No Doubt About It

           My custom painted No Doubt guitar                                                                                photos by Momoko Fritz     

First, a couple things….

1.  Halloween.  I was Gwen one year.  I’m sure you can tell I was trying to channel her Tragic Kingdom album cover with her ever famous Gwen wife beater, which I made with a sharpie.  I like to think my DIY skills have vastly improved over the years.

2.  So probably my favorite ND video ever is New.  It’s a great song, but what I really love, love, love is the crazy anime-inspired make up job Gwen is sporting.  One night I thought I’d try my hand at recreating this look.  I’m pretty sure I was by myself at like 1 in the morning.  That’s not nerdy.  And let’s just agree it was an epic fail.

3.  Pink streaks.  Surely everyone remembers Gwen’s pink phase.  Now just as much as Gwen likes being a blondie blonde, I like having dark hair.  There’s no way I was going to ever dye it blonde.  And to be honest, I wasn’t exactly trying to look like Gwen, but I just liked the over all look…I think it looked better in real life than it does in this picture, but it’s entirely possible that it didn’t.

4.  This isn’t so crazy, but my bestie and I dressed up a la Gwen when going to a No Doubt concert.  I mean, I sorta missed the mark…but whatever.  Gwen cuts asymmetrical necklines in her tank tops right?  But the cool thing about this concert was that earlier that day, my friend’s boss (who I had met like one time?) called to tell me he had backstage passes to ND that night.  I freaked out thinking this was some sort of invitation to come with him…but no.  He was just letting me know.  It turns out that his hometeaching companion (Mormon stuff) is the uncle of ND’s drummer, Adrian.  So my friends boss said, I’ll tell you what… I’ll see what I can do.  He took my cell number and told me he’d call me later.  Well as we were leaving the concert my phone rings.  It’s the boss!  I answer and he says, There’s someone who wants to say hi to you!  I’m FREAKING OUT.  And I say, Hello?  And I hear a (manly) Hello back.  And then click…we get disconnected.  NO!!!!  The boss calls back a few minutes later…turns out I just said hello to Adrian.  But right then his phone cut out.  Which was a major bummer.  But to this day I like to brag about that time I got a phone call from the drummer of No Doubt.

5.  Probably the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done was try to get on an MTV show where fans get to recreate the video’s of their favorite bands.  You have to send in a video tape–which I did–explaining why you’re the biggest fan, blah, blah.  I don’t remember everything I did or said on that tape, but I do remember playing the guitar and singing a medley of ND songs and then a real ND song cut in from off camera, at which point I got up and started lip-synching and dancing.  If I ever ran for office, that resurfacing of that video would be my single biggest fear.  To this day I think only a handful of my closest friends ever saw it.  Well them and some producers at MTV.  I hope.