Kathy Valentine

could write a good book. Um, I just felt like I didn't have a deadline and I didn't have an assignment, and I didn't know if I had the discipline and the motivation to actually do it every day. But I got a book deal. So once I had a book deal, you'd be crazy not to write a book. So there's that reason. Okay, but a little bit slower. How did you get a book deal? Um? I was doing the Texas Book Festival. I was moderating a panel and ut Press. A woman was there and she liked She started thinking,

I wonder if Kathy would be interested in this. And I had been thinking about it for quite a while. I had done a Twitter memoir starting in like two thousand nine that I got in trouble for and I took it down, not in trouble from Twitter, but from the rest of the go Goes. So I took it down, but it was there long enough for me to see that that um my story was resonating with people. So I I just I had I felt confident, and yet at the same time, I wasn't sure what the story

would be. I knew I wanted to be a memoir. I had read several memoirs, and I thought, I got a story. I can do that, and I just kind of went from there. How much writing had you done before you attempted the memoir, Well, I had been to college student for many years. I was just I have a tendency when life feels kind of like I'm not getting anywhere, which happens a lot as an artist, um or that I was spinning my wheels or just feeling lost.

I would take college classes, and a few years ago I realized I was very close to having enough credits to to get a degree, so I started working towards an English degree because part of my big plan was I will write a book during an m f A program, because then it'll be like having a an assignment and I know I'll do it, but I got the book

deal in between. Then. So in the course of writing for college, I was getting a's, I was getting good feedback, I was doing creative writing classes, turning in short stories.

My first idea was to do a collection of short stories, but I didn't think anyone would buy me as a legit writer, so I thought, and plus, with short stories or literature, you're competing with every literary genius that's also writing books, Whereas if I wrote a memoir, it's like my story, I'm the one that's I'm the one that's going to tell this story the best. So it kind of was just a smart way to try to introduce myself as a writer. Okay, there are a couple of things.

How did you end up moderating that piano at the book fair? Well, I'm in Austin and i'm a I'm kind of a semi big fish and a semi little pond, so you know, opportunities float my way every now and then. And the panel was with Jessica Hopper, who had put out a book called the first Collection of Rock Criticism by a female rock critic, and so I think their idea was that it would be a little hook to have the woman rock critic being moderated by the woman musician.

Maybe that was the idea. Okay, So the woman who gave you the deal from the University of Texas Press, had you known her previously? No? I had not, and she it was just a fluke. She found me. I had had a woman had babysat my kid like years before, and she was working at UT Press. And this woman who had signing Capabile at Ease went to that person and said, did you say that you knew Kathy Valentine. So the former babysitter contacted me. I I I contacted Gianna and we met for coffee and Bob, I gotta

tell you. Within an hour, I started feeling like, I think I've got a book deal. And I said, are you giving me a wait? Are you giving me a book deal? And I said, you haven't even seen how I can write? And she said, oh, we're not worried about it. We're not worried about it. And I asked, well, can I send you some stuff? I had written some scenes the scene about me getting an abortion when I'm

twelve years old. I had written about that I had written about some of some things in my life, and I sent her the stuff and she I loved the answer because she wrote back and said, I want this book. I want this book more than any book. And you could probably get another book deal. We can't offer you a lot where a nonprofit. And I said, yeah, but are giving me a deal, and I don't have to shop a manuscript, so I'll go with you T Press. Plus I liked what they had been putting out. They

had put out a couple of pretty cool little music books. Okay, and you're going to give the other reason for doing the book, I might have covered it and all that blabbing. Okay, Okay, let's focus because you know there's the famous line on the Springsteen Live album where his mother says, you can always go back to college. Okay, there are most musicians, if they went to college at all, certainly don't finish.

So when did you start taking college classes? I started, well, I started when I was sixteen, and then they kicked me out of community college because I didn't have a high school transcript. I didn't return until I was in l A. And I was just very frustrated. I thought like every band I started just wouldn't get any traction. And it just started feeling like everything I did didn't go anywhere. And I thought, I mean, oh, I know what happened. I I read a book, a historical fiction book,

and it was just a fluke. I found it on an airplane, and my I felt like this feeling. I was enthralled with ancient history. And I started devouring all these books, like I mean practically like academic things about ancient Rome. And that's what made me want to go back to school. I thought, I want to I want to get a I want to study ancient history. And I started out with Latin because I wanted to read

all the texts in actual Latin. Of course, I didn't realize that being a classic major just means that's all you do is a transcribe and transpose, uh stuff. So anyway, but then I realized very quickly I had to take basic college courses that I hadn't finished. So I taught myself algebra to get myself up to a level of college. Well, how did you teach yourself algebra? You just go buy books at like Barnes and Nobles, Like teach yourself algebra, High school Algebra one. I was doing it by trial

and error. Then I got in trouble. They sent a report home to my parents whatever. So I didn't see the learning curve is flat. I saw it as relatively steep. Well I and so, but I just did it. It was like I had to do it to get into college level math. And I just kept finding these wonderful things. Like when I got into college level math, I took statistics.

I thought, what a what a bore and this statistic professor And it was at Glendale Community College and he remains to this day my favorite instructor I've ever had. I just sent him a book. We stay in touch, and he made mathematics seem like the language of God. He was phenomenal. And learning is like that. It's like once you once you start feeling kind of fired up, and and just that feeling of being enthralled is all

I know. I hadn't found that since music. I never found anything that, you know, literally like made my palm sweat and made me my heart race and learning something and doing well. I'm I've always been kind of an approval junkie. So getting an A and a class feels good. It gave me self esteem and validation, and I just

I like it. I just like it. So I just started kind of haphazardly taking courses and I went on to Pasadena City College, and then I got married and stuff, and when I got to Austin, I started resuming mainly so I could get that into that m f A program. But there's a mismiss, there's a mistake. I'm not actually I've not graduated yet. I'm two classes away from having my my college degree. So do you plan to take those two classes? I do, because one of them is

just writing a thesis. It's even in this undergraduate undergrad program, you need to write a capstone thesis about So that's that's one thing. And the other thing I've been trying to just avoid as much as possible, um like sitting in a classroom. Like I've done a lot of portfolio things where I put together proof that I know the material well enough. I've done a lot of that and whatever I could get away with taking UH online and then of course I've had to sit in a lot

of classrooms. But if I can do it at home, i'd rather because I like making my own schedule. Okay. Well, as I say that you cover your life pretty well in your book, but just to hit some of the highlights, you have rather unique upbringing. Can you amplify that? Yes, I did, UM, and I guess I would. The basic thing I would say is that my mom, I mean, I could have spun it very differently. I could have made her just a post sixties free spirit um, but

she was okay. I had talked to her about being truthful and honest about my my childhood and how I was raised. But basically, my mom had me at twenty one. She's from England. She she divorced my dad when being married and living in America didn't meet her expectations, and she was She was very um, I thought, fearless and brave. What she was was pretty reckless and irresponsible. UM. I

was kind of left to raise myself. My earliest memory, UM, not as an event, but as a feeling, was the sense that I needed to be okay, that if I wasn't okay, she wouldn't be okay, and the whole precarious thing of our relationship and my my childhood would would fall into the abyss. So I've I very much felt like I always had to be okay. I carried that with me most of my life. Now, does that mean you were faking being okay? Or you will find a way to make yourself both both You just your kid,

You figure it out. You know. It meant when it meant because there was no other kids around, It meant being able to amuse myself, entertain myself. It meant, you know, I had no brothers and sisters. The only child I learned how to read. I would read books. I was just on my own a lot um. And when I got to be a certain my dad was not present in my life. I think it was very painful. It's

not conscious when you're a kid, you know. I just felt like I don't think I felt like I mattered very much to him, and uh I, um, I just kind of got very uh as soon as I found something that made me feel like I could fit in, which was drinking. And I started drinking at twelve, and I found a group of misfits that I could kind of fit in with. And once I started feeling like I fit in a little bit, um that was that

was how I coped. So we didn't want to go into that right away, but I got a little okay, but your you say your mother went to college. Yeah, my mother was a ut student. It took her twelve years to get her degree. She uh was raising me by herself. She had a boyfriend and she was obsessed with for about a decade who really wouldn't give me the time of day. So it was kind of dysfunctional. I just wanted attention from him, never got it. She

was obsessed with him. I felt very very abandoned and alone and that my job was to take care of myself. That's what I felt. And did your mother graduate from college? Yes? She did, so do you think that's an inspiration for you? I think that the academic life has always been something that I valued. My dad was a professor of economics.

Even though he wasn't a big part of my life, I was proud of him because that's how he got out of Lubbock, Texas and how he kind of separated himself from the poverty that he grew up with was through education. And school was just something until it became something where socially it was too painful. It was something I enjoyed. I enjoyed excelling at it. I enjoyed approval and I enjoyed learning. So before you turned twelve and you took a left field turn, um, did you so?

