Vicki Peterson (lead guitarist of the Bangles) and Susan Cowsill (with her family’s band the Cowsills since the age of eight) are currently tilling the fields as the Psycho Sisters, and it’s given them rare perspective on making music that many lesser talents would lack. Their debut album, Up On The Chair, Beatrice is out now via the RockBeat label. Peterson and Cowsill will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with them.
Peterson: I’m on the road at the moment and don’t have before me my eclectic, full-of-musical-holes-but-still-interesting CD collection. I was thinking about what made the ‘90s sound like the ‘90s, possibly because the Psycho Sisters’ material (the original stuff) was all written in the early years of that decade, and it’s been suggested that the record has a ‘90s tone. What does that mean? Many people reduce the ’90s to flannel and Nirvana, but I remember it as a time with diverse musical markers: Oasis, the Wallflowers, Alanis Morrisette, the Spice Girls, Boyz II Men, No Doubt.
My world in the 1990s (and possibly an easier route to understanding where the Psychos live) revolved more around bands that shook off the shimmer and shine of the 1980’s and were unafraid to be unpretty. Here are some picks from my memory:
The Continental Drifters “Drifters”
Eleven “All Together”
Veruca Salt “Volcano Girls”
Giant Sand “Solomon’s Ride”
