Singer Gwen Stefani recently joined host Kevan Kenney at KROQ in Los Angeles to give us a preview of her brand new, fifth solo album, Bouquet, set for release on November 15.

Gwen Stefani’s forthcoming 2024 album Bouquet is scheduled to drop on November 15, the former No Doubt frontwoman’s first release since 2017's You Make It Feel Like Christmas featuring the previously released singles "Purple Irises” (a duet with her husband Blake Shelton) and "Somebody Else's."

“It's weird because I know everyone's like, ‘Oh, it's been so long,’ and it has -- but it went so fast,” Gwen says of the break between albums. “There was so much destruction that happened about 10 years ago in my life and that takes a lot of healing, a lot of picking up the pieces. You know, then there was COVID, and during that time period I felt like I got really inspired, like, I really wanted to write a new record, and I wanted to make something joyful and happy.”

Looking back she says she thought at the time, “‘I'm going to make a Reggae record,’ ‘I'm going to make a Ska record.’ I was getting nostalgic because I think we all went through that COVID brain, like ‘What's happening?’ It was really a game changer for our lives.” Towards the end of the pandemic, it was fellow singer/songwriter Kelly Clarkson who finally kicked Gwen into high gear. “Kelly was texting me all these songs she'd written and I was like, ‘Hey, you're getting me jealous. When do you write these?’ She has the babies, I'm like, ‘When are you writing?’”

Kelly said she simply stays up all night to get the work done, “Meanwhile,” Gwen adds, “I'm doing home school, trying to do the whole thing… making the bread, all the stuff we were doing, but I ended up going to the studio. I think I was really chasing the wrong direction, like not knowing how to not repeat myself, or even trying to find the right room, with the right collaborators.”

“I finally wrote ‘Purple Irises’ and that was crazy,” says Stefani, “because I went in the room with this young girl,” an L.A. artist called Nico, she explains, whose mom she said used to listen to No Doubt. “It's just so interesting to meet a girl that's an artist, a songwriter, that's so confident and so open to letting me be myself, and it was just like a safe place with her. When we wrote that first song together, I was like, ‘OK, she's letting me have space in the room.’ It just landed finally, and I knew sonically where I wanted to go.”

“I had written a lot of songs before I landed and picked these songs for ‘Bouquet,’” Gwen adds, “because I wanted it to be honest, and I wanted to be pure, and I wanted it to be not competing with me, not competing with everyone else that's happy. I just wanted it to be an art piece -- so I feel like I got there. It's really emotional because just sharing it is another level because when you write the songs, they're speaking back to you in that emotional way. Now when I hear it, I hear it like it's therapy, and then when you share it and then someone else responds the way you want them to…  it's just so healing. Music is so cool.”

“This record has been going on forever,” Gwen admits, “But I was like, it doesn't matter because it's art. If it takes that long then it doesn't even matter if it never comes out really because the process is what I needed.”

Don't miss Kevan Kenney's full chat with Gwen Stefani above -- plus, listen to No Doubt Radio and more on the free Audacy app.

Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Kevan Kenney