No Doubt Talks About Its New Material Beyond Return Of Saturn

Though only 10 tracks appear on No Doubt's fourth album, Return of Saturn, which is due on Interscope Records April 11, over a two- year writing and recording period, according to guitarist Tom Dumont, the Southern Californian band recorded around 24 new songs. "It took us two years but we left no stone unturned," he jokes.

Many of the leftover tracks stem from the band's initial sessions with Michael Wilder, the producer of their 1995-released breakthrough smash Tragic Kingdom. "We were a little hasty about it because we hadn't been writing or been creative for years," No Doubt's singer Gwen Stefani tells allstar. "So we began recording with Matthew. Everyone was really excited, but we were too comfortable, we needed to step out of our comfort zone."

All but one song from the Wilder sessions (an instrumental version of "Too Late" makes a sequestered appearance as a secret track) were nixed from the album's lineup. "One by one they ended up getting scrapped," says Dumont. "At the end there were two songs that we almost put on the record. One of them is ending up as a B-side, a song called "Big Distraction," and I think it's going to be a bonus track in Europe. It's a cool song, very Queen-like, all these vocals; pretty out there."

Some songs from those early sessions were re-recorded and made the final cut of the album. "'Magic's in the Makeup' we did with Matthew," says Dumont. "That song was hard to pin down, but we finally got it. The Matthew version is pretty cool, our manager wanted to put that version out. All these opinions you know? ... 'Comforting Lie' was one we did with Matthew too, and that version's cool too."

In all, the time spent working with Wilder resulted in seven songs and Dumont doesn't rule out the idea of these alternate versions and scrapped songs making it onto an EP. "That would be cool, some of this stuff really is good," he says.

Another song that was ditched was one that Stefani wrote with No Doubt's co-founder and onetime lyricist, her brother Eric, who left the band prior to Tragic Kingdom.

"Before we were popular he was so much the soul of the band," says Dumont. "We always thought that even though he didn't want to go on tour and promote the record or any of that stuff, it would be great to write with the guy because he is so talented." Writing sessions between Gwen and Eric only resulted in one song though, "Everything in Time." "It's really great, but it ended up not making it on the record," says Dumont. "Hopefully it will get released as something, a movie soundtrack or a B-side."

"The thing that's cool about it is," adds Dumont, "putting in all that time and effort, pushing ourselves, we made a record that we are really proud of, and are just so energized and go out and play now."

-- Linda Laban

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