Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the drummer for the Gil Goes,
Speaker 1: soon to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, the one and only Gina Shocked. Gina, good
Speaker 1: to have you here. Hey Rob, thank you my friend,
Speaker 1: but you'll be on your show. You have this new
Speaker 1: book Meet in the Hollywood. It's a picture book in
Speaker 1: the story book. What motivated you to do that at
Speaker 1: this time? Well, um, it's something that I've been wanting
Speaker 1: to do for decades and I the thought of trying
Speaker 1: to get all of those photographs and ephemera that I
Speaker 1: have collected over the years was like overwhelming. So I
Speaker 1: was looking for a person to help me do it.
Speaker 1: I finally found the right person to help me, this guy,
Speaker 1: Steve in l A. He came up, I pulled out
Speaker 1: all of my photographs, had him all in in my
Speaker 1: living room floor. He walked and he said, Gina, this
Speaker 1: is a credit. Sure, this is incredible. We got to
Speaker 1: go right up. We're going to write up uh what
Speaker 1: he called it, what he caught makeook. Yeah, Well we're
Speaker 1: gonna do make a coffee table photo coffee table book anyway,
Speaker 1: So we we wrote wrote up a what do you
Speaker 1: call why can't I think of that? Proposal? Proposal Jane,
Speaker 1: there's christ my senior moment lasted for ten minutes. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: a proposal for a photo book. So we wrote one up.
Speaker 1: We set it to a couple of book publishers and
Speaker 1: we right away we got back, you know, right away
Speaker 1: that black Dog Hachette was interested and talked to them.
Speaker 1: They wanted to do the photo book. But then they
Speaker 1: started talking to me about, Hey, we used to feel
Speaker 1: like writing a little and I was That was of
Speaker 1: course overwhelming to me. Once again, I'm not a writer.
Speaker 1: I don't write books. But when we started putting all
Speaker 1: these photographs together, it's, um, it became very easy to
Speaker 1: write about what was happening that time. It was very fluid,
Speaker 1: very very easy because when I look at these photographs,
Speaker 1: I remember everything that was going on, and you know
Speaker 1: what I didn't remember, like maybe perhaps dates and where
Speaker 1: I may have been. I keep a daily planner that
Speaker 1: I've had. I've had daily planners since seventy nine, so
Speaker 1: I referred back to them for dates and places, and
Speaker 1: it was invaluable. I mean, I had everything written down
Speaker 1: so I could refer to that, and I just and
Speaker 1: then I have all the September I had, buttons and posters,
Speaker 1: you know, you name it, I've got it. I just
Speaker 1: all this stuff means something to me. I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: very sentimental person. I like I keep cards and letters
Speaker 1: and things from people that I love. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is a part of my history and a part
Speaker 1: of my life, and I wanted to keep it, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: And so I have it all my possession. Finally found
Speaker 1: the right person, help we put it together, and boom
Speaker 1: it happened. Okay, can you make any money with a
Speaker 1: coffee table? Book? Ers? Just a labor of love for
Speaker 1: you and the fans. It is a labor of love.
Speaker 1: I don't I'm gonna want up spending more money than
Speaker 1: I make on this whole this whole endeavor. Um, But
Speaker 1: you know what this, I know it's a pichete, but
Speaker 1: it really has been a labor of love. Uh. Going
Speaker 1: through all of these photos, it just made me so grateful,
Speaker 1: so happy that that this has been my life and
Speaker 1: I've captured it and the girls in the band with photographs,
Speaker 1: and now I can share these photographs with our fans.
Speaker 1: The general public. You get to see what I was
Speaker 1: seeing a band member, someone in the band, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: And then when I started writing about this, I feel
Speaker 1: like anybody that picks this book up and starts to
Speaker 1: look at the photos and reads a little bit, it's
Speaker 1: gonna want to read the whole thing because it's honest
Speaker 1: and it's true. It's ask anybody. I'm a pretty upfront person,
Speaker 1: no bullshit with me, so and I write that way
Speaker 1: and these are my words and these are my photos,
Speaker 1: and um, I'm really proud of agree with you. I mean,
Speaker 1: and first I'm looking through the pictures, but you get
Speaker 1: intrigued in the story. It's anything but a burden. You
Speaker 1: cover the major points you could even want to know more. Now,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the ephemer and the photos. Bill Wyman
Speaker 1: of the Stones famously kept one of everything. The irony
Speaker 1: being all these years later he's not auctioning some of
Speaker 1: that off. Was that your procedure? Did you tend to
Speaker 1: keep one of everything? Um? It wasn't as though I
Speaker 1: was grabbing one of everything. I was just grabbing whatever
Speaker 1: was in reach within my reach. Um, I didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: cover all everything that came out, but I do have buttons.
Speaker 1: I just and if I could grab one thing, I
Speaker 1: grab as many as I can. Whatever. I just these
Speaker 1: are all memories. I like looking at it. This stuff.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's my life, you know. And okay, the
Speaker 1: Bill by the way, I had the Bill Wyman book,
Speaker 1: which and it's really beautiful. Okay, if you could only
Speaker 1: keep two pieces of memorabilia, they'd be what uh, they'd
Speaker 1: be the poster that I have of when we play
Speaker 1: with the Rolling Stones in Rockford, Illinois on October one one,
Speaker 1: I believe. And it's a huge, big poster that I
Speaker 1: had framed that I have it in my office. That
Speaker 1: is worth a million bucks to me. You can put
Speaker 1: that in the casket with me, you know. I love that.
