Let's make this clear right from the start — No Doubt never broke up.

Yes, it's been five years since we've seen the ska/pop band together as one, but guitarist Tom Dumont was sure they would re-form.

"It was always very clear. We were not breaking up. Hiatus is the best word," Dumont said as the band was making final preparations for its reunion tour, which includes a stop at the Blaisdell Arena for shows Aug. 11 and 12.

Lead singer Gwen Stefani and the band announced their reunion last year, but they left zealous fans clamoring for tour dates until earlier this year.

While No Doubt was on hiatus, Stefani's star status grew. She made two popular albums, which included the hit singles "Hollaback Girl" and "Wind It Up," and toured extensively.

Stefani also had two children. After her second — Zuma, born in August of last year — No Doubt became her musical focus again.

It was Stefani, Dumont said, who urged the band to hop back on the road.

"You know what would be fun?" Dumont recalled her suggesting. "Let's just go out next summer and play a bunch of shows."

As you can imagine, coming off a long hiatus is no easy task.

"At first, there was a little bit of an unknown," Dumont said. "Like, 'Have we grown apart?' 'Are we going to get along?' "

Pretty quickly he figured it out.

"We're kind of like siblings. That's the way I look at it," he said. "We have that kind of bond and friendship. We've been through this incredible thing together, even though there are periods where I didn't see Gwen for months on end, or might not have seen Tony (Kanal, the bass player) for a month or so, we would hang out again, or we would go out to dinner or go to a bar, and it was just like brothers and sisters."

While they clicked personally, they didn't necessarily click creatively.

The original plan was to have new music ready for the tour. The band had been meeting for writing sessions while Stefani was pregnant last year, but Dumont said those weren't too "fruitful."

"For us, for some reason, making records has always been a process," he said. " 'Tragic Kingdom' took two or three years. It's just slow for us. We're not extraordinarily prolific."

In a recent interview, Stefani said pregnancy and creativity didn't mix for her.

"I don't know how other women feel, but I lose connection with myself because my body becomes this other vessel for this other human, even after a few months, you don't have your body back, you're not yourself," she said. "I was feeling not very modern, not very creative."

That's why it made sense for the band to tour first, then worry about a new record. They wanted to get "reacquainted as a live band," Dumont said.

So the band is bringing a portable studio on the road and hoping that inspiration strikes while it plays its past hits.

"That's kind of what this is about. Let's go out and get that incredible gratification of playing shows and have fun together again," Dumont said. "Hopefully that will inspire us and help us figure out what we want to make a record about."

So there's no new material on this tour, but No Doubt fans aren't too concerned.

"I don't care that they don't have any new music," said Stephanie Nguyen, a 23-year-old fan from San Jose, Calif. "I just want to hear all the old stuff."

She's planning on seeing six California shows on the band's tour, which stretches into August.

Dumont isn't too committal about No Doubt's future.

"We've never been ones to make long-term plans," he said. "Really, the plan is to make a No Doubt album and that's as far as we know."

He knows that without new material, No Doubt runs the risk of living too much in the past.

"We don't want to do this for nostalgic reasons," Dumont said. "We do want to have fun and have people be stoked, but we hope we have something new to offer the world in the next year or so."

And after that? No ones knows yet.

"We all have a really good time doing this," he said. "We get along well and we're friends. I don't see why we can't do this for 20 more years. But it's not going to be every year for 20 years."