No Doubt Catches a New Wave With ‘Girl’

Gwen Stefani sees nothing to be embarrassed about. Punk-pop has already been resurrected from the ‘80s, so why shouldn’t her band, No Doubt, make some perky new wave to go along with it?

“You look back and realize how much that music really influenced you, even if you didn’t go out and buy the records at the time,” says Stefani, 26. “Those were great songs. It’s so happy and fresh sounding, compared to a lot of the grunge and dark stuff that’s been coming out lately.”

Not that No Doubt identifies itself so strongly with the era of Missing Persons and A Flock of Seagulls. The Orange County quartet actually began life as a straight ska band and has spent the last nine years slugging it out on the Southern California club scene, often sharing stages with punk acts such as Social Distortion and the Vandals.

Its identity as makers of new wave retro is the result of “Just a Girl,” the upbeat pop single that is currently enjoying heavy rotation on the playlists of KROQ-FM and MTV. Co-written by Stefani and guitarist Tom Dumont, the song borrows heavily from such bands as the Cars, Devo and other early-’80s acts.

In the song, Stefani sings, “They won’t let me drive late at night / I’m just a girl / Guess I’m some kind of freak.” Its sarcastic edge has led some to interpret the song as a brash political statement on life as a female.

“A lot of people have taken it even further than I’ve wanted it, like some big feminist statement, which it really isn’t,” Stefani says. “It’s just random daily burdens of being a girl. It’s awesome though, I can’t believe it would have that kind of response.”

The song, from the current “Tragic Kingdom” album, has proved to be the highlight of No Doubt’s performances on its current arena tour with Bush and the Goo Goo Dolls, which arrives next Saturday at San Diego’s Open Air Theatre and March 12 at the Pond of Anaheim.

“It’s really cool to experience a single. ‘Just a Girl’ comes on and it’s so weird--all of a sudden everyone can relate, and the whole crowd freaks out into a frenzy,” says Stefani during a phone interview from a tour stop in Charlotte, N.C. “There’s something really, really fun about playing arenas.”

No Doubt (which also includes drummer Adrian Young and bassist Tony Kanal) began building a club following as teenagers in 1987, playing straight ska music. But the band, which was started by Stefani’s brother Eric (who left last year to work as an animator on “The Simpsons”), was soon branching out.

“From the very start we always knew we wanted to do more than just play ska, because that had already been done,” Stefani says.

No Doubt’s musical mixture attracted the interest of Interscope Records, which released the group’s self-titled debut in 1992. When the label showed little interest in a follow-up, the band released a self-produced album called “Beacon Street Collection.” “Tragic Kingdom,” which came out last fall, is on Trauma Records, a label distributed by Interscope.

These days, Kanal says, “we’re not measuring success by money or anything like that. It’s really the fact that the record finally came out, people are noticing it, and we get to play for people every night. We’ve been waiting to do this for a long time.”

* No Doubt appears with Bush and the Goo Goo Dolls Tuesday at the Pond of Anaheim, 2695 E. Katella Ave., 7:30 p.m. Sold out. (714) 704-2400. Also Friday (without the Goo Goo Dolls) at the Santa Barbara County Bowl, 1122 N. Milpas St., Santa Barbara, 7 p.m. Sold out. [805] 568-2695.