Speaker 1: Um And you know what, I guess the other thing
Speaker 1: would have to be my book because it's it's taken
Speaker 1: me forty years to get this together. So it's all
Speaker 1: right there. You know. It's funny because uh, at one
Speaker 1: point a couple of years ago, I threw out all
Speaker 1: my lamin It's it just became. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be one of those guys. But I've only the couple.
Speaker 1: One is all access to the Rolling Stones. That is
Speaker 1: really cool. He got it. Yeah, of course it is.
Speaker 1: And you know what, I keep all my lambin It's stupid.
Speaker 1: I got a million of them, you know. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if I can let go of all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know there's I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: a hoarder. My house is not like a crazy space,
Speaker 1: you know, where you have to figure out how to walk. Uh.
Speaker 1: In my home, I have everything in its place. I'm
Speaker 1: a virgo. I'm very organized, and I don't know. These
Speaker 1: things are just important to me and I and I
Speaker 1: still have all the labments. I keep them from every
Speaker 1: tour and from any other you know band that I've
Speaker 1: ever going to see when they give you a v
Speaker 1: I P P S. I have all that stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: you talked about going to l A. Where is all
Speaker 1: this stuff? Is it in your house now? Is it
Speaker 1: in storage? It's in my house. Where is your house?
Speaker 1: I don't need the address, but the generally I live
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, but I did live in l A
Speaker 1: for twenty seven years, and uh, I moved to just
Speaker 1: go in to us in five um and I bought
Speaker 1: a nice little Victorian up here and I'm having a
Speaker 1: nice life and I go to l A to work. Um,
Speaker 1: I do as much work as I can up here,
Speaker 1: but l A is sort of the home base for
Speaker 1: the Go Goos, and when anything's going on, that's where
Speaker 1: we all meet each other. We all meet up there,
Speaker 1: uh Like, for instance, we're gonna be meeting their uh
Speaker 1: the beginning of December to start rehearsing for the for
Speaker 1: the seven shows that we have at the end of
Speaker 1: the year. So that's home base for the band. So
Speaker 1: how did you decide to move to San Francisco and
Speaker 1: after all those years in l A? Give me a
Speaker 1: direct comparison to those two. Well, the thing is is,
Speaker 1: I I felt like I had lived there long enough
Speaker 1: and I was starting to become like a recluse. It
Speaker 1: was weird. I just I got tired of the whole
Speaker 1: scene in the town. Um, and I wanted a place
Speaker 1: where I could walk, where I could step out my
Speaker 1: front door. You know. It was it was either gonna
Speaker 1: be San Francisco to New York and San Francisco one out.
Speaker 1: Because the weather. I love the weather here in Sandarich
Speaker 1: is because my favorite weather in the country. I love it.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like it feels like fall all the time,
Speaker 1: and that fall rolls in every night. Man, I love
Speaker 1: the weather here. So um, this was an easy thing
Speaker 1: to do, moving from l A up to San Francisco.
Speaker 1: And it's so close, you know. I mean I can
Speaker 1: hop down the Standardist go you know, it's at our
Speaker 1: flight or drive down, which I prefer to do. I
Speaker 1: like driving. Okay, So now that you're in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: are you a recluse or forgetting COVID? Leave that era
Speaker 1: out and you've been in San Francisco for a while,
Speaker 1: are you the type of person who goes out? Are
Speaker 1: you still end up staying home anyway? I do go out,
Speaker 1: but I am kind of more of a homebody, to
Speaker 1: be honest with you. Um, I love getting my place
Speaker 1: the way that I want it. I'm comfortable, it's it's
Speaker 1: by safe paven. I don't know if that's because I
Speaker 1: spent so many years in the public, you know, And
Speaker 1: I just I value my time. I'm honestly kind of private, um,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate the time that I can have to myself,
Speaker 1: uh in a place that feels safe. So what do
Speaker 1: you do in your house? What do I do? Oh?
Speaker 1: I write to write a book, like you know, made
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. That's what I worked on the last year
Speaker 1: and a half. Um, I'm constantly doing something on you know,
Speaker 1: I'm constantly on the phone and doing a ton of emails.
Speaker 1: Every day. I get up, I walk my dog. I
Speaker 1: do do that around the neighborhood. I have a lovely
Speaker 1: The neighborhood I live in is fantastic and it's sort
Speaker 1: of a neighborhood with all sort of a lot of
Speaker 1: kids and dogs. And I'm up on a hill. Uh I.
Speaker 1: And if i'm if I'm not in the house, I'm
Speaker 1: out walking around. When I'm in the house, I'm I
Speaker 1: stay busy. I don't know. I cook. You know what
Speaker 1: do you do when your your home? Your cook You
Speaker 1: clean it up, You do your emails every day? You
Speaker 1: know your friends stop buying, make dinner or yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Do you have a significant other? Um? Well, yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: say that I have a person in my life. He
Speaker 1: is uh, He's become very important in my life. And
Speaker 1: his name is Wendell. And he you know, I took
Speaker 1: care of my parents when they were sick, and I
Speaker 1: brought him here take care of him. I'm sorry a minute.
