In 2002, investigators found more than 300 bodies on a property in Noble, Georgia. Get to this property, there's a mysterious man, there's bodies everywhere in every state of decay. It might have looked like something out of a horror movie. But the truth was more complicated. I'm Kathleen Goldtar, and this week on Crime Story, I sit down with the host of one of the most critically acclaimed podcasts of the year, Noble. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts.
This is a CBC Podcast. Hey, I'm Tom Power. Welcome to Q. I have been excited for this conversation for such a long time. I have been a big fan of Gwen Stefani for such a long time and no doubt since I was like a kid. If you need to be sold on how great No Doubt and Gwen Stefani are, let me play you this. So, no doubt, hey baby, Gwen Stefani solo, what are you waiting for? And then holla back, girl. Gwen Stefani has been making the world dance and cry and laugh and spell.
For more than three decades now. First off in the legendary ska rock. punk, pop band, no doubt. Then her solo career, which became so big. Then she's a three-time Grammy winner. She comes out with this clothing line called Lamb. Then she becomes a judge on The Voice, which I don't have to tell you is one of the most watched shows in North America.
But we haven't heard new music from her in a really long time. In fact, it's been eight years since the last Gwen Stefani solo record. But she'll tell you that kind of makes sense because the last eight years for Gwen Stefani have been tough. She'll tell you her marriage fell apart. She went through a really public divorce. She had to heal from that, find her voice again, all while just being a mom and handling the pandemic. So as she was picking up the pieces, as she was healing, she told...
told me that she found love for what she thinks is the first real time. It's her now husband, the country singer, Blake Shelton. All of this to say, this all comes together in her new album. Like I said, her first in eight years. Just take a listen. and that's
Gwen Stefani and Bouquet, the title track from her first album in eight years. Can I tell you, I'm a big Gwen Stefani fan. My wife's a big Gwen Stefani fan. So a few years ago, we flew to Vegas to see Gwen Stefani at a residency. I think she's just one of the best performers. I've been looking forward to talking to her. for so long. I'm really glad she joined me to talk about the whole thing. Here's my conversation with Gwen Stefani. How are you? I was so, I don't know.
Fancy. Thank you. I was wearing a monocle, but I took it off. I really love the record, Quinn. Congratulations on it. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's it's a miracle. I can't I didn't expect to actually get to this point. You know, I. Every record that I've ever made has been a miracle and has its own little like story. And I love to reflect back and think about like, you know, myself at that time and to try to get to a place after so. much has happened in my life.
To be able to really put a mirror up and reflect what was going on and get to the actual truth and show people who I am right now. It was a challenge, I'll tell you that. But it's so amazing to share it. And it feels so good and healing and confessional. And I love I feel honored. Yeah. Eight years is a long time.
Yeah, it is. But not when your family breaks up and then you're like trying to scoop the pieces back together and then you turn and then you see love for the first time and then you're like. going through a pandemic and then you're a mom. And like, I mean, there's so many things that happen. And I think that as I have been further into life, like you have to prioritize like. your children, your your family. And it's like it's I always refer it like, OK, like.
Let's say I want to get a pedicure. Right. But I just can't find the time because that would be selfish. Right. Like for me to go get my my nails done. Right. And so it felt like that. It was like, how am I going to go to the studio? And justify doing an art project at this point in my life, you know, that just seems quite like it's self-indulgent and was. But I just kept having this like gnawing like thing. I always think that if you are given a gift from God,
If you don't use it, that's not right either. So that's how I justified making this album. Flowers comes up a lot on the record. The record's called Bouquet. There's tracks like Empty Vase. There's Marigolds. There's Purple Irises. Why is flowers resonating so much with you right now, the idea of flowers? You know, I think that... In my healing journey, like when the first miracle happened, the first miracle that happened for me, it was when I got pregnant with Apollo.
Not to go into super detail with what was going on in my life at that point, but it was a pure, like, miracle. And I think that, you know, I started to really look at life with and see God in nature, like, a lot. And there's so many like. I don't know, like metaphors to life and nature and like planting seeds. And that's once you plant that seed, like you can water it, you can watch it, you can put, you know, fake light on it, whatever.
but you can't force it to grow. Right. And I think that there's just so much truth to that, like in our lives. And I started thinking about that a lot. And when I met Blake. On a literal level, we were in Oklahoma. I never experienced nature like that. My nature was going to the beach and Huntington Beach, California. And so to be in nature and be...