You did well in school? Were you popular? Did you have friends? I was? Um? I was a straight A student and very advanced and in terms of like the curriculum, but I felt like an outsider. It wasn't so bad at first because my mom she would work at a job for like a year or two save up her meager retirement, and we'd go to England and spend a couple of months, and when the money ran out, we'd come home and we'd live in a new apartment and I'd go to a new school. So I was always

the new kid. But in the fifth grade, she decided she wanted to give me something better. And that's when it really got bad, because she moved to this this very kind of lower middle class neighborhood wherever one was quite conventional and it was seventy seventy one. The we just stuck out like sword thumbs. And that's not what you want to do when you're eleven. You don't want to stick out, but we really did, and uh, I remember being embarrassed. She would pull up in her sports

car and her mini dress, and I would be embarrassed. Uh. I just wanted to be like everybody else, and it was it wasn't gonna happen, just was not going to happen. So I was kind of a mess waiting to happen. And you talked about your mother in the book. How does your mother feel about the book? Because you're very honest in the book. She's really I've always been her most vicarious, pride of and proof that she didn't mess everything up. Um, she feels very very proud of me.

I she I didn't want her to be the villain of the story. I mean, I really try. I too adhere to the conventions of storytelling and that there was an arc, there was a protagonist that was me, that overcame obstacles and came out a changed person. I knew. I knew the conventions of storytelling enough to want that, but I didn't want that villain in my story. And I asked her about everything before I would write about it. I said, I'm going to write about you know, us

dating the drug dealers. I'm going to write about you having an affair with a friend of mine, a teenage boy. I'm going to write about this, and is that okay? Is that okay with you? Because I wasn't going to do anything hurtful. If she said it's not okay, I wouldn't have done it. And oddly or ironically, her saying yes and giving permission gave me a lens to see all this stuff and through a different point of view, because as I'm writing it, you're I'm appalled, like, how

could she do this? How could she do this? I'm a mom, I can't imagine that, but okay. It made me realize that it was more important to her that I tell my story and tell it truthfully and honestly than it was for her to be depicted as some idealized great mom. And that made me realize how even though some big pillars of parenting were missing, i e. Guidance and boundaries, actual parenting, I realized that I had gotten support and I had gotten love. And uh. She

said it's painful for her to read. It's painful, but she said something funny. The other day. She again, she said it was so painful. I thought I'd done a really good job until I wrote that. So was there anything you intentionally left out about the childhood about your mother. Uh No, I I pretty much told most of that stuff. I mean, yeah, I think I think I hit on all the big ones. Okay, So what she anges? When you're twelve, you're in this new neighborhood. How do you

fall in with a bad crowd? Shall Lisa? Well? I? I remember the first time I drank, and it was Boone's farm, Strawberry Hill, and I was wretching. I was practically throwing up every time I took a gulp of it. But it was an instantaneous like why on earth you would continue doing something that was making you sick to your stomach? But it seemed like instantly it was doing something to my the way I felt, and it made

me feel like things were okay. And I started drinking with a with a quite a I've drank like an amateur, but I drank from that moment on and smoking and um it gave me. There was a small group of misfits and once you it was never going to fit in with the normal kids. Ever, no way that was never gonna happen. So having that little sort call of people um that also smoke and got high and drank, that was kind of became the thing, and then I didn't care about school. For the first time, I got

a c you know, and I didn't care. And okay, did you perceive smoking and drinking is being bad things? Well, my mom's smoked, so I I when I was a kid, I would always like, like, you know, ranted heard it, quit smoking, quit smoking. Um. But yeah, once once I did think it was bad. Yeah, it was bad because we were we were across the street. We were considered, you know, juveniles, and and we thought anybody that that didn't drink or or smoke pot was a narc. We

called him narks. And yeah, I knew it was bad, but that was I wanted to be bad at that point, because being bad when I was accepted and I had friends, it was being bad. Did that give you further attention from your mother? No? No, my mom, Uh, she didn't know what I was doing. And when she found out, and the way she found out was I I passed out in someone's front yard and a police cruiser found me and drove me home and came to the door and I they stood there at the front door when

my mom answered, and I crawled through the door. And even that didn't cause a lecture. I mean, the only thing she said was I hope you've learned your lesson, And the lesson was like about getting drunk because my mom wasn't a drinker. I think that was what she thought the lesson was. But uh no, there was no punishment ever. I was never punished ever. Okay, so does the school notice that you're taking a left turn? No,

so you're basically out there on your own. So you also, and this is really in the book, along with drinking and smoking comes some sexual experience. Insis. Yeah, I've been really emotional lately, so I'm gonna try hard not to like start blubbering because things are a little raw just because of everything. So I'm trying not to do that,

but some things are so for some time. One of my most distinctive memories, uh and unpleasant things was the fact that a young boy when I was when I was very young, I guess twelve, it must have been twelve, and he kind of cornered me. I was that his sister was my friend. He cornered me. Uh, he paid

attention to me. As I wrote in the book, I would go over there trying to avoid him, but get his attention at the same time, and it was just a matter of time before he said he loved me and wanted to be with me and wanted to be the first person and kind of just went at it with me, pushed, pulled my bats down, and I didn't know what was happening. I had no idea what he was doing or if we did it. I thought maybe

we had done it regardless. He when that event was over, he went and told like everybody in the school, everybody, and the next day everyone was talking about me and pointing at me and laughing, and other guys guys were coming up to me or yelling things at me. And I wrote about it in the book and it's extremely painful. I went to my mom and tears and I told her what had happened. And this is this is not any exaggeration. My mom said, you didn't do anything wrong.

You did it with the wrong person. And her reason for saying that was that she didn't want me to be hung up about sex. She didn't want me to think like, oh, I can't have sex anymore. She I mean, it was just her intention was okay, it was pretty pure as an intention, but it was just placing adult concerns on a child. You know, It's like maybe if I had been twenty five, she would be worried about me not being hung up on sex, but to not

be worried about your little girl. So it was really painful, it really I really amped up the drinking and stuff after that. Well, I just know anybody in high school, they would label people truly or falsely, and everybody would

know would be very painful for the individual involved. It was extraordinarily painful, and especially because I had I had friends that were guys, and then they would I thought they were friends, and then they would tell people that they had had sex with me and they hadn't, or they would corner me and try to have sex and I would I would fight them off and run off, but they would say it happened anyway. So it was

probably the most painful time of my entire life. I took my daughter ten years ago to see where I grew up, and I drove with her to that where we lived when this happened, and the school I went to, and even my daughter said, I don't like it here. I don't like it here. This makes me very this this is a bad place. So what do you tell your daughter about sex. Well, she has a very different childhood than mine, and in the era, I mean, it's

very different than the seventies. I mean, as as as terrible as some of this sounds, you have to be of a certain age to understand what the seventies were like, and coming right after the free love, uh era of the sixties, and it was very there was a lot of debauchery and openness um without the without the freeness, you know. Um, so it's kind of like it was a very different era. I haven't I haven't had to. Uh. I mean, I've talked to her about what happened to

me a little bit. It makes her very sad. You know, we're really close, and my daughter is really kind of protective of me, and the idea of me being hurt or being treated badly upsets her a lot. So how old is she today? Seventeen? Has she read the book? She's only read parts of it, and she's avoided those parts. She's read some of the other things, and uh, she's really proud. I think she'll read it when she's ready. I don't think she's She's always been very good at

self regulating herself in terms of knowing what she's ready for. So, um, I'm just letting her take the lead on it. And where is she on the continuum between wild and crazy and book smart and you know, nerd, what kind of kid is she? She's amazing. She's all she is thinking about is going to college and where she wants to go and how to make sure her applications are great. And she's uh, she has admitted to trying alcohol a couple of times and says it's not her thing. And

she's never known me to drink or smoke. I mean, I've been sober thirty one year, so uh, but I've always I've planted my little seeds here and there. Like if we or somewhere and somebody's like obnoxiously drunk, I kind of can just go, oh, that's what happens sometimes if you can't handle your liquor, you know it's going to get it in when I can let her make

her own judgments. Okay, Now, since it's in the book and you mentioned it earlier, ultimately you do get pregnant at twelve, so can you tell us a little bit more about them? Yeah, So after that horrible event where pretty much my my course was charted. I think the way I said in the book, it was like the stories he told started becoming the story of my life, even though there was not any truth. And some older

boys started coming around to our house. My mom worked, I was a latchkey kid, My mom was beautiful, and there was just something. We started being kind of a novelty, like the wild girl with the beautiful mom and she's not home in the day. So teenage boys much older than me started hanging around. Um, one of them would bring that would bring records over, and I wrote in a book like bonding over music and bands is where I really started feeling like I was connecting with people.

