The first time Susanna Hoffs and the Peterson sisters sang together and their voices blended, the frisson was unmistakable. “We knew we had something,” Hoffs said. “We created a band in that moment.”
Hoffs, 66, beamed at the memory, sitting in her kitchen on a late January afternoon. Dressed in a sweater and slacks, the diminutive singer and guitarist sipped coffee, an old Margaret Keane painting hanging above her. Her airy Brentwood, Calif., home is just a few blocks from where the Bangles were born, on a cool evening in early 1981 in her parents’ garage.
“It’s an overused word, but we were organic,” the guitarist Vicki Peterson, 67, said. “We formed ourselves, played the music we loved, we really were a garage band.” But a garage band “that somehow became pop stars,” the drummer Debbi Peterson, 63, noted. Both sisters were interviewed in video conversations.
The Bangles broke big, scoring five Top 5 hits and storming MTV with inescapable songs like “Manic Monday” and “Eternal Flame.” They were one of the era’s rare all-girl groups — and became one of the most successful female bands of all time — a crew of puckish 20-somethings showcasing their collective songwriting and vocal chops.
But one of the defining bands of the 1980s also ended in spectacular fashion. Less than a decade after its birth, the group imploded in its manager’s Hollywood mansion, the sisterhood of its members lost amid a farrago of fame and mental fatigue.
That story plays out vividly in “Eternal Flame: The Authorized Biography of the Bangles” by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, out on Feb. 18. Bickerdike — the author of books about Nico and Britney Spears — fashioned a history of a bygone era in the music business, one in which the outsize influence of major labels, domineering producers and Machiavellian managers could routinely make or break a band.
“When I first encountered the Bangles as a kid, I thought they were powerful, in control, just ruling everything,” Bickerdike said in an interview. “And what was strange, sad and shocking was finding out just how much they had to deal with the agendas of these people surrounding them and the inherent misogyny of the music industry. It was hard to reconcile that with the image of the band that I’d always had.”
FROM THE TIME she saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan as a 6-year-old, Vicki Peterson had been determined to start a band. Brought up middle class in the San Fernando Valley, as a teenager, Vicki — eventually joined by her younger sister, Debbi — played her way through string of fledgling rock groups. Hoffs, the child of a psychoanalyst father and artist mother, was raised in more affluent Brentwood and attended the University of California, Berkeley, before returning to Los Angeles to pursue her musical dreams.
When Hoffs and the Petersons connected in early 1981 — via an ad in a local paper, LA Recycler — it was a meeting of kindred spirits. As Debbi Peterson would write in her journal after meeting Hoffs, “Not only does she love the Beatles, she’s into everything ’60s! She loves everything about that decade, just like we do. Well, we all caught on like a house on fire, it was amazing! She plays rhythm guitar and has a Rickenbacker (a black one … cool, cool).”
The band — first known as the Colours, then the Bangs, before the members settled on the Bangles — spent its early years as part of Los Angeles’s Paisley Underground, a ’60s fetishizing scene that included groups like the Dream Syndicate and the Three O’Clock. Miles Copeland, who managed the Police, signed the Bangles, who released an indie single in 1981 and an EP in 1982 before the group’s original bassist, Annette Zilinskas, exited to pursue rockabilly music.
The Bangles found its missing piece in Michael Steele, known as Micki, who had been an early member of the Runaways, the band formed by the notoriously controlling producer Kim Fowley. The experience had left Steele scarred and wary of joining another girl group, but she came on, bringing together four members who could all write, sing and play. (Steele, who did not participate in the biography, remains an alluring enigma in Bickerdike’s narrative.)
In 1983, the Bangles signed with Columbia Records, after a label rep spotted them playing a gig at Magic Mountain amusement park. (Bruce Springsteen, one of the label’s stars, was in attendance and provided a nod of approval.) They were paired with a young staff producer, David Kahne, who’d previously worked for the San Francisco punk indie 415 Records.
“When the Bangles sang, the whole was greater than the sum of the parts,” he said in a video interview. “Sue had a great pop voice, but together they just had that little extra something.”
Kahne proved a taskmaster in the studio, battling with the Petersons and even bringing in session musicians when he wasn’t satisfied. Hoffs was often caught in the middle. “It was my nature to engage and be open because I was the daughter of a shrink,” she said, laughing. “And, by the way, I had the benefit of being in psychoanalysis during all of the Bangles years — and I needed the therapy, man.”
The Bangles’ major-label debut, “All Over the Place,” was released in 1984 and became a modest success, spawning a few college radio hits. But in what would become a recurring problem, Columbia kept the band on the road incessantly, and by the time it went into the studio to make the follow-up, “Different Light,” the musicians had hardly written any new material.
Fortunately, the pop superstar Prince — then at his creative zenith — had become smitten with the Bangles and offered them a lifeline: a song called “Manic Monday.” Rather than sing over Prince’s prerecorded track as he’d intended, the Bangles rearranged and recut the song. Surprisingly, Prince approved the changes, and the Bangles had their first big hit. “Manic Monday” reached No. 2 in 1986. (His “Kiss” was No. 1.)
Feeling the album was short of singles, Kahne canvassed publishers for material and seized on a demo of an odd ’60s-style dance number called “Walk Like an Egyptian.” The track featured three of the four Bangles singing lead, but it was Hoffs’s appearance in the video for the song — her brown eyes darting seductively in close-up — that set teenage hearts aflutter and record store cash registers ringing.
The notion of the Bangles as a band of equals quickly went out the window. “Susanna was pushed forward as the sex symbol,” Bickerdike said. “But Sue is really smart and goofy, she’s actually kind of a dork, you know? So I think that was an uncomfortable role for her.”
