At No Doubt’s show last Saturday in Las Vegas, the celebrated quartet decided the situation was ripe to place a few bets.

“I don’t like gambling that much; I’m just over it,” said No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal. “But I did do it this time because the Hard Rock Hotel at the casino made No Doubt chips. It was kind of a cool honor, so I had to gamble. I sat at a table with my mom and dad, and we played using chips with our pictures on it.”

No Doubt members are, from left, Tom Dumont, Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal and Adrian Young.

And how much was the band actually worth?

“It was a $5 chip. What did you expect? (laughs)”

For the members of No Doubt, their whole career has been something of a gamble.

Formed in 1986, the Orange County, Calif., ensemble began as a two-tone ska outfit. Five years of cramped vans and revolving lineup changes later, the high-energy act inked a deal with Interscope Records. At that point ska was considered old news, few female-fronted rock bands were given any chance of radio play and grunge ruled pop culture. A 1992 self-titled debut came and went with little fanfare, and the group proceeded to work on a follow-up that common sense told them would likely never get released.

Late in 1995, the official sophomore project “Tragic Kingdom” finally saw the light of day. Bolstered by the singles “Just a Girl,” “Spiderwebs” and “Don’t Speak,” the album went on to sell 10 million copies alone in the United States and 16 million worldwide.

Not bad for a bunch of punks from Orange County.

“It is pretty amazing,” Kanal remarked from his home in Los Angeles, where the band has a few days off before rejoining a tour that will stretch from the Midwest to Germany. “And the fact is we still have really great chemistry between the four of us. It’s been 15 years, and this is our fifth record. Things couldn’t be better right now.”

Indeed, the group’s latest effort, “Rock Steady,” has barely been out for two months and already is registered platinum. The bouncy reggae-ish single “Hey Baby” is holding at No. 5 on the charts, and the band is eagerly anticipating the debut of the new video for “Hella Good” on MTV.

“I think this is actually our most mature record, even though it’s probably the most fun record to listen to,” he said. “It’s restrained where it needs to be and it’s explosive where it needs to be. Finding that balance is always important.”

Going ‘Steady’

To understand how No Doubt went from the jumpy punk of its first few releases to the feel-good, island hues of “Rock Steady,” Kanal insists a little backtracking is in order.

The staggering success of “Tragic Kingdom” gave No Doubt the financial clout to ensure creative freedom. But after the band (Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont, drummer Adrian Young and singer Gwen Stefani) had worked for three years to complete the album, then toured for 27 months to support it, the bar was also raised on their own expectations.

“We came home and were faced with the prospect of making another record,” Kanal said. “And we took making the next record very seriously. It was important to us that we could improve as songwriters and musicians. So ‘Return to Saturn’ was a very tough, complex record to make, both musically and lyrically.

“But once we got that weight off our shoulders, it was now about having fun.”

At that point, the band decided to only tour for eight months, spacing out gigs with days off and “throwing parties” every night on the road.

“We were in a very good mood,” he said. “All of us love reggae music, so we were listening to a lot of Jamaican dancehall. It kind of put us in a great head-space to do this record. The only musical goal we had was to simplify and make a record we could actually dance to.”

Kanal found this meant his own role changed somewhat within the band. While he co-wrote all but one of the songs on “Rock Steady,” his instrumental contributions shifted more toward keyboards. In fact, the finished album eschews the guitar, bass and drums that characterize the “No Doubt sound,” instead favoring synths and samples.

“On ‘Return to Saturn,’ playing my bass was very important in terms of showing ourselves off as musicians,” said Kanal, who was born in London and moved to California when he was 11. “But now my focus has changed more to songwriting and the entire production and vibe of the song. If that means there’s less bass and more keyboards hey, whatever it takes to make the song work.”

While Kanal is quite adept at the frenetic plucking of his four-string, his skills on secondary instruments are a bit more restricted.

“I can play stuff on keyboards that I would never play on bass,” he said. “Because if I played it on a bass, I’d go: ‘I’m not gonna play this, it’s too easy.’ But on keyboard, that’s the extent of my ability. It forced us to be simple and clean and straightforward.”

Also modifying the band’s dynamic was the use of outside producers big-name ones at that. “Rock Steady” features studio guidance from Jamaican legends Sly and Robbie, Cars frontman Ric Ocasek, ambient wizard William Orbit and Kanal’s all-time musical hero, Prince.

But the 31-year-old bassist believes that the slew of producing talent had less influence on the outcome of the band’s material than one might think.

“When we did these demos, we were doing them on a computer. This time we were able to take these digital demos with us to each of the respective producers. Rather than them saying, ‘OK, now we’ve got to start from scratch,’ they liked what we’d done so much that we just built on it.

“The producers helped us fine-tune and polish each of our songs, but the initial work that we had done and the initial spark between myself and Tom and Gwen (who Kanal dated for seven years) was there intact. For instance, the vocals on ‘Hey Baby’ that you hear, those are the vocals that Gwen sang in Tom’s apartment during the first two days of writing the song a year ago.”

Less is more

One thing No Doubt has learned is that no matter how modest the origin of a tune, its success should never be underestimated.

When VH1 teamed up with Billboard to reveal the No. 1 songs for each year since the 1960s, No Doubt got to join a list of artists that included The Beatles, The Police and Madonna. The band’s Latin-tinged “Don’t Speak” stood as the biggest single of 1997.

“That song changed our lives because it enabled us to be able to travel around the world,” Kanal recalled. “That song was so big on a worldwide basis that it became bigger than No Doubt. It still is. We played in Venezuela about two weeks ago, and we co-headlined a festival for 42,000 people. They were singing along with every song, but when it came to ‘Don’t Speak,’ it was so overwhelming that we could barely hear ourselves playing on stage.”

Perhaps in response to the potency exuded by that size of audience, No Doubt resolved to avoid the incredo-domes and Enron-type stadiums when scheduling the current tour.

“We purposely decided to play much smaller venues this time around,” he said. “We wanted to reconnect with the audience and have those old-school vibes where the shows are packed, everyone’s sweating and the energy level is high.”

There’s no doubt that No Doubt will sustain its own sweat and energy level at a similar rate. The band has always relied on live shows for strength, through good times and bad. As for future goals, the soft-spoken Kanal is less certain of the outcome.

“Things are always changing within our band,” he said. “Adrian, our drummer, just had a child the first No Doubt baby. His wife and baby are actually going to be coming on the road with us starting tomorrow. Gwen’s going to be getting married later this year (to Bush singer Gavin Rossdale). It’s hard to plan out exactly what’s going to happen. We just try to do this day by day and record by record, and just really enjoy the process.”