The Bangles will be releasing
Sweetheart Of The Sun, the band's fifth studio album and first album of new material in nearly eight years, on September 13th. In October, they will hit the road for a tour. Susanna Hoffs talked with us recently about the new album, touring, her solo album, her favorite songs, advice for new bands, and one night in Chapel Hill twenty years ago.
How are you doing today?Good! It's been busy already. Besides doing The Bangles thing, I've been recording up a storm and writing up a storm, working with Matthew Sweet on
Under the Covers, Vol. 3 as well as a solo record I've been trying to make my whole life. It's been a good, creative year.
That's good! Sweetheart Of The Sun is The Bangles' first album in almost eight years. What made you guys decide that now was the time to release some new tunes?We've been meaning to do it. Our lives are fairly complicated because we're all moms, working mothers. It becomes a challenge to block out the time. It took us a long time on the record partly because we never had this ability to just stop everything in our lives and hunker down and do it.
A lot of people don't know we're still a band. We do tour a lot, but it's always under the radar. We don't do really long, focused tours. We did three tours of Australia: 2005, 2008, and 2010, so that took some time out of our schedules. We just kept saying, "Oh, we'll do the record when we're done with this or we're done with that." We finally got to a point where we were like, "We've got to stop going out and doing these little runs and focus our energy on getting in the studio."
Believe it or not but Sweetheart Of The Sun is only The Bangles' fifth studio album of their thirty-year career and first since 2003. While the band may no longer be walking like Egyptians, The Bangles return with a dozen folksy and garage bandish songs packed with the band's signature harmonies and Susana Hoffs' seductive purr. Standout tracks include "Ball & Chain," "Lay Yourself Down," "I'll Never Be Through With You," "Anna Lee (Sweetheart Of The Sun)," and my personal favorite, "Under A Cloud."
How are you doing today?
