Growing Paeans

Tom Dumont is in London. He's chipper, even if sounding a little weary from a big week of promo duties for his band No Doubt and their comeback of sorts after near on a decade out of the limelight. Of course, it's perhaps not as much effort as it sounds as the band has pretty much been a household name since 1995 when their single Just A Girl infiltrated every schoolyard, pub and home stereo the world over. Since then, it's been nothing but hit after hit to the toppermost – songs like Don't Speak, Sunday Morning, Ex-Girlfriend, Hella Good and Hey Baby resonated so hard around the globe, that it also made hit albums Tragic Kingdom (1995), Return Of Saturn (2000) and Rock Steady (2001) integral to any music collection of that time.

Then came a retrospective – The Singles 1992-2003 – and a new single, a cover of Talk Talk's It's My Life and all went quiet, well all except the explosion of frontwoman Gwen Stefani's solo career, a feat that spawned two albums and a string of hit singles of her own. But getting No Doubt back on track after ten years or so hasn't been quite as effortless as it may seem.

“The thing is when we stopped to take a break at the end of the Rock Steady touring cycle, up until that point we'd made three albums in a row. We didn't make them quickly but it was just a long period of continual work – recording, promoting or touring,” Dumont explains thoughtfully. “At that point, we really did need to stop for a minute – we had a lot of good times, you know, but being on the road, in the studio, it does become a grind. The break was definitely something we needed, and at the beginning of that break we put out that singles collection and It's My Life and we ended up doing just a little more touring so it was a lot lighter. And then Gwen explained, 'Hey, I'm going to make this solo album but I'm not leaving the band, I'm going to do this for a while, then we'll come back and do No Doubt again.' We were good with that, it's important. One of the reasons we've been able to stay together so long is that there is a lot of mutual respect – we're friends and we care about each other.

“There was never really a break-up,” he continues. “I think a lot of the perception is that that was the case. But we were very conscious of not being one of those bands that breaks up and then gets back together – it was just, 'Hey, let's take some time off' but that did end up turning into two albums for her, mostly because the first was so successful. At the end of that second album for her, around 2007, she was playing a couple of shows in our hometown of Anaheim, Orange County and she said, 'Hey, come to the shows and come up onstage during the encore and we'll surprise everybody and play a couple of No Doubt songs!' We did that and it was really fun and I think that was the catalyst when we realised it was time again. But of course, in traditional No Doubt style, when her tour ended and we started trying to write, it ended up taking basically four years to get the album done.”

Push And Shove is No Doubt's fifth record in total and first album full of original material in 11 years. Uncannily, it picks up right where 2001's Rock Steady and, specifically single Hey Baby, left off. Opening track and first single Settle Down could almost be the sequel to Hey Baby – a hooky chorus, meaningful verses with a dancehall beat to keep the party rolling.

“For No Doubt, we always tried to have this balance between moving forward and doing something new, but also trying to stay in touch with our past,” Dumont reveals. “It has been a battle, not everyone is happy and you do have vocal fans who would so love us to sound just like we did in the early-'90s. But for us, we don't like to repeat ourselves so that has been a challenge, when it comes to picking singles like Settle Down... picking singles is difficult, it really is and it's not something that is always a clear decision to figure out. Imagine you're coming back after so many years, now what is the first thing anyone hears after all that time? It was hard to choose – the album is diverse and we wanted to come back with something upbeat.”

No Doubt, circa 2012, is definitely a different beast to that of the ska-punk days or even the later dancehall-inspired pop days. Aside from the music itself, what does remain though is that sense of camaraderie and friendship between Dumont, Stefani, Adrian Young and Tony Kanal that has always been so visible. They might've grown up a lot, but they're still here making music even if they now have other priorities.

“It's been good so far,” Dumont says poignantly. “It has been a while and the big difference for us, during that time apart everybody started families – Gwen obviously did, but all of us started having kids as well. Going into this album, that was the big difference in our lives – we'd grown up and in the old days, the band was always number one for everybody, our first priority and the fun thing we did with our lives. And now the band is kept second really – we all want to be really part of it as parents and everything – the writing schedule, everything, is impacted by that; we just work less. The thing is, that's really great as well because you don't get as burnt out, we don't work as much as we used to in that sense, whether it be in the studio or promotion. That impacted how long it took to make the record but even now that we're going on these promo trips, in Gwen's case, she usually has her kids with her – she's the mom and we need to make allowances for that. The guys have wives at home so that makes it a little easier on us.”

Now touring ensues and that means the juggling of schedules and kids more than ever before, as well as setlists to settle, production ideas to muster as well as ideally ensuring they're atop their game.

“Will we come to Australia?” Dumont reflects rhetorically. “There is a 99 percent chance we'll get down there, as soon as we figure the kids thing out.”