SUSANNA HOFFS
Photo by Anna Wiel.
Birthplace: Los Angeles
Date of Birth: January 17, 1959
Education: Degree from UC Berkeley in Theater Arts.
Instruments played Guitar: Acoustic/Electric, Duclimer, Piano, vocals
Marital StatusMarried to TV producer turned Film Director Jay M. Roach, from which she has two children.
Other band experience:
The Psychiatrists, The Unconscious (With Dave Roback), Maria McKee (Played with her as a folk rocking duo for a short time) Ming Tea
SUSANNA HOFFS- OUTSIDE THE BANGLES
As the best known member of the Bangles, it was a forgone conclusion that Susanna Hoffs would launch her solo career upon the dissolution of The Bangles in 1989. Columbia Records and Sue's management, Stiffel-Phillips Entertainment had high hopes and predicted big things. For a number of different reasons, massive solo success eluded Susanna Hoffs throughout the 1990s...even though she scored two minor hit singles, "My Side of The Bed" in 1990 and "All I Want" in 1996. Ineffective management, bad luck and the market climate worked against her. Still, Susanna chured out an impressive collection of songs- some of which were some of the best songs you never heard on radio.
Susanna began recording her debut solo record while the dust was still settling from the Bangles. Re-teamed with David Kahne, Hoffs aimed to record a straightforward record that would represent a more independent and somewhat different direction from the Bangles. "I wanted to work with someone from the past. He had worked with the Bangles for so long." Hoffs said, in a 1991 interview with the Miami Herald.
Nearly two years of writing and recorded resulted in the ironically titled album, "When Your A Boy" (The title taken from a line in the David Bowie song, "Boys Keep Swinging," which she recorded for the disc. Rooted in near disco beats of the 1970s, this record was somewhat of a departure for Hoffs, whose influences included many of the bands of the 1960s. Kahne recruited a capable list of studio players for the disc, including Animal Logic's Rusty Anderson, B-52's Zachary Alford, The Blake Babies Julianna Hatfield, Robin Lane of Robin Lane & The Chartbusters - even The Who's John Entwhistle!
Studio mechanics
aside, the album
recieved mixed reviews and even
launched a Billboard Top 40 hit single, the sexy, steamy "My Side Of The
Bed." (The video cast Hoffs as the sexy video vixen... and it DID steam up
TV sets in MTV's Beat It To Death Rotation... reaching the Top 10.)
The album shot up the Billboard album charts, but stalled at #82 on the
Billboard charts. Still respectable, but not the numbers her record label
was looking for. Two follow-up singles, "Unconditional Love" and "Only
Love" failed to make a splash. (The latter was co-penned with songstress
Diane Warren.)
Though her album stalled, Hoffs wowed critic with her energetic
live show. She spent the summer and fall of 1991 as the opening act for
Don Henley. (Who can forget Sue's crazy/sexy/cool cover of Bad Company's
"Feel Like Making Love?)
Following the tour, Susanna met TV producer/Director Jay M. Roach on a
blind date. A year later, they would marry and Susanna would actively
persue a different artistic direction with her music. She surrounded
herself with a completely new cast of characters that would bring out a
completely new side of Susanna no one had seen before.
With Matt Wallace at the soundboard, and Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, The
Church's Marty Wilson-Piper, and Cracker's David Lowrey and Davey
Faraghner, Hoffs set out to record her second album. A new collection of
grundgy folk-pop music free of the overproduction and obvious
commercialism of her first album.
The album was drastic artistic departure that didn't sit well with the
execs at Columbia Records, who considered Susanna to be more of a
"sexy singer"
than singer/songwriter artist with a brain. Disagreements fostered over
the issue. They wanted her to re-record the album. She refused and
Stiffel-Phillips abandoned her. In the spring of 1994, she would leave
Columbia Records, hire new mangement, (Gold Mountain Entertainment) and
sign with the smaller Psudo Indie label London Records.
Family matters would occupy her time for much of that year, as she gave
birth to a son, Jackson in Feb of 1995. With a whole new perspective, Sue
jumped back into her music... re-inspired. She found new songwriting
partners in
Go-Go's Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin, and the Tuesday Night Music
Club team of Dave Baerwald and David Kitay. The result as the album,
"Susanna
Hoffs" which made it to store shelves in September of 1996.