That was the first time nothing else had ever connected me with people of my own age who are around my own age. So, UM, one guy, he he, we just had sex. And it was so painful that I realized that the first time that the guy hadn't even done anything, that he basically just poked around because and I'm like, I mean, even at that age, and I really like, I've had to listen to this ship all year long and uh, and nothing even happened. So that was just ridiculous. But it turns out that first time

that it did work and I did have sex. I was very unlucky and very fertile and got pregnant and found out within a few months. And this was, uh it was two years before Roe v. Wade. We tried to figure out a way to get this pregnancy aborted and couldn't do it in Austin. My mom spoke to some doctors. They said there was a clinic in California, and that became my first trip to California, Uh, to to have an abortion when I was twelve years old, and I wrote about it, I think, pretty gritty, real

uh terms, and uh, it's hard. I was nervous about writing about abortion. It's such a it's such a polarized issue. If I could have have I had written about it in the eighties, it would have been like, no big deal. But now you just say the word and it's like, you know, I'm probably gonna get like a zillion uh messages about being a baby killer or something. So it

was hard. It was scary to write about it. But having an abortion at that age obviously the a lot of things happened to you at a young age a little different from the average citizen. UH did it. How emotionally did it affect you having an abortion or it was all such a crazy time, It was all mixed together. I by that time I was very uh adept at not feeling my feelings. So what I saw it as was a problem that had to go away. That was

my my most uh driving sent it about. It was just that I just want this problem to go away, I said. There was a planned parenthood social worker. She told my mom. She asked me how I felt about it, and I just said, I want to I want to deal with it, That's all I said. And she told my mom, I was obviously repressing my feelings, and you know, yeah, of course I was repressing my feelings. That's like, whatever it took to survive and be okay was what what

I did. And um when I what I remember more than anything was the relief, the relief after because I was put under I went under general anesthesia, and when I came out of it, there was that glorious moment where I was a clean slate and remembered nothing, and then I remembered everything, and that was quickly just I was washed over with this enormous relief that this horrible problem horrible problem. I mean, I had never heard of an a Shan. I didn't know anybody that else I

knew I did. It was not like my girlfriends and I were sitting around talking about having sex. I didn't really have any girlfriends, and the ones I did have, I don't think we're doing that. So I was really glad it was over with and I went on the pill from twelve when I was on the pill. And now you mentioned that there was a time when your mother was dating a friend and then when you were both dating the drug dealers, Uh, can you tell us about that? Yeah, well, I had one one of my

good friends. Um, well, he he was somebody I thought really happy about. And we connected on Facebook not too long ago, and I said, what do you remember from that time and and he said, I remember you were funny as ship. You're so funny. And then I said, I know what happened with you and my mom. And he just ignored it. He just ignored it. He wouldn't wouldn't talk about it, because what the deal is, my mom had an affair with this guy. I had no idea at the time. I cannot even imagine how it

started or how it happened. In the book, I kind of pieced together that it probably started when I went to visit my dad um. When I came back, they were hanging out together, and it kind of crossed my mind, like why would my friend and my mom be hanging out without me being there? And I have to say she was smoking pot by then with me and my friends. My mom was smoking pot with me and my friends. And she didn't tell me about this affair until my twenties,

and we were high, We were high on drugs. We were like nin nin n like talking like you do all night or and she said, you know, well, you know I had an affair with James Hits, a pseudonym, And I said, and I was shocked. But at that point, I'm still in my twenties, and as I wrote in my book, like she was my pal, Like you don't get mad at your pal for having an affair with your other pal. And it came up again when in sobriety, and I think I brought it up, and then it

came up again. And the cool thing about writing a memoir is that I get the luxury of sometimes going into the present and being able to write with the reflection and the insight. And there's this scene in the book where I'm saying to my mom because I'm looking at my daughter and I'm like coming, I said, what were you thinking? It's just the enormity of it really sunk in from writing about it was and I said, I could have been taken away and put in foster care.

You know, I always say, oh, my childhood was crazy, but at least I wasn't in foster care or or beaten with a broom or locked in the closet. But it could have happened. I could have been put in foster care. And this realization was very enormal. It was, it was profound. And I said, what were you thinking? You had you were smoking pot with us, You could have been thrown in jail, you had an affair, you could have been charged with statutory rape. What were you thinking?

And I got to write that scene in my book because as I was questioning her this, I realized that I was wanting her to say, yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. It was wrong. I made a mistake, and no she didn't. She didn't. She's a deflector. Okay, then what about the drug dealers? They were dating. That was a happy period. Um My mom met a young drug dealer. Are our closest friends. By this time, I'm out of public school. We're done. We don't fit into

this scenario at all. My mom found a commune, hippie commune that had an uncredited school, So I'm going there for the first time. I'm happy as can be. Uh, you can do whatever you want at this school, and you can learn whatever you want. Most kids want to learn, so it's not a disaster. Um and I and guitar there. So but I'm doing this by the day, but in the evenings, we're spending time with this couple and their drug dealers, and I think they're fabulous. They love me,

they love my mom. They live in a fancy house. Um and one of their friends, one of their dealer friends, started dating my mom. He was a young twenty four year old. He was an escapee from Leavenworth Prison. He was a dope dealer and a biker and a junkie and charismatic and kind of wild and fun. And it was exciting to know him and these people. And he's the first person that brought an electric guitar and an

app into my house. He's the person that showed me the very first time I plugged a guitar into an app was to this guy. So I think of him with very warm feelings. Um. But one day his friend, his partner pulled up a thirty six year old I'm fifteen, and uh I started an affair with him. My mom's

with the other guy. And I write about this time because it really felt like, um, well, she was my best friend at that point in time, and it was it was really being lifted out of a place where you know, we just my mom had such a mindset of the rules don't apply to her. She doesn't be her. She's much more forward thinking and much more out of the box. And these straight people in this neighborhood or this convention that the rules don't apply to my mom

still to this day. So um, she loved, you know, having these kind of counterculture. And when I say drug dealers, I mean I'm talking big time, like flying private jets around with kilos of of pot and you know, thousands and thousands of dollars and it was it was made of on a major scale. So yeah, that happened. And when I wrote about this, I try not to do it in a sensational way. It's just it's it's pretty matter of fact. It just that you do though it's

not sensationalized in the book. And Okay, let's get a couple of things down. At what point do you how old are you when you stopped living with your mother? Um? I moved out from her, probably at age seventeen, and for money to find a place. What's that? What do you do for money? For rent? Oh? I got jobs. I got jobs from We were poor. If I wanted anything, I had to get a job and work for it. So I had been. I was babysitting when I was nine years old for money to buy the toys I wanted.

I I had started. Um, I started working. Um what was my first job? I wrote about it? But anyway, I the smartest thing I did was take the United States Civil Service exam and I could get jobs at at the the Census Bureau, the I R S they had. They had a center in Austin, so I was getting well paid. I worked in a bear distributing distribution warehouse. Um. I just I was working. I was making money. So when I moved from her, I was working at a health spa okay, So was there always music in your

household or how did you get turned onto music? Music was was not a big part. We didn't even have a stereo until I got one. But what it was was like the jukeboxes, the TV shows, UM, the table jukeboxes at the coffee shop, UM. And once I got and it was in school too, and the radio. I was just your average you know. And I didn't have brothers or sisters like bringing records home and stuff, so

I really was dependent on the radio. One of my favorite stories was writing about how when I heard Cream Sunshine of Your Love and in Lubbock, Texas, I was sent there for the summer. My sixteen year old cousin was playing this song and it was the first time I had realized that music elicited a response that was quite different than what I was used to, more pop music and singing along and feeling uplifted, and this was

a more primal response. And it kind of instilled in me of real love of kind of bluesy rock for for for from then on. But music had just always been there for this just like most people, I think it it soothed me, It took me out of myself and when there was rock stars that I looked up to, that was key, because you know, I'm in a in this place where I don't fit in and there's no

way I'm going to fit in. And then I would see David Bowie or Mark boland or and I would just go, there's no way these guys would fit in either, And it just it felt like it felt like it was evidence that there was a world away from where I was so between music and then my mom kind of carding me off to angle in every couple of years or so, I really held on tight to that

this was temporary. This was a temporary place. This horrible, painful adolescents and these mean, disgusting, terrible people, and they really were. They were bad people, bad kids. Um, We're temporary, and music was was how I was gonna Once I started finding music as being a musician, that I was like, this is how I'm going to get put as much my ledge between me and this circumstances as I can now. They teach you how to play guitar at the alternative school.

