MTV NEWS: How weird is it to have been around for ten years and be nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy?

ADRIAN YOUNG: When I first heard about that, I was thinking, "This is going to be weird. I don't even know if we want to win this or if I'd even want to be involved with winning that."

MTV NEWS: Much has been made in the past couple years of the Best New Artist Curse.

TONY KANAL: The kiss of death?

MTV NEWS: The Kiss of Death, as they call it. Are you guys worried at all about that?

TONY KANAL: Tom was telling me at least it's not the fart of death. Cuz a kiss could be very passionate, ya know? And if you're going to die, you might as well go out kissing someone or being kissed in a passionate embrace. I think that since we've been together for so many years, hopefully that will un-jinx us.

ADRIAN YOUNG: I don't think that we're going to win, honestly, anyway.

MTV NEWS: You've said before that you wouldn't be surprised if nobody knew who we were a year from now. Is that pessimism or realism or are you just grounded?

ADRIAN YOUNG: It was a realism before last week. Now that we play the Grammys, next year somebody in America will know who we are.

TONY KANAL: Your parents definitely still know who you are.

ADRIAN YOUNG: Exactly.

MTV NEWS: What's performing at the Grammy's going to be like?

TONY KANAL: I heard that they're making us play on the roof. They heard that we're the band that plays outside.

MTV NEWS: Are you going to be nervous?

TONY KANAL: We're excited to play 'cuz for us, doing a live show is what we live for, what's kept us going for ten years. So just having the opportunity to perform makes us feel really good. We're gonna have a good time, I think it is gonna be a black tie affair, but our parents are going, and our parents are getting into the moshing and stage-diving, and the whole thing, so I think they'll probably start the pit. I'm not too worried. My dad can get a really great pit going.

MTV NEWS: Tell me about making the "Don't Speak" video? It seemed therapeutic in a lot of ways.

GWEN STEFANI: Last night we played a show and my older brother Eric was there and so I dedicated "Don't Speak" to him, so he got very emotional. And then we played an old, old song called "Total Hate" afterward so he did a stage dive and totally hurt himself, like, really badly. He has this totally big bruise on his back. I thought that was really funny, because he's almost thirty, and he probably permanently injured his back!

TONY KANAL: That whole situation was something that we dealt with for a year, but we're kinda passed it at this point. We've kinda like moved away from it, and we're concentrating on the future and things that are important to us right now. The video speaks volumes about what bands can go through, but we're kinda moving away from that situation right now. We're happy.

TOM DUMONT: Whatever it is we've gone through, we've always persevered, and we've never had a problem being the best of friends after the tension was over. Kinda like brothers and sisters, no matter what we go through, somehow this chemistry always keeps us together. No matter what happens, we always have fun doing this.

MTV NEWS: How does it make you guys feel to be this Orange County underground ska band that moms are totally digging?

TOM DUMONT: We've always done like, kinda cheesy power ballads.

GWEN STEFANI: Ohhh. That's not what it is. That came from my heart.

TONY KANAL: Well, well, OK.

GWEN STEFANI: It's not cheesy.

TOM DUMONT: I don't mean it in a bad way, but we've always felt comfortable playing whatever style of music. It's just part of what we are, ya know? Every one of our singles is very different, ya know? "Just a Girl" is very different from "Spiderwebs," which is different from.... It's just always been about mixing this big salad of styles. We just toss the salad. "Don't Speak" is like the cheese on top.

GWEN STEFANI: The cheese!?!

TOM DUMONT: I don't mean... What? I love quesadillas! It's my favorite piece of food.

GWEN STEFANI: My favorite piece of food.