The arrival of "Susanna Hoffs" shocked industry insiders and critics who though Sue was long past her artistic prime. The albums's 11 songs represent her most personal, mature and reflective material to date. The songs touch on such issues as abusive relationships, (Beekeeper's Blues) mental illness (Happy Place), and her own insecurities.(Darling One.) One song, "Weak With Love", deals with some of Hoffs' feelings about John Lennon's assasination, and the gorgious "Eyes of A Baby" reflect Hoffs' personal joys of finding and marrying her husband, and having their son.
The album also marked the first time that Susanna co-produced the album - together with Dave Baerwald, David Kitay, and later, Jack Joseph Puig. The record is a modern rock enthusiasts dream... a blend of acoustic and electric instruments in awesome arrangments. (Album guests include Charlotte Caffey, Mick Fleetwood, John Brian, Jason Faulkner, Rachel Haden and others.)
Susanna Hoffs' return to the public eye also mean a return to performing in front of audiences in clubs around the country. The album's first single, a cover of the Lightening Seeds classic "All I Want" was one of the most added songs to radio station playlists throughout the fall of 1996 - placing her in an exclusive club with Madonna, Jewel, and No Doubt. It would eventually chart on the Billboard Top 100 at #75 in the US and #32 in the UK. Not bad for being out of the limelight for five years! :) < You would think that being a mom, recording and touring is support of an album would keep Susanna busy enough. Not a chance... she managed to sneak in a guest stint in the movie "Austin Powers", as a member of Mike Myers impromptu, 60's band, Ming Tea. (Austin Powers was directed by Hoffs's husband, Jay Roach.)
She also put together a band and toured agreesively in support of the
album. In Feb 1997, the tour schedule was upended when Hoffs injured her
vocal chords.
"It was scary. I'd never had an injury like that before. It was
all so frustraiting, being unable to promote the record." Hoffs told a
reporter in a 1997 LA Times interview.
The rest of the winter and spring shows were canceled while Hoffs recovered. A second single, the luminous and folksy "Beekeeper's Blues" was released to radio only - not as a commercial single as planned.
Recovered from her injury months later, Susanna resumed her tour and even recorded a version of "The Look of Love" for the soundtrack to the Austin Powers movie. At the conclusion of the tour, Susanna jumped right into writing and recording material for her followup album with Exec Producer Bill Bottrell and bassist/producer Dan Schwartz and a lively cast of characters that included Charlotte Caffey, Jane Wiedlin, Willie Aron, Jim Scott, Jim Keltner, Brian Macload, Greg Arreguin and others.
Susanna gave birth to her second son, Sam , in late 1998 in between work on her record... and writing sessions with former bandmate Debbi Peterson. Unfortunately, other factors would soon derail the new album. Segrams purchase of Polygram Records, a part-owner of London Records resulted in several artists getting the axe - or having the their projects placed on indefinate hold. Susanna was placed squarely in the middle of this.. faced with several months or perhaps years of being in recording limbo. Meanwhile, the writing sessions with Debbi Peterson were going so well that they both had convinced Vicki Peterson to join in the renewed songwriting.
When Jay Roach asked Susanna and Debbi to write a song for his second
Austin Powers film, the two obliged and finally convinced Vicki to help
them finish a new song, "Get The Girl." Vicki then convinced Michael
Steele to sit in on bass during the recording sessions, and the rest, as
they say, was history and by July 2000, The Bangles were formally and
officially returning as a unit with a new album and tour on the horizon.
With the Bangles thing getting serious again and an unfinished album
waiting in the wings, Susanna made the decision to focus her energies on
getting the Bangles Bangleing.
So what became of that album Sue was working on? A few of the songs have been optioned as Bangle songs and will appear on the new Bangles release. The rest will have to wait till Susanna decided to pick up where she left off and finish the record. (She is no longer signed as a solo artist to Sire/London Records. Good thing too, since the label was dissolved seven months ago!)
In addition to writing and recording songs for her own career, Susanna has also lent her talents to the recording of demos for miscellanious songwriters in the industry. Susanna's reputation as an outstanding singer has made her the favorite of many in the industry to record demos for songs. Perhaps the most famous, is the demo version of the Elvis Costello penned song, "Tear Off Your Own Head (It's The Doll Revolution)." Susanna, assisted by Michael Steele, recorded the song as the title track for a TV series about supermodels being spys. Susanna was rumored to have been considered as the Vonda Shepard of that show, but it wasn't picked up by any of the networks. Instead, the song landed on Elvis Costello's recently released album, "When I Was Cruel" - and The Bangles have apparently recorded the song for their new album as well! :) Though Susanna's solo career has had its highs and lows, I suspect that we have not heard seen the last of Susanna Hoffs as a solo artist, not by a long shot! To be continued!
Susanna Hoffs Links