Speaker 1: Wendell took care of my father for the last three
Speaker 1: years of its life. And he's a very important person
Speaker 1: in my life because I watched what a real man
Speaker 1: can do. You know, he was a wonderful god. He
Speaker 1: is a wonderful guy. And I'm sorry, but we became
Speaker 1: very close and I can't imagine not ever being in
Speaker 1: my life. You know, we have a very deep connection.
Speaker 1: He's definitely my soul mate. I'm sorry. Now you talk
Speaker 1: about your parents. I know it's a tough subject, but
Speaker 1: your father's passed you you said when your parents, well,
Speaker 1: was your mother ill and she's still with us? Or
Speaker 1: she going? Mom? My mom thought about three years ago
Speaker 1: and they were like my rocke. You know. I I
Speaker 1: had a very type connection with my parents. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like I owe everything to them because they
Speaker 1: gave me. They instilled in me, uh to be in
Speaker 1: the mind that that that I could achieve anything, that
Speaker 1: anything was possible if I put my mind to it.
Speaker 1: I was was willing to put the work into it
Speaker 1: that it required. And so I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of just everything that I am and I've become. Um,
Speaker 1: I wanted to uh that that this was my way
Speaker 1: of paying them back by trying to do something that
Speaker 1: they would be proud of and you know, and I
Speaker 1: feel like I succeeded in that and it it brought
Speaker 1: me great joy to have them involved and bring them
Speaker 1: into my life when I became a rock star, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: it was wonderful to have them around. And you know,
Speaker 1: sitting on the side of the stage at Madison Square
Speaker 1: Gardener at the Hollywood Bowl, all these things were very
Speaker 1: important to me. And I know that they were super proud,
Speaker 1: you know, and I felt like I had to take
Speaker 1: care of them. And they started getting sick, you know,
Speaker 1: I had to step up, and so I moved them
Speaker 1: from Baltimore, which is where I grew up for the
Speaker 1: last six years of their lives, and I, uh took
Speaker 1: care of them. Did they live with you in the
Speaker 1: Victorian or do they have a separate places? Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's it's it's two it's two stories. And uh so
Speaker 1: I had the downstairs uh fixed up for them, made
Speaker 1: to make it safe. You know. I had the bathroom
Speaker 1: redone and the floors, get rid of the carpets, all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Um. Yeah, so I had it.
Speaker 1: I had it fixed up for them, and and it
Speaker 1: was great to be with them the last year of
Speaker 1: their life and see them every single day. Um. And
Speaker 1: I also, you know, had caregivers and where that's where
Speaker 1: Wendell came into the picture because he was I don't
Speaker 1: know what I would have done with that, this man.
Speaker 1: And how did you meet Wendell to have him involved
Speaker 1: with your parents and another caregiver? You know. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into this big deal back caregivers,
Speaker 1: but it is the toughest thing. If anybody has to
Speaker 1: take care of their parents or anything, you know, or
Speaker 1: a loved one, it is very difficult to find a
Speaker 1: good caregiver. You go through tons of them. Anybody will
Speaker 1: tell you that. Um. And because I you know, it's
Speaker 1: my parents, they gotta they gotta have the best, you know.
Speaker 1: And I was just watching all the time. If I
Speaker 1: saw something I didn't like, to get rid of them.
Speaker 1: That's it they're at you know. Um. And Wendell, through
Speaker 1: another caregiver, said oh I got somebody that can help,
Speaker 1: you know, because I did. It's a twenty four hour shift,
Speaker 1: so so you know, somebody for twelve hours and somebody
Speaker 1: for another twelve hours. And Wendell came in that way,
Speaker 1: and he was like a star man. He was just
Speaker 1: he and my dad had this connection. My mom had passed,
Speaker 1: but he had a connection with my father. They were
Speaker 1: best friends. And uh, it's very important to me. Now
Speaker 1: let's go back. You tell you san Francisco, your friends
Speaker 1: might come over, you know, when somebody goes towards the
Speaker 1: other end of the spectrum and age very hard to
Speaker 1: make new friends. So who were these friends who you're
Speaker 1: seeing in San Francisco? Did you know him previously or
Speaker 1: you met him since you've been living there. I've had
Speaker 1: a couple of friends up here, not not many, but
Speaker 1: that I have made some friends. I you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, I'm a little private, so I'm not like
Speaker 1: out there trying to meet friends, trying to meet people
Speaker 1: all the time. Um you know, you meet someone else
Speaker 1: through a friend and and I have a small group
Speaker 1: of friends up here that are that are really great
Speaker 1: because honestly, Bob, all the majority of my friends are
Speaker 1: all in l A. I lived there twenty seven years, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you know that's sort of home base really besides
Speaker 1: where I grew up my Baltimore. But um, yeah, I've
Speaker 1: taken my time meeting people up here, and I feel
Speaker 1: like it's some very quality friends here, not quantity quality, Bob.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, let's go back to Wendell. Your closest
Speaker 1: one thing, which was surprising in the book is you
Speaker 1: go into your c shoes and relationships, which a lot
Speaker 1: of people tend not to. So what was it like
Speaker 1: being a rock star, having crushes, having fans? What was
Speaker 1: it like being a woman? We don't hear that too much.
