!["Time to Move On: Linda Perry's Advice to Gwen Stefani—'You’re Gwen Stefani; No Doubt Isn’t Necessary. You'll Shine!'—as She Transformed Her Negative Energy into a Dynamic Debut Single"]](https://backingtracksfullcollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Time-to-Move-On-Linda-Perrys-Advice-to-Gwen-Stefani—Youre-758x426.jpg "\"Time to Move On: Linda Perry's Advice to Gwen Stefani—'You’re Gwen Stefani; No Doubt Isn’t Necessary. You'll Shine!'—as She Transformed Her Negative Energy into a Dynamic Debut Single\"] 1")
Released in 2004 as her debut solo single, Gwen Stefani’s What You Waiting For? sounds like a highly energised call to arms, but co-writer Linda Perry has revealed that it was actually inspired by its singer’s decidedly downbeat energy.
Speaking to Go With Elmo Lovano recently, Perry says when Stefani came to her studio for a writing session after coming off her band No Doubt’s Rock Steady tour in 2003 she didn’t get the sense that she was ready to start a solo career.
“We have small talk and she’s just like, I mean, dragging her feet,” says Perry of their first day working together. “She does not want to be in there and she’s just like, she’s scared, you know?”
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Despite the fact that she was by now an established hitmaker (Pink and Christina Aguilera could both attest to that), Perry goes on to say that “every excuse was being pulled out” by Stefani, who told her “I didn’t even want to do this. I don’t know even if I’m ready to be in the studio. No offense to you. Blah blah blah. I’ve never worked with a woman before. Blah blah blah blah.”
In the end, Perry gave up, and told Stefani to go home and come back the next day. “So she leaves and I’m like going, ‘What is this girl waiting for?’ You know, like, what is the deal?”
Inspired, Perry used this frustration as songwriting fuel. “I just went to my MPC and I just started putting this beat together,” she says. “And the guitar part comes out and then I just do everything. It was like one fluid movement. It was just this whole thing that just came out. I was moving so quickly. I didn’t even know what time it was. It was just happening.”
With the beat completed, Perry grabbed a microphone and came up with the chorus, and after working late, she was back in the studio the next day, ready for Stefani’s arrival.
“I come back in the morning before she gets there and she seems a bit more chipper and she’s like, ‘What are you doing?’” recalls Perry. “And I push play and the song plays and she’s like, “Holy fuck dude, where did that come from!?” And I said, ‘It came from you.’ And I go, ‘This is what your energy inspired yesterday because I’m trying to figure out what are you waiting for? It’s time to go.’ You know, it’s like, you’re Gwen Stefani. You don’t need No Doubt. You’re going to be amazing, right?”
Confidence boosted, Stefani finally got going, and she and Perry started trading melody ideas for the verses. Then, as Stefani was writing the lyrics, she got it into her head that each line was being sung by a different character. This gave Perry a brainwave – that each of these characters should have a different microphone during recording.
“So I go put a 67 up,” says Perry. “I put a 57 up. I put, like, you know what: this is going to be good with a 251. I’m going to use the U47 for this character. I put all the names on them. And she’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ And I go, ‘You’re going to sing it like this: so this lyric is this microphone, this lyric is this, this one you’re going to just bounce around.”
Perry goes on to demonstrate how Stefani jumped between mics as the whole vocal was recorded live. “It was amazing, and she nailed it,” she says.
The song was a hit – note the references to its singer’s initial lack of inspiration in the video – and set Stefani on a path towards solo stardom. Her debut album Love Angel Music Baby was released shortly afterwards, and this yielded more hit singles in the shape of Rich Girl, Hollaback Girl and Cool..
“When you work with the right people, great things happen,” says Perry, and What You Waiting For? certainly provides evidence of that.
