From the beginning, the band found a strong following in the Hollywood garage rock and Paisley Underground scene, making the gossip pages almost weekly.
The Pandoras were formed when singer/guitarist Pierce, a member of the mod/garage/pop Action Now, met singer/guitarist/bass player Deborah Mendoza (aka Menday), at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga in 1982.
After a band meeting in December 1982, The Pandoras were born, though names such as The Keyholes, Hole, The wHolesome, and The Goodwylls were considered first.
"[2] In 1984 Conway, Kahn, Gomez, and Pierce appeared on The Pandoras' debut album, It's About Time, on Greg Shaw's Bomp!
Pierce decided to continue as The Pandoras, immediately recruiting three new members who embarked on tour for the It's About Time LP release.
Pierce's fresh, new line-up of The Pandoras included Melanie Vammen on keyboards, Julie Patchouli on bass, and Karen Blankfeld on drums.
The band continued to play live and record new songs for their major label debut and were a top live club draw outside of Los Angeles, touring with Nina Hagen, and performing on bills with such acts as Iggy Pop, The Fuzztones, The Beat Farmers, Johnny Thunders, The Alarm, Madness, The Blasters, and The Cramps.
The Pandoras played the inaugural LA Weekly Music Awards and showcased a slightly harder sound and were interviewed on the roof of the Variety Arts Center for French TV by Laurent Basset who would in later years go on to marry drummer Karen Blankfeld and direct the hit series Below Deck on Bravo.
Blankfeld went on to play bass with former Enigma recording artists Wednesday Week, before forming the Billboard-charting all-female band The Rebel Pebbles.
Dillard was in The Pandoras for only two months; during that time she appeared in photoshoots intended for the Elektra cover of Come Inside and recorded "Run Down Love Battery" for the album as well.
A video for "Run Down Love Battery" received airplay on MTV's Headbangers Ball, expanding their audience to include metal fans.
D'Albert left The Pandoras in February 1989, just before a tour in support of Rock Hard, to join Human Drama, which had signed to RCA records.
However, on August 10, after dinner and an exercise session, Pierce suffered a fatal aneurysm in the shower of her Hollywood Hills apartment at the age of 31.
Former Pandoras' crew Dave Eddy and organized a tribute and fundraising show at the Coconut Teaser on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.
The show saw performances by Cherie Currie of The Runaways and her twin sister Marie Currie in their first public performance together in 20 years, with the final line up of the Pandoras backing them, as well as Precious Metal, who had broken up but who reunited for the show, Robert Hecker and Abby Travis, Dramarama with Clem Burke of Blondie and Sylvain Sylvain from the New York Dolls, The Muffs (Shattuck's and Vammen's band), African Violet (D'Albert band), Hardly Dangerous (Kaplan's band,) White Flag featuring Bill Bartell.
In October 2013, Pillbox frontwoman Susan Hyatt, guitarist Lisa Black, keyboardist Melanie Vammen, bassist Karen Blankfeld-Basset, and drummer Sheri Kaplan united to play three Pierce-penned Pandoras songs ("You Don't Satisfy", "In and Out of my Life In A Day" and "You're All Talk") at a private party in Redondo Beach, CA in October 2013.
On June 26, 2015, Shattuck, Vammen, Basset, and Kaplan performed their first official live show as the reunited Pandoras at The Casbah in San Diego, California.
In July 2015, the reunited Pandoras — Shattuck, Vammen, Basset, and newly acquired drummer Hillary Burton — performed in Minneapolis, Minnesota at The Turf Club.
The surviving members of Pierce's Pandoras — Vammen, Basset, Burton, and Kaplan — planned to perform at a tribute concert for Shattuck at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles in 2020.