Eternal fame

Susannah Hoffs of The Bangles talks to SINÉAD GLEESONabout Prince, being a pin-up and living the dream

The Bangles were hugely successful in the mid-to-late 1980s – what was that whole experience like?

At the time, we were just on this crazy rollercoaster ride. We started out with this big dream and as soon as things started happening for us, we just went with it. The first night I met the Petersens , we decided we wanted to be in a band and never looked back. It was exhilarating, fun, crazy and pretty unglamorous at the start. We would tour in a van and there was the four of us and a female roadie, sleeping in the one hotel room. In some ways it was the early days that were most fun, because we were just so thrilled to be living the dream.

Manic Mondaywas a huge hit, how did Prince come to write the song for the band?

Around the time that When Doves Cry was a huge hit for him, he saw a video for our first single, Hero Takes a Fall. He loved the song and came to see us play a gig. Next thing, he jumped up on stage and played the guitar solo on the song. After that, he started showing up at our gigs and we ended up doing some recording in a sister studio in Hollywood to the one he was working in. We got word to say that he'd written a couple of songs for us, so I was sent to pick up these cassettes and there was Manic Monday. Remember that scene in That Thing You Dowhere the band hear their song on the radio for the first time? Well, we had one of those moments standing on a street corner in Washington DC. This convertible pulled up at the traffic lights blasting out Manic Mondayand we all jumped up and down – we couldn't believe it.

How was your experience of being in an all-girl band?

I was still in college when The Runaways were doing their thing, but I was really into The Go-Gos. The punk and New Wave scene was really happening in LA and we become friends with them, ending up playing some shows with them.

Is it true you were nearly in Mazzy Star instead of The Bangles?

Ha! Well, I used to date David Roback and my first musical experience was being in a band with him. We had two names, The Unconscious and The Psychiatrists and we were just a duo. In college we made little recordings together which ended up morphing into what he did later with Mazzy Star. When I met The Bangles first, all I showed for my musical experience were those tapes I made with David. Being in a band with my now-ex boyfriend was difficult so I looked at what The Go-Gos were doing and thought I should look for female musicians to start a band with.

How did you feel being a pin-up?

You never feel like that at the time. We were all just trying to get up in the morning and hope that we didn't have a bad hair day. Being in an all-girl band, I found it was an added pressure to look good, to care about it. I get that there's a visual part of the package when you're in music or movies, but I always wished that I didn't have to think about that. It wasn't like it was Madonna or even Lady Gaga, we had more of an afterthought approach to how we looked – a bit like "oh god, what are we gonna wear?"

Manic Monday, Walk Like An Egyptian, Eternal Flame– how do you feel about the songs now?

Now that I have the perspective of years later, I’m very proud of them. I’ve only recently started listening to 1980s music and it has taken me all of those years of stepping away from and coming back to it now to go ‘you know what, it is good’. My sons are 15 and nearly 12 and they’re really into music. They really like The Bangles, but better than that, they’re obsessed with music the way I was at their age and I’m seeing this 1980s influence in lots of new bands they’re listening to. We just took a trip to Ireland this summer and went all around the Ring of Kerry, the Burren and the kids were in charge of music. They were fighting over whose iPod we were going to listen to next.

• The Bangles play Dublin's Vicar Street on Monday, October 4th