No Doubt reverses the album-tour formula

No Doubt is hitting the road this summer in search of the one thing that has eluded the multiplatinum Southern California quartet since it reformed last year: Inspiration.

Ideally, the group would have a new album to promote during the 55-date jaunt, which comes to the White River Amphitheatre in Auburn on Sunday. But when Tony Kanal, Tom Dumont, Adrian Young and Gwen Stefani got together as a band after Stefani's successful mid-decade solo stint, writing sessions stalled and left the band at a standstill.

"We have a bunch of seeds planted, but I don't think we've found the overall muse for this album yet," says Kanal, No Doubt's bleach-blond bassist, talking on the phone before the tour kicked off. "We have to find that one unifying thing that gets all four of us really excited and guides the writing process."

In order to find it, the band gassed up the tour bus and hit the road. The outing marks No Doubt's first tour in five years and comes as the band is attempting to rediscover its footing in the pop-music landscape.

No Doubt formed in the late 1980s and broke through in a big way with 1995's "Tragic Kingdom," a ska-pop blockbuster that yielded a handful of smash hits ("Just a Girl" and "Don't Speak" among them) — and turned Stefani into a budding pop icon. The follow-up, 2000's "Return to Saturn," was slow to materialize, but was quickly followed by the dancehall-inspired "Rock Steady" in 2001.

By the time the group released its greatest hits collection in 2003, Stefani was beginning to feel the itch of a solo career, and released the hip-hop leaning "Love. Angel. Music. Baby" in 2004. The album was a smash success and begat a follow-up, 2006's "The Sweet Escape," as well as a pair of well-received solo tours.

The band members were happy to let Stefani go off and do her thing — Kanal produced tracks on both "L.A.M.B." and "The Sweet Escape" — but never knew how much time it would take away from the band.

"We thought it would take a year or two, and it ended up taking longer," says Dumont, the group's guitarist and keyboard player.

Kanal says the first few years apart from the band were challenging. So when it was time for the group to come back together again, he was more than ready.

The band members started getting together at Stefani's house for writing sessions in February 2008, but spent more time getting reacquainted with each other.

At the time, Stefani was pregnant with her second child, which forced a sort of relaxation at the sessions. When they hit a brick wall in terms of new material, Stefani suggested the group hit the road and get back to being a live band again. Suddenly, the pieces started falling into place.

"We knew there was a challenge to the idea, because it was not the conventional way bands do things," Dumont says." But we're so excited, and Gwen's so fired up to go out and do this, and hopefully it will have the intended effect of giving us the right inspiration to make something great."

Kanal — the only band member without children — has a studio on his tour bus and is ready to record at a moment's notice. He's confident the romance of America's highways and amphitheaters will provide the right spark of creativity the band is seeking to go forward.

"For us, it has to be real and honest, and it has to come from a really good place," says Kanal. "We're searching for it, but I believe this tour is going to give us those answers. Without sounding silly, I have no doubt we're going to find it."