Just amongst that. And we started like we did start gardening together, which people say if you have a garden, you'll have a longer, happier, peaceful life. And it just started becoming something that we did together that brought like and it gave us so much hope and peace and all these things. So I think that that metaphor just started stuck with me. And when I wrote Purple Irises.
There's a whole backstory might bore you, but there was a whole backstory of our love and how it's grown and these irises that we found on the ranch. And so I don't know, it was just something that just kept popping up. when I was writing the music. Oh, I want to hear the story. Can we play a little bit of the song, Gabby?
That's Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton with Purple Irises. I got a question about the song, but I want to hear the story. You're not going to bore me. You're Gwen Stefani, for God's sake. Come on. I didn't know. Maybe you already heard it. Come on. I am but one person. Millions of Canadians who want to hear the story. Come on. Okay.
Well, I was we were hunkered down in Oklahoma. We were so blessed. We were on Blake's ranch, which is this I mean, it's very rustic at the time. Like we didn't have a house. We just were living in like these little. Cabins that were, you know. You had to take your laundry like it was very like rustic. And we would we were we had the kids and we were we probably had like 13 people that were all like living there for about 100 days in Oklahoma. And.
We would go around and like explore the land. And there's like just so much like land that's not untouched. Like, and we found this like old homestead that was falling down that looked like kind of like a. I got broken down. Maybe someone built it as their house like 100 years ago. I don't know. And all around it were these purple irises. Right. And they were these beautiful.
flowers just and you knew that someone had to have planted them because they weren't wild right because nothing in oklahoma looks that pretty that's wild i mean It's like, it's crazy there. Like there's so much beauty. But it's also has this like hardness to it. And so we ended up. As a project, a family project, we pulled them all out and we transplanted them to where we were living way far away.
It was like this whole thing where it was like so much like manual labor and it was hundreds of them and all the kids were doing it. And then years later, like they. they survived and they, they grew and they multiplied and they were so beautiful. And we took something that someone planted 150 years ago and now they were growing like because of us. I think there was just so much like there's so much weather and so much reason why those flowers shouldn't have made it. And.
I just feel like that is so true to like my life story. And so when I wrote that song... Tell me how it's true to your life story. Well, I think that like... There's been like a lot of, you know, in my personal life, like in my like my parents met when they were 15. Right. They fell in love. And this couple, they are just so in love.
My whole life I watched it, you know, I watched them just love each other. And that was my example. So what did I want? I wanted that. I thought that's what we all were going to get. You know what I mean? And it just seemed like it was always. So impossible for me.
Don't get me emotional. No, but I know what you mean. Sometimes when like, and this is your personal, this is up to you to talk about, but like sometimes when we have an example laid for us of like endless sweet love, it's a great thing, but it also sets up like an expectation. of what life is supposed to be like. Of course, because that's what you are...
you know, when you're a child, you know what I mean? And so I think for me, it was just like always one disappointment after another. And I always kind of, when I was more immature and didn't realize that we all have to suffer and that suffering can be something, something good. come out of suffering, if you actually give that spiritual intention to the suffering, it wasn't until I wrote my first song after discovering I could even write.
a song like you got to remember like this is a little girl that had dyslexia has dyslexia you don't cure it like it's there and had so much trouble in school like didn't understand why i was like I didn't I couldn't get it like everyone else. And I was very like a floater. Like I didn't I didn't really know. I didn't have goal. I didn't have like I didn't have dreams. Like I just was like existing.
I think about myself back then. And when I wrote my first song, how I found like, wow, that's like my identity all of a sudden. Like I had something so heavy and so like. important. And I never had that before. So I think that like the suffering that I went through with the heartache was my purpose to be able to share.
um with these songs and you know i think at the end of the day we all have our gift and we all need to use it and we all are like we need each other we have to confess and that's why having this new music and being able to share Feels so good, you know? Yeah, I know what you mean. And I tell you how I hear that on the record is that the record to me is so joyful and so triumphant and so loving. And then there's a track like Swallow My Tears, which is, which is. I mean, heartbreaking.