Speaker 1: We hear the guys perspective. Yeah, well, it was just
Speaker 1: like being a human being that has dropped into being
Speaker 1: a rock star and you're and you're young, you're in
Speaker 1: your early twenties, and you're having the time of your life,
Speaker 1: and you're making good money and you're playing in front
Speaker 1: of thousands of people every night. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: dream come true. So you know, you have to figure
Speaker 1: out what you want to partake in. And you know,
Speaker 1: thank god, I'm still here to tell the tale. But
Speaker 1: of course I did a lot of stupid things that
Speaker 1: I would never do in retrospect. But that's just par
Speaker 1: for the course, I think. You know, Uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: you're like on a wild ride and you're loving it,
Speaker 1: and why not it does? It doesn't happen to everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, it's okay. But you know, let's be a
Speaker 1: little specific. You You you talk about famous musicians, you
Speaker 1: have crushes on, the people you have relationships on, you know,
Speaker 1: the men they famously interact with women in different cities
Speaker 1: before the cell phone camera, and you're certainly a star
Speaker 1: before that where they have relationship with fans that might
Speaker 1: be sexual only. What's it like from a woman's perspective,
Speaker 1: It's the same. It's exactly the same, exactly the same.
Speaker 1: You might have casual sex with a fan in St.
Speaker 1: Louis and that and then next night you're in Kansas City.
Speaker 1: I have done that. I would admit to have have
Speaker 1: done that. Not my proudest moment. Okay, let's go back
Speaker 1: and taking here your parents. You know, the dollars can
Speaker 1: add up. How are you doing financially? If you never
Speaker 1: earned another dollar, could you make it to the end?
Speaker 1: I think I could. Yeah. So the money or assets
Speaker 1: you have, are you the person me manages that or
Speaker 1: do you have somebody for How involved are you in that? Well?
Speaker 1: To tell you the truth, I'm now starting to get
Speaker 1: involved in everything. As I said I was, you know,
Speaker 1: taking care of my parents would just consumed me. And
Speaker 1: I'm starting to feel like now it's my time to
Speaker 1: get myself back and you know, do what I'm doing
Speaker 1: right now, um as they would want it. Um you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like this is just my
Speaker 1: time to sort of regain things that I might have
Speaker 1: moments of time where that I couldn't be uh, that
Speaker 1: I couldn't fully be in. And as far as the
Speaker 1: money thing goes, I have people that I've been with
Speaker 1: for years and years and they've handled my money and
Speaker 1: my parents and my brother. You know, I feel pretty
Speaker 1: comfortable with that set up. Yeah, I mean money, you know, Bob,
Speaker 1: I don't even like talking about it because money is
Speaker 1: not important to me. I mean it is, but it's
Speaker 1: like I've never done anything for money. I've done it
Speaker 1: because I love to do it. I wrote this book
Speaker 1: because I love doing this, because I love taking these photographs.
Speaker 1: It wasn't I don't, it's not what motivates me. I agree,
Speaker 1: But you know, we're reaching an age. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're a performer, if you're physically able, you can work forever.
Speaker 1: But there I've unfortunately known some of my parents friends
Speaker 1: in their eighties and nineties, they were out of money,
Speaker 1: you know, and you can't get a job when you're
Speaker 1: in your eighties or nineties. So I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people who I know a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are unprepared. That's why I asked that question, not that
Speaker 1: you will Christ you know, Bob, I don't know how
Speaker 1: long I would have lived, but I think right now
Speaker 1: I'm okay. Um I. You know, it is a great
Speaker 1: thing that that that the Gogs are still able to
Speaker 1: play as much as we all want to. I myself
Speaker 1: like to play a lot. The rest of the girls
Speaker 1: don't feel that way, or some of the girls don't,
Speaker 1: but um, I mean this being in the go Gos
Speaker 1: has allowed me a lifestyle that I only dreamed of.
Speaker 1: And you know it's I feel like I look at
Speaker 1: all this stuff, when I look at this book, I
Speaker 1: feel like I've been on this incredible journey that has
Speaker 1: where I've met people that like I grew up. I
Speaker 1: grew up loving David Bowie, idolizing him or idolizing the
Speaker 1: Stones and and Charlie Watts. I get to meet these people,
Speaker 1: you know, hang out with them. Uh. It's a big
Speaker 1: deal for me because I've always always been about music.
Speaker 1: I love everything music, you know, every time I got
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I spent on buying instruments,
Speaker 1: or buying tickets to concerts, or buying UM albums, you know,
Speaker 1: and I loved I'd always spend extra money to get
Speaker 1: the British imports because I really loved British music. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, this has been like this magical journey and
Speaker 1: I look at this and I can't believe that it's me,
Speaker 1: Like because I'm the biggest fan I really am. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's just go for one second. You talked about playing
Speaker 1: in a perfect world, how often would you want to
Speaker 1: play me? I could be on tour. I could be
Speaker 1: on toward ten months of the year easily. And if
Speaker 1: you're not on the road, do you play the drums?
