THE BIG BANGLE THEORY

Judging by the way a certain four females are conquering the planet, it’s tempting to change the name of the famed world-creation theory from “the Big Bang" to (you guessed it) “the Big Bangle." The bombshell band continues to add new trophies to their expanding list of accomplishments. Just take a look at their resume:

Their second LP, Different Light has sold over two million copies (double platinum plus!); “Manic Monday” reached #2 in the charts; “Walk Like An Egyptian” checked in at #1 for four weeks, making the Bangles one of the few female bands to ever accomplish such a feat; they won Best Group Performance at the 1987 American Video Awards for “Walk Like An Egyptian”; their headlining U.S. tour this year was a complete sell-out. . .yada, yada, yada. Get the picture? The Bangles are at the top and they promise to remain there for a long while to come. Here’s Susanna Hoffs, Debbi and Vicki Peterson and Michael Steele to tell you themselves. . .

With over two decades of girl groups before you—from the Supremes to the Go-Go’s—do you find that people attempt to apply stereotypes to the band?

MICHAEL: Just being a rock musician is a strange thing. People put these stereotypes on you but they also put stereotypes on women in general. Have you noticed that it’s almost cartoon-like? There’s the good wife and mother, there’s the harlot, the Donna Rice.. . People always ask us if we’re fighting and being catty with each other. People can’t seem to say “the Bangles are people, too,” know what I mean? People have a lot of problems with that concept.

When your original bass player, Annette Zilinskas, left the group, did you intentionally replace her with a female or did you also audition guys?

DEBBI: We did try out fellas for bass. When we were looking for a bass player we tried out all sorts of people. Midgets! Nah, just kidding. But when we found

Michael, it was perfect. Sure, we thought the girl-thing was cool, ’cause we could be like a glee club or something and talk about guys. It seemed more fun to us, the all-girl concept. And it is fun. Plus, as individuals, we all get along really well, so as a group, the chemistry works.

Do people assume that you’re feminists just because you’re female?

MICHAEL: Sometimes, but we’re not a heavy, feminist kind of band, though we owe a lot to the women who stuck their necks out so that we can do what we’re doing.

VICKI: But it wasn’t other women artists who inspired us to play. It was really the Beatles and the Hollies and others. We were lucky because we grew up in the post-feminist period, so instead of fighting for rights, we just assumed them. We didn’t have to think that we couldn’t do this because it’s a male-dominated industry—we’d just do it. (laughs) Then we found out that it is a male-dominated industry!

MICHAEL: Our message is freedom of the individual, which is a basic American right, and that seems to upset a lot of fundamentalist religious people like Jim Bakker.

You've been criticized for using outside musicians on Different Light Why didn’t you perform more on the recordings? Why were session players used?

VICKI: We’ve run into situations where you’re working on a song and you want to get a certain tonality or feeling to it, or even a certain groove, and you realize that you aren’t quite capable of pulling that off just yet. There are certain sounds that we wanted that we just had to get from someone else.

SUSANNA: I felt that the experience of making both records was emotional. I didn’t have a problem with that (using session men). I think that we have a certain sound, especially the way we sing together, that sort of defines what we are. I think there are occasions though, when other musicians can play on a record and can play a certain style we don’t know.

VICKI: For the most part, it’s our desire to just record the sound of the band. That’s something we actually haven’t achieved yet in our recording history, except for our first EP which was so quickly and loosely done. That was just the band plugging in and playing.

How will the upcoming album be different?

SUSANNA: It’ll be sparser and a little bit more simple, the way we naturally play. And that has a lot do with the songs.

VICKI: With Different Light, a lot of the songs were more sensitive, more midtempo and sweeter, less hard-edged. And that was a reflection of how we did them as well.

SUSANNA: If you write a song in a certain beat that’s not a rock ’n’ roll beatthen we’re going outside the realm of what we know. We don’t know that much. We’re very instinctive about music. We play with our.. .what would you call it?

MICHAEL: Sense of smell, (laughs)

SUSANNA: Something like that. Some other kind of sense rather than through any real intellectual knowledge of it. That’s why we like to work with good arrangers. David Kahne (Different Light's producer) taught us a lot about arrangement but we were always good at arranging our vocals. We always had a good sense of that from day one.

Were you always confident that the band was going to make it? Has the band’s success always been such a high priority?

DEBBI: It was the biggest thing. Basically it was in my head that this band was numero uno. I always knew it was going to do something. I didn’t know what, but it was going to do something.

The band really started taking off when Prince became interested and gave you “Manic Monday” to record. There have been many rumors about his intentions. Once and for all, what’s the scoop?

SUSANNA: Like I’ve said before, we’re just friends. It was really exciting for us to know that he was interested. It was a great endorsement. Personally, it was very flattering.

Susanna, what made you decide to debut in the film, The Allnighter (directed by her mother, Tamara Hoffs)?

SUSANNA: Actually, it was sort of a whim. Something that came up from out of the blue. There was time between tours, so I thought, “Why not?”

Most of all, what do you want the band to accomplish?

SUSANNA: We want people to remember our songs.

MICHAEL: We’re very song-oriented people. We’re not oriented toward playing like Alan Holdsworth or Yngwie Malmsteen. Basically we’re glorified folk singers who’re playing a garage/thrash/electric thing. That’s pretty much what we are and that’s not virtuoso-type stuff.

Do you remember the first time you heard a song of yours on the radio?

SUSANNA: That was in L.A. We put out a single, “Getting Out Of Hand,” and

Rodney Bingenheimer played it (on KROQ). I always have the same reaction when I hear one of our songs: I don’t recognize it for a few bars. It’s funny, because I can hear one note of a Stones song and know what it is. It’s strange. Disconcerting, somehow.

With Different Light, you’ve earned double-platinum status, four hit singles and world-wide acclaim. With such success already achieved, what’s your next goal?

VICKI: I want a song that a member of the band writes to get up there. This is a very feminine thing to say, but once we’ve got our own washer and dryer we will have made it. So we haven’t made it yet!

So what’s next? Little Banglettes, maybe?

MICHAEL: Ha! We never wanted to have the usual 2.5 children. Maybe someday. The road’s really hard; it’s such an unnatural way to live. With four of us, kids would be a bit much. We’d have to get road nannies.

VICKI: (laughs) We do have different concerns. We’re looking for house-husbands to stay home and take care of the babies. We’re going to wait until science figures out a way for men to get pregnant, then we’ll work on it.