Susanna Hoffs

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2:06Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing. Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. As a founding member of the iconic all-girl band, The Bangles, Susanna Hoffs is perhaps most closely associated with hits like Manic Monday, Eternal Flame, and Walk Like an Egyptian. After releasing three platinum-selling albums, The Bangles broke up in 89. Two years later, Susanna started to put out interesting solo material before reuniting with the Bengals at the end of the 90s. Over the years, Susanna's continued to release music and even act in movies, including appearances in all three Austin Powers films as part of a fictional mod band.

2:47This year, Susanna's added another creative pursuit to her repertoire. She's now a published novelist. Her first book, This Bird is Flown, was released in April, the same month she put out a new collection of cover songs called The Deep End, produced by the great Peter Asher. On today's episode, I talk to Susanna Hoffs about how Bruce Springsteen helped the Bengals secure a record deal after seeing them play at an amusement park just outside of LA. She also tells the story of first listening to Prince's demo of Manic Monday. This is Broken Record, liner notes for the digital age. I'm Justin Richman.

3:26Here's my interview with Susanna Hoffs from her home in LA. how long you've been living here about oh my god this is really going to age me but i'm all into being honest about my age i'm 64 you don't even look close to your age i mean it's really that's really i look older than you no you don't i look much older than you no for some reason 64 really like has a special like i even got weird al who i love yankovic made me a special birthday message that was more than the usual one, that he's such a kind and wonderful and talented guy. But this year I got the When I'm 64 full Monty, full glorious birthday message.

4:12Anyway, how long have I been living here? About 20 years. 20 years. Yeah. And the acoustics in this room have been very friendly to music making and having little music parties. How often are you playing music in here? Pretty frequently, but we have had a few iconic music parties. We had members of Crowded House and Colin Hay was here playing. We had a big, we celebrated one of my birthdays and it turned into this crazy music night. Lindsey Buckingham has played in here. Yep. Taking requests. No one else was playing, right? Because how do you play along with Lindsey? Lindsay was playing and he was just, and I was sitting in that little child's chair right there by the piano.

5:00Oh, yeah. And looking up at him as he played and anything I asked for, he did. It was incredible. Wow. Yeah. He was so. What did you ask for? I asked for secondhand news. I asked for go your own way, I think. And then he and Ben Harper started singing on together on a song that I'm now forgetting. one of the great songs that he'd written. Ben Harper was here too. And it was amazing. Wow. Yeah. We were talking just before the mic started rolling about your book that you put out, The Spirit Has Flown. Yeah. It's really good. Thank you. I guess it goes back to being a kid and a teenager. And I think it's a coping strategy to want to disappear into a fiction of some form.

5:46I've always loved going to movies, watching movies, reading books. And I think, you know, there's stories inside of songs too. And I don't know why, but I just like to kind of fill my days finding inspiration through those stories. And again, there is a bit of an escapist coping mechanism aspect to it of not wanting to kind of sit with my own worries or fears. And I like to just drift away into a story. This is your first book, though. I mean, so would you write for fun before? Like, have you ever written any fiction? I started a novel and I just double checked in a drawer. It was written in like sort of small spiral notebooks back and the date on it is 1989.

6:32So it was right when the Bengals journey, which was most of the 80s, from me going around trying to find bandmates and advertising myself in throwaway papers and eventually meeting Vicki and Debbie. and then the band formed from there. But I had always had a dream of writing a novel and I just kept putting it aside. But towards the end of the 80s, when I felt the Bengals sort of decade was kind of winding down and we were all kind of antsy to do other things, I started a novel. Now, I just, it's up there, but I don't know if - Is it good? I don't know because I'd been so immersed in the journey of writing This Bird Has Flown, which took several years.

7:16It takes years to write a novel. And because I never, I was always either too lazy or too impatient to ever take classes. In fact, I don't even know how to read a musical chart. I can be handed one and be doing like a choral part with friends at like Largo, for example. I performed with Amy Mann a lot of times. And sometimes we would do like holiday shows and I'd have to, I'd be handed a chart and I'd pretend to read it. I just kind of look at the shapes and go, oh, the note went up there. But no, same with pretty much everything I've done in the arts. I kind of just threw myself in. Which is interesting because you come from, I mean, both your parents are college educated.

