Bio : Susanna Hoffs

Susanna Hoffs is best known as the co-founder and frontwoman of the multi-platinum and globally chart-topping band The Bangles, whose era-defining anthems included “Manic Monday” and “Walk Like an Egyptian,” as well as “In Your Room” and the worldwide number one hit “Eternal Flame,” both co-written by Hoffs. What began with an artful flyer designed by Hoffs flyer taped to a restroom wall in a Los Angeles club grew into a fandom spanning multiple continents and four decades, as The Bangles became one of the most internationally beloved bands of their time.

As the daughter of a psychoanalyst father and painter mother and as a 1970’s Berkeley bohemian art student - Hoffs is also known to her friends for the stories she tells. If she thinks it, she will say it, and it will be outrageously frank and funny, if not a little scandalous. Her wicked sense of humor, her keen powers of observation, and her crow’s eye for the unique details and debris of love and life are what make her such a gifted storyteller. As a true musician’s musician, Hoffs likes nothing better than to jam in her living room with a revolving cast of talented creator friends, connecting, co-creating – and, as she likes to say, communing – with writers and directors, artists and performers, songwriters and composers, musicians of every stripe.

This is also the vibe of her new album The List, a joyfully human meditation on what it is to be alive and in love, and finally, to be Susanna Hoffs, reflecting with gratitude and deep feeling on the stories that have made up her own life. If these songs feel like an intimate conversation between friends, that’s because they are. Written in a series of deeply personal sessions between Hoffs and her creative partners Dan Wilson, Edie Brickell, Ryan Lerman, Desure, Jesse Harris, Ny Oh, Grant Miliken, and producer CJ Camerieri, the music grew from swapping stories and confessions, sharing laughter and tears, always with the kind of emotional honesty Hoffs invests in her friendships and partnerships.

Throughout the album, Hoffs and her collaborators circle back to themes of love and longing, loss and resilience, reinvention and self-discovery. These songs are what happens when a close group of gifted friends and writers trust each other enough to turn real, vulnerable conversations and connections into song. The List, made up of the stories of Hoffs’ life, is at once deeply personal and utterly relatable for anyone who has ever endured heartbreak, an empty nest, a bad breakup, a new crush, or the fading memory of a love that might have been. These are Susanna’s stories, but they’ve also become CJ’s, and Ryan’s, and their many collaborators. Now, they’re yours, too.

The List comes out September 18 on her own label, Baroque Folk.