Circa 1983

The Pandoras were an all-female rock and roll band from Los Angeles, California in the 1980s, who began in the garage rock style and later adapted a hard rock style bordering on hair metal.

The Pandoras were formed by singer-guitarist Paula Pierce and bassist Gwynne Kahn (the granddaughter of 1920s/1930s Tin Pan Alley songwriter Gus Kahn) in 1981. They were associated with the Paisley Underground era in Hollywood's alternative rock scene, along with bands such as Redd Kross, The Three O' Clock , The Dream Syndicate and The Rain Parade . These bands shared an aesthetic heavily influenced by 1960s garage rock and psychedelia, and most (but not all) of the members tended to come from the West Side and Beach Cities areas of Los Angeles. (Ms. Pierce, a native of Orange County, was a notable exception.)

The Pandoras went through many personnel changes, beginning with the departure of Gwynne Kahn in 1983. Ms. Kahn tried to form a rival Pandoras for awhile, which included Jennifer Finch - previously of San Francisco pop-rock group Sugar Baby Doll along with Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland, and later of L7 - but the "Gwynndoras" were short-lived. Later, Kim Shattuck of The Muffs played bass.

In about 1987, the Pandoras changed their sound to a much more hard rock type sound with the 1960s influences deemphasized, and blatantly tried to go for the Sunset Strip hair metal audience, after being signed by Elektra Records. They were dropped almost immediately afterwards, and would continue to play for the rest of the decade. Remarkably, they never managed to alienate their original audience, and continued to be a top live draw in Los Angeles. They put out two EPs on [[Enigma Records]] which did not expand their following beyond the Los Angeles area.

Paula Pierce died of cardiac failure while exercising in her apartment at age 31 in 1991.