7:58Yeah. We went to the same school. We went to Berkeley. Yeah, we both went to Berkeley. My parents met at Yale. My dad had gone to Harvard. Yeah, I know. I came from a very intellectual family. and yet I just I think it's my impatience and my like a strong urge to just dive in. On average how long will a writing session last for you? Short spurts or long? Long spurts like I'll have to set aside because I've been doing a lot of promotion for the novel and also for the new album you know in my days have not sort of you know opened up for me to sort of go okay i just did you know spent four hours doing this other stuff and it's a kind of different kind of use of your brain yeah i think with the the flow state is where you want to be like when you're just fingers are going and you're seeing it somehow in your mind's eye i guess and you just go and you and the characters delight me they they i don't know where their voices come from obviously in my head and obviously i'm generating them but sometimes it actually doesn't feel like that i guess like the way some songwriters say it feels like you know like paul mccartney in yesterday it's like oh the song must have my song must exist somewhere else like you know it seems like he still can't believe so he doesn't even know how it just came to him okay the story of yesterday as i understand it is he woke up from a dream with that song with that melody um in his head and he was he wrote to it but he was positive it was like scrambled eggs did he have another name for it which one was yeah one of those was maybe it was maybe i think it was scrambled eggs until he did did hone hone the lyrics i think he didn't believe it was actually like his melody like he he was like there must be an old something i remember from something somewhere oh my god that's fascinating yeah yeah you don't know where these creative sparks come from or how yeah it's a mystery to me too it's weird it's like hearing voices though in your head it's a little bit strange which i mean i imagine the main character jane came to you first yeah i mean i kind of grappled initially maybe should she be an actress should she be someone in hollywood i sense that she should be a creative person and a performer of some sort but then i thought But, you know, oh, but I know what it's like to be a musician.

10:29I know all the different aspects of that, you know, what it feels like to step out onto a stage and have horrible stage fright and to feel like your heart is being so loudly, you know, the audience can hear it too. Because that happens to me. I have to kind of, I have different ways that I cope with stage fright. And one of them is, which I didn't give to Jane, because there wasn't time in the, you know, you need predicament in a story. Yeah. So she didn't have time to do the ritual that I do, which is to listen to something like Soul Finger by the Bar Kays or something like that. Something I can dance, dance to.

11:11I used to listen to Let's Go Crazy Prince before walking onto a stage. Like, there is no way I could be like me, neurotic, human, worrying about this, that, and the other. Will the monitors work? Will my guitar work? Will I be able to hear myself? All the different things that go into performing live. So I just had to, like, dance it out, man. Was that the Bengals days when you would listen to Let's Go Crazy? I would listen to, when did I start doing it? I think it was probably after that, because I used to use white wine as my let's go crazy. I would always have a little bit of a few sips at least, or maybe, maybe half of a, one of those like plastic cups that you get backstage.

12:02Oh, just like the solo cups? Yeah, the solo cups. I'd have a solo cup. The memories are resurfacing now. And I'd be like, someone would try to talk to me and I'd be like, I can't talk to you now. I'm working on downing like a quarter of this so that I can have some liquid courage to step out onto a stage. And I write about this in the book and become her, someone who could walk out onto a stage and strap on her guitar and, I don't know, bring it. Bring it and hope that the voice is working and everything else. I don't know. Writing the book actually made me think about what that experience was in a deeper way than I kind of ever had.

12:51One of the cool things about the character, I think, is it's not like a character. It's not an artist who's at their, you know, creative and commercial peak. It's like someone who sort of has had that and is, you know, kind of lost their way a bit. Totally. I mean, more than that. Like everything in her life that could go wrong has gone wrong. Yeah. Dumped and cheated on by the boyfriend, the long term boyfriend. The producer boyfriend. Yeah. You know, being 33, that alone, like I remember it seemed like. I'm 33 right now. Is that what you are? Yes. It's going to be okay. Watch what you say. It's going to be okay.

13:29Okay. All right. I can attest to it. At 64, things are really good. Okay. So it's all a mindset. But for, I don't know, it seemed to be a thing that there's kind of a peak time for, I don't know, people in the music business certainly, and maybe even in the movie business, that being young and in your 20s even, or even like is a prime real estate or chance to be, you know, if all goes well, you know, people will know about you, you'll be able to do good work, whether it's in a movie or in the recording industry. It was the book in a way, a way to sort of offset some level of, you know, just malaise in your own.

14:19Yeah, it wasn't malaise. It was like, how do I stay creative? Because all I want to do the juices are flowing, but like where to put them? Another screenplay? Try again? you know in that and it was it was how i fell so deeply in love with the process that like jay would come home and go wait you're still sitting there at the kitchen table when i used to write at the kitchen table and i'd be like yeah and i'm right in it like ensconced in this moment and uh i found it uh just blissful yeah even though it's hard did you write the album your new album at the same time? Well, I didn't write it. I mostly, because I was still very much engaged with the writing of the book and when Little Brown bought the book, and then you go through a period of revisions.