At what point do you say, Hey, I want to play guitar, I want to form a band. Well, I didn't think of it until I was drawn to music from a young age. I mean I felt a pull. I joined the orchestra. I had taken piano lessons, but um, when I started playing guitar, it felt like the right instrument. But it didn't occur to me that I could be

in a band. I had never seen a woman in a band other than being a rock singer like Janice Joplin or I think in Austin we had a we had a great Marsha Ball was from New Orleans, a great keyboard player, but other than her, I had never seen women and bands playing electric instruments or drums or anything and just didn't think it was done. Um. It

was going to England with my mom. I was I was fourteen, and there's three channels on the BBC and uh, Top of the Pops came on and Susie Quatrow was on, and it literally was a life changing, life defining moment to see her. It was like, Oh, okay, and this is this is what this is what I wanted. From that moment, I knew I wanted to do music. I knew I wanted to have a band, and I wanted

to have a band with other gals like me. I wanted it to be, and part of that was because I hadn't seen anyone else doing it, and I wanted to do something extraordinary. I wanted to feel like I mattered and that I had value because I didn't feel like that inside, and doing something extraordinary seemed like the way to do it. And I thought, I'm going to

be the best guitar player ever. It's gonna be. It sounds so silly now, but I I was like, there's gonna be Jimmi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Kathy Valentine. That's what I thought. And uh so I was really excited after I saw Susie and had that become very crystal clear what I was, what I was meant to do in life, and so what were the steps you took to achieve that. I came back and I pretty much twisted my best friend and his

arm into becoming a drummer. And I was still at my commune school and there was other kids played, so we put together a band right away, and we got access to playing right away because the school was dirt poor and always was having benefits and local Austin bands would play at the benefits, So we got to do that, and I was often running. From the minute I saw Susie Quatro, I knew what I wanted to do, and I was off and running. Now you paint a picture

of really seeing everybody in the clubs in Austin. Now, was this after seeing Susie quatrow that you felt, Hey, I want to go see these musicians. What what instigated that? Well, music has always been a big part of Austin. You know, way before it branded itself as um as a music city. It was just by by nature and organically one so um and my mom was a young either college student

or you know, kind of hip person. So I had gone around to certain places there was you know, there was a lot of music around in the clubs, but it was really lax. Once once I started wanting to kind of go out and see bands, I was doing that. I would say probably from the age of um, sixteen sixteen. I was going to clubs and uh, really really grateful for what I got to be exposed to in Austin and the variety and the spectrum of music and just how how lax it was. I think they just figured

you wouldn't be there if you shouldn't be. And also the Armadilla World Headquarters was like this amazing venue and my one of my mom's friends worked there, so we would go all the time. They had a big beer garden and then it would be easy just to kind of go wander in. They had concerts all the time. Uh, huge variety. I mean they might have Captain Beefheart one night and then they'd have the new Writers at the

Purple Stage the next night. And I didn't even know what I was going to see half the time, but I had excess because of my mom's friends. So uh, it was just it was really great. It was really really great to see such a variety of music and to be a musician, you know, it had a huge effect give us the arc of your time in Austin playing So you had bands, were they playing gigs? Were

you making any money? Um? Well, after starting that first band at at Greenbrier School, I decided number one, I was tired of going to school because by that I was sixteen. Uh, A lot of the older kids were moving on anyway, and it meant getting up really early to go to school, and I was going out and staying out late. So I stopped doing that started going to college. At age age sixteen, I lied to get into college. I just said that I had was a high school graduate. It took them two years to figure

it out that I wasn't. So I had my college classes, I I had my his car, and I had my friend that I had met in the same school, Greenbrier. She and I were We started having bands and we we just networked. We went out, we we started. We

found a female bass player. I couldn't believe it. And because we were a trio, we decided we were going to be like zz Top um zz Top was that was Texas is um New York Dolls or Iggy and that was our regional you know cool band was easy Top and uh so that our first songs were zz Top songs, you know. Um. I had been practicing fiendishly from the minute I learned guitar. I mean, I remember, my first goal was to be up in the pantheon

of guitar greats. So I practiced like crazy. I had a handicap because I'm left handed and I played like a right handed person, so my right hand was never going to have the technical finesse of of a right hand in person. But I could play chuck Berry chords great and play like you know, jumping jack flash and all that stuff really well. The left hand down down called. So we're doing zazy top songs and UMU a few other covers and guys are and in Austin, musicians are

really supportive. And this was a pattern that emerged when I'd never thought about this um but as I was writing the book, I started seeing this pattern come out where the musicians, the guys were so supportive, there was no condescension. Whether it was a virtuoso like Eric Johnson or a rock and roller guy would like you know, playing in a covers band. They they were so h supportive and and like here that's a crumby amp you have, let's go get you a good amp. Or okay, here

I've heard about this person. I hear are so and So's girlfriend plays bass and so I had a lot of support for the guys. Really really grateful for that. I think it could have. I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't go forward with that whole plan. If I wasn't getting that kind of validation, I wouldn't be surprised if it wouldn't have crushed me, but maybe not. Maybe I was determined enough. So UM, that first band was

a trio. Right around the same time, Doug Psalm, who was one of my very favorite performers, um he I would go see him every week. He had a standing gig and it was really there wasn't like a velvet rope or a v I P room or anything. You just everyone was hanging out and he found out that Uh, I played guitar, and he invited me to sit in with his band. So I got to play with Doug Psalm on a stage and it was terrifying. But I was the most proud I'd ever been. So I felt like, um,

everyone was on my side. You know, I really felt like everyone was on my side. It was going to happen, and UM. One thing led to oh, we weren't doing professional stuff, not really at that point. We were sorry, I lost your question. We UM. We'd get gigs usually because of the kindness of guys saying you guys can open for us, and maybe the first gig was like six songs, no big deal, cover songs. It wasn't really writing that many songs by that time. But then my

mom wants to go to England again. So at that point I decided this is where I'm going to make it as in England, and I'm seventeen and go off to England join a band there. Um don't while while I'm there, punk rock is happening, and I started getting hip to punk rocks. I didn't know about the precursors here in America. I was still into my zz top and my Rolling Stones and stuff I wasn't. I wasn't following any of the early uh I didn't know who the m C five were. I didn't know who the

New York Dolls were. I didn't know who John Kale was. I wasn't real big into lou Reid or the Velvet Underground except for the radio hits. So I didn't have any pathway to punk rock till I was in Austin I mean till in London. Sorry. And when I got kicked out of that band due to a stomach ache and then finding someone way better than me, it was

again a crystal moment. It was like, uh ha, not only do I not have to play as good as Jeff Beck to start a band and practice for the next you know, three years, six hours a day and be like, really profession proficient, I can do this now, I can do this now. And I went back to Austinson. I'm going to start the first punk band in Austin. And that's what I did. And how was the reception? It was blue people's minds. Uh. We quickly we started a scene and other bands came quickly in our wake. Uh.

I started that band. The first gig was in January. Two weeks after seeing this ex Pistols at Randy's RODEOU did our first gig and by August we were moving to l A because we were convinced we were going to make it um. In that time, I had also seen the Runaways, who I for the first time I saw that there was this is before I went to England, you know. I saw, oh, there's other girls in my age that are doing this. I started feeling this urgency like I'm not the first one. I'm not the only one.

Uh this this I got to go somewhere else to really make this happen. So getting to l A and taking the violators, which we thought we were going to make it in the in the business, you know, but you up quite a really dreary, upsetting picture of moving to l A. You're not twenty one. A friend moves in with a friend, they go to clubs, your left out. You have some really rat hole apartment in Hollywood. What

was going through your mind? Then? It was misery? Um. For one thing, the girl that that I moved out there where there was three of us in the band, and one was very responsible, Carla Olsen, and she wasn't going to move until she had a job because she's a grown up and I'm a kid. Still, I'm a kid until I'm thirty basically, so just let's just take that for assumption. And so she doesn't get a moving

to move until she has a job. My my very best friend who had started playing with, who I had been in all my bands with, she basically abandoned me. She had a fake I du she had a better apartment she could hang out in, and I was incredibly lonely, um, very poor. I I have letters, I've seen letters that I wrote to my mom. I'm begging her for forty dollars um, probably not getting it. Um. The thing that

that came to me in that time was songs. That was the first time I pulled out my get and I had written a couple of stupid songs, but this was the first time I pulled out my guitar and wrote a song because I needed to expressed, like the the external and internal feelings that I was having. And I was bored. You know, I didn't I didn't have a TV, I couldn't go out, I didn't have any friends, I didn't know anybody. So it was actually a really

key moment to discover songwriting in that time. But what was going through my mind was I was very angry. I was resentful at my friend. And I also have like little comic strips that I would write, like I would write these like these terrible like little comic strips about me, you know, me saying terrible things and drawing these little pictures of I mean, I was really angry, really angry at her. It was I think the first time I really felt betrayed and abandoned. So you're there,

and how long do you ever think about giving up God? Oh, that that did never occurred to me. Everything was just a matter of time. And when Carla came out, you know, she's got a good job. She we get a good apartment, and then I've got a mate. I was so reliant on having like that, that partner. I don't know if I was capable on my own. It's like I needed a sidekick, or not a sidekick, that's the that's a demeaning term. It's I needed a partner. I felt like

