Susanna Hoffs is finally ready to tell these old stories

Susanna Hoffs calls it “the list”: a faded portion of insubstantial ripped from a Filofax time planner connected which are scrawled the names of each feline she’s ever gone retired with — immoderate famous, immoderate not, immoderate “kind of douchey,” arsenic she puts it with a what-can-you-do shrug.

“It was similar a dating illustration but pre-internet,” Hoffs says of the tally, which she composed sometime successful the precocious 1980s arsenic she was racking up hits — among them the chart-topping “Walk Like an Egyptian” and “Eternal Flame” — arsenic the frontwoman of the Bangles. “I’m a bully Jewish girl,” she adds. “I was conscionable keeping track, doing my homework.”

Today astatine the bottommost of the database successful each caps sits the sanction of Jay Roach, the movie manager whom Hoffs met connected a unsighted day successful 1991. He’s the taxable of a caller opus called “None of Them Were You,” successful which the vocalist runs down immoderate of Roach’s predecessors — “a precise dapper Brit,” “a suave and handsome actor” — earlier musing connected her heavy transportation with the antheral to whom she’s present been joined for 33 years.

“I ended up with specified a bully guy,” she says. “It astir brings a teardrop to the eye.”

“None of Them Were You” isn’t the lone tune with that imaginable connected an medium Hoffs is preparing to merchandise adjacent month. Due Sept. 18 from her Baroque Folk label, “The List” — Hoffs’ archetypal acceptable of archetypal worldly successful much than a decennary — collects a twelve touching and witty songs based connected tales from her beingness arsenic an artist, wife, businessperson and mother. At 67, her winsome singing dependable is remarkably unchanged from the epoch of large hairsbreadth and dangly earrings. Yet the euphony reflects an affectional contented that had to beryllium earned done experience, arsenic successful the folky “Time,” which ponders her and Roach’s relationships with their 2 big sons.

“I spot you dancing successful the room / I consciousness your tiny manus successful mine,” she sings, “What if you alert backmost location this summer? / We could walk a small while.” (Beware, parents — this 1 volition wreck you.)

A voluble beingness with an casual laugh, Hoffs points retired that she’s hardly been “hiding successful a cave” since 2012’s “Someday.” In 2024, she enactment retired a long-shelved solo grounds of songs she’d chopped backmost successful 1999; earlier that, she made a bid of expertly curated covers albums, including 3 she recorded with the power-pop maestro Matthew Sweet. But publishing her archetypal caller successful 2023 — “This Bird Has Flown,” a charming bestseller astir a one-hit wonderment looking for a comeback — rejuvenated Hoffs’ devotion to songwriting.

“I ne'er thought the publication would sell, and I ne'er thought it would get large reviews,” she says connected a caller day astatine her location successful Brentwood. “That was a large crook career-wise.”

For “The List,” Hoffs teamed with CJ Camerieri, a instrumentalist and shaper known for his enactment with Paul Simon and Bon Iver, among others; Camerieri successful crook recruited an array of songwriters to collaborate with the 2 of them, including a mates of Grammy winners successful Dan Wilson and Jesse Harris.

“Sue has built up decades and decades of goodwill successful this town,” Camerieri says, seated adjacent to Hoffs connected a sofa, “so you telephone up idiosyncratic similar Dan and you say, ‘Hey, you privation to constitute a opus with Susanna Hoffs?’ and helium goes, ‘Great, yeah, I’m in.’”

The process was simple, the shaper explains: “We’d commencement successful Sue’s room with java astatine 10 successful the greeting —”

“I’m truly bully astatine coffee,” Hoffs interjects. “I mean, I usage Nespresso. But I’m bully astatine being a hostess to each the lads.”

“So I’d springiness everybody a yellowish ineligible pad and Sue would commencement telling stories,” Camerieri continues. “We’re each scribbling notes, and aft astir an hour, we’d go, ‘I deliberation we got capable here,’ and we’d spell constitute songs astir what she’d told us.”

They recorded astatine Hoffs’ spot — “We’d determination this sofa and the drums would spell close here,” she says — beneath a vaulted ceiling that provided conscionable the close ambience. First-call players similar Greg Leisz and Wendy Melvoin stopped by to instrumentality portion successful the sessions; for harmony vocals successful a country-ish ditty called “Bad Case of Loneliness,” they got Rufus Wainwright, with whom Hoffs had done a mentation of the Turtles’ “Happy Together” for Roach’s 2025 drama “The Roses.”

The dreamy-rootsy arrangements are ne'er little than handsome — and ne'er prettier than successful “Fool,” which Hoffs says was inspired by her emotion of the records Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach made together. Yet “The List” was built to showcase Hoffs’ affluent storytelling.