15:09I met up with Peter Asher during, right in the mix of all that heat. Oh, that's right. You did this with Peter Asher. I did it with the great Peter Asher, who was the first president of Apple Records and and produced James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt records that literally changed my life. And I taught myself to sing, just like with the book writing. I didn't study. I just studied by mimicking albums. So whether it was a Joni albums or Linda albums, you know, and the Peter Asher ones were so great. Yeah. Yeah. So Peter randomly reached out at a very dark place during the pandemic when we were all really stuck at home, but we were starting to be able to go out.

15:51We'd been vaccinated. Things were looking brighter. And I started to go to Malibu twice a week, and we would just sit around with guitars and just sing, like campfire style. Nice. Yeah. And then we realized there was a handful of songs that, because I was so engrossed in doing revision still on the book, it was fun to just cover songs. And then it went from sitting in his living room with guitars and singing to the idea to call Elvis Costello and on the EP that's not out yet. We recorded so much music that we made an album. It could have been a double album we were considering, which would be very old school, like very 70s.

16:36But we ended up putting out the album and then we have sort of an ep but and elvis costello's elvis costello i wanted to i always wanted to do the keith richards high harmony on connection there the rolling stone song so we sing that together and i'm keith and and elvis is mick so cool yeah that album has a ever so slightly leaning towards country and western sort of material but again i i was still working with my publishers and doing final revisions during that time and uh and at the same time driving out to malibu to this beautiful studio and hanging out with russ kunkel and leland sklar and wadi waktel and danny kortschmar well during the pandemic incredible play i mean those are like that's it i know those are the guys they're amazing and they're wonderful human beings And I just, I was really kind of like pinching myself the whole time, like feeling such gratitude.

17:34You mentioning those session players reminded me, I believe it was on your first record, you had John Entwistle. I know. Play bass. I know. My first solo record. Yeah. And Mick Fleetwood, I think, played on something too. John Entwistle's bass playing is... That was amazing. This guy is incredible. I know. Back to the new record. Yeah. A surprise under my thumb was there to lead things off. Yeah. What are your feelings on the original? Okay, well, I love it. I love it. Yeah, me too. And I love the Stones. And because I was in the Bengals, and because the Bengals Beatles, there was always like a connection for us, because it was the glue that cemented us, was like being little girls growing up, and when the British invasion happened, and the Beatles were everything.

18:19And you have the song about Liverpool on your first record. Yeah. So it was so part of like the Bengals zeitgeist. But I love the Stones. And the Stones, I came to know and love more like in college and during the 80s when, because I had been so engrossed with the Beatles music. And they were so supreme to me as, you know, they just, they affected my life so deeply. And it kind of got the ball rolling on my career and, or I call it a career, my journey as a musician and lover of music above and beyond anything. But yeah, I was just one day listening to the Stones on my morning walk. And I'm one of those people who, you know how some people say I always listen to the lyrics first or I always dial in on the music first.

19:09I always considered myself someone who was like more sort of entranced by the music. And sometimes I would tune out like really focusing in on what are they saying here? And that was the case for me. Weird that I went on to write a novel. but given that so i just was listening to it and i went wait a minute wait a minute this is very retro and i thought wow like how fun it would be to turn the tables my thin defense of it has always been it's thin i recognize it but i've always felt the need to defend because i just i love the song it's one of the great songs is it's it's under my thumb the girl who who once had me down yeah and so it's like he's bitter it was it was role reverse it was it wasn't that like men need to put their thumb on women or that mickey but necessarily in every relationship feels he's making it's his personal story yeah it's like she had me under her thumb and so now i've got now so he's just saying his truth there like he's just expressing his emotion yeah now yeah so i just thought it doesn't make it much better i just was thinking like you know in feminist terms that it would be fun to turn the tables on that and and and actually there's there's a lot of sexuality in that song i mean there's sexuality in rock and roll it is it is why we love it yeah you know it's intrinsic to the to the genre you know so i think it's so i thought i just it was intrinsic to everything it's it's it's all music really it's everything it was even in gospel in so many ways, you know, in an unspoken sort of way.

20:45I agree. Yeah. God, we could go on a deep, deep dive on that if we wanted to. We have to take a quick break, and then we'll come back with more of my interview with Susanna Hoffs. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Oocla Speedtest, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.

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24:32Terms apply. We're back with more from Susanna Hoffs. When you recorded the Bangles EP, what was that experience like? The EP, that was a little more, that was pre-getting signed to Sony. so that was with an amazing producer craig leon he was wonderful to work with wow he did the ramones yes suicide yeah he did the ramones and also i did he work with the gogos i don't think so but the ramones for sure blondie yeah blondie so cool yeah so blondie and the ramones were the notable bands that he had worked with that you know we were like okay yes please please produce SREP. Well, how did you get connected with him then?

