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"The lobby of New York&amp;apos;s Mercer Hotel is a haven of downtown chic &amp;#x2014; all angular furniture in shades of eggplant, with oblong oversize lampshades atop carved wooden posts.&amp;#xA0;A wall lined with bookshelves displays volumes on Toulouse-Lautrec, Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol alongside studies of designers Vivienne Tam and Salvatore Ferragamo and anthologies on modernist architecture.&amp;#xA0;The place is, as&amp;#xA0;Gwen&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;puts it, &amp;quot;super frickin&amp;apos; trendy cool,&amp;quot; the kind of hotel where everyone pretends not to notice when Micky Hilton saunters past the reception desk.\r\nBut someone has taken notice of&amp;#xA0;Stefani, lounging inconspicuously on a leather cafe chair on this late December evening.&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;is done up in the luxe street style that has made her an international fashion icon:&amp;#xA0;dark-wash jeans from her own L.A.M.B. label (&amp;quot;They look good whether I&amp;apos;m a little fatter, or not,&amp;quot; she says), a L.A.M.B. wife-beater, suede Christian Dior clogs that add three and a half inches to her height and platinum-blond hair extensions bubbling out from under a blue knit ski cap.&amp;#xA0;She slouches lower in her seat.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;There&amp;apos;s this guy over there and he won&amp;apos;t stop staring at me,&amp;quot; she says.\r\nI turn around and see a toddler &amp;#x2014; no more than a year old, big blue eyes, hair so fair it blends in almost completely with his scalp &amp;#x2014; gazing in our direction.&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;giggles.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;The little baby,&amp;quot; she says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;So cute.&amp;quot;\r\nStefani&amp;#xA0;has always been the kind of songwriter who lives out her most private dilemmas in public.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;Don&amp;apos;t Speak,&amp;quot; the song that put No Doubt over the top in 1996, was about the breakup of her seven-year relationship with bass player Tony Kanal.&amp;#xA0;In 2000, after four years of dating Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale, she made a video for No Doubt&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Simple Kind of Life,&amp;quot; where she ran wild in a wedding dress while singing, &amp;quot;I always thought I&amp;apos;d be a mom/Sometimes I wish for a mistake.&amp;quot; True to form, the first single from her recent solo debut, &amp;quot;What You Waiting For?,&amp;quot; chronicles her intense baby lust &amp;#x2014; the &amp;quot;tick-tock&amp;quot; refrain of the chorus, she says, was inspired in part by the sound of her biological clock.\r\nDuring the three days I spend with her, her desire to have children is a continual theme, whether she&amp;apos;s talking about how she never planned on being a pop star (&amp;quot;Before that, all I ever did was, like, look at Tony and pray that God would let me have a baby with him&amp;quot;) or the joy of marrying Rossdale (&amp;quot;It&amp;apos;s such a beautiful, magical feeling, I can&amp;apos;t explain it.&amp;#xA0;It&amp;apos;s like having a baby.&amp;#xA0;I can imagine what it might be like.&amp;#xA0;But that love I&amp;apos;ve never experienced&amp;quot;) or her plans for the future (&amp;quot;I don&amp;apos;t know what I&amp;apos;m going to do, but I&amp;apos;ve always wanted to do the family thing&amp;quot;).\r\nAnd like any successful woman on the mommy track, she worries about the conflicts of career and family, although most women don&amp;apos;t have to stress about the demands of dressing as fairy-tale characters in music videos.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;At a certain point I&amp;apos;m going to want to have a family,&amp;quot;&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;says, &amp;quot;and I&amp;apos;m not going to have time to be running around the world doing this shit and being greedy the way I have been.&amp;#xA0;I can always write songs.&amp;#xA0;But can I always wear an Alice in Wonderland costume?&amp;#xA0;I probably shouldn&amp;apos;t.&amp;#xA0;I can at home.&amp;#xA0;I was thinking that when I have children, that I should always dress as a character for them, so they think their mom is Alice in Wonderland or Cinderella.&amp;#xA0;It would be totally messed up!&amp;quot;\r\n&amp;quot;I hope she chooses to do both things,&amp;quot; says Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;apos;s&amp;#xA0;label, Interscope, of the star&amp;apos;s career and family ambitions.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;She can handle both.&amp;#xA0;I think she would really miss not fulfilling her potential as an artist, and she&amp;apos;d regret that.&amp;#xA0;But her potential as a mom is equally as powerful.&amp;quot;\r\n&amp;quot;This is the first time in a long time that I actually don&amp;apos;t know what&amp;apos;s gonna happen next,&amp;quot;&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;finally says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;You think about it as a famous person.&amp;#xA0;You think about how you&amp;apos;re gonna end it.&amp;#xA0;How you&amp;apos;re gonna get away and have a normal life.&amp;#xA0;I imagine my children are going to save me from my vanity and be my passion and fill whatever fears I have of the amazing time I&amp;apos;m having right now being gone.