I couldn't do it on my own. And starting with Maryland, the first person I had a band with it, it set up a pattern that I pretty much stuck with most of my life, which was, you know, maybe either not thinking I could do it on my own, or maybe just feeling like two people. I don't know. I don't know what it was, but I I needed that. I don't know how far I would have gone on my own. Okay, from the moment moved to l A

before the holiday gig with the Go Goes. How long a period of time is that moved to l A and Um August of seventy eight, and I'm not in the Go Goes. I don't play my first gig until eight nine New Year's Eve nineteen eight, So for two years I'm in the text tons. Okay, I have I have a job. I got a job at at a Transamerica Real Estate Tax service on Beverly and Third, right

across from where the Beverly Center is now. And it was an office job, and Carla let me borrow her nice clothes so I could turn up to my office job. And at night we'd go to the Capitol Records Capitol Records swap meet, which is where everyone hung out and where you met musicians, and it was it was like it was, it was the place could be. We did that every month. We'd drive around and and and the car with a X pack of beer listening to Rodney

on the Rock. We were just like so keen to to make it and find out where we fit in this incredible music scene, this organic, amazing music scene that just had every band had this character and individuality, and it really echoed what I'd grown up with in Austin, where I was used to country honk and to Hano bands and blues bands and rock and roll bands and

cosmic cowboy. I was like all that stuff. And then in in l A there's rockabilly bands, and there's the Blasters and the kind of scrappier punk bands and the artsy punk bands and the new way of skinny tie guys and the power pop bands. There was so many, so much good music, and we just I couldn't wait to be part of it, could not wait. Okay, so in those two years you're optimistic, Oh yeah, okay, So you get the call to sub for the Goes because their bass player can't do it. Do you see this

as a giant opportunity? You say, well, this is just something to do. Well it was. What happened was I had quit the text Tones because after uh over a year or maybe a year and a half, almost two years, I felt like we weren't moving up the ranks as quickly as like the plim Souls were, and other bands that seemed to be like The Knack and uh, all the bands that were our peers were seemed to be moving forward and we weren't, and we had opportunities. Cool

things happened. I mean, l A was like this, this constant carrot dangling in front of you, and it was just around the corner and anything could happen, and sometimes anything did happen. But I just thought I started to feel like it was two bands and one so I had quit. I was out of the text Tones and it was the first time since I had been sixteen really, And I say that like at some lifetime, but it

feels like a lifetime back then. Yeah. It was the first time in four years that I hadn't been in a band, and I was really at loose ends and I didn't have that partner that I had relied on, and I was like, well, what am I gonna do? Well, phil Seymour is going to do my song, and I'll just do something and I'll put a new band together. But I was kind of like, for the first time a little bit like, well, what's going to happen here?

And that's when I ran into Charlotte from the Go Gos and I was at the whiskey and she um approached me and I knew who the Go Goes were. They were popular by then. They they had The first time I saw them, I dismissed them. I thought they were amateurs. I wasn't mean about it. I like seeing women in bands, but I just said they got a ways to go. I thought I was a season pro.

Fast forward a year and a half later, they've played probably, you know, at least a hundred gigs um, and they've gone to England and they've got a drummer that kicks ass, and they're a very different band, so I'm aware that they're not the same band that I kind of dismissed when I first got there. But um, when when Charlotte asked me and she approached me, they knew who I was, and she just said, could you play bass? I know you play guitar, but you could you play bass? Do

you play bass? Um? Because our bass player is sick and we have some shows lined up? And man did they ever? They had four nights, two shows a night at the Whiskey happening in six days. I mean it was six days, not even six days. Yeah, yeah, six days. So when I look back, it's kind of crazy that they had waited that long to start getting their sub lined up. But at the at that moment, it was like, here's something to do. This will be cool. They're popular this,

so yeah, I can play bass. I'll do this. So I don't think it was like this is my destiny right away, but it very quickly it became a band I wanted to join, and that happened as I learned the songs. Because even though I knew who they were and I'd watched them take a big step upwardly mobile step and and their musicianship. I wasn't. I didn't go to all their gigs. I didn't know what their set was or what their material was. I knew we got the beat. So I'm learning their songs and you know,

I'm no dummy. I know what a good song is. And I was just like, geez, this band has really good songs. And the more I started learning them and finding my way around the base and going, hey, this is pretty cool. I can I can. I can play bass the way I want to play. I played it like it was a guitar. I used my pick and I there was room to do some cool little melodic things and add to the songs. And when I walked

into the first rehearsal, I just liked them. I liked the way they looked, I liked the way they dressed. I felt like I had found kindred spirits people like me, and I wanted to be in that band from the minute. From the minute I walked in that room, I thought it was. It was. I never wanted anything more. How do they ultimately give you the green light? Well, I think there was. It says a super there's a very volatile and very uh tangible chemistry to the go goes.

It's still there. You know if we if we are in a room together, the air changes. I means we we all change a little and we become this other entity. And it was evident from the beginning there was a chemistry. But also I'm a good musician. I played really well, and I you know, I I was aware of feel and and and and I just kind of instinctively knew how to do really good at that job. And um, they liked me. They liked me, and as as happens in bands, you know, they they were at a bit

of a crossroads with their bass player. She was a finding a founding member. But I think there had been some I think there'd been a little bit of strife between her and the other members. So I think I think it was just probably like when a couple like they don't like each other anymore, but then somebody else has to come along to give you the courage to like move on. I think it was like that. It was like I was like the motel playing that they

decided to run off with. And so how long after you played those gigs was it clear that someone was going to light the rocket for the Go Goes. Well, it wasn't very clear at first, um because even though like we started, we once I was and they asked me to join within probably about ten days. The day after the engagement ended, there was a thing in the The l A Times that mentioned me, and then there was a story the next day why can't the Go

Goes get a record deal? And they mentioned me. So I'm like going, okay, I'm in the press already with this band, in association with this band. It's just when are they going to ask me? When are they gonna ask It happened very quickly. I said, I I want this really badly, but I want to be one of the songwriters. They were happy to have a songwriter joined the band as well. Um. But then it was just back down to business. It was like doing gigs. I think two weeks later we had a show at the Roxy,

we did a show in San Diego. Was just business as usual. Our manager Ginger uh Oh. And the other thing was I had gone on unemployment and as soon as I became a regular member, I found out that the Go Goes. This was the first time I'd ever seen anything like this, But the Go Go's got forty dollars a week Ginger, they had a bank account and everybody got forty dollars a week. And I was getting my unemployment check, and I was living for free in

Catherine Sebastian's house up on Sunset Plaza. So I thought I had arrived, just so you understand to me, this was I had made it. I had made it. You know, I'm living in the Hollywood Hills, I know rock stars, and I don't have to work, and I'm in a great band, So that it's done. Deal uh so um. But she went out and she would report back to us. I went back to I wish I could remember some of the people. I wish I could remember who were the label people she was meeting with. It would be

it would be interesting to to to h out some names. Anyway, she was told by all of them, we can see that the band is popular. We can see that they have a good following. But there's never been a successful all female band, never been one pass. She has letters, she has letters where they pass. Um. So I think we had our biggest show. It was. It was just growing so quickly. And when I mean growing, this is before there's a record deal I'm talking like whiskey Roxy.

And then we have a gig at Perkins Palace, which is in Pasadena and it's probably a thousand and cedar theater. Maybe I'm wrong, but it was a little bit bigger than that, actually was it. So we have this gig and Um at the Roxy, Miles had come, Miles Copeland had come, and he started just pursuing Ginger, pursuing her, and she she um went back to the labels, went back again because she thought maybe it's that thing when you have it just takes one person to interested and

then they'll fall in line. But they still didn't. So Miles was the only only only hope we had, and we we agreed to signing with I R S after going to I R S Records and meeting Jay Boberg and John Guinary and all the staff there were just they were so earnest and and sincere and loved the go goes, and it wasn't like we had many choices. So we signed with Miles on April Fool's Day night, and we left the next day to record our album

in New York with Richard god Her. Okay, so this happens very quickly, there's a whirlwind and actually it ends pretty quickly too. What was it like being at the eye of the hurricane. Well, it was you know I talked about feeling like I'd made it when I was getting forty bucks a week. Well, that was just this sense that I kept having over and over again on a bigger, deeper, more profound, explosive way, like, Oh, we got a record deal that I had never thought about.

When I thought about making it in the business, I didn't really think about what the steps were. It was just kind of making it. Um. Of course I'd seen other bands get record deals, and I knew that that was the end goal. But also just not having a freaking job was a pretty big end goal. That wasn't like not being a musician. So um, when we got the record deal, mind blown. The biggest The biggest thing in the world to me was going to record in

New York City. I mean I couldn't believe I would be in a hotel room for weeks, if not months, in New York City making an album with my best friends. And I, like you said, I'd only been in the band. Um, let's see January from Ary March four months, so we were on a honeymoon. We were like newlyweds. We were in this band. I felt like it was it was an adolescence. You know, it wasn't a hurricane at all. It was a hurricane of of wonder and getting Oh,

I just felt like I'm getting what's mine. Finally that felt like all the all the crappy adolescence I didn't get to have I got to have as a go go in New York City making this amazing album, and uh, it was one of the best periods of my life. I don't think I realized untill I wrote about it. How just a fema rail it was. I said that wrong, but it was just like this, like this great thing. I loved writing about it. I loved capturing that what

it felt like. And um, from there, Yeah, it wasn't a hurricane until uh, it just didn't stop, you know, one thing after the next, just one thing after next for for several years. It just you know, the first time it slowed down, I was I started that having that like fear and lost, Like I think we took eight months off because we started having some problems and oh my god, like eight months like we're not touring,

we're not recording an album, We're not playing shows. Uh I was lost by that time, I was completely absorbed. An Kathy Valentine had existed prior to being a Go Go was obliterated. Um, I was lost. So I think that was when it started feeling a little bit like a hurricane when you're lost to yourself. Right, Okay, Now there's a lot of rep about the Go Goes and you're really the first female band to be on the road.