Speaker 1: Now that's that's not how long does it take you
Speaker 1: get back in the groove? So what I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: what I always do. However long we have set up
Speaker 1: to the band rehearse to go on tour, I usually
Speaker 1: go two weeks before that and just play on my own.
Speaker 1: I you know, I have our shows are taped, so
Speaker 1: I'll just I'll put that, put my headphones on to
Speaker 1: play along with the show. UM, so that I get
Speaker 1: like at least a good hour and fifteen minutes of
Speaker 1: straight playing UM. And that's what I'll start doing before
Speaker 1: we do this this December show shows UM. And then
Speaker 1: of course before before we do UM the Rock and
Speaker 1: Roll Hall of Fame, I'll just probably take a couple
Speaker 1: of days where I'll just sit down and go over
Speaker 1: the three songs, just to get loose and limber and
Speaker 1: remember how it feels, get that muscle memory going, you know.
Speaker 1: Talk about going back to the other point about meeting
Speaker 1: your heroes. Have occasionally gone somewhere with my girlfriends. Just
Speaker 1: why are you talking to that guy said he was
Speaker 1: the drummer. He was a bass player in this band.
Speaker 1: You don't understand. And when I get it in my inbox,
Speaker 1: same way. But one thing I've known is some of
Speaker 1: these people are good when you meet them. Some of
Speaker 1: them are not so good. Okay, some of the household names,
Speaker 1: very sensitive people. You hang with them, they are not fun.
Speaker 1: So what hey, I don't know many musicians like that, Bob.
Speaker 1: You might be talking about actors or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But the musicians that I everybody have met, they've always
Speaker 1: been wonderful. Let's not talk musicians, Let's talk Starrs. You
Speaker 1: mentioned David Bowie, not the person in the band that
Speaker 1: they may be just as responsible, but the front person
Speaker 1: or the singer songwriter. Okay, Yes, there's a musician mentality.
Speaker 1: All musicians get along. It's different from the everything. But
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the household names. I mean I I
Speaker 1: have been backstage with Cat Stevens couldn't be nicer. I've
Speaker 1: been backstage with a couple of times with people who
Speaker 1: are the most famous in the world, and they're jerks. Okay, No,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to mention me. Know you're
Speaker 1: asking me, Hey, let me ask you, Okay, Okay, I
Speaker 1: I think that I don't know if I'll spill the negative,
Speaker 1: but I'll go with the I'll work my way up
Speaker 1: to it, you know, just like I'll get you to.
Speaker 1: In terms of someone who lives up to the legend,
Speaker 1: my most positive experiences have been with Steven Tyler. He
Speaker 1: is that guy. He's fantastic, that made his full life
Speaker 1: and he doesn't mind throwing around compliments you know exactly,
Speaker 1: and then you know, but you know, he'll leave a
Speaker 1: message on the phone that is just wild, and then
Speaker 1: you pick him up and he'll go straight into you know,
Speaker 1: it's like that who he is. He's always nice, he
Speaker 1: lives up to the legend. And we've crossed pans a
Speaker 1: couple of times. And I think Jane met him at once.
Speaker 1: I don't know where it was she met him, and
Speaker 1: he said that he called us like rock goddesses or
Speaker 1: rock icons or something, and Jane Coke came back and said,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna believe with Stephen. Stephen Tyler said about us,
Speaker 1: We're like U Steven Tyler. Yeah, Oh my god, are
Speaker 1: you kidding? I love Aerosmith so much. I love that band.
Speaker 1: Name the two best experiences of meeting famous musicians? Well,
Speaker 1: David Bowie. So you met Bowie? What were the circumstances?
Speaker 1: Did you have a conversation? All right? So I've met
Speaker 1: him a couple of times, but the first time I
Speaker 1: met him it was actually the most the best of
Speaker 1: all the times was the first time because I got
Speaker 1: to really hang out with him and spend time talking
Speaker 1: with him, even though I was scared, shipless, I could
Speaker 1: barely speak, but it was We had done a show
Speaker 1: at where the hell in Sam in New York City.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if we had a record deal yet,
Speaker 1: but we did a show at when Dell what's the
Speaker 1: name of that venue? He looked it up the other day.
Speaker 1: I couldn't think of it in New York City, God,
Speaker 1: damn it not whatever. I'll come back to that. But
Speaker 1: at our show was John Lennon. Where was the Where
Speaker 1: was the venue that we played at? When I said
Speaker 1: John Lennon was at? Was there? And oh the Ritz
Speaker 1: you remember the Rits Okay, so we were playing there.
Speaker 1: So it was John Lennon, Yoko Ono um um um,
Speaker 1: David Bowie, all the dudes from Manus, all the guys
Speaker 1: from Manus because we had just finished playing with them
Speaker 1: in England, and the who else, Pete Townsend. They were
Speaker 1: at our show and after the show they came back.
Speaker 1: In the night, they came back and we've met them
Speaker 1: in the VI I P Room at the reds Now.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately John and Yoko had left it during the encore
Speaker 1: and it was but only a couple of months later
Speaker 1: when he was murdered. Um, so you know that was horrible,
Speaker 1: that whole thing. But I didn't get to meet him,
Speaker 1: but did get to hang out with David and his
Speaker 1: assistant Coco, who was seen to be with him. At
Speaker 1: all times. Um, and there was a lot going on.