And sad. And I tell you, this was my take on it. And you tell me if I'm on to something. You want to talk about the joy of suffering or the joy of wanting or using suffering as a way to make our lives richer and better.
I think what you are, whether you knew it or not, were saying on that record is that all of this joy and all this love that I'm talking about elsewhere on the record, you can't really get there unless you go through really, really tough stuff. And really, really tough stuff, that can kind of change you forever. That can kind of...
can kind of mess you up. Am I onto something there? You're onto something. And I think it's not just, you know, I think that it's something that we should know that like when we're children, but we don't. And it's like. We all have to do this. Like we all have to. It's kind of as simple as, you know, no pain, no gain. And like, you know, you can always look at it like. You know, your spiritual exercise, meaning like your your your soul exercise, like your inner self. Right.
Or your outer self, like you're just physical exercise. Nobody wants to really go to the gym and do that. And it hurts. And it's like, but afterward, how good does it feel? Like, it's just, it feels so good. So I think that that's the way that. like life is so much. And I think for me on this record, yes, I found love for the first time, like in my life.
But I didn't know. I didn't know that I wasn't experiencing it until now. Right. And so I think in songs like Swallow My Tears or I mean, there's a lot of things in there. Like there's a song like Pretty. Yeah. Lex like okay like I feel loved now and I feel pretty now but I didn't before because I didn't ever experience it. So it's like that was a lot of sadness. You know what I mean? For a long time. So like I think also like a song like Swallow My Tears is like talking about.
I have all this. And I could mess it all up because I'm so messed up from the past that I can't love. You know what I mean? How do I get free from this? How do I get healed? How do I not like keep going back and all this bag is just like ruining what I have now. These are things that we all go through. Right. And I think that that that moment when I wrote that song was like.
And my God, I wish I could have just videotaped it and just showed everyone because I know that I was going through something that everyone goes through. And it was like a spiral of three days. of crying. And I had thought that I was done. I thought that I was healed and I was so mad at myself, like that I was feeling the way I felt. And so I think that there's like all of these things that we go through, but you, especially like the single, right? Like.
Somebody Else's, which in my opinion is a very positive song. about a breakup it's about healing it's about the fast forward after a breakup right it's not like harping on something and it's not a diss song it's it's a joyful song but i also but it also does reflect the past. And I really didn't want to talk about the past in this record. I felt like it didn't deserve to be talked about. But, you know, you can't really have the light without the dark.
Being able to show where the love, how far the love has grown is was was really important. And it just it it helps to be able to see. where i came from you know i mean to get to this point so um yeah it's fun to talk about this stuff I'm Tom Power. You're listening to Q. I'm speaking with the legendary pop musician Gwen Stefani. I know she said she doesn't want to talk about the past. I'm going to talk about the past a little. Just listen to this.
Spiderwebs from No Doubt's 1995 album Tragic Kingdom, which, if you don't know, Rolling Stone named one of the greatest albums of all time. It sold over 16 million copies. It changed Gwen Stefani's life forever. Partly because up until that point, No Doubt had been a band for nine years. She hadn't written any of the songs in the band. And then she started writing, Tragic Kingdom comes out, and it changes her life. That's where things pick up.
I'm stuck by that thing you told me earlier, that you were that old when you wrote your first song. I'm stuck on that. I was... old when i did everything but like i because that was like no that was i had the pre-tragic kingdom record like i had the i had yeah You're weird. Who let you on here? When I was in high school, we were all a bunch of hipsters and we loved Tragic Kingdom. And then someone, one of us, I think my buddy Jeff, went to the record store in my hometown.
like this tiny little town and went like, I hear there's another one and we just bought it. And we remember going to it. I remember going to a party and listening to it, but I didn't know that, that like even for the first years and no doubt you weren't writing, you weren't writing a song. So can you tell me the story when you started? When did you, why did you?
how how did it happen i okay so my family is like have you ever seen the brady bunch yeah i mean it's not a broken family like the brady bunch but it was so like idealistic like all the music we listened to was like folk and bluegrass and like they were just very like my parents were very like artistic and sort of idealistic. I don't know. Bluegrass, man, that's my jam. That's what I came up playing and all that stuff. Yeah, come on. Get out of here. My first concert I ever went to was...