Supposedly there was a lot of debauchery and the Go Goes there was a lot of drug use, et cetera. What was it like being a memory being on the road with the band? Well, I figured out fairly quickly that, um, that it was better to start drinking after the show. I was young, because so I had I was pretty, you know, I hearty peasant stock and uh I had

the constitution that could take it. And I was, you know, twenty two years old, so and it was the eighties and I had been drinking for quite a while, so it was just par for the course. To me. It was just like, you know, that's what everybody does, uh, they drink. You know, if I had been in college, I would have been drinking probably just as much at

twenty two years sold. So it was just kind of the difference was that, uh, I didn't have it didn't interfere with what I had to do if I if I woke up in the morning, Yeah it might suck to go do some interviews or go to a radio station, especially like those really early ones, that might suck, but you could still be really hungover and then fall fall into your bonk or fall into your hotel room, get a nap, and go on stage and have a great time and then you know, rinse and repeat. So uh,

for me, the drugs were mainly cocaine. I didn't like other drugs And the only reason I like cocaine was it meant that I could my capacity for drinking it was was enhanced. So I mean, if I didn't get a little buzzed from drinking, I I wasn't going to go just for the heck of it. Do drugs that that they were just a tool to to uh make me a better alcoholic. So um, it was just kind of I didn't see anybody doing anything different, not in my world. That's what my friends were doing, that's what

my bandmates were doing. That's what that's what all the other bands were doing. Guys were doing a contributing factor to the UH breakup of the Go Goes. I would say they were. But by the time it was a breakup, we had, UM, we had a key member who was strung out on heroin and UH was barely functioning and was probably going to die if she didn't go into rehab, a key creative member. And I'm talking about Charlotte. And I can say that because she's documented it herself very

very well. UM. But so that's a big thing. And I would say it was not so much that it was the drinking. It's just that what the drinking does. And I can only speak for myself. I was a stunted emotional human being. I had the emotional maturity of a of a fifteen year old. You don't up when you when you're squishing all your feelings down and pushing them off to the side and and shoving him away. That that's not how you grow up. You grow up by by by dealing with stuff. And I wasn't dealing

with a lot of big stuff. So you take that factor that you're an immature person that's incapable of having empathy or compassion for for people all I know how to do. And it's a very I'm a very lost sad person. But how do you deal with that? You don't walk around feeling like a lost sad person. You dial up how fun how much fun you're having? And I was funny and I was having a good time, and I was a party girl. So that's how I balanced that out and didn't face it. I was a

sad sack, you know, basically a drunken sad sack. Was like, you can't be if you're just like the life of the party. So I'm emotionally stunted. I'm also um gotten to the point where I'm motivated by two things, which is desperation and fear. And you have to understand, Bob, that this was more by this time than a than a the culmination of my dream to make it in the business. Sure I wanted that. Sure I wanted to be in a band. All I ever wanted was to

be in a band. But I was trained from I was ingrained to to take care of myself, and this was how I was going to take care of myself. This is how not only me, but I'm taking care of my mom by now and paying her bills. I bought her a place to live. I'm sending her money to live off. So I'm the caretaker of her. I'm the caretaker of me. And if anything is going to threaten that my survival, that's my survival. I was, um uh, really protective of it. And it's not That's not what

being in a band is about. It's not like dealing with a band member who's like driven by fear and desperation to keep it and anything that threatened it. Like you know, Charlotte's got a drug problem, and I'm like, no, no, she's fine, she's fine. You know, we wrote crappy songs for the next record. No no, they're good. We only sold five thousand of the third record. No no, that's great. If it was the first record, we'd be happy with it.

I was like this constant uh cheerleader, spending spending the things to make it okay and make people out. It was really hard work, hard hard work. So yes, they had to effect. Drugs and alcohol had an effect, but I think more than that, it's what it does to you as a person, um and as people. We we didn't know how to problem solve. We didn't know how

to deal with each other's feelings. We didn't know how to um see what maybe somebody needs, like you know, that makes them feel good about being in the band. You know, like how if you're in a good band and it's a chemistry and it's working, and you're selling records and people dig your band, it's just crazy not to kind of make sure everybody's getting a little piece of what they need to stay wanting to do it.

You know, it's crazy. Do you think the fact that you were the last edition in the band ultimately left you out when the band disintegrated. No, I wasn't left out. Gina and I were the ones that were kicking that were devastated. She was just as devastated by me. No I was. I was. I was as solid a band member as anybody. I mean, I was. We we started out and you know, we didn't have a record deal.

We started out in that van, that horrible van. I think UM and plus I brought in a lot of musicianship and songs that that were crucial as we went on. There were no songs, you know, when it came time to do the second record, none at all, not only that, but I had UM. I had like a sense about the business that other people weren't thinking about. So I was the one that was, you know, kind of a pain in the ass, always saying, this isn't right, you guys,

this isn't right. I don't know about this UM trying to make things fair, you know, like if so and so only has one song or a partial song, let's make that the B side of the single, so that they can get some extra money. I was always trying to be the diplomat and make it so everyone was happy. I don't think it had anything to do with it me being the last person in the band, because once I joined, it was the solidified lineup and that was

the chemistry. That was the chemistry more than anything else. So Jane leaves and was that really the beginning of the band? Could the band of survived without Jane? Really? I don't think so, because it was based on chemistry. But at the time everyone was so unhappy, and like I said, I couldn't I couldn't fathom anything, uh, I mean, part of it was very logical. I was just like one in a million gets to this point, is you'd be crazy to let this go so as a just

a mode of survival. I'm like, maybe this will be a new chapter. I My template was the Rolling Stones, you know. I wanted to be in a band that that did twenty albums over decades that um evolved and grew and changed and maybe they had a dud one here and there, but or a dud single, but they always came back with something that you liked. That was my template. And I I just thought, okay, we're just this is like you know, Brian or mc taylor or somebody is just a change in lineup and we're going

to go on and it's a new chapter. And um, but it was, as I wrote in the book, I didn't see that. That was like the thing I had been fighting so hard to keep was had kind of splintered beyond repair right in front of my eyes. I didn't. I didn't realize that. But it was the beginning of the end. And then when Linda left and Charlotte ultimately went with Or, did you feel betrayed? Yeah? I felt betrayed because we we got a new person. I moved

to guitar, which was my little agenda. Once Jane left, I was like, oh good, I can go back to guitar, which is what I should be doing because that's what I do best. And uh so I got my little agenda in there, and we got a bass player, and uh we play this massive concert in in Rio called Rock and Rio to like something like three dred thousand people, and I'm just like, Okay, this is proof, this is proof. We we're gonna we have a new chapter. We're gonna

make it. But instead, um, Charlotte hit her bottom there and ended up going into rehab. And so what I'm thinking is like, oh good, now we're going to have our fully functioning person back and we'll really start the chapter. And Mike Chapman had signed on to do the fourth album, which I thought, this is this is how you launch a new chapter. As with Chapman producing the record, this

is how you do it. To me, it was like, but there was just something about Charlotte and Belinda that they I could They're like they're like talking or I don't know. I just felt like, why aren't they weren't they excited? Weren't they excited about this record? Why is Charlotte not all like happy to be out of rehab and being in the band again. I mean I was really really immature and focused on myself, and so yeah, I was. I felt really betrayed. Gina and I both did.

Gina was we were like minded people. We we were hard workers. We'd come out there to make it in a band. And we both said when they broke up the band, we said, this is insane. You know, go go off for a year, go make your solo album, Go do your thing, do what you want. But why break up the band? And the manager that was overseeing us, I was like, why are you letting this happen? You know, why are you letting this happen? Just tell them to get our solo deal, let her go make a record.

This is stupid. I just didn't understand it. Okay, So ultimately the band UH does break up or disintegrate. You try to make it as a solo artist that is not working. Mike Chapman is not ultimately interested in the demos you make. How do you handle this? Emotionally? I drink and do drugs and UH have a good time and and just don't accept it. I don't. I just don't acknowledge it. I don't acknowledge anything that's painful or or frightening, and I just keep thinking, it's a matter

of time. It's just a matter of time. And you know, the band I put together was good. It was a good band. Um, I know what a good band is. I know what chemistry is. It wasn't our time. It's so much more that you can't even control. You can put together a super cool band with charisma and good songs and great players, but you can't put together timing and the zeitgeist of of just being in the right place at the right time. You can't. You can't make

that happen. You can't make MT puts you in people's living rooms, which is what happened with the Go Goes. The Go Gos might not have launched if it hadn't been for MTV. You know, that was that was That was a fluke. There's there's things you can't control. So nothing's happening. And I'm but I just think if I'm not don't have a band. If I keep drying and I keep trying to keep trying, and people were believing in me. You know, I had some heavy hitters that

helped me and supported me. That that kept me thinking, Okay, maybe you know, maybe this you know, whether it was Mike Chapman thinking you could do something with me, or you know, somebody putting up money for for demos, or uh, you know, a musician, a successful musician hooking me up with players. It's like there were things happening that that always felt. It's that l a kool aid, you know, you're just they're thinking that it could happen. It could happen,

but meanwhile, you know, meanwhile it's taking its toll. You know, I'm I'm muh, I'm not liking myself. I'm finally the person that I've been I've been just since I was a teenager getting stoned and drunk and being disliked and that person. It's like it's all there, and it's all It just gets to a point where I just felt like I felt beaten down, like I can't seem to get anything going. But I wasn't gonna stop. I was

