When last we talked to the Bangles, in the year 2000, the four rock 'n' roll women were taking baby steps toward a reunion.
After sitting out the '90s, the Bangles had put their acrimonious split behind them and were playing live shows again – joyous and celebratory concerts that proved they still had great chemistry and fire – and socking away the gig money to fund a new album, the first since Everything in 1989.
The album is here. Called Doll Revolution, it is at once a logical continuation of the broken thread and a mature declaration of independence from the shackles of the MTV–era fame that boxed them in, and did them in.
Produced by the band and Brad Wood, Doll Revolution is on the band's own imprint, Downkiddie Records, and leased in the U.S.A. by Koch (it was released in the spring in Japan and Europe). They turned down several major labels in favor of the DIY approach because they wanted to, well, do it themselves.
"We were going to be the full–on tastemakers," says rhythm guitarist Susanna Hoffs. "We didn't have to answer to anybody, we didn't have to change anything. That was great for us."
The Bangles broke up in 1990 when Hoffs was lured away for a solo deal. In the intervening years, she said, she started to miss her longtime bandmates.
"I was very instrumental in driving everybody crazy getting the band back together," she laughed. "The other girls will corroborate my story here, but I was very determined to be a Bangle again and make music with the girls.
"But I had to face the fact that it might not happen."
That was because the four musicians had made post–Bangles lives for themselves – Hoffs and drummer Debbi Peterson got married and had kids – and if the bitterness had faded, priorities had certainly changed.
"Basically," said lead guitarist Vicki Peterson, "our lives comes first. Our families come first. There's a little bit of perspective that we have now that we didn't have before."
So they took their time making Doll Revolution. "There was a period of time when it all felt tenuous and we were just checking it out, checking it out," said Peterson. "It was actually pretty early on when we all look at each other and said OK, we're committed. Let's really go for this."
Bassist Michael Steele was the last Bangle to come on board, but when she did, it was almost as if the '90s had never happened.
During that decade, "What was missing was that musical rapport that we have," Hoffs said. "That fit when we sing together. That '60s orientation, musically. It's just how we play.
"I could never get anyone else I ever worked with to understand the vocal thing. I played with some amazing players that blew me away – I was really, really lucky, and that was really cool. But I could never get the vocal thing."
All four women are strong songwriters, and adept instrumentalists, but it's their vocal blend – Rodney Bingenheimer called them "The Mamas & the Mamas" – that evokes strong ties to the restlessly creative and Beatle–esque '60s.
From Steele's "Nickel Romeo" to Hoffs' "Something That You Said" and any number of Peterson–penned tracks, the music on Doll Revolution is richly–textured vocally, and could shelf proudly next to stone Bangles classics like "Hero Takes a Fall" and "Going Down to Liverpool."
The important thing, to them, was that the pressure was off: If nobody cared about a new Bangles album, they were happy with the music they made.
"We found a really comfortable way of doing it, where we had a loving producer presence in the studio, and we just got to play and have fun," said Hoffs.
"We kept going 'Why aren't we upset? Why isn't this more stressful?' There wasn't that sort of terrifying angst and stuff we used to experience in the '80s."
Added Peterson: "We did not go into the studio with any of those preconceived concepts. We didn't go into the studio thinking 'Let's pretend it's 1990 and it's our next record … how does everyone feel? No, you can't bring your kids to the studio, they don't exist yet.'"
"It was 'Out of the 37 songs we've written over the last X number of years, which ones shall we try? OK, how do you want to approach that? OK, let's go, plug in. What key is it in?'"
Several tunes will be familiar to Bangles fans: "Between the Two" was a live favorite in the Everything era. "Ask Me No Questions" appeared on Kindred Spirit, an album Debbi Peterson made with Siobhan O'Maher, and Vicki Peterson recorded "The Rain Song" with the Continental Drifters.
"Those were songs that happened in the intervening, Bangle–free years for us," Peterson explained, "where there was a moment or two or three when we would say to ourselves 'Gosh, I wonder what it would sound like with the Bangles singing that? Well, I'll never know.'"
Picking the songs for Doll Revolution – the title comes from Elvis Costello's feisty "Tear Off Your Own Head," which opens the album – was tough, Hoffs said.
"It's like what they say about too many chefs in the kitchen. That's what makes bands amazing, and it's what makes it hard. It's tricky doing creative work by committee. But I wouldn't want to do it any other way.
"It's finding that balance between having a strong, defined vision of how a song should sound and then also being really open–minded and spontaneous."
According to Peterson, "We tried to keep as much of an equitable split as possible. It doesn't generally work out that everyone has 3.75 vocals on the record, but it almost does. The songwriting splits are very close.
"It's one of the problems–slash–blessings of having a band with four writers and four singers. This is who we are, and it's one of the problems we try to take on when we decide to make a record."
"It couldn't be, say, 10 songs of mine and one of Debbi's," Hoffs said. "We wanted to make it very balanced in every way."
Hoffs, who's married to "Austin Powers" director Jay Roach, said the Bangles today are different from the women who wore too much makeup in the "Walk Like an Egyptian" video, and allowed themselves to be pulled apart by a manager who massaged certain egos but not others. They're friends again.
"I'm just so happy to be making the music," she explained. "I like to play live, I like to make records, I like to write songs and I like to be in the Bangles. So it works, for me.
"For me, the dream changed. It's about just being able to make music and not worry about all that other stuff. That's success to me."
Engaged to John Cowsill (they're planning an October wedding), Peterson is loving life in the Bangles, circa 2003. "I'm getting married to my fiance, I'm not married to the Bangles," she said. "Whereas in our last go–round, we were married to the band and to each other. And it was not a healthy relationship."