All Over the Place

VICKI PETERSON EXPLAINS HOW FOUR BEATLES-CRAZED CALIFORNIA GIRLS WOOED 1984 WITH THEIR POWER-POP DEBUT

By Bill DeMain

The Bangles’ Vicki Peterson on stage in Minnesota, December 9, 1984

GUTCHIE KOJIMA/SHINKO MUSIC/GETTY IMAGES

GROWING UP IN the Sixties and early Seventies, all the future Bangles were mad for the Beatles. Susanna Hoffs used to pose in front of the mirror, pretending she was on stage with the Fabs. Michael Steele wore a mop-top wig and did skits in school. Debbi and Vicki Peterson dreamed of forming a band that would be the next Beatles.

“As I grew up, instead of wanting to marry Paul McCartney, I wanted to be him,” guitarist/vocalist Vicki Peterson says. “And it was kind of magical that the four of us found each other, because we all shared the same obsession with the British Invasion, and the Beatles especially. They were our musical school. Their songwriting structures, harmonizing, and even the fact that there were four strong personalities with three lead singers — we wanted to emulate that.”

By the early Eighties they were doing just that, as the Bangs (a lawsuit from another band with the same name forced them to add “les”). On the back of an indie-released EP, they carved out a tuneful niche in LA’s Paisley Underground scene, gigging at clubs like The Music Machine and Cathay de Grande. When they signed with Police manager Miles Copeland, one of his first moves was to put them on the road, ultimately building chops that would feed into their 1984 debut album All Over the Place.