Looking a tad weary, The Bangles are sitting around an equally tired-looking Hollywood rehearsal room discussing the problems of success.
”I think when we started, a lot of people treated us like a novelty,”
says Debbi Peterson. ”It was only when we`d been around for a while that we gained some underground credibility.”
”Yeah, but then the minute we started having some mainstream success, all those people accused us of selling out,” chips in Susanna Hoffs, exasperated rather than bitter. ”And when our last album, `Different Light,` went multi-platinum, naturally they all said we`d never be able to repeat it.”
Of course, The Bangles, who will appear Thursday at the Holiday Star Theatre in Merrillville, Ind., are having the last laugh. Their new album,
”Everything,” is steadily climbing the charts, and, this week, it spawned another No. 1 hit for the group, the lush, romantic ballad ”Eternal Flame.” ”Yeah, but it`s not enough,” laughs Hoffs, only half-jokingly. ”We want some respect, too. That`s why we took control of this album.”
”It`s called `Everything` because we gave it everything. It means everything to us, and it represents everything we do,” says singer/guitarist Vicki Peterson who, along with sister Debbi, Hoffs and Michael Steele, makes up the all-singing, all-playing, all-girl group. ”This record is a conglomeration of all our sounds and influences.”
”This time out, we trusted our own judgment more,” says Hoffs.
”`Everything` represents our ideas about arrangement, about harmonies, about tempo, about musicianship. It`s definitely a big step forward for us, and hopefully it`ll also lay to rest all that `cute-girl-group` stuff that we`ve been fighting since we started. I think we deserve to be taken seriously as songwriters and musicians.”
Despite such fighting words, Hoffs needn`t worry unduly, since the results speak for themselves. With The Bangles writing or cowriting all of the new album`s 13 diverse songs (”No, we`re not superstitious-13`s actually our lucky number,” quips Steele), ”Everything” is certainly the band`s most assured and mature album to date.
Tracks range from the infectious first single ”In Your Room” (”It`s Tommy James and The Shondells meet Prince” is how Hoffs describes it), to the thoughtful ”Bell Jar” (”inspired by Sylvia Plath,” says Debbi Peterson).
In between, there is the Buddy Holly-influenced ”Crash and Burn,” the
`70s stomp of ”Glitter Years,” the lush Patsy Cline-styled strings of the ultra-romantic ”Eternal Flame,” and the soaring harmonies of ”Make A Play For Her Now”-all strong examples of what The Bangles call ”song-oriented rock.”
”It`s a pretty eclectic bunch of songs,” agrees Hoffs, ”but we wanted each song to have its own sound and personality, so we all went off and wrote like crazy, and this is what came out.”
”We`ve definitely matured as songwriters,” says Vicki Peterson.
”Although we still collaborated with a number of outside writers, including Rachel Sweet and Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly (the team responsible for Madonna`s `Like A Virgin` and Cyndi Lauper`s `True Colors`), this is the first time we`ve written everything on an album and we`re very proud of the fact.”
”Yeah, in the past, we tended to do a lot of cover tunes and perhaps people began to perceive us as a cover group,” adds sister Debbi. ”But we were always writing our own material, too. It just wasn`t at a place where we felt totally confident with it.”
The group`s new-found confidence and maturity appear to stem from their 1987 hit remake of Simon & Garfunkel`s ”Hazy Shade Of Winter.” Their hard-rocking rendition reached the No. 2 spot on the national charts and helped salvage the ”Less Than Zero” soundtrack.
”We were totally amazed it was such a big hit, because we didn`t even expect it to be released as a single,” explains Steele. ”We thought it`d just be the usual soundtrack thing-five seconds in the background and that`s it.”
”It was also an important step for us because it was really the first time we just stepped out and did something on our own, away from all the people we`d sort of been nurtured by or thought we were dependant on,” adds Hoffs. ”We ended up pretty much producing it ourselves.”
With this confidence-building experience under their belts, when it came time to record their new album, The Bangles made another major change. They jettisoned David Kahne, the producer of their previous two albums, and instead brought on board Davitt Sigerson, best known for his work with Rickie Lee Jones and David & David.
”It was just time for a change,” says Vicki Peterson matter-of-factly.
”We talked to a bunch of heavyweight names, but we all really took to Davitt. He`d just trust us to go off on our own and work out stuff like harmonies.”
”He`d also push us to try things we normally wouldn`t,” adds her sister. ”His attitude was, `Try it, stretch, experiment. If it doesn`t work, don`t worry,` and that gave us the freedom to relax. There`s always that pressure at the back of your mind-`Will this album be as good as the last one?`-but with Davitt, I think we learned how to deal with it better.”
If The Bangles have matured musically, and are learning how to deal better with the pressures of the business, they`re also growing up in their private lives-or at least ”what passes for a private life,” jokes Hoffs.
”The main problem with success is that in between the touring, the recording and all the traveling, we just never seem to see our homes these days.”
At least Hoffs and the others finally have homes now. ”No one believes me, but I lived out of garages for the last seven years,” she says, ”and the rest of us rented tiny little apartments in Hollywood. We`re not talking rich glamorous pop stars here.”
With the success of ”Different Light,” everyone has been able to move into houses, albeit modest ones. ”But we don`t drive flashy cars and we don`t have extravagant habits,” Steele is quick to point out. ”We`re pretty much dedicated to our music.”
That dedication began back in 1981, when Hoffs and the Petersons began playing together in Hoffs` garage. ”We found we had all these favorite groups in common, like The Beatles, The Hollies and The Byrds, and that`s how it all started,” she recalls. ”We called ourselves The Bangs and then began playing on the L. A. club circuit.”
By 1983, the group had made a name for itself, metamorphosed into The Bangles, released a self-titled EP and toured with the likes of Cyndi Lauper and the English Beat. When, later that year, former Runaway Michael Steele replaced original bassist Annette Zalinskas, the band signed with Columbia Records and began working on its first album, ”All Over The Place.” Strong critical and commercial response was immediate.
But it was ”Different Light” that catapulted The Bangles into superstar orbit. The multi-platinum album spawned four Top 20 hits, including the No. 1 smash ”Walk Like An Egyptian,” and the No. 2 ”Manic Monday,” penned by friend and admirer Prince especially for the group. Suddenly, people were taking the all-girl band very seriously indeed.
”Getting respect and recognition is always tough, and particularly when you are all women in what is essentially an all-male world,” says Vicki Peterson about The Bangles` place in rock `n` roll. ”But ultimately, it`s not a sexist thing-it`s down to the music and whether it`s in the grooves or not. Like they say, you`re only as good as your last record.”
