Vicki Peterson Quotes

1. My hope is there will come a day when no girl ever has the issue of walking into a guitar store and the guy behind the counter looks at you strangely and says: "So, what kind of strings does your boyfriend use?" That's when you can say: "I don't know about him, but I use light tops and heavy bottoms!"  






2. We started the band because we did share a common love of a certain type of music that was a little before our time, and most of the people of our own age group weren't into it, so we found a camaraderie with these people who were in love with it… When you listen to our first EP, you say: "Oh, this is a band that worships the Seeds," because it sounds like they're playing through a Fender Deluxe on 11 and a Rickenbacker. And we were, because that's all we had at the time...

3. It took a while before it blossomed into a scene, but we met the guys in the Unclaimed very early on, before we'd even played with Susanna. We loved that band. And then very soon after we started playing around Los Angeles we met the Dream Syndicate and the Salvation Army, and that became our core friends. We always tried to get on the same bill with those bands.

4. We just want to keep recording songs that we enjoy and hope that the rest of the world enjoy them too, because we love playing music and have a great time doing it.

5. It was a slippery slope. By the time we released singles where it really was multiple vocals, it didn't really defuse that perception. People like to paint it as girls having a cat fight but it was more the frustration of not being perceived as a unit.

6. I wish more people knew that the Bangles began as a garage band, and I think the people who do know that about us appreciate us on a different level and in a more full way. To this day, when we play on stage we sound like a garage band. We're rough around the edges and play with that feel. But for all the people who only know "Walk Like an Egyptian" and "Eternal Flame", there's a whole different side to it.

7. We played everywhere, so we had kind of an eclectic crowd - everyone from punkers to rockabilly people to really straight people. We were dressing in thrift store versions of the 60s. One of our first big shows we had plastic dresses made - vinyl cut-outs and that sort of thing. Very mod.

8. The Bangles was sort of an outgrowth of the band I played in high school with my sister Debbi and my best friend at the time, Amanda, who was on bass. At one point in late 1980, we found ourselves down to Debbi and me. We met Susanna Hoffs through an advert in the paper and that started the Bangs (who later became the Bangles). Already, our fierce love of the music of the 60s was very much in evidence, and we started to run into other people in LA who had a similar obsessions.

9. We were lucky and got some press early on, plus we had recorded a 45 which we did almost immediately. We sort of did it ironically to secure our name, but that didn't work. Someone had told us: "Put a record out and no one will steal your name," which wasn't true. But that did get some airplay on KROQ and Rodney Bingenheimer was playing it. That helped create a little bit of notoriety and we used to get written up in the local paper.

10. "Mary Street" is sort of an updated version of "Georgy Girl". It's like talking to an old friend who has just decided she's going to break out of her self-consciousness. It's basically saying you can be who you want to be. Stop excusing yourself and just do it. It's something that we all went through.




11. One night a drunk came on stage and put Michael in a headlock. But she fought him off and continued playing.

12. I felt the first Bangles LP (1984's All Over the Place) was too slick for my taste. I listen to it now and it's barely in tune! I fought tooth and nail against having any keyboards on the record, and no synthesizers. If there were going to be strings, they had to be real strings. I was adamant about that. I lost that battle as we went on - my bandmates didn't care and they wanted to change musically. But there was also energy towards: "What's the single?" Which I was never comfortable with. It came from producer and label and my bandmates.


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