Annete and first met in the 80's when she was busy playing bass with The Bangles and the pioneer cow punk band Blood On The Saddle... She was being managed by mutual friends Jools Clark and Nick Murray of Pulling Teeth Productions... I really enjoyed Annette and was so sorry to hear that she had parted ways with Pulling Teeth Productions. I was still in San Francisco, so I lost contact with Annette. However, we ran into one another at a Josie Cotton show and luckily I was able to ask her ome questions for this Anniversary issue..

Punk Globe: It was a trip running into you at Josie Cotton's show where I joined Josie on stage for 'Jonny Are You Queer'. Is it true that was the first time that You met Josie?

Annette: It is true – you’d think we’d have run into each other by now! Fantastic show wasn’t it?

Punk Globe: Were you managing The Knitting Factory on Sycamore Street?

Annette: I worked at the Knitting Factory, yes…managing it? No, even though I was a manager. My good friend Liz Garo was the talent buyer/booker and Bruce Duff ran production, promotion, and artist management. He wore a lot of hats. Really fun place to be when you worked with your friends. Some amazing shows came through there including Amon Tobin, Mudhoney, the Fall, Peaches etc. 

Punk Globe: Prior to that we used to see one another at Jools Clark's home. I believe her and Nick were your managers. I believe you were in Blood on. Saddle. Great band name and kick ass band.  You then decided to part ways.

Annette: Yes, Jools and Nick managed Blood on the Saddle in the early years. They were called Pulling Teeth Management which is such an appropriate name given what they had to manage lol. Things were picking up for us at the time with publishing and touring. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. This was when college radio was starting to explode and being on the road 6-8 months out of the year was becoming a new reality for many bands.

Punk Globe: Tell the readers about playing in The Bangles? 

Annette: I was a singer making demos and singing in talent shows at places like the Palomino and Little Nashville. I also was playing the harmonica and taking lessons. I was around 17 or 18 years old when I responded to Susanna Hoffs ad. It was an ad that she placed in the Recycler which is equivalent to what Craigs List would be now, looking for a bass player with musical influences like Love, the Byrd’s and the Monkees. I wasn’t a bass player but desperately wanted to play in a band, so I said, “I’ll do it!”. We hit it off really well. I was obsessed/possessed by music and it’s all I ever thought about or talked about. Same with Susanna. The band was first called The Colours which consisted of sisters, Vicki and Debbi Peterson, Susanna Hoffs and me. We started rehearsing in a converted garage/room in the Brentwood area. The 3-part harmonies were always there from the beginning. They were instantaneous. The other parts we had to work on a little more.  But still my priority was singing. I never thought the band would become so big, but the wheels started to move pretty quick. I was around 19 years old. I write a lot about this and go into more detail in my chapter in John Doe’s book called “More Fun in the New World”. It was an exciting time to say the least, because the Paisley Underground was this spontaneous combustion of bands with similar influences forming and performing around the same time, which became a scene. It felt like this forward momentum that one had little control over. Exciting and a bit scary for me because I really didn’t know what to make of it. And in the meantime I was learning to sing Hank Williams songs in an apartment with my boyfriend at the time Greg Davis while Blood on the Saddle was starting to take shape.

Punk Globe: Is it true that you have joined the Bangles recently on stage?

Annette: I started playing with The Bangles again in 2016 at the Whisky for the release of the album Ladies and Gentlemen…. the Bangles released on Omnivore Records. We played several places like The Honda Theatre in 2018 and the Arroyo Seco Music Festival in Pasadena in 2019, the Microsoft Theatre and Pershing Square as well as shows in Vancouver. We then recorded some songs for a compilation called 3x4 with the Dream Syndicate, Three O’Clock and Rain Parade each covering the others songs. It’s been surreal and in some ways it felt natural slipping right back in. Also, the rebooting of old friendship(s) was nice. 

Punk Globe:  I love The Bangles and loved Blood On The Saddle and The Ringling Sisters.... So happy to see you back with The Bangles.. When we're you in the Ringling Sisters with the fabulous Iris Berry.the band was quite an all star band. Who else were in the band?

