Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Susanna Hoffs

Transcript

Susanna Hoffs · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. As a founding member of the iconic all girl
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: band The Bengals, Susannah Hoffs is perhaps most closely associated
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: with hits like Manic Monday, Eternal Flame, and Walk Like
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: an Egyptian. After releasing three platinum selling albums, the Bengals
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: broke up in eighty nine. Two years later, Susannah started
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: to put out interesting solo material before reuniting with the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Bengals at the end of the nineties. Over the years,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Susanna's continued to release music and even act in movies,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: including appearances in all three Austin Powers films as part
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: of a fictional mod band. This year, Susanna's added another
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: creative pursuit to her repertoire. She's now a published novelist.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Her first book, This Bird Has Flown, was released in April.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: The same month, she put out a new collection of
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: cover songs called The Deep End, produced by the Great
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Peter Asher. On today's episode, I talked to Susannah Hoffs
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: about how Bruce Springsteen helps the Bengals secure a record
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: deal after seeing them play at an amusement park just
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: outside of la She also tells the story of first
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: listening to Princess demo of Manic Monday. This is broken
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Mitchman.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Here's my interview with Susannah Hoffs from her home in La.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: How long you've been living here?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: About?
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, this is really going to age me.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: But I'm all into being honest about my age.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I'm sixty four.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Don't even look close to your age? Really, I look
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: older than you can.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: No, you don't.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I look much older than you. No.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: For some reason, sixty four really like has a special like.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: I even got weird al who I love Yankovic made
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: me a special birthday message that it was more than
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: the usual one, that he's such a kind and wonderful
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: and talented guy.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: But this year I got the one.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I'm sixty four, full monty, full glorious birthday message.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Anyway. How long have I been living here? About? Twenty years?
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Twenty years?
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And the acoustics in this room have been very
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: friendly to music making and having little music parties.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And how often are you playing music in here?
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Pretty frequently, but we have had a few iconic music parties.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: We had members of Crowded House and Colin Hay was
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: here playing. We had a big we celebrated one of
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: my birthdays and it turned into this crazy music night.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: Lindsay Buckingham has played in here, yep, taking requests.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: No one else is playing right, because how do you
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: play well along with Lindsay.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Lindsay was playing and he was just and I was
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: sitting in that little child's.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Chair right there by the piano and looking up.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: At him as he played. Anything I asked for he did.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: It was incredible. Wow, yeah, he was so what did
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: you ask for? I asked for secondhand news? I asked
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: for go your own way, I think. And then he
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: and Ben Harper started singing on together on a song
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: that I'm now forgetting, one of the great songs that
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: he'd written. Ben Harper was here too, and it was amazing.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, we were talking just before the mic started
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: rolling about your book that you put out. Yes, spurt
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: his phone, Yes, really.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Good, thank you.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: I guess it goes back to being a kid and
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: a teenager, and I think it's a coping strategy to
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: want to.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Disappear into a fiction of some form.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: I've always loved going to movies, watching movies, reading books,
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: and I think, you know, there's stories inside of songs too,
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: And I don't know why, but I just like to
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: kind of fill my days finding inspiration through those stories.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: And again there is a bit of an escape bist
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: coping mechanism aspect to it, of not wanting to kind
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: of sit with my own my own worries or fears, and.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: I like to just drift away into a story.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: This is your first book, thought me, So would you
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: write for fun before? Like, have you ever written anything?
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: I started, I started a novel and I just double
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: checked in a drawer. It was written in like sort
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: of small spiral notebooks back and the date on it
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: is nineteen eighty nine.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: So it was right when the.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Bengals journey, which was most of the eighties from me
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: going around of trying to find bandmates and advertising myself
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: in throwaway papers and the eventually meeting Vicky and Debbie
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: and then the band formed from there. But I had
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: always had a dream of writing a novel, and I
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: just kept putting it aside. But towards the end of
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: the eighties, when I felt the Bengals sort of decade
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: was kind of winding down and we were all kind
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: of antsy to do other things, I started a novel.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Now I just it's up there, but I don't.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Know if is it good.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: I don't know because I'd been so immersed in the
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: journey of writing this bird has flown, which took several years.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: It takes years to write a novel.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: And because I never it was always either too lazy
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: or too impatient to ever take classes. In fact, I
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: don't even know how to read a musical chart. I
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: can be handed one and be doing like a choral
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: part with friends at like Largo, for example, I performed
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: with Amy Mann a lot of times, and sometimes we
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: would do like holiday shows, and I'd have to I'd
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: be handed a chart and I'd pretend to pretend to
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: read it.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: I just kind of look at the shapes. Oh the
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: note went up there.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: But no.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: I same with pretty much everything I've done in the arts.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: I kind of just threw myself in.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Which is interesting because you like you come from I mean,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: both your parents are college educated. Yeah, we went to
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the same school. We went to Berkeley.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we both went to Berkeley. My parents met at Yale.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: My dad had gone to Yeah. I know, I came
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: from a very intellectual family, and yet I just I
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: think it's my impatience and my like a strong urge
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: to just dive in.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: On average, how long will a writing session last for you?
