Vicki Peterson, guitarist for the Bangles, isn’t afraid to admit that she wasn’t keen to re-form the all-female group that became one of the hottest pop groups of the 1980s. Sure, the band Peterson founded in 1981 with her sister Debbi on drums and friend Susanna Hoffs as frontwoman, was a sensation and had major hits including “Walk Like an Egyptian” and “Manic Monday.” Yet when the band broke up in 1989, Peterson was ready to move onto other music. She did just that, playing with the rock group Continental Drifters and forming the Psycho Sisters with Susan Cowsill, her best friend and sister-in-law since 2003.
“There were many, many years where my line was you couldn’t pay me enough to cover the therapy I’d need to sing ‘Walk Like an Egyptian,’ ” said Peterson from the California home she shares with husband and Beach Boys drummer John Cowsill. “In the late 1990s when Susanna was coming around with increasing frequency saying, ‘I know you’re not interested, but if we did re-form … ,’ I said that I would only be interested if we were still creating music and we were still a viable band. I’m not interested in nostalgia.”
| Onstage |
| The Bangles |
| Date: 7 p.m. Thursday |
| Venue: 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW |
| Info: $25; 9:30.com; 800-955-5566 |
The band has officially been back together for more than a decade — recording “Get the Girl” for the 1999 Austin Powers movie “The Spy Who Shagged Me.” Yet it’s the Bangles’ September release “Sweetheart of the Sun” that has created high-energy buzz for the band. Although the songs on the album are clearly the Bangles’ signature pop sound, they also have plenty of contemporary twists that make them seem fresh.
That’s saying a lot for the musicianship of the band when you consider some of the songs on this new album — such as “Lay Yourself Down” — were written years ago. Although the trio have matured, the subject matter of the songs they write is still much the same, said Peterson.
“We are still writing about relationships and those dynamics and personal politics and emotions,” said Peterson. “They’re not brand-new relationships, but in many ways they’re better.
“Hopefully our maturity levels have changed. For the first time in my life I’m in an incredible, happy, wonderful relationship and marriage,” said Peterson, laughing as she noted a positive relationship doesn’t inspire as many songwriting topics as heartbreak does. “It kind of sucks for my writing, though.”
