Saturday, June 26, 2010
While I'm standing here I don't keep score
BANGLES: Hello from the Bangles, we are here, are you?
QUESTION: What song do you feel best showed your talents as a group vocally and musically?
BANGLES - Debbi: I think "Hazy Shade of Winter." It gets to the whole group vocal thing. It's a rocking tune.
QUESTION: I heard that the new record is delayed because there is no record deal. Is this true and what is the ETA for a new record?
BANGLES - Vicki: It hasn't been delayed. We're putting things in motion and will have a recording in October.
QUESTION: You used David Lindley on two of your albums. What is your opinion of him as a musician and a person?
BANGLES - Michael: He was on Everything. Which doesn't mean he was on everything. Everything the album.
BANGLES - Vicki: David Lindley was fabulous. And I got to play his Mando-Cello.
QUESTION: I just want to say that I love all four of you ladies!!!! And do you plan to release a single soon for those of us that can't wait for your new album to come out? Like maybe "Get The Girl?"
BANGLES: Thank you.
BANGLES - Susanna: Probably nothing before January.
BANGLES - Vicki: And we love you too, you also can log onto http://www.hob.com/ and get something to tide you over.
QUESTION: How did the VH1 special help heal your wounds?
BANGLES - Susanna: Our wounds had already healed by that point.
BANGLES - Michael: That was for the viewing audience.
QUESTION: Your music style has changed over the years, from the garage rock to more Top 40. What would you say your style is like on your new songs?
BANGLES - Debbi and Susanna: Back to the roots.
BANGLES - Michael: We're back in the garage, but it's a posh garage.
QUESTION: What is your favorite cover song to sing?
BANGLES - Susanna: My personal favorite is "To Sir With Love". That's the first one that came into my mind, there are millions I love to sing.
BANGLES - Vicki: "Some of Shelley's Blues."
BANGLES - Susanna: That's a great song... Woo hoo! I think we should talk like this all the time
QUESTION: With a new album, in what ways are things different, and in what ways are things the same as they ever were.
BANGLES - Vicki: We don't know, we'll have to find out.
BANGLES - Susanna: We're happier now.
BANGLES - Vicki: I think people who like Bangles music in the 80s will be very pleased with us.
BANGLES - Susanna: We have more confidence.
BANGLES - Vicki: She said unconfidently, LOL.
BANGLES - Susanna: We have more awareness, a new attitude.
BANGLES - Vicki: Not a nude attitude, a new attitude.
QUESTION: My favorite bands are Queen, XTC, Depeche Mode, Moody Blues, Abba, The Bangles, Jellyfish, and a Czech band called X.E.T. What are your favorite bands? To all four of you.
BANGLES - Debbi: Great Choices. How about the Beatles, The Byrds, Zeppelin, The Continental Drifters?
BANGLES - Susanna: You didn't say the Bangles.
QUESTION: I saw you girls at your very first reunion show at Spaceland. What was that experience like? The crowd was really loving you guys!
BANGLES - Vicki: We were loving the whole night. We had a great time. It was a little rough, but we had a great time.
QUESTION: What did all of you think of the VH1's Behind The Music?
BANGLES - Debbi: It was very interesting. It's kind of interesting to see your life in fourty-five minutes.
BANGLES - Michael: It was kind of uncomfortable. I actually started breaking out in red spots.
BANGLES - Vicki: It was sort of like therapy in front of a camera.
BANGLES - Susanna: I was relieved when I saw it because I too felt some stress about it
BANGLES - Debbi: Baring your soul.
BANGLES - Susanna: Yes.
QUESTION: Michael, your songwriting ability seemed to grow by leaps and bounds from the first to the third Bangles album. "Glitter Years" is my favorite Bangles song. Was there any friction concerning the number of songs per album that each band member got? How were the songs that made the albums chosen?
BANGLES: It was kind of interesting trying to work that out. We all started growing at the same time and there was only so much space on the album. It was a little tricky.
