Gwen Stefani joins us in the Terra Origin Interview Lounge before her performance at Audacy's 'Leading Ladies' in Brooklyn, NY.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00I'm Karen Carson at Leading Ladies in the Terra Origin interview lounge with Gwen Stefani.
00:07Wow!
00:08Hi guys!
00:09I'm here.
00:10This is so cool.
00:11We're in New York.
00:12Yes.
00:13Leading Ladies Odyssey.
00:14What's up?
00:15In Brooklyn.
00:16I can't believe it.
00:17We're so glad you are part of our Leading Ladies.
00:19Congratulations on Bouquet.
00:20It is such a beautiful album.
00:23My question is, can you talk about the album's conception of Bouquet and then the deluxe
00:30version and all the beautiful acoustic songs?
00:32I mean, honestly, I've been wanting to...
00:35It's hard because it's not like I need new music.
00:38I can't really fit any more songs into the set if I wanted to, but I have to remove to
00:44bring in new stuff.
00:45But I just had that little voice in my heart that just was like, you got to do some new
00:51music.
00:52And so I listened and I started a really long process of just trying to find who am I now?
00:59What am I?
01:00Because it has to be...
01:01It's always been the same.
01:02It's like, what is real and what is the truth?
01:05And so it kind of took me a while to kind of get there.
01:08I felt like I kept trying to go backwards and chase or compete with my older me.
01:13Like younger, older me?
01:15Yeah.
01:16Before me.
01:18It was just fun to finally hit on a song called Purple Irises.
01:22And when I wrote that song, I was like, okay, now this feels like...
01:25It's always like that.
01:26You just know when you know.
01:28And after that, it was just really fast and I ended up writing the whole album.
01:32And I got to re-record the album with one of my heroes, Scott Hendricks, who is a country
01:39producer that I met through Blake, but it's not a country record at all.
01:44I just wanted a genre-less kind of pure record that could just let the lyrics just float
01:52without trying to think of a style.
01:54Because I've bounced in so many styles from like ska, then, you know, with No Doubt, and
01:59then I did the solo kind of period of like dance records and then just all the little
02:03things in between.
02:04I just wanted something that just was very pure, just music, you know?
02:07So that's kind of how it was born.
02:11You just took my second question.
02:12Oh, I did?
02:13Just from going...
02:14I know.
02:15I love it, though.
02:16You went from, yeah, ska and reggae, and now you have this beautiful, melodic, soft and
02:22still funky album, you know?
02:26I guess it wasn't easy for you to do both.
02:29I mean, honestly, like, I think I've always done the same thing, which is just try to
02:34tell whatever the story is of that moment in my life.
02:39And it is different from in the beginning when you're writing and, you know, for whatever,
02:44nine years, and you don't think anyone's ever going to hear it.
02:46Like, you're just doing it because it's coming through you, and it's just so pure.
02:51And then once you get that kind of taste of sharing it and what that feels like, of course
02:56you want that.
02:58It's like you can never have enough of that.
03:00It is so amazing to be able to have your heart and share it with people, your truth, and
03:06then have them relate to that in some way.
03:08And it's just an amazing inspiration.
03:10So I think this record is no different in that way.
03:13It's just the way that it was sort of, I guess, just produced and just, like I said, like
03:18I wanted it to feel very, not like anything else, I wanted just the lyric to come through
03:25and not to be produced or dressed up in any specific way, just to be like live music played
03:30by amazing musicians.
03:32And so we cut the whole album live.
03:34And that's kind of what led me to the idea of like, wow, we could even strip this down
03:37more and make an acoustic version to even make it even more about the lyrics and less
03:42about any production at all.
03:44So we started undoing it, and that's how we did the Deluxe album.
03:49And I also had another song that I weirdly was in the gym one day and I was thinking
03:56about this, I was texting somebody and I was like, I think I wrote that song.
04:00And I went back and I found this song that I'd written with Phineas, like, I think maybe
04:04three years ago, and never like I forgot, not forgot about it, but just didn't consider
04:09it I had written so many songs that it's just like, oh, that's not really the right direction
04:13at that point, you know, and, and I went, I was like, I got to record this song.
04:18And I went and recorded it.
04:19And then we did the Deluxe.
04:20So yeah,
04:21it's just beautifully packaged, everything about it.
04:24It's stunningly gorgeous.
04:25The videos are great.
04:27And it's so fun to see you and Blake sing together Purple Irises.
04:30That's one of my faves.
04:33I think that was a really unique moment too, because I'd hopped on a lot of his stuff,
04:37which is, I don't know, it makes kind of a little bit more sense when his voice gets
04:41on like, because the original version was a little more pop, it was like, is this working?
04:46I'm like, I'm not sure.
04:48And that's kind of why I called Scott because I was like, maybe if Scott got involved, we
04:52could make something that was a little less like, I kept feeling like the record was sounding
04:57like I was trying to copy my old self a lot, like production wise.
05:01And it was like me being trying to be 80s in 2003.
05:06And then now it's like 2025, like me trying to be 80s, it was getting a little bit like,
05:11it was just getting weird.
05:13So that's why I wanted to be more pure about it.
05:14I think you found yourself.
05:16Perfectly.
05:17I see you caught the bug of flower and garden.
05:23I mean, do you garden yourself?
05:24Do you garden?
05:25I do.
05:26You do?
05:27I grow dahlias.
05:28You do?
05:29Oh my gosh.
05:30I had a failure year last year.
05:32So I feel like a failure.
05:33Oh no, this is my first big year.
05:34Oh, you had a, okay, well, they're not coming out there, but my purple irises just bloomed.
05:39I just got a video from Apollo right from Oklahoma.
05:42So I'm going to see them tomorrow.
05:44But um, do he catch it too?
05:46Well, he, I think he was like, he sent this video, mom, you're not going to believe this.
05:52And he's like, look at that.
05:53So he knows like, he's like, he knows how excited we get.
05:57So he wanted to like, share that with me.
05:59But um, I don't know.
06:01I think that gardening is it's there's something so like spiritual about it and I'm hopeful,
06:08you know, it's like, it's this thing and I don't think I'm the only one that thinks that
06:12like around the world, like historically, like people connect like to their soul through
06:17gardening because there's just, you're planting this, this thing and there's not really don't
06:21really have control over it, but you can nurture it, love it.
06:24It's like having children, you know, it's like, it's like baking sourdough bread.
06:27It's like, all you can do is just hope, right?
06:31And it's fun to go out and look.
06:32Yeah, I love it so much.
06:34So just congratulations.
06:36And I have to ask, are you driving tractors?
06:39I do have a little tractor.
06:40I haven't really got on it very much, but I'm just I, I really just love Oklahoma so
06:46much.
06:47It's just one of those things I didn't know I needed, which is that just nature.
06:51And we have a lot of fun there.
06:53We're building a lot of memories.
06:54It's the happiest we've seen you.
06:55I think.
06:57Do I look happy?
06:58I mean, you always have, but you're like glowing.
07:00Oh, thank you.
07:01So thank you so much.
07:03Congratulations on Bouquet.
07:04Love you guys.
07:05Bouquet Deluxe.
07:06And have fun tonight.
07:07Thank you, Odyssey, for playing my music.
07:08Love you guys.