Even as “Walk Like an Egyptian” surged to No. 1 and “Different Light” went triple platinum in 1987, the Bangles’ success couldn’t paper over the cracks forming in the band. “And the cracks started to show pretty obviously,” Vicki Peterson recalled. “I spent a lot of time and energy just trying to keep us together. I didn’t want this thing to fall apart.”
AFTER THE BANGLES spent a brutal 18 months touring and promoting “Different Light,” Columbia sent them back into the studio. By then, their creative relationships were fraying. Hoffs began collaborating with the pro writing team of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg (“Like a Virgin,” “True Colors”), alienating her erstwhile songwriting partner, Vicki Peterson.
“For me, it was important to have the writing voice come from the band,” Vicki Peterson said. “I loved writing songs with Susanna. But she had her own reasons for branching out. The label didn’t care, they were just desperate for us to make the next record.”
The Bangles’ third album, “Everything” was another success, selling a million copies, with the Hoffs/Steinberg/Kelly songs “Eternal Flame” and “In Your Room” becoming major radio hits. But another hard year on the road left the band physically drained and universally dissatisfied. “Debbi and Vicki weren’t happy with what the perception of what the band was,” said Hoffs, who’d become the focal point for the press.
Hoffs admitted that she was “unsure of everything at that point. The one thing I was sure of was that I couldn’t take the tension in the band. It was too much.”
In Bickerdike’s telling, the Bangles’ new managers, Arnold Stiefel and Randy Phillips, decided it would be easier to handle Hoffs as a solo star, and actively engineered the band’s demise. Knowing they couldn’t divide the Peterson sisters, they instead got in Hoffs’s ear, and dangled a solo deal to Steele to kill any chance of the group continuing as a trio.
In late 1989, the Petersons arrived for a band meeting at Stiefel’s home, thinking they were going discuss an upcoming Australian tour. Instead, they found their managers, lawyer and publicist standing around grim-faced.
“I was completely blindsided,” Vicki Peterson said of the band’s demise. “That’s my own fault. I didn’t want to see certain things that were happening right in front of me or believe that people could be like that.” In the end, there were no raised voices or recriminations, just a quiet capitulation.
In hindsight, Vicki Peterson says the Bangles should have simply taken a break or a long hiatus to salvage their friendships and the group: “That mentality did not exist back then. I didn’t think we had the power to do that..”
Ultimately, the Bangles’ ending left everyone bereft. Hoffs’ solo career never really took off, while Steele’s never even got started. The Petersons were so traumatized, they swore off music, though both eventually found their way back in more low-key projects — Vicki playing with the New Orleans roots collective the Continental Drifters and Debbi forming her own combo, Kindred Spirit.
“That was the worst thing,” said Debbi Peterson. “Nobody got what they wanted, and the only thing that got destroyed was the Bangles.”
GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES of the Bangles’ split, the idea the group would ever reunite seemed unlikely. Ironically, it was Hoffs who first broached the idea in the mid-90s. Still stung by the breakup, Vicki Peterson was resistant, particularly to the notion of becoming a nostalgia act.
But the Bangles did begin writing together again, releasing a new song for “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” — directed by Hoffs’s husband, Jay Roach — in 1999. That year the Petersons, Hoffs and Steele returned to the stage after more than a decade apart, appearing at a Beatles tribute at the Hollywood Bowl. A studio album, “Doll Revolution,” followed in 2003. Though Steele quit the group soon after, the Bangles continued to record and tour regularly for another 15 years (most recently with Zilinskas returning on bass).
Even with their renewed activity in the ’00s, the Bangles were largely overlooked for reappraisals. Their distaff rock peers the Runaways were given the Hollywood biopic treatment, and the notoriously fractious Go-Go’s continued to build their brand with a Broadway musical and documentary. Meanwhile, the Bangles’ achievements faded among a new generation who perhaps perceived them as a relic, even a novelty, of the MTV era, rather than an example of an empowering rock ’n’ roll band.
Recently, the group has taken steps to reclaim its legacy. In addition to the biography, the Bangles are developing a documentary with the producer Rick Krim and the Oscar-nominated director Lauren Lazin (“Tupac: Resurrection”).
While the Go-Go’s were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, the Bangles have yet to be nominated. It’s possible a lingering stigma — regarding the role of session musicians on their records and outside writers on the biggest songs — has hurt their chances.
“We know what we did, we know that we played our own freaking records,” Vicki Peterson said. “And I’d be perfectly happy to tell you what I didn’t play on.” While the band isn’t sitting and waiting for an induction, it would offer the Bangles a kind of validation: “Of course, we want to be remembered — who wouldn’t?”
Hoffs is currently recording a new solo album, working on her second novel and helping adapt her first book, “The Bird Has Flown,” for the screen. Vicki Peterson and her husband, John Cowsill — of the ’60s family band the Cowsills — have a record due this spring. Debbi Peterson, who now lives in Washington state, has started playing with Scott McCaughey and Peter Buck of R.E.M. in the alt-rock combo the Minus 5.
“What’s important is they’re all still performing, writing, creating,” Bickerdike said. “The Bangles were trailblazers and possibility models when they were in their 20s. And they’re still trailblazers and possibility models in their 60s.”
At the moment, none of the Bangles seems eager to get back together. “I don’t have a perfect answer for why that is,” said Hoffs, who admits to being somewhat stung by the Petersons’ characterizations of her in “Eternal Flame.” “But as far as a reunion, I never say never.”
Vicki Peterson said, “Even if we never do anything again, we’ll always be Bangles.” For her, the dream and the heartbreak of the band have become one and the same: “There were moments that were frustrating and hurtful and painful — and all that is part of our story. But we also had almost 10 years of crazy success, incredible luck and wonderful experiences.”
“At this point in my life, I’m enormously grateful for everything that happened,” she added. “I think we all are.”
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