25:17Our managers, maybe. We were at that point with Miles Copeland, who managed the police. And so it's possible that Miles, it must have been somehow connected through that. How did you get the Columbia contract? Well, it was the only record company who was interested in us. And Peter Philbin, the A &R guy, brought Bruce Springsteen to see us play at Magic Mountain. So Peter Philbin was the only music A &R guy that seemed to have taken an interest in the Bengals, even though we had a kind of, we were a popular local club band in Los Angeles and were playing, you know, tons of gigs at the Whiskey O 'Go-Go.

26:02And at a time when the LA scene was, the club scene was. It was happening. New Wave was happening. Punk rock was happening. There was kind of a, we were somewhere in the middle between new wave and punk rock. And we were something that was more like now deemed Paisley underground, which was we were a band in the 80s who were obsessed with music from the 60s and trying to drag those sounds and the 12 string guitar, electric guitar, like the birds and stuff like that into our sound. It was like the birds on guitars meets the mamas and papas. So the mamas and the mamas we would have been, you know.

26:39Yeah. So at that time we were, we were really part of a very vibrant scene in LA that wasn't punk, but had punk leanings and were scrappy. We weren't polished. We were thrift store wearing girls who were mostly self-taught. You know, there was no sort of American Idol sort of like world at that point. And we wouldn't have wanted that anyway. We were really, we were really a garage band. But anyway, it was basically kind of crickets from the record industry. Nobody was like, we weren't on anyone's radar until... Was that discouraging? Not really. I mean, we were young and kind of brash thinking.

27:22Like we were kind of, in some ways, we weren't focused. I wasn't focused on that. I wasn't like, the focus was not, and I think this is true for the whole band, the focus was not, we got to become pop stars. The focus was, you know, we want to connect with an audience and we want to be ourselves, you know, and I think that was a good thing about the band. We weren't there wasn't a Svengali who lined up a couple, you know, different people based on how they looked and then put them in with songwriters or anything like that. We were definitely a grassroots garage band. And interestingly, at the time that Miles Copeland took us on as management clients, he was also putting together a version of that other kind of band with Daryl Hannah was in it.

28:14Yeah, it was like all really beautiful sort of models and actresses that he found and made a girl called, what was it called? Oh, gosh, I could try to find out the name of it, the band that it was. I want to say American Girls, which sounds like the name of those dolls. Yeah. I want to get back to the Columbia stuff. But to your point of like Nos Fingali putting you together, it's interesting too, though, that you had Michael Steele in the group. The bass player. The bass player from The Runaways. Yes. Which kind of was, even though they were also kind of put together in a way. Kim Fowley. Kim Fowley, right?

28:52Yeah. Yeah, so Kim Fowley called me when I was living in the garage of my parents' home in West LA. And I just like, I had such radar, you know, I knew who he was. And I was like, no, thanks. You know. Was this before the Bengals? Yeah, it was like in the early days of the Bengals. Michael didn't join until there was a bass player, Annette Zelenskis, who was in the band in those early days. But right before, around the time, she wanted to leave to do more country and Western music and wasn't feeling comfortable in the band. And fair enough. I love Annette. We're really dear friends to this day.

29:31But she just wanted to move on. And that's when there was this opportunity for Michael Steele, who had been in the runaways, to join. And she was a very, very accomplished bass player. She loved playing bass. She has a gorgeous voice. Cool singer. Really cool singer, great songwriter. She was extraordinarily and is extraordinarily talented. So when she joined the band, everything kind of fell into place. And it was around then that Columbia sort of went. And it was just Peter Philbin. And he took Bruce Springsteen to see us at Magic Mountain in Valencia. And all I know is that Bruce must have liked us enough and said something and vetted us in some way.

30:11And I finally had a chance to thank him for that when he was at the, what's the Grammy salute to? The Grammy salute. Music Cares. Yeah, Music Cares Grammy salute. And Judd Apatow, who loves Bruce Springsteen, and Jon Stewart was the host that night. Jay and I got a seat at Judd's table, yet he had never met Bruce. And I said, well, I'll be brazen and just drag you over there and reintroduce myself to him, which I did. and I have this really cool picture where it's mostly that you see Bruce's wife Patty talking to Tom Hanks' wife Rita and in the background I'm smiling and I see and it's a profile of Judd and Bruce smiling at each other I'll show you that I have not seen Bruce since that no since the magic mountain what was it like meeting him then oh it was cool I mean we were so we didn't know he was coming to see us.

31:09So we were just like, what's happening? But I don't think that Bruce thinks of it this way or even particularly remembers seeing us at Magic Mountain, but I always put it together that the one label that wanted us, which was Columbia, or that were intrigued with us and made that track all the way from Century City to Valencia, which is a bit of a commitment, and also had the thought to bring Bruce Springsteen to see us? Like, here's this grungy little garage band, all-girl band. But all I know is that they made that offer shortly after that. So something he did must have been... He must have liked us enough.