felt like me 12 years ago, me 10years ago. And lyrically they could never touch my heart, ever.” Sherecorded a full album, but decided to shelve it once sessions for “Truth”took off.
Considering how much the pop landscape has changed in a decade, Ms.Stefani is incredulous about her ability to continue recording. “I don’t evenunderstand how I could possibly have had this long a career, or a career at
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all,” she said. “And that anyone cares, and that I’m relevant or anything, it
just blows my mind.”
Mr. Tranter said Ms. Stefani’s sweetness and humility aren’t puton.“At first I thought she was just being polite,” he said. “And then I was like,oh, she actually doesn’t realize the lives that she’s changed. She has noclue.” Describing Ms. Stefani’s appeal as “that amazing combination ofextreme fabulousness and extreme honesty,” he noted the 1995 No Doubtalbum “Tragic Kingdom” “defined one whole era of music, and then she didit again as a solo artist, which is very rare.”
Mr. Janick said the longevity of Ms. Stefani’s career is one reason thelabel is confident in her new album’s viability. “Obviously there’s a lot ofpeople that have grown up with Gwen over the years. Her being on ‘TheVoice,’ what she does in fashion, she’s all over all the magazines. You cansay it’s a grownup pop record, but I feel like it touches on all differentthings that people can relate to of all different ages and sexes.”
Ms. Stefani, who sometimes reminds herself “Wow, I did do that! Iwrote those songs!” to boost her own confidence, said singing about beinghappy is “so fresh” to her. “I needed something new to happen. And not justin my career, in my life. Something had to change.
“I’m not going to say I’m not still picking up the pieces and every dayisn’t a challenge,” she said. “I’m still in shock. But it’s an awesome time.”
A version of this article appears in print on March 13, 2016, on page AR1 of the New Yorkedition with the headline: Climbing Back From the Abyss.
© 2016 The New York Times Company