I was never going to stop. I just couldn't seem to get but something had to change, something had to change. So yeah, it was looking back, it was really hard. But at the time I was just operating, operating, you know, I didn't know how to do anything else. I couldn't imagine. Is this what ultimately send you to a Yeah, I I think that I I woke up after a blackout and I wasn't a black drinker. I I had happened

twice in my drinking. Most of the time I would end up with a bad hangover, and I certainly was very lucky that I didn't hurt somebody as a as a driver who had drank too much. But there was I had a way of because it was so essential that I couldn't imagine not drinking, that I kept it as controlled as I could, and I would give up for like I'm not going to drink for two weeks, I'm not going to drink for a month, and then I'm just gonna So is this constant trying to control

it so that I wouldn't have to stop. But one night in New York City blackout, and I woke up and there was just like the little, the little magic moment where something pierced through all of the all of that desperation and denial and just said, you know, something's got to change, and I don't know how to do it. I can't make a band happen, and I can't make

anything happen. Keep screwing up. You know, I screwed up my relationship, and I was screwing up opportunities, and not because I was not showing up, but I just it just was wasn't happening. And I thought, if I quit drinking, that's one thing it'll change. That will change, and if one thing changes, maybe everything will change. So what was the year of the first Go Goes reunion? Okay? So from two to do you ever have to get have to get a street job? Nope? I didn't have a

job since nineteen Okay, so you had written vacation. Were you essentially living on royalties for those ten years? No? The royalties dried up. They dried up. There was nothing, and I used to pray. I used to like pray like, oh God, use vacation and a commercial this or that. I And the other thing was I couldn't seem to get a publishing deal like everyone else in the band. Gina Gina the drummer got a publishing deal, and I'm like, what the heck? Why can't I get a publishing deal?

And I remember one guy, Um I went in to Warno Chapel and he's like, this is a great catalog. I'm gonna give you two hundred fifty thou dollars. And I was like like cloud nine, cloud nine out of that place. And and then like I didn't hear anything back. And then I started calling. I'm like, what's going on, and and they like I could hear the secretary like no, he's not in, and I was just like, wow, you know, this is just like the stories you hear about. So

I was I was going just going crazy. But what I did, I had right before the Go Goes, And this is how much I believe that the Go Goes weren't going to break up. After that Rock and Rio concert in January of eighty five, I came home and I bought a house at the top of Sunset Plaza, and uh, it was two and dollars and it was the last house on the street and it was all I could afford. But it was like, had this amazing view.

And so I had that house. Then the band breaks up, and that's part of my my uh freak out is that I've got this house and I don't have a job anymore. But what I started doing was um taking equity out of the first thing I plowed through my my retirement money where they had set up a little retirement fund. I plowed through all that because I'm I me at the beginning, I'm like, it's just a matter of time, and I'm spoiled and I'm grandiose, and I'm okay, we're gonna rehearse it. S I R and da da

da done. Oh my god. So I just plowed through all this money, and then I would start refinancing my house because when I got it, like interest rates people should take note, were like eleven percent, and then they started going down and I would refinance the house, I would take out. It never occurred to me that I was, you know, spending the money that I would make on the house. So that's how I lived. That's how I lived. And there was there was probably some royalties here and there, okay,

but you in any event, you weeked it out. When they say the band is going to get together, everybody's on the same page, everybody's involved, everybody's being called. Yeah. We started, uh, the we started getting in touch with each other. And Belinda had been had an enormous success as a solo artist. Charlotte was kind of her right hand person, writing songs and I reached out to Charlotte and after I had four months of sobriety and we we we kindled our friendship. Gina and I had stayed friends.

Um Belinda Uh invited everybody to come sing on one of her records, and that was the first time we hung out, and it just felt different. It felt different to be sober, and I was very grateful to just get to be around them, because really I just I really missed it, you know, I wanted to make it in another band, I really did, but I also missed

I missed them. I missed the band. Um the Blenda's manager approached us about doing a reunion concert, and everybody was on board, even though she was still in the middle of having a thriving solo career. She she was agreed, she had agreed. I think we all thought it had ended in a bad way and this might be a way to um uh put a nicer bow around that little package. Okay, So once the band reunites in how

often does it go out after that? Well, they we did a tour because I r S put out a Greatest Hits record, So we we actually did a tour in nineteen ninety and I got to do all of the stuff that we had done. We played on the TV shows and we played the places and whatnot, and uh did the press and everything. So I got to do it sober, which was was really great. But then we had a falling out again, and we had a falling out that lasted until it had a lawsuit involved.

It was all to do with money and songwriting royalties, um and stuff like that so um. And then that got resolved and we got back together because Ted Demi, the director, wanted to do a film about us and his wife reached out to us all and I think everyone had email by that time. Email was a big help because you didn't have to like get on the phone. Uh So uh, email started getting exchanged in about talking about this possible movie, and once again we kind of

came back to each other. And a lot of people think, oh, they just do it for money, and the thing I you know, I certainly done mind making money with the go Goes anytime. But that's really not what brings us back together because let's face it, Belinda doesn't need the money, so she can choose whether the go Goes work or not. It's really it's really within her power and she does not need the money when she is open to it. That's when we play. It's really been a lot of

people think that's what happens. But from up until uh the recent past, you know, we we played pretty regularly. Okay, So since so you survived on income from the go goes primarily live touring, you personally, well, I mean I had really cheap rent because because here's the deal. I'm you know, I was living in the house that I was gonna marry, uh get married and be in and when we broke up, the house had gone down in value from the crash, and uh so I was just

paying rand. I got some roommates. I mean, I drove an old El Dorado and I was paying four hundred bucks a month. You know, I didn't need a lot of money. I really didn't need, and I made some good investments. That's another thing. I finally took my little nest egg and made a couple of good investments. And um, you know, I just I cut my Michael, when I say I cut my cloth to fit my scissors or

whatever the heck that thing is, I I lived. Okay, So let's let's say right now, you never earned another dollar. Do you have enough money to get to the end. I don't know, depends what kind of and you want. I mean, uh yeah, I mean I I could go live. I like more, I would like more. But I think so. I think I do because I'm pretty well invested. And I lost some money in this last crash, but my house went up in value, so it kind of went

up and down. Uh some years, vacation just brings in a windfall, you know, some years, and uh, you know, I've been really blessed. You know, I had a wonderful marriage for seven years. And uh so I don't have to worry about paying for my daughter's college because her dad, you know, is going to do that. So I've been really lucky. I've I've always managed to get even when I was poor growing up, there was always enough. I've never really worried about money too much. I don't. I

just don't think about it that much. I just there always seems to be enough, and if there's not, I just kind of scale down. I mean, for years, like I said, I drove an old. I drove an old El Dorado, and I lived in a cool little house with cheap rent and I was happy. Okay, Now there was this lawsuit where they seem to want to kick you out of the bean one more time in the last decade. What was that about? What was that about?

That started? Okay? I feel like there should be a little context that nobody really thinks about that it's been People reduce it down to this thing like she she quit and sued the band, and that's really not the story. Uh. Basically, there had been a lot of dysfunction and and and strife and resentment, and other people had been in the hot seat and had been it had been discussed to kick other people out. And I'm not going to go into too who and names and what, but but I

was not the first person. I was just the one that actually worked on So what happened was I a tour and they were a couple of people were mad at me anyway, because I had done this Twitter memoir and they didn't like it. I took it down. I cried, I said, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt anybody very sincere. I don't mean to rush over it like like it was meaningless. It was a horrible time, but I thought it was I thought it was water under

the bridge, but it wasn't. Sometimes people you know, didn't take much to pick the scab off, and then it's a gaping wound again. So when I broke my wrist and had to miss a tour, uh, I got on the hot seat. Just stop one second. Was the was the corporation while these bands are incorporated such that even though you did not go on the road, did you share an any of the revenue? I'm not. I'm not at liberty to disclose that, Okay, So in any event

you break your risk, you don't go on down the road. Continue. Well, well that when I broke my wrist. Yeah, anytime somebody was out for for and it had happened a few times when I was pregnant, someone took my place for a handful of shows when Charlotte was pregnant, Vicky Peterson from the Bengal. So we had president that if you couldn't perform, you got your equal share as a member of the corporation. And I could just freaking fall down and worship at the business manager's feet. That set up

that corporation. So thank god we had it saved me. But um, so we had a president, I I fall break my risk the President's in place where the tour goes on without me, and yes, I'm getting my equal share. You you pay your substitute out of your equal share. What what happened though, was the being away and out of the picture and the dysfunction and the demonizing and by from August to January, I was completely cut out and uh, nobody would speak to me, and I knew

