Micheal Steele

Michael is born on June 2, 1957 in Pasadena. Actually there is not much known about her, as she keeps her past a little secret. She belonged to the first formation of the Runaways, an all girl hardrock band, who didn't wear much on stage and were extremely rude in their lyrics, especially to men. Michael dared to call one of the songs, "Cherry bomb" stupid and meaningless, not to mention redicilous, she simply couldn't sing it and got kicked out of the band for that and other reasons, for exempel for being too old for the concept and other stupid things. She doesn't want to be remembered to that time. It has been a rough period for her, she lost a lot of wieght during that time and was close to a break down.

It isn't hard to guess that Michael Steele is in fact not her real name. She doesn't want to reveal her real name. She wanted to have a strong name, that's why she chose Michael as a first name. She was known as "Micki" in The Runaways. To make it not that strong, she put an "e" behind the word "steel".

She played in 13 different bands after the Runaways before she joined the Bangles. Vicki inmediatelly liked her music vision and she was hired right away!

Michael's influence on "All over the place" isn't so much, but that changed on "Different Light" and definetally on "Everything". She has a very dark voice and expresses the emotion on her songs with deep feelings. "Following" is a classic song and features her an acoustic guitar as well.

She didn't do much after the split. She played with Eyesore, but the band split u not much later because apparently the bandmembers hated eachother. Michael was just asked to give it a shot on the bass, she only played in the band for 4 months. Before that she played in two other bands, one of them is called Crash Wisdom. She also played a couple of times with Vicki's Psycho Sisters and Continental Drifters. She is considered an auxillery Drifter, even though she only played a couple of times with them. She is said to be working on a solo album, but she was said to do so already in 1990. What I think is that she just layed back and relaxed after 7 succesful years she has spent with the Bangles, and who will blame her. Not her cats, I'm sure! She is currently living in San Fransisco, according to a fan, and she enjoys her painting more than taking part in the music industry, allthough she really enjoyed the fans' and other musicians credits when she played with Continental Drifters.

However, if someone knows more about Michael, please EMAIL me, as she still is my absolute favourite Bangle. I just adore her voice and the way she looked back then, especially her extremely red hair during "Everything"! My favourite Michael songs are "Something to believe in", "Glitter years" and "Following".

SUSANNA VICKI DEBBI