No. 1 Band From O.C.? There’s No Doubt

Rock band No Doubt on Wednesday became the first Orange County-based pop act to reach No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s top albums chart, a milestone achieved after a national television appearance last weekend on “Saturday Night Live.”

The Anaheim band’s “Tragic Kingdom” album, which appeals to alternative rock and mainstream pop fans alike, sold 229,000 copies last week and edged out French-Canadian pop diva Celine Dion by about 1,700 sales, according to the SoundScan monitoring service.

No Doubt’s label, Trauma Records, expects even bigger sales next week, as the impact of No Doubt’s appearance on “SNL” kicks in. “Tragic Kingdom” has sold more than 3.2 million copies in the United States and more than 500,000 internationally since its release in the fall of 1995.

Topping the charts caps a 10-year rise for No Doubt, a group that is by all accounts still hard working and humble. It also continues a streak of achievements by various Orange County alternative-rock acts: Since October, the bands Korn, Sublime and Social Distortion all have placed albums in the Top 40.

No Doubt’s members--singer Gwen Stefani, bassist Tony Kanal, drummer Adrian Young and guitarist Tom Dumont--were unavailable for comment Wednesday. They were in New York City, busy with one of the obligations of success: an all-day magazine photo shoot.

Patti Stefani, Gwen’s mother, said her daughter had called home Tuesday after getting advance word that No Doubt would be No. 1.

“She’s very excited. It’s kind of shocking in a way,” Patti Stefani said. “Even though you hope for it, the reality is surprising. People were predicting it, but when it comes true, it’s still thrilling and kind of unbelievable.”

Experienced observers of the Orange County rock scene have differing views on what the recent success of No Doubt and others means for Orange County’s standing in the rock ‘n’ roll world. The county has been a hotbed for critically hailed punk and alternative rock since 1978, but it is only in the last five years, since the band Nirvana revolutionized the music marketplace, that the modern-rock styles coming out of Orange County have been consistently marketable on a large scale.

“It just means that No Doubt is a great band who happens to be from Orange County,” said Jim Guerinot, who rose from promoting shows in raucous Orange County punk dives in the early 1980s to a prominent spot in the music industry, first as an executive with A&M; Records and now as owner of his own Laguna Beach-based label, Time Bomb.

“I’m sure some people will place significance on it [for the local music scene in general], but I think it has less to do with the area than with the individuals involved,” he said.

Guerinot said he doesn’t think there is any nationally marketable aura to Orange County rock in general, the way Seattle acquired a reputation as a special “scene” in the early 1990s, when it produced a series of similar-sounding hit grunge bands, including Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

Linda Jemison, a key promoter on the county’s grass-roots music scene, believes one certain local impact from the success of No Doubt and others will be to set an example for other aspiring rock acts from Orange County.

“They know if you work hard enough, play music you believe in, and don’t step on people on the way up, it can happen,” she said.

Along their journey to No. 1, No Doubt’s members, who are in their mid- to late-20s, have forged a reputation as a motivated, dedicated bunch who are low on star attitude and keen on the idea that niceness is a virtue.

“I’ve never heard one bad story about No Doubt,” Jemison said. “I’ve never heard about them snubbing anybody or cutting off anybody that helped them on the way up, and I think that paid off for them.”

No Doubt entered the Top 10 nearly six months ago and has been there almost continuously since. The band’s recent surge to the peak position has been fueled by the success of its melancholy ballad “Don’t Speak,” an atypical song that has brought in a mainstream audience to go with the band’s primary base among alternative-rock fans.

Paul Palmer, Trauma’s co-president, said Wednesday that he believes No Doubt will be able to push its sales totals to more than 6 million in the U.S. and an additional 2 million to 3 million overseas. The Offspring is still Orange County’s modern-rock sales champ, having notched 4.9 million U.S. sales and more than 8 million worldwide for its 1994 punk-rock release, “Smash.”

Before “Tragic Kingdom,” the highest-charting album by an Orange County-based performer was “Feliciano!”--a 1968 release by the folk-pop singer Jose Feliciano that peaked at No. 2.

Korn’s gloomy hard-rock record, “Life Is Peachy,” debuted on the charts at No. 3 in October and has since slipped to 99. The Offspring and the Righteous Brothers (with three, including “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ”) are the only other Orange County rockers who have placed albums in the Top 10, with a peak position of No. 4 for both.