Early Years
Bonnie Hayes is the eldest of seven children, four of whom are noted professional musicians. She is the sister of Chris Hayes, former lead guitarist of Huey Lewis and the News, and Kevin Hayes, drummer with the Robert Cray Band. The family moved to San Francisco from the San Joaquin Valley in 1970 and immediately began to play locally in the jazz fusion band Sweetmeat. During the mid and late 70's, she attended Washington High School and San Francisco State University. She also began her long relationship with Blue Bear School of Music as a teacher of piano and theory/composition.
In the early 1980's, she founded a New Wave band called The Punts, who released a 45 RPM single, "Shelly's Boyfriend" (a song inspired by her sister), b/w "Rochambeau," which received considerable airplay in the SF market. In 1982, the band was signed by Slash Records and at the behest of Bob Biggs, the band changed their name to "Bonnie Hayes with the Wild Combo" and released their first album entitled Good Clean Fun, a New Wave/rock offering. The Good Clean Fun album was finally released on CD in September 2007 in Wounded Bird records, a subsidiary of Rhino Records. The song "Girls Like Me" from that album was used in the opening credits for the 1983 movie Valley Girl. Perhaps because of the label's (Slash) limited distribution muscle, and the fact that Warner Bros. Records refused to distribute the record, Good Clean Fun enjoyed only moderate regional sales.
1984 brought the release of Brave New Girl, on Hayes's and producer Steve Savage's Bondage Records. Recorded in the basement of Savage's home in San Francisco, this sophomore effort expands even further the broad musical range of Good Clean Fun, ratcheting up the sophistication of the earlier release, in the material as well as the production. "After Hours" is a soaring ballad, while "Night Baseball" and "Brave New Girl" bring a distinctive power pop tilt to its new wave core and hint at things to come in Hayes' writing.
The Wild Combo enjoyed a rabid local following in San Francisco through the 1980's, and toured opening for Huey Lewis as well as other new wave acts during this time.
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