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Short spurts or long long.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Spurts like I'll have to set aside because I've been
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: doing a lot of promotion for the novel and also
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: for the new album. You know, in my days have
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: not sort of you know, opened up for me to
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: sort of go, okay, I just did you know, spent
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: four hours doing this other stuff, And it's kind of
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: a different kind of use of your brain. I think
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: with the the flow state is where you want to be,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: like when your just fingers are going and you're seeing
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: it somehow in your mind's eye, I guess, and you
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: just go and you and the characters delight me. They
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: they I don't know where their voices come from, obviously
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: in my head and obviously I'm generating them. But sometimes
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: it actually doesn't feel like that, I guess.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Like the way some songwriters say it feels like, you know,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: like Paul McCartney and Yesterday, it's like, oh, the song
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: must have the song must exist somewhere else. You know,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: it seems like he still can't.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Believe, so he doesn't even know how it just came
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: to him.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: The story of yesterday, as I understand it is he
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: woke up from a dream with that song, with that
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: melody in his head, and he was he wrote to it,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: but he was positive it was like scrambled eggs.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Did he have another name for it.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Which was yeah, one of those was maybe it was maybe.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: That was I think it was scrambled eggs until he
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: did did hone hone the lyrics?
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: The lyrics. I think he didn't believe it was actually
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: like his melody. Like he he was like, there must
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: be an old something I remember from something someone.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's fascinating. Yeah, you don't know where
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: these creative sparks.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Come from or how. Yeah, it's a mystery to me too.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: It's weird. It's like hearing voices though in your head.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Strange, which I mean, I imagine the main character Jane came
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: to you first.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I kind of grappled initially we should
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: she be an actress? Should she be someone in Hollywood?
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: A sense that she should be a creative person and
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: a performer of some sort. But then I thought, you know, oh,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: but I know what it's like.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: To be a musician. I know all the different aspects
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: of that. You know what it.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Feels like to step out onto a stage and have
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: horrible stage fright and to feel like your heart is
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: being so loudly. You know the audience can hear it too,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Because that happens to me.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: I have to kind of.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: I have different ways that I cope with stage fright,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: and one of them is which I didn't give to
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: Jane because there wasn't.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Time in this.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: You know, you need predicament in a story. Yeah, so
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: she didn't have time to do the ritual that I do,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: which is to listen to something like soul Finger by
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: the Barcas or something like that.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Something I can dance dance to.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: I used to listen to Let's Let's Go Crazy Press,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: but before walking onto a stage, Like, there is no
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: way I could be like me, neurotic human worrying about this,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: that and the other. Will the monitors work, will my
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: guitar work? Will I be able to hear myself? All
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: the different things that go into performing live.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: So I just have to like dance it out, man.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: I mean is that the Bengals days when you would
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: listen to let's go crazy, I.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Would listen to When did I start doing it?
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: I think it was probably after that because I used
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: to use white wine as my let's go crazy. I
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: would always have a little bit of a few SIPs
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: at least or maybe maybe half of a one of
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: those like plastic cups that you get backstage.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Oh like just like the solo cup.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: I have a solo cup.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: The memories are resurfacing now and I'd be like, someone
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: would try to talk to me, and I'd like, I
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: can't talk to you now. I'm working on down in
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: like a quarter of this so that I can have
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: some liquid courage to step out onto a stage. And
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: I write about this in the book and become her
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: or someone who could walk out onto a stage and
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: strap on her guitar and I don't know, bring it,
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: bring it and hope that the voice is working and
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: everything else.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: The writing the book actually made me think about what
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: that experience was in a deeper way than I kind
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: of ever had.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: One of the cool things about the character I think
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: is it's not like a character. It's not an artist
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: who's at there, you know, creative and commercial peak. It's
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: like someone who sort of has had that is, you know,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: kind of lost their way a bit totally.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: I mean more than that, like everything in her life
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: that could go wrong has gone wrong. Yeah, dumped and
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: cheated on by the boyfriend, the long term boyfriend, the producer.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, being thirty three, that.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Alone, Like I remember, it seemed like right now, is
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: that what you are?
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's going to be okay.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: What you said, it's.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Going to be okay. I can attest to it. At
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: sixty four, things are really good. So it's all a mindset.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: But for I don't know, it seemed to be a
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: thing that there's kind of a peak time for I
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: don't know people in the music business certainly and maybe
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: even in the movie business that they're being young and
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: in your twenties even or even like it is a
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: prime real estate or chance to be you know, if
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: all goes well, you know, you're you're, people will know
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: about you, you'll be able to do good work, whether
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: it's in a movie or in recording industry.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: It was the book in a way, a way to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: sort of offset some level of yeah, you know, just
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: malaise in your own Yeah, it wasn't malaise.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: It was like, how do I stay creative because all
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: I want to do the juices are flowing, but like
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: where to put them?
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Another screenplay? Try again? You know?
