'If we were boys, we'd have just punched each other'

The Bangles were one of the most successful groups of the Eighties. As a new book dives into their decade of stardom the band speak to Adam White about their highs and lows

- Adam White

In the autumn of 1989, and just six months after their irrepressibly pretty “Eternal Flame” had hit the top of the charts the world over, The Bangles imploded. It had been an intense run. Three years earlier, they’d reached No 1 with the novelty smash “Walk Like an Egyptian”. A year before that, Prince had jammed with the jangle-pop unknowns on stage in an LA nightclub and offered them a song he thought they might like – “Manic Monday”.

Why The Bangles broke up has been subject to debate. Was it the result of an ambitious member with her eye on solo stardom? Or was their management a set of nefarious businessmen who’d divided, conquered and destroyed one of the most significant bands in modern American history? That might have been it. Or maybe The Bangles began fraying much earlier, the inevitable finale for a group whose most famous tracks were sonically at odds with their initial punk-rock leanings. Perhaps, even, it was all to do with their name. Because of a potential lawsuit from a pre-existing band, The Bangs – loud, made-you-look, not rigidly gendered – became the softer, more overtly feminine The Bangles. The writing may have been on the wall from there.

Eternal Flame, a new biography cum oral history of the group by the music journalist and cultural historian Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, does not provide an easy answer to the demise of The Bangles – but therein lies its unexpected thrill. The same incidents are recalled in different ways. Three members of the band’s lineup – Susanna Hoffs and sisters Vicki and Debbi Peterson, who all shared vocals while playing different instruments – contribute separately, celebrating their incredible highs and often disagreeing on their most destructive lows. Producers, songwriters and friends including Boy George and Terence Trent D’Arby supply their two cents.