You know, they took me out of Girl Scouts to go see like Emmylou Harris at the Palomino Club up in L.A. Come on. Yeah. So like I that's kind of like so then I have this older brother and he's very eccentric and he's. He's like the leader of like the family, like everything he does, like we look up to him. You know what I mean? Because he's super cool. He's he always wins the art.
contest he can draw he's just he has this energy he's and so like i i looked up to him he's like three years older two and a half years older and He's the one that played the music. He's the one that wrote the songs. I was just nothing. I was just like a like passive, you know. I'd be watching TV like, no, come in here and sing with me. And I'm like, oh, OK. You know, I didn't even know I could sing. But so all of the early music, he wrote all that music. You know, he wrote all that.
eccentric, weird songs like The Climb and like, you know, weird lyrics and I would just sing them. And it wasn't until the first song I ever wrote and I can't. understand within like the breakup relationship. It was, I think it was before me and Tony broke up.
And I don't know how old I was, but I was in my 20s because we started the band when I was 17. I was still in high school. And then because I graduated at 17. And then I ended up, you know, like in my early 20s writing a song called Different. people and that was the first song i ever wrote and it was like this weird like song about like my sister and just trying to like understand how like
Everyone's so different, but yet we need each other. And it was this kind of unity like song. Like I think in my early 20s and I first started going to college, I really saw like all these different cultures and people from all over the world trying to like. I don't know, find themselves. And I was just so fascinated by culture and differences, but yet how similar we all were.
And then it wasn't until like a lot of tragedy that I really found my gift. And it was when my brother, who was my hero, quit the band and my boyfriend, who is.
my obsession quit me. And all of a sudden I was like, what am I going to do now? Like things were just getting good. And I still live with my parents. I'm never going to be good at school. I have no. idea what's going to happen next and I just started writing one song after another and they were I just remember my dad had like these little cassettes and he was I guess playing for them for people at work and he
I was on the phone with him one day and he's like, I played your songs for some of these. people at work and they said they're really good like you should just do what you're doing like don't stop doing it and I was like oh that's weird like I've never gotten a compliment like that before it was just like I agree they're good. Like, cause for me, they were each one a miracle. Each one of them was like my truth. It was so saturated in my truth that.
I couldn't stop listening to it. And it wasn't like I did it. It was like it was given to me. You know what I mean? Like I just kept listening and listening and listening, like obsessively. And then I would call Tony and be like, listen to this one. Look what you did to me, you know? And he'd be like. like, oh, wow, that's really good. That's a really good one. I really feel that I'm losing my best friend. I can't believe this could be. Want to know?
I had a friend one time tell me that he was interested to find out what the limit of McNuggets he could eat. He was like, I want to sit down with an unlimited amount of chicken nuggets and to see where things stop. I feel that way. I feel that way with no doubt and don't speak. I don't really know how many times I can listen to...
Don't speak in a row? I bet it's a lot. I'd like to find out. That's No Doubt with Don't Speak from Tragic Kingdom. More of my conversation with the legendary Gwen Stefani after this. Feeling disconnected in this noisy, overscheduled world? Well, you're not alone.
That's exactly why we're here. I'm Dr. Jodi Carrington and on my podcast, Unlonely, we're tackling the loneliness epidemic, the most pressing issue of our generation. In each episode, I sit down with the most incredible experts who share vital... So let's get Unlonely together. Subscribe to Unlonely wherever you get your podcasts. And we can't wait. to meet you over there hey I'm Tom Power you're listening to Q alright let's listen to this
That's No Doubt and Underneath It All. If you're just listening now, you should know you're in the middle of my conversation with Gwen Stefani, lead singer, principal songwriter of the band, No Doubt, has been a... chart-topping solo artist for years now. One of the judges on the TV show, The Voice. Really legendary, at this point, legendary singer, songwriter, performer, you know, all that stuff. She has a new solo album out. It's called Bouquet. It's about getting your heart broken.
