Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani and are back with another duet called “Purple Irises.”
It follows their successful 2019 “Nobody but You.” They don’t feel pressure for this song to outperform their first duet together, instead they feel pressure because they love the song so much and want to see it succeed. Stefani was trying to figure out the sound she wanted her new music to have when she wrote “Purple Irises” with some friends and played it for Shelton, and he immediately loved it. Stefani shared she’d never ask him to be on a song for one of her records because they have such different sounds. But they knew there was something different about this song and didn’t plan for it to be a duet, but they both liked it so much he hopped on it. They said it turned into a piece of music that could live anywhere and so they decided to run with it. The song was inspired from their time together on their ranch in 2020. They were with Stefani’s kids and the pandemic caused them to slow down and spend more time at home, which let them have a life they always dreamed about. While walking on their property, they found a bunch of purple irises and started picking them and brought them back to the house and kept them. That memory and feeling from that simple time together with family inspired the song and she wrote it with Shelton in mind. Stefani then realized that her family couch growing up has irises on it, which she thought was like foreshadowing of her and Shelton doing the song together.
In honor of Toby Keith’s passing this week (Feb. 5th) Shelton shared a memory of him. Shelton was a new artist and was the opener for Keith’s tour at the time for two years. It took a while, but they developed a relationship and Shelton said he looked up to Keith as an older brother type and that he was the king of tough love. He shared that Keith’s humor could be ruthless but in a funny way. During Keith’s Shock’n Y’all years, he was the king of country and nominated for a bunch of CMA Awards but didn’t win any. Keith never won awards and Shelton knew that it got under his skin, and he could say something in that moment to piss him off. He said, “If there’s ever a time I get nominated, I hope it’s against you.” Without missing a beat, Keith told Shelton he only brought him on tour to prove to the industry he did not need an opening act. Which at the time was true. Shelton recalled going on stage with only 15 people in the crowd and then by the time Keith went on stage it would be sold-out.
Stefani is getting ready to reunite with No Doubt and headline Coachella. The music and arts festival is set to take place over two weekends: April 12-14 and April 19-21. She shared the members of No Doubt hadn’t talked in years and have only had one Zoom meeting about reuniting. They will begin rehearsing soon and Stefani thinks it’ll be like riding a bike and they will get back into the music like they never left.