Speaker 1: We were all for taking in various uh substances. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was fun, it was great. It was perfect for
Speaker 1: the time. He was such a gentleman, very conversational, and
Speaker 1: he was super cool. He was He was everything I
Speaker 1: had hoped he would be. This is really super cool guy,
Speaker 1: very approachable. He wasn't a dick. It was a nice guy.
Speaker 1: And Pete, God Blessing. Pete was was kind of out
Speaker 1: of it. He was draped on two He had a
Speaker 1: woman on under under each arm sort of holding him up,
Speaker 1: walking him around. I think he hadn't had a little
Speaker 1: too much that evening. And the guys from man is
Speaker 1: raw about saying hi to everybody because we just finished
Speaker 1: toward with them, and uh my, the bass player, Mark
Speaker 1: Bedford was my boyfriend at the time, so it was
Speaker 1: all great playing the drums and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: seeing John lynnon I mean my body spikes. Would you
Speaker 1: tell the story? Hey? Hey, I mean I couldn't see
Speaker 1: him or anything when I was playing, But to know
Speaker 1: that he actually came to a go go show and
Speaker 1: saw us play, you know, that's a big one in
Speaker 1: my book. That's a big one. Okay, so meeting David
Speaker 1: Bowie was great. One other rock star great experience, oh well,
Speaker 1: meeting the Rolling Stones meaning Stones when we opened for them,
Speaker 1: and getting to spend a little time with Charlie Watts
Speaker 1: and Bill Wyman. Although Charlie was my hero growing up,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. If it wasn't for Charlie
Speaker 1: wattson John Bottom, I don't know if I would continue
Speaker 1: playing drums um They were I mean, I idolized them.
Speaker 1: And when I met him, it was another one of
Speaker 1: those moments where I, you know, could hardly speak, but
Speaker 1: I did because I had to, had to say something.
Speaker 1: And once again I don't know if it's just being
Speaker 1: English or what the deal is, but he was such
Speaker 1: a gentleman, very very quiet and soft spoken, perfect gentleman.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what you spoke about? Hell now, No
Speaker 1: I don't, No, I don't, but it doesn't matter. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was in his presence and I actually got to
Speaker 1: sit on his drum kit and full around with his
Speaker 1: drums at sound check, which was a big thrill for me.
Speaker 1: And I've said this story many times, but that's when
Speaker 1: his drum text said to me Gina that that that
Speaker 1: rug that his drums any one. The drums are pittings
Speaker 1: compared to what that rug cost. And in fact, that
Speaker 1: was so that was so very Charlie Watts, wasn't it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course it was. Okay, let's go back to Baltimore.
Speaker 1: How many generations was your family in Baltimore? Oh, Christ,
Speaker 1: I don't know really. I uh well, let's see my
Speaker 1: mom's sided the family. My grandfather Mitchell Muskawsky, Mitch Mskowski,
Speaker 1: he was. He came over when he was a boy
Speaker 1: on a boat, cabin boy or where the leased to
Speaker 1: call him, and he he came over to the support.
Speaker 1: Baltimore is where he got off, and you know, grew, grew,
Speaker 1: became a man and met my grandmother, Jane Hill. Her
Speaker 1: family was from Ireland, um, and that's who I'm named after,
Speaker 1: Regina Hill Um. And my father's side of the family,
Speaker 1: uh uh, the Shocks were all German. And I actually
Speaker 1: found out that my father's aunts and uncles were in
Speaker 1: the vaudeville circuit um and so there was a little
Speaker 1: bit of that show biz h in my blood. Maybe, Okay.
Speaker 1: I always thought when you broke the shock was a
Speaker 1: made up name. So that is the family German it's
Speaker 1: german Man and it was it was shocked when it
Speaker 1: was in Germany. It wasn't changed in America. You don't know,
Speaker 1: do you know what? I'm not positive, but it's something
Speaker 1: I want to look up. I think that our name
Speaker 1: was shook sc h O O K and it got
Speaker 1: changed the STO c K. I think it was shook.
Speaker 1: But you know what, now that you remind me of that,
Speaker 1: I want to look up. And I don't know why
Speaker 1: I think that, but there must have been something that
Speaker 1: I found, uh that leads me in that direction. Okay,
Speaker 1: how did your parents meet? Oh? Well they were. My
Speaker 1: mom went to Catholic school twelve years, as did I.
Speaker 1: I did my brother. Um. My mom and dad met
Speaker 1: when she was in high school and they were high
Speaker 1: school sweethearts. When she graduated high school, Uh, she was
Speaker 1: eighteen and married my father, who was twenty one. And
Speaker 1: my father was the first sweetheart she ever had. She
Speaker 1: had never had a boyfriend. She met my father and
Speaker 1: that was that and they lived the next seventy two
Speaker 1: years together in marital bliss. They were the most beautiful
Speaker 1: couple you'd ever want to me because they were so
Speaker 1: in love. I mean, that doesn't happen often. But I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you what minds. Like the storybook thing, Like,
Speaker 1: my parents were crazy about each other, and they were
Speaker 1: both really good looking, and they loved to dance, and
Speaker 1: they loved to get dressed up and like to go
Speaker 1: to New York and shake it up. You know, they
Speaker 1: were really happening. So what did they do for a living? Um,
Speaker 1: my father worked on the waterfront. It was a steved
Speaker 1: or or alongshore or whatever, you know on the waterfront.