&amp;#xA0;I don&amp;apos;t want to drop off and not be on the radio or not be able to talk about myself for hours.&amp;#xA0;I don&amp;apos;t want it to go away.&amp;#xA0;But at the same time, I never expected to be here in the first place.&amp;quot;\r\nDisturbing but true: Listen to rock radio these days and you&amp;apos;ll hear a woman&amp;apos;s voice only if it belongs to&amp;#xA0;Gwen&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;or Evanescence&amp;apos;s Amy Lee.&amp;#xA0;Lee sure sold a lot of records in the past few years, but&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;is the only true female rock star left on radio or MTV. &amp;quot;She&amp;apos;s toured from when she was eighteen years old playing small clubs, to playing small theaters, then amphitheaters and then arenas,&amp;quot; says Iovine.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;She is the only woman on pop radio right now who has toured with that vigor, and she&amp;apos;s the only one who could as easily tour with U2, Green Day and OutKast.&amp;quot;\r\nAlmost ten years after &amp;quot;Just a Girl&amp;quot; hit airwaves,&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;has an instantly recognizable voice, an inimitable sense of style and an impact on popular culture on par with Madonna&amp;apos;s.&amp;quot;There will never be anyone else quite like her,&amp;quot; says Garbage singer Shirley Manson, who has known&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;since the mid-Nineties and toured with No Doubt in 2002.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;She&amp;apos;s got an extraordinary mixture of the elements that make a great pop star and the elements that make a great rock star.&amp;#xA0;She&amp;apos;s like the perfect Trojan horse:&amp;#xA0;She seems very benign and wholesome, but underneath lurks an incredible toughness and powerful directness.&amp;#xA0;Nobody can copy her, because she&amp;apos;s this uniquely extraordinary contradiction.&amp;quot;\r\nIndeed,&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;is one of the only Nineties stars who has managed to hold the attention of the ever-churning teen audience.&amp;#xA0;Her solo debut, Love, Angel, Music, Baby, sold half a million copies in its first two weeks.&amp;#xA0;She recently scored a pair of Grammy nominations:&amp;#xA0;one for &amp;quot;What You Waiting For?&amp;quot; and one with No Doubt for their cover of Talk Talk&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;It&amp;apos;s My Life.&amp;quot; (If she wins both, her Grammy collection will expand to five.) In December, she made her big-screen debut &amp;#x2014; albeit in a blink-and-you&amp;apos;ll-miss-it role &amp;#x2014; playing Jean Harlow in Martin Scorsese&amp;apos;s Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator.&amp;#xA0;And last night, she went to the holiday party for her clothing line, which is preparing its fourth collection for fall 2005.\r\nLove, Angel, Music, Baby is the kind of Eighties-style electro dance album that&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;grew up on in Orange County, California.&amp;#xA0;It&amp;apos;s so Eighties, in fact, that members of New Order are the backing band on &amp;quot;The Real Thing,&amp;quot; alongside collaborations with OutKast&amp;apos;s Andr&amp;#xE9; 3000, Dr. Dre and Eve, the Neptunes, Dallas Austin and Linda Perry.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;Right now in my life, I&amp;apos;m all about trying things I&amp;apos;ve never done,&amp;quot; Stefani says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I&amp;apos;m a woman and I&amp;apos;m thirty-five.&amp;#xA0;I don&amp;apos;t have that much time left to do this kind of pop record.&amp;#xA0;Let&amp;apos;s be real about it.&amp;quot;\r\nThe idea for the album, she says, came to her one morning during No Doubt&amp;apos;s Rock Steady tour two years ago.&amp;#xA0;She heard one of her favorite dance tracks from the Eighties, Club Nouveau&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Why You Treat Me So Bad,&amp;quot; turned to Kanal over breakfast and said, &amp;quot;I want to do that song.&amp;quot; It was Kanal, after all, who had introduced her to that kind of music when the two were teenage sweethearts, before she turned him onto ska, before No Doubt had a record deal.\r\n&amp;quot;I was super ska girl when I met Tony,&amp;quot; she says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I wore only black and white and these hoop earrings.&amp;#xA0;Tony went to Anaheim High School, which is the big cholo school.&amp;#xA0;He came over here from England at eleven.&amp;#xA0;He has Indian parents, and he was the first-born, so he didn&amp;apos;t have any influences.&amp;#xA0;He thought he was Prince.&amp;#xA0;Because I had a crush on him, he turned me on to Prince and Lisa Lisa and Debbie Deb, and that stuff has always had a special place in my heart.&amp;quot;\r\nWhen No Doubt got to the end of the tour in late 2002, everyone in the band was ready for a break.&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;had just married Rossdale, Kanal &amp;quot;had his first real girlfriend,&amp;quot; guitarist Tom Dumont was engaged, and drummer Adrian Young&amp;apos;s wife had given birth to their first baby.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;Everything started changing,&amp;quot;&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;explains.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;All those years we were only committed to each other, but then we grew up.&amp;#xA0;You could tell certain people in the band needed a break.