QUESTION: I have heard you play Plimsouls music before your shows. Did you ever play with them in the early 80's? What was your opinion of them as a band?
BANGLES - Debbi: I like the Plimsouls.
BANGLES - Michael: I used to see them all the time in little old places like the Londoner.
QUESTION: Is there any musician that you would like to work with that you have not had the chance?
BANGLES - Susanna: I think it would be fun to do something with Chrissie Hynde. And Patti Smith, I really like Patti Smith. I met her two years ago and she was very very nice.
QUESTION: This is for Susanna. Are you ever going to release your third solo album?
BANGLES - Susanna: No plans at the moment to work on that. Basically I'm focusing 150% of my musical energies on the Bangles. Yahoo!
QUESTION: Who would the Bangles like to open up for them on tour next year?
BANGLES - Debbi: The Rolling Stones, LOL. Led Zeppelin.
BANGLES - Susanna: How cool that would be.
QUESTION: What music is in your stereo right now?
BANGLES - Susanna: Travis.
BANGLES - Vicki: Soundtrack to Virgin Suicides, Jules Shear's new album.
BANGLES - Susanna: Vicki is very cool.
BANGLES - Michael: My CD player got dropped at the awards.
BANGLES - Debbi: I have a three year-old son and I think I have Teletubbies and Blues Clues. He does like "I Want Candy" :).
QUESTION: Your early work was heavily influenced by surf music and I thought it gave your sound more of an edge. Do you still try to incorporate "surf" into your sound?
BANGLES - Vicki: Not consciously. The surf element is certainly subliminal.
BANGLES - Susanna: But I hope we keep the edge. But I think "Bitchin' Summer" is our real surfing song. It was an instrumental with some background music and a "Slinky" solo. LOL.
QUESTION: What was it like performing in the bars and clubs when you first started out as a band?
BANGLES - Michael: Sweaty and smoky and lots and lots of fun.
QUESTION: Hey girls, it's Melissa from Southern California. With the HOB Tour going on right now and the new album, will you be doing a bigger tour within the next year?
BANGLES: 2001 we think. The Bangles will definitely be touring in 2001 in support of the new record. Unless Vicki is on tour with the Drifters (she said sarcastically, with edge in her voice).
QUESTION: There are so few female-oriented acts on the road and included in recent package tours. Do you feel that "Lilith Fair" was a help or a hindrance towards getting further recognition for women in the music business?
BANGLES - Susanna: I say it was good. It's always good when artists are heard.
BANGLES - Vicki: I think that Lilith Fair reached its goal, which was to prove that women could sell concert tickets. That needs to be underlined. I wish there were more bands consisting of women entirely. There aren't that many of them.
BANGLES - Michael: It's strange, because we're (women) fifty percent of the world, there should be more of us in bands.
QUESTION: I saw you guys perform on a swaying overpass one time. Where was the most unusual place the band ever performed?
BANGLES: That one. You remember that. That person must be in Houston.
BANGLES - Susanna: That lives in our mind in infamy.
BANGLES - Vicki: My favorite part was the structural engineer running away.
BANGLES - Susanna: Beware of strange radio promotions where they put you on top of a freeway that's not opened yet, with 10,000 people jumping up and down.
BANGLES - Michael: That was almost the last Bangle show he or she was at.
QUESTION: At what point in the recording process do you lay your harmonies down and who arranges it?
BANGLES - Susanna: We arrange it. We do our own vocal arrangements and that comes after the song has been sketched out.
BANGLES - Vicki: We often have the background vocals figured out before we go into the studio.
BANGLES - Susanna: It's one of the most fun things to do actually. It's easy for us, the concept of four part harmonies is second nature. We kind of hear parts automatically, we just fall in eighty percent of the time without planning. It just stacks up. It's true. It comes out very naturally for us.
QUESTION: Hello, Michael. I'd like to know what brand and gauge of strings you use on your P-Bass and what is that little ellipse on the pick guard? Thanks.
