Risks, rewards, relationships
The Go-go's bassist shares heartbreak, thrills in her unflinching memoir
With her 2020 memoir, All I Ever Wanted, Kathy Valentine pulls back the curtain on what it’s like to be in a band, especially one as popular as The Go- Go’s.
“It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t been in one, but I think most people can relate to getting something they really wanted and then worrying about losing it,” says the Austin-based songwriter, author and bassist, who is hunkered down in California, riding out the lockdown with her daughter.
“I was almost fixated on not losing what I had with The Go- Go’s, and that’s not the best place to be in any kind of relationship,” she said.
Relationships are at the heart of All I Ever Wanted, whether between Valentine and her single mother (who had quite lax views on parenting) or her longtime bandmates.
Valentine was already a professional musician with eclectic credentials when she joined the L.A.based new wave band, stepping in on bass in 1980.
A teenage guitarist in the Austin blues scene, Valentine also held brief membership in an early version of Girlschool, as well as stints in garage-punk bands like The Violators and The Textones before joining up with The Go- Go’s.
It was with The Go- Go’s that Valentine was able to forge the tight family bond she was looking for, and if they rocked as well then that was a bonus.
Of course it was all bound to crash and burn under the weight of the usual rock-related issues: drugs, alcohol, ego, exhaustion, all meticulously itemized in her clear-eyed prose.
The story might be sensational, but Valentine doesn’t lean into it.
All I Ever Wanted is less Motley Crue’s The Dirt and more Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, or Patti Smith’s Just Kids.
“Who fell down drunk one night and who slept with who, that name-dropping stuff is so boring,” Valentine sighs. “I was reluctant to put any of that in the memoir. On the other hand, I did get to hang with John Belushi and meet Rod Stewart, so it’s valid that I get it in there as well. I felt like if I got it right on the page it wouldn’t matter who I was, you’re just reading about a person. Like (poet and memoirist) Mary Carr, Elizabeth Gilbert, or Augusten Burroughs.”
Fans of The Go- Go’s will get everything they want in Valentine’s memoir, which will definitely raise eyebrows for its early chapter depictions of an unconventional home life with a very free-spirited mother. The book doesn’t flinch from the uglier side of the music business or band dynamics either, as it details breakups, lawsuits, sexism, simmering resentments, farewell tours, all inevitably leading back to a 2016 reunion.
As thrilling as the ride has been, Valentine doesn’t hide the heartbreak.
“It’s incredibly painful,” Valentine admits.
“I’m going to be 62 soon and that’s long enough to have a look back and see arcs and patterns that you don’t see when you’re in the midst of it. When I look back I see this incredible bond. On a personal level it’s wonderful, and as we get older there’s a sibling kind of feeling we have, an attachment to each other. There’s no denying that there’s always something volatile, exciting and tangible when we’re together,” she added.
Initially Valentine was meant to tour her memoir with an accompanying live performance (released on bandcamp.com), but the pandemic has changed everything.
She’s kept busy, though, recording, applying to MFA programs, learning video editing, picking up a few freelance-writing gigs here and there. If she’s not (in her own words) “the best known Go- Go,” she’s certainly the most literary.
“I don’t have a book deal but ideally I’d really like to write some short stories,” she says. “Something with an overarching theme. I’d also like to eventually do a second memoir from 1990 on, but in a different way, maybe not chronological. It’s all up in the air and I’m still figuring everything out. I just don’t want to be a one-trick pony.”