The bracelets recall their explosion from the 80s in the “Eternal Flame” memories

Long before the domination of their graph, their world popularity and, finally, their implosion, the bangles began with an advertisement on a large board in the contact service of the Sunset Boulevard store. The sisters Debbi and Vicki Peterson had been in various groups since their adolescence, playing the troubadour while he was still in high school. After having placed an announcement for a musician, because an entirely female program was the plan of the sisters from the moment they picked up a guitar and batteries, a fortuitous call from the singer-guitarist Susanna Hoffs geared the foundations of the bracelets. Their Jam first session in the Brentwood garage of Hoffs parents involved links on Jefferson Airplane, Arthur Lee and the Beatles. Another announcement in Los Angeles, the recycler attracted Annette Zilinskas, 18. Although she had never played a bass and the announcement called a bass player, Zilinskas has enthusiastically agreed to learn.

They cut their first single recorded in 1981 at Radio Tokyo in Venice as a bangs, then convinced Kroq to run him. Their star was increasing, lining up with the simultaneous rise of another entirely feminine group, The Go-Go's. Comparisons were the scourge of their early career.

Finally, Micki Steele joined Bass for the first album of the Bangles, “All Over the Place” (1984). When the second album “Different Light” was released in 1986, the group carried emotional scars from a recording process demanding and controversial under producer David Kahne. It was the beginning of their great success as a graphic, as well as their fracturing as a unit. The third album “Everything” (1988) was a real showcase of the prowess of the writing of the group and various influences when they took greater control over their production. The changes in management opposed each other by the media, and the pressure cooker of rapid renown led to a break in 1998, before a reform and two other albums, “Doll Revolution” in 2003 and “Sweetheart of the Sun” in 2011. The history of the group, in their own voices, is told in a new official biography, “Eternal Flame” Bickerdike.

Hoffs and the Peterson Sisters spoke with Times to recall key events in the history of the Bangles and how the group shaped their lives.

This interview has been modified for more clarity and length.

When Jennifer tackled you about a memory of bracelets, were you immediately on board or did you have questions and concerns?

Susanna: Jennifer first touched the base with Vicki, then the first time we talked, we hit him immediately. She is fun and she obtains an obsessive joy in these stories. And we have all agreed, the three of us. Michael Steele is in a way distant, so she was not participating in biography. I thought that if there was a biography on the bracelets, it would be better to check it or at least contribute to my side of the story. It is a fairly rashomon story, where everyone has a different point of view, and it is interesting that there are different points of view that go beyond the three bracelets that participated.

There are a lot of unreliable narrators, 40 years old beyond the 80s. I will not lie, some of the things that were said were painful. (Regarding the descriptions of Hoffs' childhood house in Brentwood), the Petersons had a perception of my life which does not align with my memory of my childhood in certain cases.

You responded to an ad for a musician to join a group and the book describes instant chemistry between you, Vicki and Debbi. Is that how you remember it?

Susanna: I will always be surprised to see how the group was in this announcement in the newspaper. I dragged the magazine to recycle to try to find group comrades. After obtaining my Diploma from the Berkeley UC, I moved into this dilapidated garage in my parents' house because I had no work, apart from a minimum wage work that was not going to pay for an apartment. So I lived very happily in this garage. When I met Vicky and Debbi for the first time, I lived in this little converted garage and I had a mattress on the ground. And that day at night, they came and we stuck and we played “White Rabbit” (from Jefferson Airplane) to their suggestion, who was genius. Thank you, Vicki and Debbi, because I loved this song. One of the things that glued us three was our mutual love of music from the 1960s. So there was this crazy feeling in the play that day of our love of music from the 60s. I always thought it was as if I was engaged to Vicki and Debbi, knowing them for two hours. And I always thought that we could have gone to love a wedding chapel in Vegas that night and have said “I do” because it was how fast it was, how intense our affair was that night. I am so grateful and the bracelets.

