Background and career
Susanna Lee Hoffs (born January 17, 1959) is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actress. With Debbi Peterson and Vicki Peterson, she founded the Bangles in 1981. Their debut album, All Over the Place (1984), was acclaimed by critics but sold poorly. Their second album, Different Light (1986), was also warmly received by critics and was certified double-platinum in 1987 and triple-platinum in 1994. It contained the US number two single "Manic Monday" written by Prince and the number one single "Walk Like an Egyptian." The group's third album, Everything (1988), included the US top ten charting "In Your Room" and number one "Eternal Flame," both written by Hoffs with Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly. Hoffs was lead vocalist on five of the seven singles released by the Bangles, resulting in her being seen as the face of the group even though all four members shared lead vocal duties. Following tensions including resentment at Hoffs' perceived leadership and the stress of touring, the band split in 1989. They reformed in 1999 and released the albums Doll Revolution (2003) and Sweetheart of the Sun (2011). Hoffs' first solo album, When You're a Boy (1991), was followed by Susanna Hoffs (1996). Neither of the releases proved to be as popular as the Bangles' albums, although they yielded two charting singles in the US, the top 40 hit "My Side of the Bed", and "All I Want". She recorded several songs for films and formed the faux-British 1960s band Ming Tea with Mike Myers and Matthew Sweet. Hoffs teamed with Sweet to produce Under the Covers, a series of cover song albums. Her 2012 album Someday was followed by two more cover albums Bright Lights (2021) and The Deep End (2023). Hoffs' first novel, This Bird Has Flown, a romantic comedy about a struggling musician, was published by Little Brown in 2023. It received favorable reviews, and Universal Pictures purchased the rights to the novel for a screen adaptation.
Susanna Lee Hoffs was born in Los Angeles, California, on January 17, 1959. She is the daughter of film director/writer/producer Tamar Ruth (née Simon) and Joshua Allen Hoffs, a psychoanalyst. Her family is Jewish. She has two brothers, John and Jesse. She has said that her home environment "wasn't really traditional" and that it was an "atheist, intellectual, creative world". She said that while her mother was religious and kept kosher during her own childhood, her father was secular. Her maternal grandfather, Ralph Simon, was a rabbi in Chicago and her maternal uncle, Matthew Simon, was rabbi emeritus for the B'nai Israel Congregation of Maryland and marched with Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights movement. Hoffs visited Israel for the first time at the age of 12 to see her grandparents, and she celebrated her bat mitzvah at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Hoffs took ballet classes as a child, and started playing guitar in elementary school, learning chords from her uncle. She attended Palisades High School, and received a bachelor's degree in art in 1980 from the University of California, Berkeley, where she switched majors between dance, theater, film, and art. While in college, she worked as a production assistant and made her acting debut as part of a cast that included Richie Davis, Rae Dawn Chong, and Dennis Franz, in the 1978 film Stony Island directed by Andrew Davis and co-written by her mother. With college friends, she attended the final Sex Pistols show at Winterland Ballroom and a Patti Smith concert that inspired her to pursue a career in music. In the late 1970s, while a student at UC Berkeley, Hoffs and her then-boyfriend David Roback formed the Psychiatrists, later changing their name to the Unconscious. In one account, Hoffs said that the short-lived group would perform for 50 minutes, to reflect the duration of "psychiatrists' hours", but in a 2012 interview she said that this early group never performed in public.
Back home after college in the summer and fall of 1980, Hoffs sought potential bandmates by posting an ad in the local free newspaper The Recycler, and leaving hand-drawn flyers in the ladies' room of the Whisky a Go Go at a Go-Go's concert. In December, she answered an advertisement looking for musicians to join a group. The woman who had placed the ad had previously been in a band with sisters Vicki and Debbi Peterson and shared a house with them, but was not at home when Susanna called. When Vicki picked up the phone, she and Susanna hit it off, talking about favorite bands and the recent death of John Lennon, and what he meant to them both. When the Petersons met up with Hoffs at the latter's apartment in her parents' garage in Brentwood, they decided to start a band. They originally named their group the Colours, but changed it to the Supersonic Bangs after Hoffs saw an article about 1960s hairstyles in an old copy of Esquire – and subsequently shortened their name to the Bangs. Hoffs said that the group "liked the double-entendre of the name" and that "you can read a lot into it. There was something kind of gutsy about it." Annette Zilinskas joined as the group's bass player alongside Hoffs on rhythm guitar, Vicki Peterson on lead guitar, and Debbi Peterson on drums. The group's influences included The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and The Hollies, among other '60s groups. Hoffs and the Petersons shared lead vocals. Hoffs said that the band's "first real performance" was at Laird International Studios, where Vicki worked as a secretary. The Bangs played other venues and began to gain a following in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley throughout 1981, and recorded their debut single, "Getting Out of Hand" b/w "Call on Me," releasing it on their own Downkiddie Records label. The first pressing of 1,000 copies would soon sell out, and subsequent pressings would eventually reflect their next name change. In a 1987 Rolling Stone article, the critic Susan Orlean described the band's early audience as "mostly boys, who appreciated their tough-enough music and playfully flirtatious stage presence". Author James Dickerson later characterized the group's loyal audience as "made up of horny high-school and college-age males who relished their in-your-face sexuality", and commented that the musicians had gained their success through their own efforts, without intervention from any man. Miles Copeland of I.R.S. Records saw the Bangs at a show and signed them to his Faulty Products label. He had previously signed the Go-Go's, likewise an all-female band, whose albums had been commercially successful. In 1982, following a legal claim by another group called the Bangs, Hoffs and her bandmates changed their name again to the Bangles. Meanwhile, Faulty Products folded, and the band's self-titled EP was eventually released on I.R.S. Records in 1982. In 1983, the group was signed to Columbia Records, and Zilinskas left and was replaced by Michael Steele. Hoffs also played a role in a student film in 1982, The Haircut, a comedy short starring John Cassavetes.
