Tony Kanal Quotes

As far as scalping goes, I don’t think you‘ll ever be able to eliminate it.

We know how fickle the music industry is and that you have to focus on the things you can control-writing songs and playing music.

We played one show in Bangalore in a field where they’d never had a rock show before and when we got there, they were actually cutting the grass with scissors.

I think Gwen, in her lyrics, always touches on personal subject matter.

We’ve always found a muse for a record – something that’s a unifying inspiration for the four of us.

I don’t see us as being part of that 90s revival. We were always a band, even when we weren’t playing together.

Bad Brains are so underrated.

No Doubt will always be there; we’ve experienced things together that no one else will ever experience with us. It’s a family that will always be there, and the music we’ve created will always be there.

It’s the little things that stick with you though. Like the boring airport layovers and the bus breaking down in Prague. Those were the real bonding moments.

The fact that our band has weathered so much and stayed together for so long and we still get on stage and have a good time together, that’s a big deal for us. We don’t take that for granted.

We would write our songs, then we’d have a programmer come in and add, for lack of a better term, bloops and bleeps on top of everything. Of course, the funny thing is that a lot of the modern-day dance music people are super-influenced by the ’70s and ’80s stuff that we already love. So it was a natural fit for No Doubt.

As you get older, you’re just smarter.

We want to sound modern, but we’re still influenced by ska, reggae and Eighties U.K. bands.

Sometimes in my mind I still think I’m 16 onstage and my body tells me that I’m not 16 anymore.

We’re not the kind of band that writes very well on the road.

We’re from Anaheim, that’s our stomping grounds, that’s where we grew up. That’s where we practiced in the garage, that’s where we went to high school.

In our minds maybe we think we’re younger than we actually are.

We were on tour for ‘Tragic Kingdom‘ for 28 months. We were going through the breakup, and in every interview we were talking about it so we were opening this wound on an hourly basis.

To be abundantly clear, No Doubt is four people, and that could never be recreated or replicated.

If your fans are comfortable, then people are going to be stoked to be there.

You don’t have to be singing songs about angst and pain to be credible.

Just by default, because I don’t have kids on my bus, I’m putting the studio on my bus. Where everybody else is doing their cribs on their bus, I’ll have a little studio, so I’m going to invite my bandmates, on days off, to come and keep writing so we can continue the creative process and keep it going through the tour.

So, I went to see No Doubt play on March 14, 1987 at the show at Fender‘s Ballroom in Long Beach, California. A week later I tried out and I joined the band and that was obviously a completely incredible thing for me and a life changing moment.

I never had a cool older brother or sister to turn me on to cool music.

I can tell when my brother’s been borrowing my CDs.

Just A Girl’ was the first song that was on the radio for us. That was incredible because to hear that song on KROQ-FM in L.A., where we grew up, and you’ve listened to KROQ your whole life, and then to hear it on the radio was unbelievable.

I’m just always impressed with what Gwen pulls off. She’s amazing.

We kind of expected it – the lead singer always gets a lot of attention and a female always gets a lot of attention – but we didn’t expect it to be as intense as it was.

I’m not given the opportunity – nor do I want it – to write my own lyrics.

The one thing I’ll say about Dreamcar and the music we’ve created is that we never set out to do anything specific.

We’ve had those experiences as a band and you fast forward to just the crazy rock ‘n’ roll nights, where you’d try to outlast each other and see who could drink the most. Fast forward to now and it really is amazing and nice how family-friendly Vegas has become.

We would spend every morning drinking rum and Cokes or Red Stripes for breakfast, to get our heads in the right space. It’s a wonder we got stuff done.

We got to live though the record industry in its heyday.

One of the best things about being in a band for so long and having any level of success is the opportunity to go and play in different creative sandboxes.

On No Doubt’s second visit to Paisley Park, sometime around 1999, we were working on a song with Prince called Waiting Room,’ which would later be released on our Rock Steady album.

It’s honestly all about the audience and if they’re having a good time.

There was always a real camaraderie with No Doubt. It was always more than the music.

The interesting thing is that as soon as Gwen said, ‘Let’s go on the road,’ we were all like, ‘Let’s go on the road!’ Four adults turned into four giggly children.

As pop songs, the early stuff like Electricity‘ and Enola Gay‘ were such inspirations to Gwen and I, especially melodically. They inspired us to try and do our own John Hughes prom-scene movie moment kind of songs.

I think we all realize that, if anyone left, it wouldn’t be No Doubt.

Starting out, you’re just doing it because you love it so much; that’s what I remember about us. Looking back now, some of the things that seemed like big obstacles seem so small now – ‘Wow, how will we get through this?’ But we always did.

There’s something to be said for perseverance. We’ve been sticking it out a long time.

Gwen is someone that girls can look up to and feel like they know. She is very Everygirl.

You can do a small club show and the energy is so contained. Then you play these big festivals, and have 50,000 people waving their hands in the air with you.

We know how fickle the public and the music industry is.

There’s a real family aspect to No Doubt. We all grew up together and we’ve experienced so much together.

You don’t get that opportunity often to press the reset button, get in a studio, and just be free and creative. I think that’s such a special thing to happen.

This may be our 15 minutes of fame, so we’re going to enjoy it while it lasts.

It’s an awesome feeling to have gone through all of the experiences we have together as a band and to now see our own kids there watching us.

We’ve gone through just as much stuff as any band. We just don’t choose to sing about it. Well, maybe we do choose to sing about it.

We wrote the early idea for Undone‘ but it just wasn’t working. Then Gwen had to go to England for some family stuff and when she was there, she sent me an email saying that she had an idea for what to do with Undone.’ She sent me these demos and she was totally right, there was something there.

I remember writing Sunday Morning‘ and Gwen wasn’t feeling well that day and I had an acoustic guitar and I started singing, Somebody is feeling quite ill ‘ and that became Sunday Morning.’

It’s exciting because No Doubt has never played Rock in Rio before. It’s actually an honor to be a part of such an iconic festival and the really cool thing is that the lineup is so diverse and it’s got something for everyone.

Using the computer to record was a cool way to keep all the original ideas intact.

We love Eighties music.

We were teens in the Eighties, and that’s the kind of music that we all grew up on. When you’re in those really formative years, from, like, 13 to 19, what you listen to is so influential, and I think that’s just part of our being now.

We judge everything we do by the Clash and U2.

Think about being onstage playing these songs. I’m opening my personal life up to all these people. But I just can’t get attached. I’ve got to separate myself from the music and lyrics.

The ‘Beacon Street‘ record was kind of like a b-side to ‘Tragic Kingdom,’ but it came out before ‘Tragic Kingdom,’ so it’s a weird situation.

There’s no way to escape who we are.

You don’t bring people down to your show and expect them to stand there and look at your shoes.

One of the reasons this record took so long to come out is that we withstood a lot of pressures and we were unwilling to compromise on a lot of things. ‘Tragic Kingdom’ is a battleground. It was the outcome of three years of struggle.

I think going through some of the hard times makes you appreciate it even more when things are going well. It makes you realise how fortunate you are and not to take things for granted.

Stick out the bad times because there’s always good times coming up. When you come out on the other side, it’s amazing.

For the first time ever we have our own buses. That’s purely out of necessity because Gwen’s got her nannies and the babies on her bus, and Tom has his wife and his nanny and baby, and Adrian his wife, nanny and their son.

It’s not We’re an awesome band.’ The bottom line is, we’re just very fortunate.