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: In that and it was it was how I fell
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: so deeply in love with the process that like Jay
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: would come home and go, wait, you're still sitting there
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: at the kitchen table when I used to write at
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: the kitchen table, and I'd be like, yeah, and I'm
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: right in it, like ensconced in this moment, and I
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: found it just blissful, yea, even though it's hard.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Did you write the album your new album at the same.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: Time, Well, I didn't write it, mostly because I was
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: still very much engaged with the writing of the book
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: book and when Little Brown bought the book, and then
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: you go through a period of revisions. I met up
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: with Peter Asher during right in the mix of Peter.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I did it with the.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Great Peter Asher, who you know was the first president
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: of Apple Records and produced James Taylor and Linda Ronstett
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: records that literally changed my life. And I taught myself
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: to sing. Just like with the book writing, I didn't study.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: I just studied by mimicking albums. So whether it was
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: a Joni Jony albums or Linda albums, you know, and
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: the Peter Asher were so great.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: So Peter randomly reached out at a very dark place
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: during the pandemic when we were all really stuck at home,
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: but we were starting to be able.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: To go out.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: We'd been vaccinated, you know, things were looking brighter. And
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: I started to go to Malibu twice a week and
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: we would just sit around with guitars and just sing
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: like campfire style. Yeah, and then we realized there was
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: a handful of songs that because I was so engrossed
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: in doing revisions still on the book, it was fun
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: to just cover songs. And then it went from sitting
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: in his living room with guitars and singing to the
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: idea to call Elvis Costello and on the EP that's
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: not out yet, Wed, we recorded so much music that
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: we made an album. It was like we could have
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: been a double album we were considering, which would be
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: very old school, like very seventies, but we ended up
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: putting out the album and then we have sort of
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: an EP. But Elvis Costello I wanted to I always
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: wanted to do the Keith Richards high harmony on Connection
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: there the rolling Stone song, so we sing that together
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: and I'm Keith and Elvis's mixed. So yeah, that album
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: has a ever so slightly leaning towards country and western
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: sort of material. But again, I was still working with
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: my publishers and doing final revisions during that time and
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: h and at the same time driving out to Malibu
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: to this beautiful studio and hanging out with Russ Kunkle
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: and Leland Sklarr and Waddi walk Tell and Danny Korchmar
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: during the pandemic incredible.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I mean those are like that, I know, those are
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the guys.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: They're amazing and they're wonderful human beings, and I just
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: I was really kind of like pinching myself the whole time,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: like feeling such gratitude.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: You mentioned in the session players your minded me believe
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: it's on your first record. You had John Entwhistle, I know,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: play bass.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: I know my first solo record. Yeah, and Mick Fleetwood
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: I think played on something too.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: John hem Whistle's bass plane is that's amazing. Guy's incredible,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: I know. Back to the new record, Yeah, a surprise
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: under my film was there to lead things off. Yeah,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: what are your feelings on the original.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, well I love it.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: I love it, and I love the Stone And because
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: I was in the Bengals, and because the Bengals Beatles
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: there was always like a connection for us, because it
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: was the glue that cemented us. Was like being little
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: girls growing up and when the British invasion happened and
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: the Beatles were everything.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: You know, the song about Liverpool on the first d Yeah.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: So it was so part of like the bengalsgeist. But
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: I love the Stones, and in the Stones I came
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: to know and love more like in college and during
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: the eighties when because I had been so engrossed with
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: the Beatles music and they were so supreme to me.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: As you know, they just they affected.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: My life so deeply and it kind of got the
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: ball rolling on my career and or I call it
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: a career, my journey as a musician and lover of
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: music above and beyond anything. But yeah, I was just
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: one day listening to the Stones on my morning walk.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: And I'm one of those people who, you know how
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: some people say I always listened to the lyrics first,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: or I always dial in on the music first. I
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: always considered myself someone who was like more more sort
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: of entranced by the music, and sometimes I would tune out,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: like really focusing in on what are they saying here?
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: And that was the case for me.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Weird that I went on to write a novel, but
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: given that, so I just was listening to it.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: And I went, wait a minute, Wait a.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Minute, this is very retro and I thought, wow, like,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: how fun it would be to turn the tables.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: My thin defense of it has always been it's thin.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I recognize it, but I've always told they need defend
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: because I just love the song. It's one of the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: great songs. Is it's It's under my thumb the girl
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: who who once had me down? Yeah, And so it's
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: like it was it was role reversed. It was it
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: wasn't that like men need to put their thumb on
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: women or that make even necessarily in every relationshipiel he's making.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: It's his personal story.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Yet men thumb And so now I got Now.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: So he's just saying his truth there, like he's just
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: expressing his emotion.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I just thought much.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: I just was thinking, like, you know, in feminist terms,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: that it would be fun to turn the tables on that.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: And and and actually there's there's a lot of sexuality
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: in that song. I mean, there's sexuality in rock and roll.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: It is. It is why we love it. You know,
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: it's intrinsic to the to the genre.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: So I think it's so. I thought I just it was.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: It's all music, really, it's everything gospel, you know, in
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: an unspoken sort of way.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, God, we could go on a deep, deep dive
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: on that we wanted to.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: We have to take a quick break and then we'll
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: come back with more of my interview with Susannah Hoffs.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: We're back with more from Susannah Hafs. When you recorded
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the Bengals, what was that experience?
