The Sounds Learn Rock Lessons Supporting No Doubt

Posted on Sep 30th 2009 2:30PM by Jonathan Dekel

Being the first of three bands on a major stadium tour can be daunting. There's the extremely rigid schedule, constant swarms of handlers and the overwhelming emptiness of playing in front of only a few hundred interested people in a 20,000 seat venue -- not to mention the nightly threat of being turned away at your own afterparty when security fails to recognize you.

So it's understandable that when Swedish pop-rockers the Sounds were asked to be the openers for No Doubt's reunion tour this past summer, they weren't exactly over the moon at first. "I was a little [apprehensive] at the beginning," lead singer Maja Ivarsson tells Spinner. "If they'd asked us five years ago I would have been psyched about it, but since we've been at it for a while now I thought maybe it would be a step down for us. Too much hassle y'know?"

Despite her early misgivings, Ivarsson eventually acquiesced and found their new headliners to be surprisingly benevolent. "[No Doubt] came into our dressing room during the first show of the tour, just to say hello and welcome us," the blonde bombshell fondly recalls. "They gave us a big gift of DVDs for the bus. It had everything from 'Ferris Buller's Day Off' to 'Halloween' -- the old one with Jamie Lee Curtis -- and 'The Office,' the UK version. It was a very nice gesture and set the tone for the rest of the tour. Everybody from the security guards to the nannies treated us like we were all best friends and family. They took such good care of us."

With their initial fears squashed, the Sounds found soon themselves learning from their American forebears by watching No Doubt perform their delicate punk/pop balancing act each night. "It's crazy how many good songs they have," Ivarsson says. "I think our problem in America has been that we're too pop for rock radio and we're too rock for pop radio. No Doubt has broken through that, so it was very inspirational for us."

Currently headlining their first major North American tour, Ivarsson and the rest of the Sounds are applying these lessons to their own vicious live show. "In retrospect, I have to say that we were super wrong," Ivarsson admits with a coy smile. "That was the best tour we've ever done."