The Bangles released their first full album, All Over the Place, in 1984 on Columbia Records; it was acclaimed by critics but sold poorly. Their breakthrough was the 1986 single "Manic Monday", written by Prince, which reached number two on the charts in the US, the UK, West Germany and Austria, as well as reaching number one in South Africa and the top five in Sweden, Switzerland and Norway. This single was included on the album Different Light (1986), which was warmly received by critics and was certified double-platinum in 1987, then triple-platinum in 1994. "Walk Like an Egyptian" from the same album reached number one in the US in December 1986, and was their first American gold record single. It also became number one in the charts for Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, and West Germany. Dickerson wrote that "Manic Monday" and "Walk Like an Egyptian" were more appealing to women and girls than the band's previous records had been. Hoffs first met Prince in 1984 and the pair spoke regularly. He attended some of the group's concerts and occasionally appeared on stage with them. Paul Evans and Ernesto Lechner of The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) wrote that Hoffs had "mastered a singing style that combined pep, coy sweetness, and an occasional plaintive resonance". In the music video for "Walk Like an Egyptian", during a close-up of Hoffs' face, she moves her eyes from side to side. Hoffs recounted that she had been looking at selected members of the crowd to counter stage fright, and had not realized it would be a focal point in the video. Tom Breihan of Stereogum wrote of the scene: "But it's so cool. It makes her look like she's up to some mischief." The television director Marty Callner later said: "I saw situations where one shot would make a star, like with Susanna Hoffs and 'Walk Like an Egyptian.' That thing she did with her eyes." In 2011, she said: "I guess it's become an iconic moment in that video, and I didn't even realize it was happening." A 1986 London performance by the Bangles was reviewed by David Sinclair of The Times, who felt that the band "proved unconvincing in performance", although Hoffs "was by and large the best at creating a mood of emotional involvement. Her clear, fragile voice and coquettish enunciation were reminiscent of Stevie Nicks." In the same paper a few months later, Richard Williams also compared Hoffs to Nicks, writing that Hoffs' "dark eyes, dangerous pout and fancifully sexy costumes [that] match her sultry voice" were reminiscent of the Fleetwood Mac singer. He concluded that Hoffs was "an equally obvious candidate for a successful solo career". The Bangles had another US number two single with a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "A Hazy Shade of Winter" released in late 1987 and reaching its peak position in February 1988. Following a successful tour, the group issued their third and final Columbia album Everything in 1988. The first single, "In Your Room", co-written by Hoffs with Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, became a US top ten hit. The same album included their second US number one, and second American gold record single, "Eternal Flame", which was also co-written by Hoffs, Steinberg and Kelly. The single also topped the chart in eight other countries. Hoffs sang the studio recording of "Eternal Flame" naked due to producer Davitt Sigerson pranking her by telling her Olivia Newton-John had done the same thing. He later told Hoffs he had just been pulling her leg. As the studio was dark, and Hoffs was standing behind a sound baffle, she could not be seen.
Hoffs was lead vocalist on five of the seven Columbia singles by the Bangles, leading to a public perception that she was the primary singer and face of the group, even though all four members shared lead vocals, and Steele and Peterson did most of the talking between songs in concert. As she was shorter in height than the other band members, photographs tended to feature her at front. She was the lead actress in The Allnighter (1987) and gained Prince's attention. Orlean wrote that the cumulative effect was to "vault Susanna into beyond-Bangles celebrity status".
In 1989, while still popular, the Bangles disbanded to undertake individual projects. There had been tensions and disquiet in the group since Different Light; they saw themselves as musical creators, but their biggest successes had been versions of songs written by others. The public perception of Hoffs as bandleader took a toll on group harmony. In an interview for a 2002 book, Hoffs pinpointed the stress of touring as the breaking point. In her account, she recalled that the band members were tired and reluctant to tour, but agreed to do so at the behest of their management and record company, and in response to demand from their fans. According to the book's authors Lee Miller and Jessica Miller, "The situation deteriorated so badly that they canceled the tour abruptly and the band split up. Susanna always blamed the stress of that final tour for the breakup". Hoffs contacted the other members of the Bangles in the late 1990s with the hope of reuniting. In 2008, she told Andrew Murfett of The Age: "I wanted to do new Bangles music. I was driving the other girls crazy calling them. I didn't want to be a 'greatest hits' band. I wanted to write and sing new songs. That was really important to Vicki and Debbie, too. We didn't want to go on a 'Ladies of the 1980s' tour." The reunited Bangles played at a Beatles tribute concert conducted by George Martin, and recorded the single "Get the Girl" for the second Austin Powers film in 1999. In 2000 they announced their decision to reunite full-time. Hoffs recounted that following the experiences that led to the group disbanding in 1989, the band members agreed that each would have a veto on the group's proposed activities. Their fourth album, Doll Revolution, was released in 2003; it received positive reviews, and sold moderately well. The group embarked on a tour following its release. Their fifth album, Sweetheart of the Sun, was released in 2011; it received an average score of 69 on review aggregator site Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Evans and Lechner felt that the band "achieved gigantically the dubious triumph of sound over significance", and of the "inevitable reunion" that "even nostalgia has its limits". Robert Christgau rated all of the albums from their first incarnation B− or above and gave Doll Revolution three stars.