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Like the EP that was a little more that was
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: pre getting signed to Sony. So that was with an
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: amazing producer, Craig Leon. He was wonderful to work with.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, he suicide.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he did the Ramones and also did he work
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: with the Go Gos? I don't think so, but the
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: Ramones for sure.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Blondie, Yeah, Blondie so cool.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So Blondie and the Ramones were the notable bands
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: that he had worked with that you know, we were like, okay, yes,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: please please produce EP.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: How did you How did you get connected with him?
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Then our managers maybe we were at that point with
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: Miles Copeland, who managed the Police, and so it's possible
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: that Miles it must have been somehow connected to through that.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: How did you get the Columbia contract?
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: Well, it was the only record company who was interested
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: in us, and Peter Philb in the A and our
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: guy brought Bruce Springsteen to see us play at Magic Mountain.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: So Peter Philbin was the only music and our guy
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: that seemed to have taken an interest in the Bengals,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: even though we had a kind of we were a
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: popular local club band in Los Angeles and we're playing,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: you know, tons of gigs at the Whiskey of Go Go,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: and and at a.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Time when the LA scene, the club scene was.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: It was happening, New wave was happening, punk rock was happening.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: There was kind of a we were somewhere in the
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: middle between new wave and punk rock, and we were
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: something that was more like now deemed Paisley Underground, which
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: was we were a band in the eighties who were
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: obsessed with music from the sixties and trying to drag
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: those sounds and the twelve string guitar, electric guitar, like
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: the Birds and stuff like that into our sound. It
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: was like the Birds on guitars meets the Mamas and Papas,
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: So the Mamas and the Mamas we would have been,
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: you know. Yeah, So at that time we were we
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: were really part of a very vibrant scene in LA
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: that wasn't punk but had punk.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Leanings and were scrappy. We weren't polished.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: We were thrift store wearing girls who were mostly self taught.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: There was no sort of American idol sort of like
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: world at that point, and we wouldn't have wanted that anyway.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: We were really we were really a garage band. But anyway,
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: it was basically kind of crickets from the record industry.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Nobody was like, we weren't on anyone's radar until was
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: it discouraging?
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Not really.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: I mean we were young and kind of brash, thinking
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: like we weren't kind of in some ways we weren't focused.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: I wasn't focused on that. I wasn't like the focus
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: was not and I think this is true for the
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: whole band. The focus was not we got to become
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: pop stars. The focus was, you know, we want to
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: connect with an audience and we want to be ourselves,
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: you know, And I think that was a good thing
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: about the band.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: We weren't. There wasn't this Fengali.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Who lined up a couple, you know, different people based
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: on how they looked and then put them in with
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: songwriters or anything like that. We were definitely a grassroots
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: garage band. And interestingly, at the time that Miles Copeland
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: took us on as management clients, he was also putting
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: together a version of that other kind of band with
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: Darryl Hannah was in it.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: It was like all really beautiful sort of models and
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: actresses that he found and made a girl.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Called what was it called? Oh gosh, I.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: Could try to find out the name of it, the
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: band that it was. I think I want to say
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: American Girls, which sounds like the name of those dolls.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I want to get back to the Columbia stuff.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: But to your point of like nose Golly putting you together.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: It's interesting too, though that you had Michael Steele in
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the group, the bass player, the bass player from the Runaways,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: which kind of was even though they were also kind
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: of put together in right.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So Kim Fallely called me when I was living
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: in the garage of my parents' home in West la
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: and and I just like I had such radar, you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: I knew who he was and I was like, no, thanks,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: It was just before the Bengals.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like in the early days of the Bengals.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: Michael didn't join until there was a bass player in
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: net Zelenskis, who was in the band in those early days.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: But right before, around the time, she wanted to leave
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: to do more country and Western music and wasn't feeling
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: comfortable in the band. And fair enough, I love Annette,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: we're really dear friends to this day, but she wanted
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: she just wanted to move on. And that's when there
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: was this opportunity for Michael Steele, who had been in
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: the Runaways to and she was a very very accomplished
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: bass player. She loved playing bass. She has a gorgeous voice,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: so really closing a great songwriter. She was extraordinarily and
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: is extraordinarily talented. So when she joined the band, everything
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: kind of fell into place. And it was around then
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: that Columbia sort of went and it was just Peter
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Philben and he took Bruce Springsteen to see us at
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Magic Mountain in Valencia, and all I know is that
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Bruce must have liked us enough and said something and
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: vetted us in some way. And I finally had a
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: chance to thank him for that when he was at
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: the What's the Grammy Salute to the Grammy Salute? Yeah,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: music care is Grammy Salute? And Jud Apatow, who loves
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Bruce Springsteen and John Stewart, was the host that night.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Jay and I got a seat at Jud's table, yet
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: he had never met Bruce, and I said, well, I'll
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: be brazen and just drag you over there and reintroduce
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: myself to him, which I did, And I have really
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: cool picture where it's mostly that you see Bruce's wife,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Patty talking to Tom Hanks's wife Rita. Yeah, and in
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: the background, I'm smiling and I see and it's a
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: profile of Jud and Bruce smiling.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: At each other.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I'll show you.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I have not seen Bruce since that.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: No, since the Magic Mountain.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean yeah, it was it.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Like medium then, like oh.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: It was cool.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: I mean we were so we didn't know he was
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: coming to see us, so we were just like, what's happening,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: you know? But I don't think that Bruce thinks of
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: it this way or even particularly remembers seeing us at
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Magic Mountain, But I always put it together that the
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: one label that wanted us, which was Columbia, or that
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: were intrigued with us and made that trap all the
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: way from you know, Century City to Valencia, which is
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: a bit of a commitment, and also had the thought to.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Bring Bruce Springsteene.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, like, here's this grungey little garage band, all girl band.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: But all I know is.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: That they made that offer shortly after that, So something
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: he did must have been said.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: He must have liked us enough.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Now, how quickly did you start to make your first record? Oh?