Speaker 1: When you don't watch that film, that's my father, Marlon Brando,
Speaker 1: that's my father. Because my dad was offered a lot
Speaker 1: of money to go to New York and work take
Speaker 1: care of you know, work on the docks up there,
Speaker 1: and he wouldn't do it because we all know it's
Speaker 1: run by the mafia. All that was and uh so
Speaker 1: it's not run by the mafia in Baltimore. Uh, not
Speaker 1: so much. It wasn't at the time, not so much.
Speaker 1: New York was boom. That was it. You were in
Speaker 1: when you went to New York and you can't get
Speaker 1: out once you get in. We all know that. So,
Speaker 1: um no, Dad said no to this huge opportunity, this
Speaker 1: opportunity to make a hell of a lot more money.
Speaker 1: And I remember that it was a big deal about
Speaker 1: moving to New York and he finally said no, he
Speaker 1: wasn't going to do it. Stayed in Baltimore. He was
Speaker 1: the you know, he became the head of the pier
Speaker 1: one um um and treated everybody the way they're supposed
Speaker 1: to be treated. Because there were some folks that worked
Speaker 1: doc workers that signed an X on their paycheck. Okay, um,
Speaker 1: and my father treated everyone the same. Um. And my mom,
Speaker 1: she was a model and then a beautician and then
Speaker 1: a homemaker, and then she decided she wanted to uh
Speaker 1: hang out with my dad a little bit more. So.
Speaker 1: My father least some property right next to the pure
Speaker 1: One where he worked on Clinton Street in Baltimore, which
Speaker 1: I got a story about. I don't tell you about
Speaker 1: the wire about the building that he built. He was
Speaker 1: a builder. He could build anything anyway. Um. He least
Speaker 1: this property and he built a little carryaut shop so
Speaker 1: that my mother could work there. And he was right
Speaker 1: next door. And you know, I worked there during the
Speaker 1: summer and the hour from from six am to three pm.
Speaker 1: And that's what I would do every summer. And my
Speaker 1: mom did that for many years. And then she step
Speaker 1: four with that, and so we sold that business, and
Speaker 1: then Mom became just a homemaker. You know, she was
Speaker 1: very good. Her cooking was really good. And Okay, So
Speaker 1: what kind of neighborhood you grow up in? Very blue collar,
Speaker 1: middle class neighborhood, Dundocum. Everyone knew each other. Uh, we
Speaker 1: left our doors open at night. Uh. We'd sometimes sleep
Speaker 1: on the front porch when it was too hot before
Speaker 1: we could afford air conditioning. Um. And it was I
Speaker 1: really had an idyllic childhood. I really, I really have
Speaker 1: to say that. It was all kind of beautiful. And
Speaker 1: what kind of kid were you? Shy? The group was
Speaker 1: a rotten kid. My mother said she loved rotten kids.
Speaker 1: I was bad, not really bad, but I was rambunctious,
Speaker 1: you could say whatever. I I was always okay. I
Speaker 1: grew up from a tomboy, grew up with I didn't
Speaker 1: have any girls in the neighbor hood. It was all guys.
Speaker 1: So I grew up riding bicycles with them, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, and running around and busting windows out,
Speaker 1: and you know, I had a little dirt bike all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. You know, I didn't think there
Speaker 1: were no girls you know, until in high school that
Speaker 1: I got to have other girlfriends, you know, but man,
Speaker 1: it was a wonderful childhood. And uh you know, my my,
Speaker 1: my dad's mom lived with us for many years and
Speaker 1: it was all good. It was always and it was
Speaker 1: our house was sort of the main base on the
Speaker 1: street because my father used to love to take all
Speaker 1: the kids on hay rides and you bring them down
Speaker 1: our shore home and you know there were something else.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you about they were really something else. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: so you had a vacation home on the shore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was chest be Baby. My mom and dad had
Speaker 1: to borrow a thousand dollars from uh my my father's sister,
Speaker 1: and they bought property on the chest Peak Bag and
Speaker 1: my father built the home, the shore home down there
Speaker 1: with a couple of buddies from work. He'd work on
Speaker 1: the weekends and built this home that is still there,
Speaker 1: that is gorgeous on a beautiful piece of property, um,
Speaker 1: right on the water. And uh so we'd spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time there every summer um fishing and crabbing,
Speaker 1: and they would have their friends down. They'd be drinking
Speaker 1: gin and tonic and the kids would be running around
Speaker 1: you can have a little sip of that, and oh man,
Speaker 1: it was just wonderful, you know. And he he had
Speaker 1: a Super eight camera that he would take. He would
Speaker 1: take pictures on them because he and Mom would go
Speaker 1: to New York a lot and they were on the
Speaker 1: prices right and Mom want to make a maxstol and
Speaker 1: he won a super eight camera. So that's when he
Speaker 1: started taking super rate videos. I had all that film, Uh,
Speaker 1: put it on the DVD, so I had that. I
Speaker 1: have all those super rates. Okay, so your brother is older.
