Gwen Stefani | Audacy's Leading Ladies 2025 - video Dailymotion

Audacy

Gwen Stefani joins us in the Terra Origin Interview Lounge before her performance at Audacy's 'Leading Ladies' in Brooklyn, NY.

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00:00I'm Karen Carson at Leading Ladies in the Terra Origin interview lounge with Gwen Stefani.

00:07Wow!

00:08Hi guys!

00:09I'm here.

00:10This is so cool.

00:11We're in New York.

00:12Yes.

00:13Leading Ladies Odyssey.

00:14What's up?

00:15In Brooklyn.

00:16I can't believe it.

00:17We're so glad you are part of our Leading Ladies.

00:19Congratulations on Bouquet.

00:20It is such a beautiful album.

00:23My question is, can you talk about the album's conception of Bouquet and then the deluxe

00:30version and all the beautiful acoustic songs?

00:32I mean, honestly, I've been wanting to...

00:35It's hard because it's not like I need new music.

00:38I can't really fit any more songs into the set if I wanted to, but I have to remove to

00:44bring in new stuff.

00:45But I just had that little voice in my heart that just was like, you got to do some new

00:51music.

00:52And so I listened and I started a really long process of just trying to find who am I now?

00:59What am I?

01:00Because it has to be...

01:01It's always been the same.

01:02It's like, what is real and what is the truth?

01:05And so it kind of took me a while to kind of get there.

01:08I felt like I kept trying to go backwards and chase or compete with my older me.

01:13Like younger, older me?

01:15Yeah.

01:16Before me.

01:18It was just fun to finally hit on a song called Purple Irises.

01:22And when I wrote that song, I was like, okay, now this feels like...

01:25It's always like that.

01:26You just know when you know.

01:28And after that, it was just really fast and I ended up writing the whole album.

01:32And I got to re-record the album with one of my heroes, Scott Hendricks, who is a country

01:39producer that I met through Blake, but it's not a country record at all.

01:44I just wanted a genre-less kind of pure record that could just let the lyrics just float

01:52without trying to think of a style.

01:54Because I've bounced in so many styles from like ska, then, you know, with No Doubt, and

01:59then I did the solo kind of period of like dance records and then just all the little

02:03things in between.

02:04I just wanted something that just was very pure, just music, you know?

02:07So that's kind of how it was born.

02:11You just took my second question.

02:12Oh, I did?

02:13Just from going...

02:14I know.

02:15I love it, though.

02:16You went from, yeah, ska and reggae, and now you have this beautiful, melodic, soft and

02:22still funky album, you know?

02:26I guess it wasn't easy for you to do both.

02:29I mean, honestly, like, I think I've always done the same thing, which is just try to

02:34tell whatever the story is of that moment in my life.

02:39And it is different from in the beginning when you're writing and, you know, for whatever,

02:44nine years, and you don't think anyone's ever going to hear it.

02:46Like, you're just doing it because it's coming through you, and it's just so pure.

02:51And then once you get that kind of taste of sharing it and what that feels like, of course

02:56you want that.

02:58It's like you can never have enough of that.

03:00It is so amazing to be able to have your heart and share it with people, your truth, and

03:06then have them relate to that in some way.

03:08And it's just an amazing inspiration.

03:10So I think this record is no different in that way.

03:13It's just the way that it was sort of, I guess, just produced and just, like I said, like

03:18I wanted it to feel very, not like anything else, I wanted just the lyric to come through

03:25and not to be produced or dressed up in any specific way, just to be like live music played

03:30by amazing musicians.

03:32And so we cut the whole album live.

03:34And that's kind of what led me to the idea of like, wow, we could even strip this down

03:37more and make an acoustic version to even make it even more about the lyrics and less

03:42about any production at all.

03:44So we started undoing it, and that's how we did the Deluxe album.

03:49And I also had another song that I weirdly was in the gym one day and I was thinking

03:56about this, I was texting somebody and I was like, I think I wrote that song.

04:00And I went back and I found this song that I'd written with Phineas, like, I think maybe

04:04three years ago, and never like I forgot, not forgot about it, but just didn't consider

04:09it I had written so many songs that it's just like, oh, that's not really the right direction

04:13at that point, you know, and, and I went, I was like, I got to record this song.

04:18And I went and recorded it.

04:19And then we did the Deluxe.

04:20So yeah,

04:21it's just beautifully packaged, everything about it.

04:24It's stunningly gorgeous.

04:25The videos are great.

04:27And it's so fun to see you and Blake sing together Purple Irises.

04:30That's one of my faves.

04:33I think that was a really unique moment too, because I'd hopped on a lot of his stuff,

04:37which is, I don't know, it makes kind of a little bit more sense when his voice gets

04:41on like, because the original version was a little more pop, it was like, is this working?

04:46I'm like, I'm not sure.

04:48And that's kind of why I called Scott because I was like, maybe if Scott got involved, we

04:52could make something that was a little less like, I kept feeling like the record was sounding

04:57like I was trying to copy my old self a lot, like production wise.

05:01And it was like me being trying to be 80s in 2003.

05:06And then now it's like 2025, like me trying to be 80s, it was getting a little bit like,

05:11it was just getting weird.

05:13So that's why I wanted to be more pure about it.

05:14I think you found yourself.

05:16Perfectly.

05:17I see you caught the bug of flower and garden.

05:23I mean, do you garden yourself?

05:24Do you garden?

05:25I do.

05:26You do?

05:27I grow dahlias.

05:28You do?

05:29Oh my gosh.

05:30I had a failure year last year.

05:32So I feel like a failure.

05:33Oh no, this is my first big year.

05:34Oh, you had a, okay, well, they're not coming out there, but my purple irises just bloomed.

05:39I just got a video from Apollo right from Oklahoma.

05:42So I'm going to see them tomorrow.

05:44But um, do he catch it too?

05:46Well, he, I think he was like, he sent this video, mom, you're not going to believe this.

05:52And he's like, look at that.

05:53So he knows like, he's like, he knows how excited we get.

05:57So he wanted to like, share that with me.

05:59But um, I don't know.

06:01I think that gardening is it's there's something so like spiritual about it and I'm hopeful,

06:08you know, it's like, it's this thing and I don't think I'm the only one that thinks that

06:12like around the world, like historically, like people connect like to their soul through

06:17gardening because there's just, you're planting this, this thing and there's not really don't

06:21really have control over it, but you can nurture it, love it.

06:24It's like having children, you know, it's like, it's like baking sourdough bread.

06:27It's like, all you can do is just hope, right?

06:31And it's fun to go out and look.

06:32Yeah, I love it so much.

06:34So just congratulations.

06:36And I have to ask, are you driving tractors?

06:39I do have a little tractor.

06:40I haven't really got on it very much, but I'm just I, I really just love Oklahoma so

06:46much.

06:47It's just one of those things I didn't know I needed, which is that just nature.

06:51And we have a lot of fun there.

06:53We're building a lot of memories.

06:54It's the happiest we've seen you.

06:55I think.

06:57Do I look happy?

06:58I mean, you always have, but you're like glowing.

07:00Oh, thank you.

07:01So thank you so much.

07:03Congratulations on Bouquet.

07:04Love you guys.

07:05Bouquet Deluxe.

07:06And have fun tonight.

07:07Thank you, Odyssey, for playing my music.

07:08Love you guys.

Gwen Stefani | Audacy's Leading Ladies 2025

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