Annette: Let’s see, it’s always been an ever-changing conglomerate of female writers and performers. Johnette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde was in the early part of the Ringling Sisters and Texacala Jones from Tex and the Horseheads. Also, of course, Pleasant Gehman from the Screaming Sirens, Deborah Patino from the band Holywater, Debbie Dexter from the Devils Squares, Iris Berry from the Lame Flames and myself who was in the band Weatherbell. 

Punk Globe: Tell us about your other bands? 

Annette: I was in Blood On The Saddle as I mentioned earlier. We were lumped into the Cow Punk movement along with Rank and File and Tex and the Horseheads. D. Boon from the Minutemen saw us play and signed us to his label New Alliance which was part of SST records. That was a real defining moment for us. Greg Davis was/is a phenomenal guitar player and Ron Bothelo played standup bass playing it so fast his hands were a blur. He had his own group of admirers that would stand front of him at shows watching play at such an absurd speed. His hand…. playing that fast on stand-up was no easy feat. And of course, Herman Senac on drums. They loved us in Europe, and we made a splash where ever we played. We were like a train loping down the tracks going at about 110 MPH and about to derail. Nobody was really playing the way we played, melding country and punk at a ferocious velocity with bluegrass mixed in too. If I do say so myself, nobody could quite pull it off the way we did. Mixing all those elements. 

Weatherbell was the first band that I formed by myself. It was something that I had to prove to myself that I could do. We were sort of dream pop band with influences that dipped into Clay Allison and Opal territory. Weatherbell did a version of Great Society’s “Sally Go Round the Roses” which was sort of a dream come true for me because I was first turned onto it as a child by my hippy uncles who had a ton of cool vinyl I’d always sift through.  I loved Weatherbell and it was a big learning experience for me. Being a band leader, collaborating with songwriting. This was a time that I was writing a lot by myself and with others so there was this creative boost I was experiencing. I’m a bit of a late bloomer in some respect so it was still new to me, this process of writing my own songs and hearing them come together from fragments into a solid shape. I was also in a fun Silverlake band called 3-Hole Punch with friends of mine, Bix Jordon, Riley More and Curt Anderson. I also started collaborating with Brad Laner from the band Medicine. We co-wrote Ruca and Miss Drugstore which were included on the Crow Soundtrack album. Medicine was later signed to Creation records 

Punk Globe: Congratulations Annette, you are an author. Tell us about your new book?

Annette: It’s a short story and my first published fiction!  It will be a part of a collection of short stories about Los Angeles and Griffith Park and a feral boy who haunts the park. My story combines the Los Angeles 90s music scene with a slight Stranger Things feel with adventure, supernatural, and some time travel. As a child I was addicted to Twilight Zone so that may be a little telling.  

Punk Globe: Wow that sounds great! A voung Tarzan in Griffith Park!! Describe yourself in three words Annette?

Annette: Introvert, extrovert, spiritual

Punk Globe: You are in the middle of hardcore studies. I dot want to keep you away from the books so we will cut this interview short. What is your major?  Please elaborate. 

Annette: It’s so hardcore.…it’s killing me lol as everyone is re-entering the world and going out to parties I’m still locked up in study mode. In a way it’s helped me through this pandemic having to be so focused. But…wait... I did go to an amazing party a week ago. I’m studying for my masters focusing on female writers in the Southern Gothic genre during a specific period. Of course my mind is now wandering to other female writers like Lucia Berlin who was an American short story writer.

Punk Globe: Annette, Tell us about your current music projects?

Annette: More recently, I had recorded an album with Medicine on an album called Scarred for Life singing lead vocals with Brad Laner, Matt Devine and Jim Goodall all playing on the album. That was released right before the pandemic so….you know…here we are lol. I’m hoping we will be doing some more recording in the very near future. 

Punk Globe: Any last words for Punk Globe readers?

Annette: Yes. Please get vaccinated and wear a mask! Stay safe 💕 Kisses Happy Anniversary Punk Globe.