It's about falling in love again. It's about that you can't skip to joy and love. You have to go through the hard stuff to get to it. But we've also been talking about Gwen's really interesting journey in music, how she was in No Doubt for nine years before. she started writing a song. And it was those songs that led to them becoming, you know, at that time, the biggest band in the world in a really short time, kind of overnight-ish. And I wanted to ask Gwen what she remembers about that.
That's where our conversation picks up. When you feel like you don't have a voice, when you feel like you're just kind of coasting through life, when you feel like other people are the talented ones, and then you start writing songs. And not only are they like edifying for you and they're like meaningful to you about your pain and they're helping you. Your family loves them. You're starting to get more respect from your family. But then...
Those are the songs that take No Dad into becoming this big global phenomenon. I mean, I don't have to tell you that like Don't Speak and Just a Girl are the songs that, you know, like these songs are. What was that like for you to. I mean, it's a big question, but what was it like for you to watch those songs happen, watch those songs blow up? I mean, I don't think there's an analogy for how big it got with those songs. Yeah, it was...
I think it was the way that God made me my personality. Like at the time I was very sheltered and very unaware of what was going on. I don't even think that when we got signed that I really knew what that was. I was just such a naive, I was just like, you know, writing in my, my notebooks, like, you know, like not paying attention and sort of like, I can't wait to go thrift store shopping. Like, I don't, it's just very like.
just a very like passive person but even when we got on the radio like it was super exciting but you have to remember we had those songs for a long time before that. So we'd been in the band already nine years. I was 25, 26, still living at my parents' house, which was normal. Like it didn't seem weird. I was, you know, at that point, I think. I had stopped. I didn't have a, I didn't have a job anymore.
I don't think I can't remember. But I remember I was in college and I was finally doing art history and I was like, OK, like doing painting classes and I was going to paint the cover of The Tragic Kingdom. And and then we did this concert and they were like, people were passing down their notebooks for autographs in class. It got like it was like that. It was so weird. And then we went and did the Just a Girl video. Walked to the airplane and didn't come home for two and a half years.
And you can imagine, I was so unbelievably heartbroken from my breakup. Like, I couldn't see anything else but red. Like, it was just... about that for me and for me to be on tour with him and everything that had gone on even now makes me choke up because it was just it was a really hard hard hard time for me like because I was so alone
I felt very alone during that time. So I it was a really hard time. But being able to share the music, like things like sitting on a bus and looking out of the window and being like. that girl's wearing my outfit. Like, like, like, oh my gosh, like she's copying me. But it was like, they were like reflecting me. They were my girls. And it was like, that was bizarre. And then, you know.
It was just the whole thing was just so beautiful because like the theme of this whole conversation, the suffering that I had been going through was, you know. There was so many good things that were coming out of it on not just for me, but for so many people. And yeah, it's just an incredible testament to to what I believe.
is god's work really so um yeah it was an incredible time in my life and and it doesn't it doesn't end like with with just doing those big records i mean it the music is the music so no matter what point i am in my own personal life like it still does the same thing for me and it's still that important
You know, people were calling this Gwen Stefani's country album. I don't hear it. I hear like 70s rock maybe. And I don't know, it just sounds like a great pop record. Gwen Stefani with somebody else's from her new album, Bouquet. Before that, my conversation. with the legendary Gwen Stefani. If you want to see that conversation, go to our YouTube channel, Q with Tom Power. We'll also post some reels from it on our Instagram, at CBCQ.
That is it for the show today. The other conversation we have up today, one of my favorite bands in Canada right now, the OBGMs. I have their t-shirt. I shrunk it in the dryer and I'm looking forward to getting another one. The OBGMs, I didn't get to do this conversation with Saroja Coelho.
I've often felt that this is a band that needs to be more famous, that needs to have probably bigger shows. They're making the right kind of music. They're making solid performances out of that music. And the lead singer, Dans McFarlane. Sort of agrees. It's tough to be a musician right now. It's tough to be an artist in Canada right now. And he went to therapy about it. And all of that is in his brand new record or their brand new record. Go check that out. We'll see you soon. Later on.
For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.