No Doubt are writing songs at a fever pitch for their next CD. The album, which the band hopes to release in October, will feature collaborations with Prince, Dr. Dre, the Neptunes, Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, and Sly and Robbie.
“We’ve never written with other people,” Gwen Stefani says. “We wanted to get in a room and see what kind of cultural collisions happened. I want this record to be short, simple, fun and danceable.”
Building on an existing track produced by Dr. Dre, the band wrote “Wicked Day” spontaneously in the studio. Another song – the Dave Stewart-produced “Underneath It All” – “was written in ten minutes,” says Stefani.
It has been a whirlwind few months for No Doubt. They traveled to Minneapolis to record “Waiting Room” with Prince, flew across the Atlantic to work with members of British ska band Madness, spent time in Jamaica with rhythm masters Sly and Robbie, and then headed back to California to record “Hella Good” with the Neptunes. “We’ve been together for fourteen years,” says Stefani, “and we’ve decided to break free from the rules and laws that we’ve built up. It’s like we started over on this record.”