The Bangles are right back with a bang

Jun 27 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

Emma Pinch gets the low-down on the Bangles’ reunion

THEY regarded their union as a life-long marriage. And The Bangles’ split was certainly riven with all the confused hurt of a perfect match turned sour.

Now three of the original four are reunited and can’t wait to come back to the place that got them together in the first place – Liverpool.

Susannah Hoffs, the delicately pretty singer/guitar player of the group, remembers how she called Peterson in response to a newspaper ad to join the band on December 9, 1980 – the day after John Lennon was murdered.

“We couldn’t make sense of it,” she says. “I couldn’t compute it in my mind it was so terrible,” says Susannah, 49. “It was one of the things Vicki and I bonded about even before we played. It was like our lives had changed forever.”

When they played together, there was a similar spark. Beatles harmonies and melodic pop style naturally suffused their sound.

“We literally played together for an hour and decided to be in a band together for the rest of our lives,” declares Susannah. “We knew instantly we were a great match. I’d never met anyone outside of my own family that was into The Beatles as much as I was. It was the glue that bound us together.”

The Bangles, formerly the Supersonic Bangs, then The Bangs – until another group threatened to sue – had five Top 20 hits in the UK between 1985 and 1989.

Susannah, the daughter of an LA psychoanalyst and an artist, soaked up creative influences growing up in the 60s and 70s. But when she got together with Debbi and Vicki Peterson and Annette Zilinskas, later replaced on bass and vocals by Michael Steele, found their individualistic style didn’t find favour with record execs.

“Punk had been a huge influence to us and we were sort of different,” she says. “We had this tough girl thing and we weren’t really appealing to record companies. They tried to impose stylists and image makers on you.”

Forging their own path was tough.

“1981 to 1983 were two long years,” says Susannah. “I was working in a ceramics factory and Vicky was a secretary in a music school. We were more like a local club band.”

So they spent $35 and three hours producing a single. “It was very cool and incisive and it got airplay.”

Going Down to Liverpool, with its bleak lyrics about being on the dole, barely troubled the UK charts at 79, but attracted the attention of Prince, who then penned Manic Monday for the group. By 1986, with the release of Walk Like an Egyptian – its video filmed on New York streets – they became huge. The period had a surreal quality for Susannah, reaching its zenith at a pop festival in San Remo, Italy.

“There were thousands and thousands of flash bulbs going off. We thought, ‘this is incredible’,” says Susannah. Simon Le Bon invited them out for dinner. “Duran Duran fans put us right in our place,” she laughs. “It was like Hard Day’s Night for them to get from the building to the car. Kids outside the restaurant were crying and banging on the window. But they had the ability to tune it all out.”

Most of their biggest hits were penned by other artists. But Eternal Flame, their biggest hit – and covered by Liverpool girlband Atomic Kitten – was written by Susannah and is her favourite.

“I’d been visiting Graceland in Memphis on a special little tour for bands,” she remembers. “We were re-enacting the scene from Spinal Tap where they sing Heartbreak Hotel and can’t get the harmonies. Our bass player Micky said, ‘what is that little box filled with rainwater?’. And I said ‘that’s the eternal flame’. It wasn’t on. It was more of a semi-eternal flame.”

She conceived a song around it with the image of “lying next to your loved one while they’re asleep and feeling their heartbeat”. The eventual hit was a song which transcended age, gender or relationship. “It became something you could sing to your parent or child or anyone really and one that people remember.”

The group split soon after a final hits album in 1989. By then, the four girls had felt “married” to each other for nine years, and the lack of personal freedom was stifling.

“It’s hard to live your life by committee,” she reflects. “To be exhausted and not have any rights and not be able to have a relationship with a significant other, and always being uprooted. It makes you vulnerable emotionally.”

Every time she’s interviewed, she gains “a little more insight” into what happened.

“We were not acrimonious, but we’d been alongside each other so long, it’s like with family – they do or say things and don’t know they’re hurting you.

“We were so worn out and feeling a little under-appreciated and a little bit over sensitive to any comment or joke. We needed a therapist to come in and help us.” Further strain was placed on band relations by Susannah’s popularity.

“It’s hard when you are in a band and everyone is working just as hard as the next person, and the press says I’m the lead singer. The others are thinking, ‘what about my songs? I work so hard, is anyone noticing me?’ Maybe I didn’t realise and that added to it.”

Working solo was harder than she imagined. She missed her team. They turned down packaged 80s tours and their reunion came slowly, with her and Debbi bonding over motherhood.

Their first live, reunited appearance happened in 1999, appropriately enough at a Beatles tribute concert. Susannah and the Peterson sisters will appear on their second European tour.

Will Liverpool be a special date? “Oh my God, absolutely yes.”

* THE Bangles are at The Carling Academy, Liverpool, on July 3. Tickets cost from £15 and are available from the box office on 0844 4772000.

emma.pinch@dailypost.co.uk