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: Well, let's see. David Kahn was our producer, and we
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: went through a whole I don't remember now, it's a
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: long time ago, but I remember that we just did
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: a pretty deep dive into like an extension of what
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: our rehearsals would have been. But with David there to
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: kind of think in terms of the record, we rehearsed
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: and we played a lot of stuff not in the studio, yes, songs,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: songs we'd written. We showed him everything we had and
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: we just kind of went from there. We were a
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: band that were figured out our sound in part, in
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: large part by covering songs that we like. That's how
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: we figured out how to be bangles, you know. Like,
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: so we would cover a lot of songs and they
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: were almost always kind of cool, obscure nineteen sixties songs.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Stuff didn't even make records.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like Pushing Do Hard by the Seeds, Debbie
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: saying that one there was a song called Kicks by
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Paul Revere and the Raiders. We liked Paul Revere and
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: the Raiders songs. I think we might have done two
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: of their songs. We did where Were You When I
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Needed You? Which was the grassroots. I sang that one,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: which is like very jangly twelve string.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Looking back on that first record, what is your feeling
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: towards it?
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: I think good, you know, I'd like probably a lot
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: of people you talked to who've made records, and like,
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: many decades have passed. I haven't revisited it in a
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: long time, but I do remember we've recorded a lot
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: of it up at place called Skylight, I think in Panga,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: So that was cool, and there was different Hollywood studios
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: that we worked in. I just remember that I learned
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: a lot from David Kahn. He was really obsessed with arrangement.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: And I feel happy that Prince discovered us through Hero
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: Takes a Fall, which was a song that Vicky and I,
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: who were really kind of a writing team within the band,
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: came up with in the garage where I was living.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: It was that early on before we could kind of
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: like afford to move out of, in my case, my parents' house.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: You know, I was still living at home.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: So we're to think now when I think back on it,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: because then I suddenly had this like job that was
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: a real job, and then I was on a label,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: and you know, I had commitments and responsibilities. I wasn't
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: just a kid post college living in my parents' garage,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: although I did live there for a big, big, big
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: chunk the majority of the Bengals thing, I was living
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: in a garage. Really yeah, just because once it took
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: off and we were traveling all over the place, I mean,
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: no one thought to buy houses until way later in
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: the process. We there was like a year where we
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: all were like, wait a minute. It really took us
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: a long time. It was towards the tail end of
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: the decade of the eighties where we sort of actually
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: were like, there was the year that everybody bought a car,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: so we weren't used driving a car that our parents
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: had happened. You know, I bought a white BMW.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Three twenty five.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: It was snazzy, get on a car phone, hardwired into
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: it with a curly chord.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: You know, there was that eighty seven.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Amazing they had the car, I had a car phone.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I remember being mesmerized by those as a kid.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: When I said, yeah, I know, they were like, whoa,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: They're like from the future.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't it like ancient history?
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: That record was so cool because it sounds like you
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: guys really figured out who you were from the EP
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: to the first kind of full length. Yeah, it seems
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: like you and VICKI kind of figured out your song.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sort of for sure.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Rhythm, yes, guys. Yeah. How did it feel when the
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: next record came out and it was such a big
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: because it's all these steps. It's like you do the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: EP and you sign and you do this big record.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Then it's like the next record is like huge.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was crazy.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: So there was a big leap somehow from the studio
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: we were working in Tapanga for that first album all
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: over the place, and then we went to Sunset Sound Factory,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: which is the smaller of the two Sunset Sounds that
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: are sister studios, and that's where we started to work
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: on Different Light with David Kahn again. That record ended
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: up having some radio hits, including Manic Monday. So Prince
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: had really he really liked our video of Hero Takes
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: a Fall, which was that song that Vicky and I
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: wrote in the garage on the prompting of David Kahn
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: to write something that wasn't like a cowby, like a
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: that kind of beat and more like a four on
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: the floor beat. So when we were writing Hero Takes
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: a Fall, we were kind of playing drums on our thighs,
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: you know, like holding the beat that way and kind
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: of getting the rhythm. And so a lot of things
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: opened up from that first album and then Prince saw somehow.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Prince had this idea that I should come over and
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: get this cassette from him at Sunset Sound, the big
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: mother ship studio on Sunset, and he had a song
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: to share with us, and it was Manic Monday. So
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: during that recording of Different Light at Sunset Sound Factory,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: I came back with the cassette from Prince and we
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: recorded that.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Song and he had offered me yeah, oh yeah yeah,
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: and I have the cassette upstairs. Wow, yeah, I can
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: show you if you want. Yeah yeah.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: So we just kind of hovered around a cassette player
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: and I was immediately like, oh my god, this would
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: be great to sing. And so then we recorded it
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: and at Sunset Sound Factory and it came out really well,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: and then it became the first single on that record
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: and it became a hit, our first like top forty
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: radio hit.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: How was it having a hit?
