With just one month until the release of her brand new album, Bouquet, Gwen Stefani called in to chat with Audacy’s Mike Adam all about the project, the “fight” it took to make it, finding her identity with No Doubt, and discovering a new piece of it now, plus a whole lot more.

“I love it,” Gwen expressed, about delving back into the world of music, noting, “I feel more blessed… the longer I get to do it… To be able to have new music at this point feels, it's hard to explain it because I've had so many chances. But this one, I feel even more grateful than ever, which I didn't know was possible.”

Giving Gwen her flowers for being “a pioneer in the punk/ska space,” and helping “bring that to the forefront in Pop music and mainstream,” with No Doubt, Mike went on to ask Gwen if she feels as though she “gets the recognition" she deserve when it comes to that.

“You know what, I don't really go forward in my life trying to get recognition. I think that's the wrong kind of way to think about things. And I think that we would have never had our success if we were looking for that. I feel like we were doing it from a really pure place in our hearts where we were trying to find our identity.”

“I wasn't trying to do anything except for just hang out with my brother and my friends,” Stefani continued. “I did know that when I sang, it felt really good and when I heard that music, it felt like nobody else knew about it, and it felt really cool to kind of have this secret club… As we kept going you found all these other people that knew the secret too and then we were all cool together. And so I don't know, like I don't really care. I just know that I was so blessed to be able to find my identity.”

With her new album, Gwen has discovered a new piece of that identity, while still remaining true. While Bouquet “is obviously nothing like the ska days,” it does draw from the “punk inspiration of truth, being purely who you are in the moment.”

Admitting there’s still “an edge to what I'm doing,” which Gwen discovered during he writing and recording process. Back in 2020, when Gwen began working on this album, she was “trying to start off doing like more like reggae and ska.” However, “it kept not landing, because I think I was trying to repeat myself or compete with myself and that just wasn't the purpose of where I'm, what I was supposed to be doing now, I found that out later.”

Her latest offering, “was more inspired by being in the back of the car, right before I found ska music, on my way to church in the station wagon, listening to all the songs that were on the radio in the seventies, which was kind of what I grew up in, like when I was a kid,” Gwen shared. “Yacht Rock or Classic Rock or Soft rock is what I love so much. So this kind of had that inspiration as far as like sonically how this record sounds.”

Inviting Gwen to imagine what it might be like to reflect on this album in the far future, Mike asked Gwen what she thinks will be “the brightest spot when it comes to putting it all together,” when she looks back at making the album.

“It was the fight I think, which is always what we're doing on this planet, right?” Gwen began to answer. “Whenever you have to work or fight for something, that reward is gonna be the most fulfilling… Because at this point in my life, as a person, as a mom, lady, woman, whatever I've become… it’s hard to describe, but you have a lot of feelings of identity, like you do when you're a teenager — What am I? Who am I? What am I supposed to be doing?”

“Creatively it was a fight because I was like, who am I? I don't care about what I was.” While trying to answer that question and as the album came together, Gwen realized just how much, “this record is kind of a bouquet because it is a combination of the past, the present, and the seed of hope for the future. Each song was sort of individually, finally, chosen for this bouquet, a work of art… It doesn't feel like I'm trying… what I needed to do which was write it.”

"Now sharing it feels like ‘here's Christmas guys, look what I got you,’ because I know that for me, it did what it needed to do for myself. So I know that it will do that for somebody else,” Gwen reflected. “It’s exciting, new music is just so emotional because when you share it, it's like a confession.”

Sharing which song on her album is the saddest of them all, Gwen revealed after getting feedback from some fans that got to hear the record, “Pretty,” was the song that hit them the hardest. Which according to Gwen checks, because, “when I wrote that song, it was the same feeling.”

“Pretty” which is in fact about “not feeling pretty until you’re actually loved, and how beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Gwen shared, was inspired by “when you find true love.”

“Because sometimes you look at people and maybe they're older, or they’re not as beautiful as they used to be or whatever. But you see that love between them and you're like, oh, love is not a visual, love is something that's unseen, it’s felt,” Gwen said. Understanding why “that song really hits people when they hear it, like in the truth of that.”

Before they wrapped up, Gwen also talked about her admiration for Olivia Rodrigo. From discovering her from “drivers license” just like everybody else, to meeting her on the red carpet of the Met Gala.

Recalling the moment, Gwen shared, “We got to meet each other and hang out and she was just so cool and she was telling me about how she was in like kind of a dead space with writing and how hard it is for her, and how long it takes her to write records. And then ‘vampire’ came out and I was so happy for her… Then when Coachella came around, you know, everybody always invites somebody up and it's just a fun thing to do,” Gwen noted, also going on to name drop Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan as some of the “so many good songwriter girls out there right now."

To catch the entire conversation, check out to the entire interview above.

Words by Maia Kedem Interview by Mike Adam