The LP opens with “Casablanca,” successful which she recounts a run-in with the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir successful New Orleans successful the precocious ’80s. The Bangles were connected circuit opening for George Michael; the Dead had a gig astatine the University of New Orleans’ Lakefront Arena. After Hoffs and Weir ended up astatine a crawfish boil enactment connected by the Neville Brothers, the 2 took a locomotion on Lake Pontchartrain — “He was precise cute,” Hoffs says — past aboriginal strolled again done the French Quarter.

“At 1 point, I looked backmost and determination was a oversea of Deadheads who realized it was Bob Weir,” she says. “But I was with him. I got to beryllium his pal, which I conscionable couldn’t judge was happening. It was delicious.” (Between the 2 walks, the Bangles famously jumped onstage with the Dead to execute “Iko Iko.”)

As we’re talking, Camerieri tells Hoffs that helium precocious met Weir’s erstwhile circuit manager — Weir died successful January astatine property 78 — and that he’d relayed Hoffs’ representation of the encounter. “He was like, ‘I cognize this story,’” Camerieri says the manager replied. “‘Bob utilized to speech astir the clip helium got to locomotion astir New Orleans with Susanna Hoffs.’”

“Oh my God!” Hoffs says, eyes starting to glisten. “So it meant thing to him too.”

Bookending “The List” is “What Are Wings For,” a stately ballad astir sticking to one’s guns that Hoffs and Camerieri wrote with Edie Brickell, who’s joined to Simon, connected a travel they took to the couple’s ranch successful Texas.

“We were determination during the World Series [in 2024],” Camerieri recalls, “and we watched the Yankees crippled with Paul each nighttime aft moving connected songs.”

Adds Hoffs with a laugh: “He besides told maine that helium thinks the Bangles’ mentation of ‘Hazy Shade of Winter’ is amended than his. I was like, ‘Please don’t — yours is the iconic version.’”

By the clip the Bangles covered that Simon & Garfunkel tune for the soundtrack to 1987’s “Less Than Zero,” the set was already a fixture connected the vigor and MTV. Hoffs formed the radical successful 1981 with sisters Vicki and Debbi Peterson, who learned to play unneurotic successful the store of Hoffs’ parents’ house, conscionable a fewer blocks from wherever the vocalist lives today.

The Bangles came up done L.A.’s ’60s-steeped Paisley Underground country and recovered stardom aft the summation of Michael Steele with “Manic Monday,” a sparkling pop-rock gem talented to the set by Prince. (Beyond her database of boyfriends, 1 of Hoffs’ prized possessions from backmost successful the time is Prince’s archetypal cassette demo of “Manic Monday.”)

“He was superb but mischievous,” Hoffs says of the precocious trailblazer, connected whom she modeled the quality of Jonesy from her novel. “I retrieve 1 clip helium invited america to Sunset Sound successful the mediate of the night. We get determination and we’re jamming, past abruptly we look astir and he’s disappeared. ‘OK, I conjecture we’re done.’”

The Bangles with an assortment of euphony execs successful Los Angeles successful 1987.

(Lester Cohen / Getty Images)

After 8 Top 40 singles and a triple-platinum LP, the Bangles divided successful 1989 amid differing ideas astir the band’s originative absorption and ambitions. The members pursued solo and different projects but reunited to grounds a opus for 1999’s “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” which Roach directed; 2 much Bangles albums followed successful 2003 and 2011, the 2nd minus Steele, whom Hoffs says she’s not successful interaction with astatine the moment.

Compared to the Go-Go’s, whose parallel vocation was elaborate successful a 2020 documentary and who were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame a twelvemonth later, the Bangles haven’t rather cemented their legacy, though an authorized biography came retired past twelvemonth and a doc is presently successful development.

Yet Hoffs doesn’t look particularly troubled by the anticipation that the Bangles mightiness beryllium underappreciated, possibly due to the fact that she’s got plentifulness of her ain worldly going on. Before “The List” comes out, she’ll play her aged hits successful a Sept. 5 gig astatine Largo astatine the Coronet and successful a fistful of dates opening for Billy Idol; aft the caller medium drops, she’ll caput eastbound for a residency astatine New York’s Café Carlyle.

She and Camerieri are besides astatine enactment connected a philharmonic adaptation of “This Bird Has Flown” for the signifier oregon the screen. And conscionable the different time she recovered a folder connected her machine afloat of songs she wrote years agone with her person Marvin Etzioni of Lone Justice.

“I don’t similar utilizing the connection ‘bucket list,’ but each these things are labors of love,” Hoffs says.

What’s the occupation with “bucket list”?

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, smiling. “It conscionable seems, like, death-y.”