Vicki: I spoke to Susanna for the first time when she called in response to an announcement that our former main guitarist had put in the newspaper. Debbi and I played together from high school. Our bassist was married and had continued, and we let our main guitarist leave, and it was only both of us. When Susanna called, it felt wealthy. We were both uncompromising, devastated by the recent assassination of John Lennon. We talked for 45 minutes on the phone and connected. Debbi and I went up to our station cart, we went to Susanna's house and played together. We immediately connected emotionally and musically. I told Debbi, “Whoa, I think we found it!”

In past interviews, you said it was the relentless tour that led to the end of the group. Tell me about the beginning of the end if you remember.

Susanna: There are so many eras of the bracelets. The groups are like families, and even more since we already had the dynamics of the brothers and sisters of Vicki and Debbi, and there was a slight feeling of mobile factions. At the beginning, Vicki and I were a writing team, and later Michael began to contribute incredible songs. We were trying to live with the family on the road, so there was the wear of the road as well as the small autonomy while the young women passed towards the end of the twenties. He was a cocotteur in many ways in many ways. We were linked to the idea of ​​being a unit, but there were a lot of men in costume tells us what to do, and it was confusing to navigate this.

I had a good relationship with (producer) David Kahne in Columbia when we started, but I think that Vicki and Debbi had a heavier relationship with him. Towards the end of the 80s, there was a certain feeling that we needed space and for the third album (“Everything”, 1988), we all left and we did not write much at that time. With the producer and the voices of the record company, it was art by committee. There were a lot of voices, speeches and trying to make it work, and I think we did it.

How did work with David Kahne affect your relationships with each other and what do you think of this first album today?

Vicki: This first album was a fight in many ways, but listening to it now, it looks like us. David Kahne was producer of Columbia staff, and we don't think we could dismiss him since we were new in the label. He didn't have much confidence in what we could do, which had an impact on our confidence. I remember thinking, “I don't know how someone is more like someone.” Ironically, we left with him again with him.

Debbi: We had our ensemble and our sound as we wanted to play in clubs. Having someone to say and say: “No, you should do that”, we felt like we were in something that I did not feel that we were as a group. We were rough on the edges, Punky, and I liked it.

Of all the albums and songs that the bangles have released, which stand out like a job that you are proud of and which is resistant to the test of time?

Susanna: I will start with “Hero takes a fall”, which my son Jackson heard to Whole Foods in Chicago the other day. This song was on Columbia's first album. Vicki and I wrote it, and it was so fun. We had poetry books, and this concept came from all our books through books and inspiration. This song changed the situation, she triggered Prince's interest in the bracelets. He saw the video that we filmed in San Francisco, and it led to this wonderful feeling that an artist as wonderful as Prince was interested in us. We were in shows and he came out of the wings, playing his guitar and blowing everyone's mind, including mine.

Then there is “Manic Monday”. It turned out to be an incredible moment when it became a success.

Vicki: We were delighted and honored that Prince wanted to give us two songs. He was a prolific writer and he traveled songs to the people with whom he cared or worked. I thought that “Monday maniac” was something we could do, and it was quite close to who we were. It was accessible and people always refer to it all the time.

“Walk like an Egyptian” was a late addition to “Different Light” (1986). What do you think of that?

Susanna: I loved “walking like an Egyptian”. It was a really eccentric song. I remember having gone to the offices of Columbia and David (Kahne) played the Marti Jones version to get my point of view. We had made the majority of the record and he said: “In an lark, and if we had” market like an Egyptian “?” It was such a strange and idiosyncratic job and it really worked for the bracelets.

It was essentially a song n ° 1 from 1986 to 1987.

Vicki: My memory is that it was late in the process and Kahne put it in rehearsal. I remember thinking it was a cool groove, but the strangest song I have ever heard. Marti Jones was on the original, so I thought: “I don't know why we do that”, but I was ready for that.

You reformed the group 20 years ago for the fourth album and you have since played. Is it an avenue to which you want to put energy, again, and what has mean for your life and your identity to be a bracelet?

Vicki: We have not played together as a group since 2019. Even at the end of the 80s, we never officially broke.

Debbi: It was a break.

Vicki: The bracelets are always part of our lives, our individual and collective identity.