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: It was nuts.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: We were on tour Columbia had released it as the
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: first single off the Different Light record, and we were
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: just standing on a corner and somebody pulled up in
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: a convertible and something sounded familiar, but not familiar, because
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: if it was the Beatles song playing on the radio,
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: I would have been like, oh it took We all
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: had this weird delayed reaction of like, oh shit, that's
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: our song, that's Manic Monday. Like there was this weird,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: like I don't know, delay in connecting the dots, and
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: then we were like off to the races at that
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: point that this song just started to go up the
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: charts and it got to number two, which was pretty
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: good because Prince was I think Kiss.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Was number one, and We and Manic Monday was number.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Two and Prince. It offered you other songs.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: He there was another song listed on the cassette called
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: Jealous Girl. I bet you that demo's floating around. But
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: the weird thing is, I wanted to digitize that cassette
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: and I took it to a friend's studio and we
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: went through the whole cassette and Jealous Girl did not play.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: So I don't know if it just like the ravages
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: of like a cassette sitting in a box for thirty years,
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: is to blame or not. I don't know. It was
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: just never but I think it's probably in his archive.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: I think we could google it and we could maybe
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: find it pull it up.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to pause for a quick break and
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: then come back with more from my interview with Susannah Hoffs.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of our conversation with Susannah Hoffs.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Did you know that Walk Like Egyptian was going to
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: be the hit that it was? No, that is the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: most bizarre, you know, it's like it's a great song,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: but it's it's so out of left field. I know.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: I think that's the brilliance of it. So I was
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: at David's office, David Kahn up at Columbia, and he
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: wanted to play me some songs there, just share some
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: things that had crossed his desk, and one of them
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: was Marnie Dixon. I want to say, oh god, I'm
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: going to get it wrong. I'll try to find out
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: there was a woman who had covered it, and also
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: Charlie Sexton had covered it, of all things. So I
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: recently was able to talk to him about that, but.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: He released it.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: I think if you google you'll find other versions. These
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: other versions are probably somewhere. But David played it for me,
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: and I just thought it had this really again nineteen
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: sixties bossa Nova like there was something about it. The
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: rhythm of it was so interesting, the shaker being so predominant,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: and the kind of I don't know, it sounded like
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: something from a movie or something like or from another time.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: So we just we all were kind of curious to
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: try it out because sometimes when you're in the studio,
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: you record more than you think you record more than
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: you think you're gonna need, and then you pick the
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: best or the most catchy or connect with people the most,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: so you just never know. There's a lot of lore
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: within the band because you know, different people in the
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: band were singing different parts, you know, and not everybody
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: got to sing a part, you know. W I know
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: always felt kind of left out, and I totally I
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: can really empathize with that. But we had no idea
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: that that song would catch on the way it did.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: It was the third single, If She Knew What She Wants,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: a Jewells share song that I sang was a second single,
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: and it did moderately well, and it was very bangles.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: It was lush harmon these all the way through. It
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: was a beautiful song.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Oh thank you.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: That was kind of let it go was like a
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: chance for all of us to feel in because we
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: wrote it together as a foursome and we sang it
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: together as a foursome. So we kind of needed that
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: as it was one of the last songs we recorded
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: on that album. Yeah, it was kind of like the
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: band needed that. Yeah, it was like a really bonding yeah,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: you know what. I loved that one, and we all
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: wrote it I think, yeah, together.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I guess I want to jump to the next record,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: because you know, you and Vicky kind of have like
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: a songwriting thing. But then you discover Tom.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: Kelly, Yeah, Philly stigin very good.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How did that kind of song How did that
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: kind of songwriting trio happen?
