“What’s that song I love so much?” Susanna Hoffs asks nobody in particular. She’s trying to remember the name of the Andy Kim song she’s been obsessing over the past few weeks. The title escapes her at the moment, but the feelings provoked by the melody and lyrics certainly do not. They’re seared into her psyche. She sings a few bars to herself before reaching the chorus like an epiphany.
“It’s ‘Baby I Love You!’” she exclaims with relief and excitement. “It’s a Ronettes song, but he makes it sound almost like Sonny & Cher. I got into a thing where I go for a morning walk and I put that song on repeat.”
The former Bangle turned solo artist, Hoffs has ventured deep into an Andy Kim rabbit hole lately, listening to old hits like “Rock Me Gently” and “Sugar, Sugar” (which he co-wrote for the Archies). She’s not overly concerned with his place in the SoCal songwriter scene, but focuses more closely on the sound of his music and the emotions it elicits. “You don’t have to be a historian. You just have to want to hear the song when you want to hear it. It’s a feeling you need.”
More than a connoisseur, Hoffs is a dedicated fan who has always found interesting ways to translate her obsessions into pop music, first with the Bangles back in the 1980s, then as a covers duo with Matthew Sweet, and now again as a novelist publishing her debut fiction (This Bird Has Flown) and a solo artist releasing her first collection of original material in more than 15 years.
The List is an album of bittersweet reminiscences, about the regrets of the past and the contentments of the present. Hoffs sings about a brief meeting with the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir and recounts a list of past lovers that led to her long marriage to director Jay Roach. Music serves as a connection to the past and the many selves that existed over time, but it always points back to the current Susanna Hoffs, an artist defined by her fascinations.
Featuring contributions from Edie Brickell, Rufus Wainwright, songwriter Dan Wilson, and musician C.J. Camiereri (Bon Iver), these songs draw from her beloved trove of ‘60s pop, with bold melodies and nuanced performances that recall the brassy pop of Dusty Springfield as well as the dusty country rock of Buffalo Springfield. In fact, the best originals here sound like covers of old songs you’ve been singing for years.
BGS: I wanted to ask you about the song “Casablanca,” which you’ve explained is about meeting Bob Weir.
Hoffs: Yeah, so it was 1988. The Bangles were on tour opening for George Michael, and during the course of that tour, I noticed that in the lobby of some of the hotels we were staying at, there were a lot of kids wandering around in Grateful Dead T-shirts. And then when we got to New Orleans, we had a few days off and I was just biding my time, wandering around the lobby of our hotel when I saw a van pull up. A guy with a briefcase got out, and I identified him as the tour manager. Then suddenly the Grateful Dead poured out of the back of the van. I got up the courage to ask the tour manager, “Is that…? Am I dreaming this?”
The Bangles were one of the biggest bands in the world at that time. It’s wild that you were starstruck.
I told him we were opening for George Michael, and he noted that they had a couple of days off. He said, “Why don’t you come out to Lake Pontchartrain and hang out with the Grateful Dead at the Neville Brothers’ place?” I told the other girls in the band, and we all went out to Lake Pontchartrain. Jerry Garcia was there. He had a new baby. Bob just came up to me and said, “Do you wanna go for a walk?” “Oh yes, I would love to walk with you.” So we walked and walked and got to know each other, and he was so fantastic and so kind to take me under his wing.
And that walk continued when you got back to New Orleans, right?
We were both big walkers. I’m a person who walks every day. It keeps me sane. So he said, “Let’s go for a walk in the French Quarter.” At one point he was holding a rose, and I don’t know where he got it. He was gesticulating with this rose as he was regaling me with all these stories. I glanced over my shoulder and there was this sea of Deadheads around us. But they were so polite, just following behind the leader, Bob Weir, the Pied Piper.
It just went from there. He asked us if we wanted to sing harmonies on “Iko Iko” and all these other famous songs from New Orleans. And we did. People were throwing Mardi Gras beads. It was one of those memorable and unforgettable moments in my life as a musician. Bob was so kind.
Did you ever bump into him again?
We bumped into each other at a Grammy event not long before he passed away. I got to meet his gorgeous wife, who was so sweet, and their daughter. I got a picture taken with him, and it’s something I’ll always cherish.
At what point did you know you wanted to write a song about that meeting?
I was doing a suite of new songs with some of my favorite musicians. I had met a whole bunch of brand-new friends and collaborators, including C.J. Camiereri and Grant Milliken, who’s a brilliant engineer. It turns out that my house has really good acoustics, so we spent a year and a half, maybe two years here making music. Now and then we’d schedule people to come over, and it all evolved into this album. We’re still going, too. We’ve been recording for other projects that you’ll know about before too long.