BANGLES - Michael: Those are like mid-70's T-Basses. The sticker is something I got off a banana in a supermarket and it says irregular. And the bass is irregular. It's really ugly. Gauge is medium light, half medium, half light of gauges.
QUESTION: Do you feel confident about competing with the hip-hop/Britney Spears/boy band markets?
BANGLES - Vicki: There's no competition.
BANGLES - Susanna: What competition?
BANGLES - Vicki: We're not pretending to be sixteen. It's not really a condition.
BANGLES - Debbi: We're older and wider.
BANGLES: (Wild Laughter) We mean wiser.
QUESTION: Hey girls, this is Melissa from Southern California. I heard you on KROQ 106.7 here in Los Angeles today and you all seemed very excited to be back together making music. How did you all come together once again after you had your differences from the first time around?
BANGLES - Vicki: Watch Behind the Music and you'll get all the info.
BANGLES: We got back together to start writing songs and we've progressed very slowly and we're very happy to be doing this.
QUESTION: Will you ever put out a live album? Maybe after this HOB tour or next years full tour?
BANGLES: That would be totally cool. We've talked about it. It's always been a fantasy of ours.
BANGLES - Debbi: At some point we will. It would be fun. We could do our "Live from Budakan" album.
BANGLES - Vicki: Live from Bakersfield.
QUESTION: Have you ever visited Return Post, the best Bangles message board ever?
BANGLES - Vicki: Yes.
QUESTION: Are you going to tour Europe?
BANGLES - Debbi: We hope to next year.
QUESTION: Are you doing any new covers?
BANGLES - Vicki: Kind of, but we don't want to give it away.
QUESTION: What is your favorite Bangle moment on record?
BANGLES - Susanna: When we opened for Queen. I think we all agree that "Hazy Shade" is one of our favorite singles. I think winning the BPI Award and being on stage with Peter Gabriel, Eric Clapton, meeting George Martin. That was in London.
QUESTION: Did you gals really record in the nude? Or is that just a rumor?
BANGLES - Debbi: No, not this again.
BANGLES - Vicki: We only recorded stark naked.
BANGLES - Michael: We're naked now.
BANGLES - Debbi: You should see us now.
QUESTION: How big an influence are/were the Continental Drifters on the new Bangles songs?
BANGLES: I have to say we're influenced in some ways because we're gonna record "The Rain Song" which they did, but we managed to Banglify the song nicely.
QUESTION: Susanna, I read somewhere that you were asked to play the role that Chrissie Hynde had on Friends, any chance of any of you doing something like that?
BANGLES - Susanna: Debbi and I both were in the line-up sitting out in the hallway of the "Friends" casting office. I think they were looking for a backup in case Chrissie didn't come through. We were both called down to the "Friends" casting office. I visited there one other time. I didn't like it.
QUESTION: How was the experience in Japan and how did they react to being mentioned in "Walk Like an Egyptian"?
BANGLES - Susanna: They never said anything. The collective "They."
BANGLES - Michael: We never got any comment from the Japanese or the Egyptians. We heard from the police. They liked it. They were in the donut shop. They liked it. Even though it was a stereotype.
QUESTION: Do you support Napster, and music piracy?
BANGLES - Vicki: Music Piracy, hmm... It's a difficult realm to regulate. I support the idea of sharing music between friends but this gets into some dangerous territory here.
QUESTION: Is "Eternal Flame" based on any thing of importance to any of you?
BANGLES - Michael: Actually, the story of "Eternal Flame" is cool. We all went to Graceland and went to Elvis's grave and next to the grave there was a plastic box with rain water in it.
I asked a security guard what it was and he said it "was the eternal flame." We mentioned that it wasn't burning, and he said "It's a semi-eternal flame". LOL. The spirit of the song was inspired there. Blame it on Elvis. We were there in the trophy room. He had a black belt. I asked if Elvis was really a black belt and they said no, "they just gave it to him."
BANGLES - Vicki: Thanks so much. Sorry we couldn't get to all the questions and look forward to seeing you at Bangles shows. We'll come back and do it again.
Posted at 2:43 PM