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's great question.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: I think that by the time Different Light had run
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: its cycle out in the world and all the touring
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: and you know, us opening for Queen at slain Castle,
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: and just like everything had shot up, you know, with
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: the success of that record, and our our lives were
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: not our own lives.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: That we were living.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Like what happens when that when that occurs in the
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: journey of a band, you know. So we after living
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: like so closely for so long and being on tour
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: and having no autonomy everyone in the band, but we decided, Okay,
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: that's the end of that tour cycle, let's start writing
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: for the next record, the next record, And no one
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: wanted to write with each other, like everyone wanted to
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: be totally away from the other members, so like just
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: needed autonomy. So somehow I met Billy, and Billy introduced
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: me to Tom and we just hit it off. As
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: a songwriting team. Immediately I had heard some of the
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: stuff they had done, and I thought they were great,
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: and they were so fun, and their work partnership was strong,
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: and they really knew each one brought a very specific
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: thing to the table. Billy was very much the lyricist,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: but you know, had melodic ideas as well, and arrangement ideas.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: And Tom was just like this incredible melody maker machine.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: You know, he was just he just would sit at
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: the piano or go to the guitar, or go back
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: to the piano, and just to be in the room
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: during all this creation with them was extraordinary, and I
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: was so impressed with songs that they had written, so
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: I just started to hang out with them and do
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: songwriting sessions with them. An eternal Flame was me sharing
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: I'd just been back from a Bengals tour and we
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: did Graceland like all bands have to do. But the
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: day we were there, Elvis's eternal Flame in the Garden
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: of Memories was basically a plexiglass box with a little
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: flame in it, but it was out because the rain
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: had filled up the box with rain water and extinguished
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: the flame. It was out that day, but we were
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: recreating the scene in spinal Tap where there's singing heartbreak
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: Hotel and raga harmonies or whatever.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: They were tempting the harmonies and they were face Bill.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: So we were doing that and I came back to
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: La I had my writing session with Billy, because Billy
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: always wanted to write lyrics first, which again was unusual
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: to me because I always thought melody first, and we'll
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: just jabber something and the lyric will find itself later.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: But with Billy, he really had a really strong practice
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: in doing bringing a lyric to Tom. So we just
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: sat down. I was just telling him the story about
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: the Eternal Flame at Graceland it was out, and he went,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: eternal Flame. That's a great name for a song. And
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, you're right, and we just sat down,
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: did the lyrics, and we drove over to Tom's and
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: we just started working on the music. But when that
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: turn came in on the two. It's a weird structure
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: that song because it doesn't have a proper chorus. It's
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: just the tagline is this burning and eternal flame at
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: the ends of the verses. So what really was like
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: the moment of like, uh, you know, the sun breaking
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: through the clouds. Was that actually it fit with those
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: lyrics sunshines through the rain, the bridge that repeats, and
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: there's a really cool place for a guitar solo in
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: the middle of it. So it's like verse verse bridge
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: solo bridge verse out, and those bridges were just like
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: I knew. When that happened, I was like, shit, man,
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: this is good, you know, this is oh wow, what
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: is this? This is great and felt so good to
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: sing that.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: It is a strange song structure, it's not traditional song structural.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: But those bridges were just so beautiful and so fun
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: to sing. And the other part was like kind of
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: a here, there and everywhere, kind of you know, be lesque,
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: very very blesque.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: The verses, yeah, yeah, pretty cool.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: But it was a real afterthought putting it out, and
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: it was it hardly made the record.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: It didn't.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: It wasn't voted. We had a thing where we had
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: a band meeting and everybody had gone off.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Everyone needed to go off and write.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: With other people. Everyone was sick of each other. When
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: we got back together, everyone you know, kind of showed
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: their wares. This is what I wrote, was so and
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: so and so and so, and everybody voted and Eternal
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: Flame didn't make it, and I was like, wait, it
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: should be in there.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: I was like really stunned.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: Actually, I thought it was like we could use like
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: a good old fashioned ballad like that, you know, But
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: it didn't and we It wasn't until halfway to three
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: quarters of the way through recording that album that David
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Segresson said, you know what, I think it's a mistake
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: not to put Eternal Flame on here. Let's let's go
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: over to my friend who's a keyboard player. Phil Chanel
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: was his name, and let's mess around with a Patsy
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: Cline esque arrangement because I was obsessed with Patsy Cline.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: I had discovered her around that time and I think
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: the movie had come out, and yeah, I was just
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: blown away by her singing and gorgeous voice, so so
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: amazing and her story. Yeah, so we went and worked
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: with Phil and it ended up.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: On the record.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Did you guys have to regroup and read?
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was a weird phase at that
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: point where everybody was very much aware of like I
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: want to make sure my songs are that everything was
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: like very parsed out. Equally, it was less bandish at
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: that point and davidt you know, was a change in producer.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Having had David Kahn on the first two records, Davitt
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: could see what was going on even in our behind
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: the music. His interview, He's like, they were an odd
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: kind of band we were.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: At that point.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: It just when you have four singer songwriters in a band,
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: you have to figure out how to make that work.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: And it is a lot of personalities. And that's the
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: great thing about bands, you know. Some of the things
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: that make bands great are their conflicts. Are are the
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: ways that they with a disconnects are how disparate points
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: of view can come together and make something bigger than
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: you know this, what's that expression? That some of its
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: parts that yeah, yeah so. But Eternal Flame was a
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: definite afterthought and it was It was the third single
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: released on that Alpha album. It was not the first single.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: In Your Room.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Was which which was.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: That's another Billy and Tom song And that was like
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: me going full George michael on that I wanted that
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: to sound like?
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Was it faith? Was that?