&amp;quot;\r\nThe night before she is scheduled to perform at the 2004 Billboard Music Awards,&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;sits on the couch in a Las Vegas hotel room looking like Alice in Wonderland on casual Friday.&amp;#xA0;Her hair is held off her face with a thick velvet headband, and she&amp;apos;s dressed in a black sweater, jeans and white sweat socks.&amp;#xA0;A keyboard with colored tape marking specific keys sits next to the couch so that&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;can rehearse the intro to &amp;quot;What You Waiting For?&amp;quot; in her spare time.&amp;#xA0;She starts by showing me a big white blister on her thumb that she got after one of the candles in her hotel room tipped over and spilled hot wax on her.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I can&amp;apos;t stop playing with it,&amp;quot; she squeaks.\r\n&amp;quot;I was in such a shit mood before you came,&amp;quot; she says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I&amp;apos;m really on my period right now, really bad.&amp;#xA0;I&amp;apos;m so emotional.&amp;#xA0;I&amp;apos;m gonna cry just talking about it.&amp;quot; Many of&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;apos;s&amp;#xA0;stories involve her either crying, or nearly crying.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I&amp;apos;m just really emotional,&amp;quot; she says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I don&amp;apos;t fight with people &amp;#x2014; like, I can barely fight with my husband because I&amp;apos;ll just start crying instead. I&amp;apos;ve learned not to do that so much.&amp;#xA0;Period week, I cry a lot.&amp;#xA0;And the week when I was going to Anaheim to play my first show by myself, I cried on the way, because I was like, This is surreal.&amp;#xA0;Why does the first show have to be in Anaheim?&amp;apos;&amp;quot;\r\nGwen&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;apos;s&amp;#xA0;parents &amp;#x2014; Dad is a marketing exec and Mom quit her job as a dental assistant to stay home with the kids &amp;#x2014; still live in the same house in Anaheim where she grew up with her older brother, Eric, younger sister, Jill, and younger brother, Todd.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;My mom and dad met at Anaheim High School,&amp;quot; she says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;After they got married, all they wanted to do was have four children, and they did.&amp;quot; When the kids were still small, their parents would take them to bluegrass and folk festivals; one of the first shows&amp;#xA0;Gwen&amp;#xA0;remembers seeing was Emmylou Harris.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;She had just had a baby,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;and she took a break in the middle of the show to go feed the baby.&amp;#xA0;I couldn&amp;apos;t believe it.&amp;quot;\r\nThe&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;kids still all live relatively close to home, and though&amp;#xA0;Gwen&amp;#xA0;says she&amp;apos;s very close with Jill &amp;#x2014; the two call each other simply &amp;quot;sister&amp;quot; &amp;#x2014; it was Eric whom she idolized as a teenager.&amp;#xA0;No Doubt was his band before he recruited&amp;#xA0;Gwen&amp;#xA0;to share singing duties with the late John Spence, who committed suicide in 1987.&amp;#xA0;Eric quit the group before Tragic Kingdom came out and now works full-time as a cartoonist.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;Everything Eric was into, I got into,&amp;quot; she says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;He&amp;apos;s supercreative, and he was this high school cartoonist and he was in marching band, and he had all these wild artist friends.&amp;#xA0;I don&amp;apos;t know if he really was cool or not, but he seemed cool to me.&amp;quot;\r\nBy comparison,&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;says she was &amp;quot;pretty lazy&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;passive.&amp;quot; She had trouble with her grades at Loara High School and didn&amp;apos;t even know if she was going to be able to graduate. By the time she got to Cypress College in 1987, she discovered that, even though she couldn&amp;apos;t spell to save her life, she was getting pretty good at writing song lyrics.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;After Tony broke up with me, I realized I had something to say,&amp;quot; she says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;When I started writing songs, it was like, &amp;apos;I&amp;apos;m a real human in this world, and I can do something.&amp;apos;&amp;quot;\r\nLove, Angel, Music, Baby, though, proved a major challenge to&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;apos;s&amp;#xA0;confidence as a songwriter.&amp;#xA0;Her original idea was to make an old-school dance album &amp;quot;with Tony in his bedroom and the two of us singing in a microphone,&amp;quot; she says.&amp;#xA0;Jimmy Iovine wanted something bigger and pushed&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;to shoot for the moon, pairing her with producers such as Dallas Austin and Linda Perry in hopes of striking chart gold.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;She was nervous about it,&amp;quot; says Iovine.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;It was her first time doing something without her band, and it was a big step.&amp;#xA0;I said, &amp;apos;Let&amp;apos;s just experiment and see what happens.&amp;apos;&amp;quot;\r\nBut when it came time to start work on the album in earnest, her insecurities kicked into high gear.