Tony Ashwin Kanal was born on August 27, 1970 in Kingsbury, London, England. His made a musical career as bassist for the US band No Doubt, but also developed as producer and beat creator. As such Kanalprovided beats for Gwen Stefani on her album "The Sweet Escape", alongside the Neptunes, Akon, Nellee Hooper, and Swizz Beats.



Biography:

Tony Kanal was born to Gulab and Leena Kanal, who are of East Indian descent. He lived in England until his parents moved to Yorba Linda, California in 1981. Kanal is one of three Indian-Americans in the major rock, Grammy considered, music industry (the other two being Anand Bhatt and Kim Thayil) and one of the five major diasporic Indians in rock music (the other four being Freddie Mercury, Kim Thayil, Anand Bhatt, and Dave Baksh).



Musical career:

At age 15 he met a fellow saxophone player Eric Carpenter at band camp. Despite not being into going to the field early in the morning, it was requirement to play in the Anaheim Loara High School jazz band. After band camp, Eric had the oppurtunity to play bass guitar in the jazz band but instead, lent Tony his bass as Eric's brother Dave taught Tony the instrument.



Tony stayed in the jazz band for the next few years. He changed his mind in 1987 when he saw No Doubt, a ska-punk band from Anaheim, perform. Learning that the original bass player, Chris Leal, was about to be replaced, he took his chances and auditioned for the position. After hearing him play through the songs, Tony was the new bass player for No Doubt.



In May of 1988 Tony helped his friend Eric Carpenter join the band. Alan Meade was contemplating leaving the band and after Eric and Chris Webb helped get Tony into the band Tony returned the favor. Eric was No Doubt's second and last saxophone player. Tony helped the band with manager duties and they opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the summer of 1988. Michael Balzary, otherwise known as Flea, helped the struggling but still growing band. He produced two demos for No Doubt that helped land them a record deal with Interscope Records.



In October of 1991 No Doubt hit the studio with help of producer Dito Goodwin. Even though unhappy with the result, the band toured in support of the album but No Doubt did not gain any popularity outside the West Coast.



When Interscope Records began turning songs down, No Doubt did it on their own. With their record label not showing interest, they took matters into their owns hands. Over two years they recorded ten songs and released it independently. After hearing some of their independent work, Interscope gave No Doubt the go-ahead to start work on another album.