it was bad. Um. Fortunately, my my ex husband is also my best friend is a litigation attorney. And I said, from the minute it started happening, I said, something bad is happening. You know, I think they're going to try to kick me out. So I had a lot of legal advice from the beginning of how to conduct myself and two that would be advantageous. And when they fired me, it was kind of like, okay, I was. I was really devastated and hurt that they I couldn't even go

talk to everybody. And I kept saying, I begged, I begged, I said, can I come and hang out and let's talk this out? And and I was rejected to do that. It was one of the most careful experiences of my life. But um, the thing that went wrong was to start a new corporation, Like I would have just said, Okay, you don't like me anymore, let's figure out how to do this. You know, either either guys are going to retire soon or let's figure out how to do this

in a fair way. But that isn't what happened that. What happened instead was another corporation was was was created and the name was licensed to that corporation so that I could uh supposedly legally be cut out. And at that point my legal advice was you you don't that's not that's not something that is is uh can be done. You know, partners can't do that to another partner. So that was the legal action and it was not anything

that I relished doing at all. It was protecting thirty five years of building a business interest in protecting that. So that was a horrible. But what was more horrible was, you know, having to be the subject of of very uh horrible that the legal advice that that the legal people they had were just hell bent on destroying me. And you know, luckily I had the cavalry and I just kind of um got through it. And it was painful, and I don't really like talking about this at all,

as you can tell. But but I will say that there was a silver lining. There was an enormous and sometimes the best gifts come in the most hideous, disgusting, ugly packages. But I gotta tell you, being home with my daughter for the next five years from the age of nine to fourteen or whatever it was, it was five years nine nine to fourteen, Uh was fantastic. Some thing's happened in my life that wouldn't have happened if I had been doing that. And I'll tell you I

wasn't happy in that band at that point. I wasn't happy and I was actually kind of glad not to be doing it. I felt that it was a really toxic and dysfunctional band, and I was I was glad not to be doing it, but I still liked everybody. I want to say that there was times where I really saw who I was in that period. And I think when we anytime we go through something that's horrible and and terrible sometimes or difficult, that's when you really

do see who you are. And one of the there was a lot of things that showed me who I was in that time, and I ended up being really proud of how I conducted myself and who I was, how I felt because I didn't hate anybody. I didn't hate them. How long from the moment they went on tour without you until the lawsuit was settled. Um, the lawsuits started, like I would think, it was filed and May of of twelve we settled. I think by they did a tour in twelve, they did one in fourteen,

I think they did. I think they did four tours without me, maybe three, three or four tours. Okay, so where does this leave you now? Does it go back to the first corporation where you are remembered just like you were before? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I mean we didn't have to go to court. We settled and and this the settling. You know, all of our corporate entities were intact on settling. That's not that's not um what do they call it. No, that's not that's not nondisclosure stuff.

That's just anyone can look up a corporation. So yeah, yeah, everything was was good. I mean just okay. After being out of the band for four years and a number of years and having the lawsuit, did that impact your relationship with the four other girls? Well? I didn't speak to them, and then little by little it started thawing out.

Like I think Belinda sent me an email and said she was sorry and that she wished it hadn't happened like that, and um, there was a musical that was being underway before I even uh was was kicked out. And part of my settlement was that I would be involved that that that I couldn't be cut out of that. So when there was when there was anything going on with the musical, I would go and and you know, we would have to say hi and and UH talk

to each other. And little by little I think, Um, I think there's things I'm not really at liberty to say, but I think some people came to the realization that they didn't like what had happened and what they what they had done, and I certainly didn't like it. But what happened was the musical was made it to Broadway and the producers wanted to have a show. This was at the end, it was a beginning of They wanted a show to um play for all the investors and

key people. And they contacted me and they said, we want to do a show. We want you to be there, and I said, that's good. Do they do are they kind of let me play and they said yeah, and I said, okay, if I can play, And I gotta tell you, Bob, that was the most That was the scariest thing I've ever done, was to fly to New York and show up in that rehearsal room. Oh man, I was so scared, uh, like what were they going

to be? Like? What were they? And it was this crazy thing where where it's a it's a very weird bond that we have, like the ugliest, most disgusting, horrible things can happen, but once we're together, it was just like something I could see it. I could almost see it happened. I could see them going, what, well, this is good. This is how it should be, and it certainly felt like how it should be to me. And pretty quickly all was right in the world, you know,

pretty quickly after that. Okay, So since the lawsuits been settled, has there been a tour that you've been involved in? No, we went um we played the first shows I did as if like we want you back in the band. Uh was four nights at the Hollywood Bowl with the l A. Phil. So here's me. I've been playing like the club down the street for five years and and then I'm like at the Hollywood Bowl with the Philharmonic behind me. So I was a little nervous and felt unprepared.

But we did that and we did a few warm up shows. That was a drag though, because Gina had had next surgery and was dealing with UH family stuff and couldn't play. So my first time in five years, and it's not with Gina on the drums. My my rhythm section mate isn't there. So the exciting thing pre UH coronavirus was that we were going to go on tour this summer and all the shows were sold out. We had some big ones, really big gigs, along with

just the regular usual stuff. So huge disappointment. This was going to be an amazing year. And the documentary happened, the document um. We did the documentary over two thousand and eighteen, and some more things happened. In January, I went to the premier and I've been back in the band for a year at this point, but it's still worse. There's still levels of of healing and forgiving that that are still going on, and as women in our sixties,

it's much more than the story of a band. Now it's it's really the story of well, I guess it is the story of a band, but it feels like more than a band when when women are are coming to terms or recognizing what these other people are in their lives and what they mean. I really I love everybody in this band, I really really do. We've been in touch a lot talking about this bad stuff with you. As you know, I get triggered and it stirs up

and I started feeling really gross. But I can replace it pretty quickly by remembering what it felt like to hug everybody. After that documentary premiered, and last week it was supposed to premier at Tribeca and there was going to be a big announcement from a major theatrical for a theatrical release, and it's all Corona Away, you know,

along with my book tour. Okay, but didn't the Go Goes go on a farewell tour saying it was the last tour they did in and I was, I was so annoyed because I thought, you know, do let me come on that tour at least? So it was really I was, Oh, there was two things they did that was like the biggest ouches of all when I was not in the band, and one was the farewell tour without me, and one was they got like this private party thing that that looked really fun and I heard

about it. I was like, ah, so it wasn't like I was like, I mean, I'm just like a man. You know. It's well, I guess a relative you personally. Now Motley Cue recently did this, but they signed in blood. It's kind of interesting that they did a farewell tour and then you go back on the road. Does anybody think about the well, I think, um, what they said, the go go said was we are retiring from touring.

We're not breaking up, We're retiring from touring. We don't want to do big tours, but if something special comes along, i e. The Hollywood Bowl with the l A Philharmonic, we what we reserve the right to do special, cool things, because let's face it, this band has gotten amazing opportunities in the nineties, stuff that are's not in the public eye. I mean, we've played for Mohammad Ali and at the Kennedy Compound, and we've were on a Mardi Grass float

and played at the Superdome. A lot of cool private stuff happens, and so the band wasn't saying we're breaking up and we're done. They said in we're done touring, and that was pretty much gonna stick. Except for this was the release of the documentary constituted a reason to go out. So as far as I know, nothing will ever happen again. You know, fans always say why don't you do this? Why don't you that, And it's like, well, it's not really one person's choice. Collectively, the band has

decided they don't want to tour anymore. Okay, So talking about you personally, in the hopefully thirty years you have left on the planet, what would you like to achieve or what do you foresee? Um, I'm always gonna play more music, and uh, I like playing in a band. I still like playing in a band. I have an amazing rock and roll band here in Austin called the Blue Bonnets, and it's just a cool rock and roll band. Everybody plays great, very fulfilling on that level. Um, And

but I'm not making a living at it. So what I'd like to do is right, write more books. Um, I'd like to write a second memoir. I don't know what else I want to write. I did a pretty good job with my short stories, and I think I could handle some fiction. But I'm kind of at that place where it's always in the back of my head and I feel like like if I don't do it, it's like I'm still like where do I start? Where

do I start? And I'm very uh close to getting to that point whereas like you just start anywhere, that's what you do. You start anywhere, because it's kind of in the back of my mind all the time. So I want to write more. I love doing the soundtrack to my book. I really liked creating music that had uh a story to go with it that was really interesting to me. I will continue to do more of that, and I want to move and live other places. I want to I want to experience living in other places.

And I want to finish my degree to take those last two classes, and I'll probably do more uh graduate school because I like going to school. I'd like to do women's studies. I'd like to do um religious studies. There's a lot of I think I could just collect. I think like collect master's degrees. That sounds good, or maybe you become a maybe you become a like Dr. Valentine, that might be awesome, get a PhD. Right, Well, I want to reinforce that this is not all I've ever wanted.

Is not a traditional rock memoir. Of what I mean by that is, yes, it covers all the hotspots, but it's written in a literary fashion. It's just not a pastiche of the events. And that's one of the things that stuck out for me and why I wanted to do this with you, Kathy. But this has been wonderful. It's really been great hearing all these schools. Until next time, it's Bob left side.