It usually starts with me making coffee, and we sit around and just tell stories. I started telling them and Dan Wilson about meeting Bob Weir because I know Dan is a huge Grateful Dead fan. Something triggers a memory, and you think, “Oh yeah, what about that? What about that adventure I had?” Songs are born from the stories of our own lives, even when we don’t realize it. It can take you by surprise. And when you have this delicious group of creators and songwriters who can’t live without music, it becomes this mystical thing. I guess I don’t really know exactly where music comes from, but I know I love it and can’t live without it. I need that feeling. I crave it. It’s a feel-good thing. It’s like medicine. Like, which medicine do I take right now for how I’m feeling?
Without all the side effects.
And it’s pretty much free. Well, you don’t need a prescription, at least.
I was struck by the very casual feel of this record. I would imagine it was very freeing to get away from the pressure of a studio and just hang out at home with friends.
It was very casual. It’s just a bunch of musical people creating stuff together. It’s the perfect job, at least for me. It’s not even a job. It’s a pleasure. A studio can be kind of cold, plus I don’t have to pay for the studio time! Everything’s just cozier here. There was something warm about the experience. It was a fun adventure.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Under the Covers collaborations I did with Matthew Sweet. There was a long period in my life when I would drive up to his studio in the hills and we would record in a very similar fashion at his home. It’s just a different vibe than being in a fancy studio. There are still some songs floating around that we never got to release, and someday I would like to do that as well.
I feel like you would have a very different approach to creativity in that setting. Maybe you would write songs differently or play differently.
I think about the old days, when folk musicians worked together and the immediacy of it all, the warmth of the connection between other human beings. It’s a mystery how people create things. I was reflecting on that idea in my novel, This Bird Has Flown. It had always been a dream to write a novel, which is a very solitary journey, very different from musical collaboration—although there was something about writing about a musician that was really fun, too. I had to figure out what the language was, and I had to think about how we come up with songs and why we do it. It’s a magical mystery.
There’s just something about music. My mother was always playing the car radio back in the ‘60s, when I was a little girl. I was just enchanted, especially with female singers like Jackie DeShannon, Dusty Springfield, and Joni Mitchell. I’m not a trained musician. I mean, I can look at a chart and make sense of it, but I’m self-taught. I taught myself by learning the nuances of those singers. I would sing along to the radio. I just couldn’t help myself. That’s how I learned, and that’s still what I do.
Did writing your novel change the way you listen to songs or write songs?
That’s a good question, and I’m still thinking about that because there are some adaptations happening—possibly a theater or film adaptation. CJ and I and our friend Ryan Lerman, we’ve started writing songs that could work for This Bird Has Flown, whether it’s for film or theater. That’s the next fun hurdle.
The last song on the album, “What Are Wings For,” is from that project, right?
Yes! CJ invited me down to Austin to work on the adaptation, and we wrote about six songs during that visit. It was fast and furious and fun, working with him and Edie Brickell. It was interesting for me, as the novelist writing about a one-hit wonder who finds her voice by the end of the story.
There were so many things from my own life that I drew on, like Prince. He’s one of the greatest musicians ever to grace the planet. When he discovered the Bangles, he had me come to Sunset Sound, which is an iconic studio in Hollywood. He sent me a cassette with “Manic Monday” on it, and I still have it. It’s a treasured thing. It was wonderful that Prince wanted me to sing his song, and it really changed the trajectory of our career. To have a hit on the radio for the first time—that was huge!
He had seen our video for “Hero Takes the Fall,” which we’d done in San Francisco. We were all wearing different costumes. One of the girls was in a cowgirl outfit, and I played a French maid in this flirty little outfit. I think that’s when Prince noticed me for the first time.
Do you connect with those older songs now that so much time has passed? Do they change for you, or reveal new meanings over time?
I think they do, actually. The older I get, the more I connect with them. Every moment of singing, I’m trying to connect with the story the song is telling. That’s the thing I aim for, and as I get older, there’s something about wanting every moment to be imbued with some kind of beauty and emotion. That’s meaningful to me, and that makes me feel like it’s more relatable in some way for other people who might be listening.
I don’t want to throw anything away. Of course, I’m trying to stay on key, but I just want to be deeply immersed in the emotion of the song. It’s like that car analogy, where I’m giving it a little gas, then I’m easing off and slowing down. Here comes the high note! Get ready, girl! Don’t blow it! I’m not a shoegazery type of singer. I really try to milk the emotion—not in a cheesy way, but I do like to just go for it.
How does that change when you’re singing with another person, like Rufus Wainwright on “Bad Case of Loneliness”?
I love singing with him. We’ve done a few things together, one of which was for my husband’s movie The Roses. He has a magical voice. Neither of us is a shoegazery singer. We both go all out. He’s particularly fearless and sings very emotively, for lack of a better adjective. His tone is just glorious. We share a similar ideology where we really want to create something special. We both care a lot about the songs we sing, so it’s been a gift to have opportunities to sing with him.
That’s one of the many songs that includes the word “lonely” or “loneliness” in the lyrics. You talked a little about music as medicine, but it also feels like music is good company. It’s a way of not feeling so lonely.
Oh my god, you just nailed it. Music is there to keep us less lonely. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but music makes me feel taken care of in some way.
Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez