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: The that the song that very dry, very dry, not
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: no reverb like the big eighties reverb. It was so
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: starkly dry and so like crispin in your face. That
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: was like I kept obsessively telling David that I wanted
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: it to have that sound. Yeah, very dry.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: And you also did with with with Tom and Billy.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Did Belinda Carlisle song?
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what was it?
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I need a dis I need a disguy.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh I sang on that record, Yeah I did.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: I did. I think, I'm I think I did some back.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Oh Gods and the Bengal Yeah.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was always well.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: I I love the Go Gos, you know, like, I
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: think they inspired me. I didn't feel competitive with them.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: In fact, I just wanted to hang out with them,
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: and I had seen them, I think even before I
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: met Vicky and Debbie through the ad in the paper
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: that I had put out advertising for other like minded musicians,
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: especially girls. The Go Gos really honestly inspired me to
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: want to be in a band with other girls.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, wow Fully.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: Their songs I think were very sixties inspired, so I
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: felt a kinship there and like a shared sensibility. Belinda
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: was came from the punk scene very much. I mean
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: she used to dressing garbage bags.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: They were very off.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: They were avant garde to me, and that was what
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: I was interested in. They were people who found each
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: other and figured out how to collaborate.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: I guess a girl group not being a pop act
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: at that time.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: A girl group compared to a girl band.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: A girl band, right, You guys run through the eighties
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: is like incredible? Was there the thought that parting ways
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: was a mistake. I can't imagine being at like the
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: peak of you guys's powers as a foursome. Yeah, just
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: like oh man, maybe yeah.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: I think that when you when you have very little
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: autonomy because your career is so pervading thing that you
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: have to, you know, show up for, you feel a
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: little bit claustrophobic after a while, and you start to
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: kind of wonder what life would be like if you
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: weren't bound by you know what three other people are
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: and a management team are kind of pressing you to do.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: And I think that by the time we played sn
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: L in nineteen end of nineteen eighty eight, that was
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: a very stressful situation. There was a lot of frustration
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: in some members of the band about, you know, what
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: the perception of the band was. There was some feeling
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: that people were deeming me a lead singer in the band,
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: not just wanted to. Everyone's a singer, so I think that.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: And I just think living, you know, on mass and
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: on tour for so long, and also having managers you know,
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: wanting you to do that because they benefit from it.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's the oldest story in show business that
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: artists get to a breaking point at some point along
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: the journey and they're just like, I want to go home,
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: and I want to meet someone that I can have
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: in my life.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: And not be on the road and lonely.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: And as we were all looking at thirty approaching third,
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: it just felt like we needed a break.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: And then we took one.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: And then we did regroup multiple times and did did
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: But then it has a different vibe to it. Once
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: you decide to take a break, it's it's not it's
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: not ever quite the same as that that initial existence
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: you're living.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: It's kind of familiar to most people who are like,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: ever take a break from a relationship or something. You know,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: then you come back and you're like, yeah, maybe it
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: works out, but it's like, it's not, it's never.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't have that first magical, you know, excitement
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: to it. Perhaps yeah, and we did It's interestingly in
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: my perspective to how when the times that we kind
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: of came back and made records and with different record
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: labels or did them ourselves. Most people that I talked
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: to didn't have any idea that we were still a band.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: It was like the more we did, the less people
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: were like aware.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know why that was.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: But it's so much I guess was changing too about
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: the industry.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: And I mean, Nirvana happened. Like what do you do
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: when your whole mind is blown by a band like
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: Nirvana and you're like, holy shit, this is genius, like
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: brilliant music and you're like.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, oh my god.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: You know, but you also have at that same exact time,
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: you know, Janet Jackson, you know, coming out with all
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: this incredible like the nineties. Yeah, you know, the nineties happened. Yeah,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: time March is on and it's like.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: How do you wear?
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: It was great, but you also kind of just the
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: eighties were like this interesting bubble.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: It was very iconoclastic time for music. It was so
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: many different things.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: It's strange how that the twentieth century you really can
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: kind of divide things up neatly by more roughly to
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: the actual decades, you know, like sometimes it's like eighty
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: one the eighties star rather than eight or what you know,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: But you.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Like, the nineties was so different, don't you think?
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: So different? And I don't know that I feel the
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: difference from decade to decade anymore, Like you know, I don't.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: Know, sixties to seventies to eighties to nineties each one,
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: and really fifties through nineties if you think about it,
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: it's from that whole chunk of a century. Ye in
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: a way, right, I mean, it was really notable that
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: what was going on, like the styles, the sounds, the vibes,
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: all of it.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for this letting us into your.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: This was amazing. This was very in depth. I feel
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: great more.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm leaving things on the table.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: No, no, we're good. We're good.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you Susannahas for taking us through her career with
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: the Bangles and talking about the creation of her new novel,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: This Bird Has Flown. You can hear all of our
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: favorite songs featuring Susanna on a playlist at Broken record
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you can find
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: all of our new episodes. You can follow us on
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with help
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: from Lea Rose and Eric Sandler. Our show is engineered
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: by Echo Mountain. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
• 50:38
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• 50:40
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• 50:54
  Speaker 1: remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richman.