Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton Have ‘Fantasized’ About Making an Album Together
In the years they’ve been together, Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton have been close musical collaborators as well as romantic partners. It’s no surprise then to hear Stefani tell Nylon in a new interview that the couple has “fantasized” about making an album together one day.
“I feel like Blake and I are already a project together,” Stefani said. “I’m always going to want to write music with Blake Shelton.”
Stefani mentioned the possible LP while discussing the couple’s latest duet, “Purple Irises,” which came out in February. The song itself was partly inspired by the purple irises Stefani and Shelton found growing on the latter’s Oklahoma ranch during the pandemic; the couple set about transplanting and cultivating the flowers, and they became a reminder for Stefani to stop “overthinking.”
“The truth is I am in love with my best friend, and all this shit I’m thinking of in my brain, that’s all it is,” she said.
As Stefani worked on the song, she said Shelton kept not-so-subtly suggesting he’d like to sing on it, and eventually, she agreed to turn it into a duet. “When you’re in love and have truly aligned values, nobody can get to us,” Stefani said. “You can say whatever you want to say about our relationship — I mean, a week ago we were getting divorced again or something. It’s just lies. The truth is the truth, and we know what that is. And so that [negativity] would never penetrate just by me being vulnerable and sharing a song that I didn’t write for anybody else but myself and Blake.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Stefani spoke about No Doubt’s upcoming Coachella reunion, which will mark the band’s first concert together in nearly 10 years. While Stefani admitted the band is not in constant contact, the reunion came together extremely quickly after the Coachella offer came in: “It’s been a long time coming,” she said. “It’s been something that we were going to do.”
Stefani said she expected playing the gig to be like “riding a bike again,” adding: “We’re just so in sync when we’re onstage… We’re going to be laughing, and we’re going to look at each other and go, ‘Oh my gosh — there you are.’”
As for post-Coachella plans, Stefani said she was “open to anything” but did not make any promises. “Well, I don’t have a crystal ball,” she said. “Most things have surprised me in life. One of the things I’ve learned is to be present in the moment and try to absorb what’s happening around me instead of looking ahead.”