They’ve Still Got the Beat
FOUR DECADES AFTER THEGO-GO’S GRADUATED FROM PUNKS TO TOP OF THE POPS, AT THEIR A NEW DOC LOOKS LASTING INFLUENCE
Ahead of Alison Ellwood’s documentary on Showtime, the Go-go’s reflect on their lasting influence on American music after 40 years.
The Go-go’s’ lips are very much unsealed’
thankfully, in the documentary named after the band that debuts on Showtime on July 31. It stands to be all the reunion that anyone will get for now: A brief summer tour that was announced when the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January is, of course, on hold until Go-go music can safely make the world dance again. But the film, from director Alison Ellwood (“History of the Eagles,” “American Jihad,” “Laurel Canyon”) will be a happy — if occasionally harrowing — experience for fans of a band that has remained intermittently intact since “We Got the Beat” took the world by storm almost 40 years ago. Variety spoke individually with all five members about the film, their place in history and the perennial question: Why aren’t they in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? How hard was it getting all five of you on board to participate in a documentary? Gina Schock: Some people wanted to do it and some didn’t. I wanted to from the beginning. Nobody in the band is a fan of the way our [2000 VH1 special] “Behind the Music” turned out, so it made everybody gun-shy about ever doing anything like that again. We have a lot to say about how this all happened for us, this crazy-ass, magical ride that we sit on. Belinda Carlisle: It took at least a year to decide whether we wanted to do it, because it's great to cement the legacy, but it’s something that’s going to be out there forever. When Alison told us, “Well, no, you can’t have final edit” — because that’s of course what we wanted — we finally were smart about it and let the experts do their job and hoped for the best. We all thought she was trustworthy and that, being a woman, she wasn’t going to take the low road. It shows that there are complicated dynamics, and always have been. [We’ve known] each other since we were 17 and 18 years old; they’re the longest relationships that we’ve had in our lives, really. It’s surprising how much of the movie — the whole first half — is about the Go-go’s on the original L.A. punk scene, pre-stardom. Schock: We definitely were a punk band. When we got in with our producer, Richard Gottehrer, he slowed everything down so that you could actually hear what Belinda was singing. You could hear the lyrics, and you could follow these great melodies that were hidden because it was flying by so fast you didn’t have time to absorb it. Charlotte Caffey: We weren’t fucking around. It was hardcore and gnarly. Then we had a big hit record, and more than likely most people thought, “Oh, who put that band together?” We did. No one told us what to wear, what to write, what to play. It’s our thing: You can take the girl out of the punk, but you can’t take the punk out of the girl.
Jane, you talk in the movie about how, when you adopted punk hair and fashion, you saw people crossing the street because you made them nervous … and how great that made you feel. Jane Wiedlin: I came from a large Catholic family in the Midwest, and I was raised under that “seen and not heard” thing — that girls never get mad and don’t say their opinion. And I’m very short and little, so I never felt any power. I had anger deep down inside that I didn’t even know was there, because it had been so shoved down by my upbringing. The punk movement was so important to me to grow up and become myself. Did you have a consciousness of yourselves, then, as feminists? Wiedlin: At the time, “feminism” was a dirty word, [but] of course we were. We were not manipulated or controlled by men. … It’s really hard for people of today to grasp that times were so different then — although to be honest, things haven’t really changed that much, either, in some ways. Other than the Bangles, there hasn’t been another really successful all-girl band: We played all our own instruments and wrote all our songs, so even that is 100% unique to us in 2020. The documentary spends a lot of time on the fun, early days, but it doesn’t stint on the dynamics that went south toward the end of your original run, after just three albums. Carlisle: I think we were all a little scared to actually watch it for the first time. It did sit there for a few days in my inbox. … There’s a part when Jane talks about wanting to sing [lead] on that one song [“Forget That Day”], and she says someone said to her, “What makes you think you can be a lead singer?” And I was thinking, “Oh, my God, I hope it wasn’t me that said that.” I don’t really have a whole lot of regrets, but if there are a few as far as the band goes, I think for me it would probably be my lack of empathy back then. But we were all guilty of that, I think. Going through success at such a young age, I think we were probably careless with each other’s feelings. Now, if Jane wanted to sing a song, I would say, “Of course. You wrote the song. It feels dear to you, and you should sing it.” But back then, everybody had their roles and was very protective about their position in the band. Although I do think that basically we’re all the same people that we were back then, all of our life experiences have made us better people in the end — more caring, more empathetic, wiser.