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I cried before I went in the studio,&amp;quot;&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I was just terrified.&amp;quot; Writing songs with her band of seventeen years seemed like a piece of cake compared with trying to be creative on cue, alongside Pharrell Williams or Andr&amp;#xE9; 3000 or Dr. Dre.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;It was very threatening to let these people into my world,&amp;quot; she says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;Because that&amp;apos;s what I define myself as &amp;#x2014; a songwriter.&amp;#xA0;The hardest part was letting someone even suggest an idea and then my ego being able to take it if it was good.&amp;quot;\r\nShe got together with Perry, and on the first day they wrote a song called &amp;quot;Fine by You&amp;quot; that didn&amp;apos;t make it onto the album.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;It was all about &amp;apos;I don&amp;apos;t want to be inspired.&amp;#xA0;I don&amp;apos;t want to call anyone.&amp;#xA0;I just want to sleep and wear the name you gave me.&amp;#xA0;And everything I do is fine by you and you don&amp;apos;t judge me and you love me,&amp;apos;&amp;quot;&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;It was a stupid love song, but really good.&amp;#xA0;I went home and felt good, like, &amp;apos;I did it.&amp;#xA0;I wrote a song today.&amp;apos; I was still really scared to go back, and when I got there the next day, Linda had been sitting up writing all night.&amp;#xA0;That whole jealousy happened, like, &amp;apos;You did that?&amp;apos;&amp;quot; The song Perry had written was &amp;quot;What You Waiting For?&amp;quot;; it was her way of telling&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;to get off her ass and stop complaining.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;It was like a dare, and I don&amp;apos;t even remember writing the words after that,&amp;quot;&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I just barfed them out.&amp;quot;\r\nOnce&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;felt comfortable with the direction of the album, her quirky creative impulses took over.&amp;#xA0;She became fixated on the idea of dedicating a song to the wildly dressed Japanese women she had admired ever since her first visit to the Harajuku section of Tokyo in 1996.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;Everyone had this crazy personal style,&amp;quot; she says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;The last couple of times I was there, it had evolved into all these different things like the Gothic Lolitas and these girls with blond hair and dark tans and high-heel shoes, like they were from Hollywood.&amp;#xA0;I was working with Linda, and I did a shout-out to them:&amp;#xA0;&amp;apos;Harajuku girls, you got the wicked style.&amp;apos; That&amp;apos;s when the dream started.&amp;quot;\r\nThe dream, that is, of having four Harajuku girls follow her everywhere she went to promote her album.&amp;#xA0;The four girls, whom&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;named &amp;quot;Love,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Angel,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Music&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Baby&amp;quot; are actually professional dancers whose main job &amp;#x2014; other than performing onstage with&amp;#xA0;Stefani&amp;#xA0;&amp;#x2014; is to stand behind her and look cute.&amp;#xA0;But the idea also evolved into a running theme on the album:&amp;#xA0;Not only did she write a song dedicated to them (&amp;quot;Harajuku Girls&amp;quot;), but two other songs on Love, Angel, Music, Baby reference the Japanese fashionistas.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I was thinking about calling the album Stolen Goods,&amp;quot; she jokes.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;Or It Was Yours and Now It&amp;apos;s Mine.&amp;quot;\r\nMaybe one day, she says, maybe after she&amp;apos;s started her family, maybe she will make a &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; solo album.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I would really love to learn to play something so I don&amp;apos;t have to rely on someone to collaborate with,&amp;quot; she admits.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;Like, I&amp;apos;ve written songs on guitar, but I don&amp;apos;t play guitar good enough to be free.&amp;#xA0;If I could play every chord?&amp;#xA0;I feel like I could write a million songs if I had that.&amp;quot;\r\nBut how will she know when it&amp;apos;s time to stop fighting the ticking in her head and start the family she&amp;apos;s always wanted?&amp;#xA0;For a moment she seems at a loss for words.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I&amp;apos;ve been making a conscious effort not to think about the future,&amp;quot; she finally says.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;I feel lucky to not have to have a real job, to be able to express myself, be creative and be relevant.&amp;#xA0;I don&amp;apos;t know what I&amp;apos;ll be doing in ten years.&amp;#xA0;How old will I be?&amp;#xA0;Forty-five.&amp;#xA0;I don&amp;apos;t want to think about it, to be honest, because it&amp;apos;s a waste of time.&amp;#xA0;Tomorrow night I&amp;apos;ll be in bed with my husband again and it will be really great.&amp;#xA0;It&amp;apos;s all about right now.&amp;quot;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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