No Doubt

Formed by brother and sister Eric and Gwen Stefani with high school friend John Spence in 1986, the pop/ska band No Doubt labored in near obscurity for nearly a decade before achieving worldwide success with the 15 million-selling Tragic Kingdom in the mid-'90s. Spence, whose back-flipping set an early standard for the band's frantic performances, was the group's original lead singer, while Gwen did harmony vocals. Bassist Tony Kanal joined in early 1987. On December 21, 1987 - a year to the month after the band’s formation - Spence took his own life in an Anaheim park. The group carried on with Gwen Stefani assuming lead-vocal duties, and they soon added guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young. They signed to Interscope in 1991 and released their self-titled debut the following year; it tanked. Eric Stefani left in 1994 to work as an animator for the TV series The Simpsons, though several of his songs appeared on both 1995’s self-released The Beacon Street Collection and Tragic Kingdom, released on Interscope later that year.

Tragic Kingdom was slow to take off, but reached #1 after 14 months on the strength of three hit singles - “Just a Girl” (#23 pop), “Spiderwebs” (#5 Modern Rock), and the #2 Modern Rock ballad “Don’t Speak,” in which Stefani sang about the breakup of her seven-year relationship with Kanal. Stefani, like Blondie’s Deborah Harry before her, attracted the lion’s share of the band’s media attention, often appearing on magazine covers without the other group members. Her relationship with Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale kept her profile high even during the downtime between the end of the Tragic Kingdom tour and the release of Return of Saturn (#2, 2000). Although that album sold far less than its predecessor, it featured two successful singles, “Ex-Girlfriend” (#2 Modern Rock) and “Simple Kind of Life” (#38). Stefani was featured on Moby’s 2001 hit “South Side.”

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)