You have a moment, Belinda, where you admit that, as you experienced ups and downs in your solo career, your ego got a slapdown.
Carlisle: Yeah. Well, I think we could all use it once in a while, huh? [Laughs] Kathy Valentine: When I was writing my memoir, one of my strongest takeaways was just how immature we were. I had the emotional maturity of a teenager all the way up to age 26 or 27, and that’s largely because being in a band, you don’t really have to grow up. You have someone paying your bills and telling you where to be. So when you don’t have emotional maturity, it’s really hard to have that sense of empathy and compassion that adults tend to get unless they’re psychopaths. [Laughs]
OING THROUGH SUCCESS AT SUCH A YOUNG AGE, I THINK WE WERE PROBABLY CARELESS WITH EACH OTHER'S FEELINGS.” — Belinda Carlisle
Jane, was it daunting to talk about your experiences with depression in the film? Wiedlin: I think my whole being since the punk era has gravitated toward one easy statement, which is: Fear is the arrow pointing you in your direction. So what I’ve tried to do my whole life is be really honest and not withhold. As far as talking about my bipolar diagnosis, I’m not sure why that came out of me. I guess I just felt comfortable with Alison; she’s a very nurturing person. … I had lived every single day of my life since I was 11 thinking about suicide. It’s hard to talk about. But when you finally get relief from that, it was such a happy thing that ended up happening for me. To be alive at the age of 61 to me is a miracle, because I never even thought I’d see adulthood. The word “family” comes up a lot in the film. Schock: I can’t tell you how many times we were going to break up for this or that [reason], and then something would bring us back together. We are a family, like it or not. [We] don’t try to fight it anymore. You might not like everybody in your family, but you always love ’em. Valentine: The remarkable thing to me isn’t so much that we broke up, but that despite breaking up twice, including the time when I was out of the band, we’ve always [been] drawn back to each other and continued to carry on. There is a fundamental bond that, so far, has been unseverable. Nobody makes me laugh as much as the band. We have a manic, fun thing — and it’s quite volatile. With the decades and getting older, everybody’s had to come to a place where nobody’s really trying to do anything other than just be grateful and accept what we have.
How crazy is it that you’ve never been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? In the movie, Belinda, you suggest that maybe it goes back to when your then-manager Ginger Canzoneri made an angry phone call to Jann Wenner after the infamous Rolling Stone cover headline “Go-go’s Put Out,” and he was affronted and hung up. Carlisle: At this point, to be 150% honest with you, I could give a fuck. I mean, it would be nice, but I really don’t care. I know what we accomplished, and I’m really, really proud of that, and I don’t need the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s validation for that. I do think it’s something that somebody said, or that Ginger possibly said to Jann Wenner. Because it doesn’t make any sense. I mean, the band was innovative and groundbreaking and the first of its kind in so many different ways. But I’m honestly way beyond caring about it now. Valentine: Some people in the band don’t care at all. I care. I’m a rock ’n’ roll musician. I would love that. I think it’ll happen. It’s just a matter of time. Because it’s going to be weird to put in some other women from the ’90s and beyond without acknowledging us. A lot of them became musicians because they saw the Go-go’s. But I feel like Suzi Quatro should be in there. I know that for the Runaways, and I know that for myself, it never even occurred to me that I can plug my freaking guitar into an amp and be in a band till I saw Suzi Quatro. That is worthy. Women in music, we get to have our history regardless of how it looks to men. And maybe if it was noted and was celebrated, maybe we’d be seeing more all-women bands. Maybe we’d be see- ing more trailblazers. But when the history isn’t acknowledged, it kind of puts a blanket or a diffusion over the entire sector. Wiedlin: It wasn’t just women — we also influenced some really incredible male musi- cians. I know for a fact that both Kurt Cobain and Billie Joe Armstrong were influenced by the Go-go’s, and to me, those are the two biggest songwriters from the ’90s onward. Schock: I sit on the fence about it. Part of me is like, fuck you. How dare you? And there’s another part of me that feels like if they don’t see what our contribution is … they’re gonna have to figure it out, man. Anybody that you talk to could definitely tell you what we contributed as a band, in the industry for women and just in great songwriting — come on! But it wouldn’t be in the typical fashion of the Go-go’s that anything goes easily for us. It always has to be a struggle. But we get shit done.