Speaker 1: What was he like growing up? Oh my god, Well,
Speaker 1: my brother's seven years older than I am, so he
Speaker 1: was protective of me. It was my brother and my
Speaker 1: cousins that lived across the street, Henry Dennis, and I
Speaker 1: ran with them. Well, they hadn't sort of take me.
Speaker 1: My brother had to sort of watch out for me.
Speaker 1: Um and I just ran around with them and he
Speaker 1: was good. And then then came a time when you know,
Speaker 1: he was like nineteen or twenty and he was out
Speaker 1: the door all the time. So I was just sort
Speaker 1: of left my own devices, which was sitting in my
Speaker 1: bedroom putting headphones on and playing with every song that
Speaker 1: I loved. Um, I was just immersed in music. Well,
Speaker 1: what what would happened in the next fifty years for
Speaker 1: your brother? What's he been up to? My brother, he
Speaker 1: got he went to college. My parents were disappointed I
Speaker 1: didn't go to college, but I made that all right,
Speaker 1: so they were happy with the ending story here. But yeah,
Speaker 1: my brother is a pretty bright guy. UM. He wanted
Speaker 1: to be a professor. UM, and he did work out
Speaker 1: that way. He spent a lot of time traveling, and
Speaker 1: then he worked on the waterfront. Excuse me with my father,
Speaker 1: and you make a lot of money working on the waterfront.
Speaker 1: And my brother worked there for like ten years and
Speaker 1: made it, made a ton of money, and bought a
Speaker 1: bunch of apartment buildings. UM in a neighborhood uh in
Speaker 1: Holland Town in Baltimore was right over Patterson Park, which
Speaker 1: is this huge, big, beautiful park. I bought a bunch
Speaker 1: of buildings that were facing the park. And at the
Speaker 1: time it was kind of ghettot but it changed over
Speaker 1: the years, UM, and it butted right up against the
Speaker 1: neighborhood called Fell's Point, which is kind of famous. You
Speaker 1: may have harder Fells Point in Baltimore. UM. So John
Speaker 1: has his apartment buildings and that's they're all paid off
Speaker 1: and he's living the life. You know, he travels and
Speaker 1: does whatever he likes and he's good. My brother is good.
Speaker 1: He I didn't get along that great, but it's okay.
Speaker 1: Did he get married, did he have kids? No? No,
Speaker 1: neither one of us are married. It's like, you know
Speaker 1: what Bob, I think about I don't know why, because
Speaker 1: I think the institution of marriage is kind of great,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't. It never worked out for me that way.
Speaker 1: And my brother, I guess he's the same. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I kind of think maybe it had a lot to
Speaker 1: do with growing up seeing the perfect marriage. There's nothing
Speaker 1: that you could ever you could never compete with that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, you tend to, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're in a relationship, you tend to say, oh,
Speaker 1: is he liked my father and she liked my mother? Whatever?
Speaker 1: You do those things. I don't know why. You just
Speaker 1: do and UH be tugh to to live up to
Speaker 1: the expectations that you have, of of of of some
Speaker 1: of of what you would think you would want your other,
Speaker 1: your significant other to be like. When you watch the
Speaker 1: perfect love affair happened, your entire life. And did your
Speaker 1: parents ever lament that they didn't have grandkids? Yeah, my mom,
Speaker 1: And I said, Mom, listen, if I had grandkids, I'd
Speaker 1: never be able to hang out with you as much
Speaker 1: as I do. He wouldn't be able to do all
Speaker 1: these It's true, we wouldn't be able to do all
Speaker 1: these fantastic things that we do together. I bring my
Speaker 1: mother on tour, on tour with us. She'd be on
Speaker 1: the tour bus with the girls and and they all
Speaker 1: loved her, you know. And my parents they were there
Speaker 1: for everything. They were in a lot of shows. The
Speaker 1: band knew my parents very very well and loved them. Okay,
Speaker 1: being as Steven Doore, that's a as you mentioned, lucrative
Speaker 1: because because it's so physical, h did did have an
Speaker 1: attrition to it. You know, we're father and brother and
Speaker 1: their body somewhat beat up because they did. My dad's
Speaker 1: body was beat up. Um. Yeah, he had terrible authoritis. Um.
Speaker 1: But my father was like a little bull man. He
Speaker 1: was strong as a horse. He loved work. He loved
Speaker 1: to work. Okay, I mean they had to pay him
Speaker 1: to get him to quit the job, to quit being
Speaker 1: a Steven Doore, you know, they had to offer him
Speaker 1: a lot of money to stop working so they could
Speaker 1: bring younger dude and to do what he does. My
Speaker 1: dad loved to work. He didn't like to sitting still.
Speaker 1: He was always building something. He was always doing something.
Speaker 1: And I tend to be more like my father because
Speaker 1: I like to stay busy. I like to Sitting around
Speaker 1: for me is like death. It's like sucks, man. I
Speaker 1: like to be busy all the time. Okay, so what
Speaker 1: were your first exposures to music? Oh? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: my parents were always playing music and they loved the dance,
Speaker 1: which used to embarrass the hell out of my brother
Speaker 1: and I they started dancing, we were so embarrassed. Um.
Speaker 1: But they listened to a lot of big band music.
Speaker 1: I grew up with big band stuff. They loved count Bastie,
Speaker 1: Cat Callaway, all these who you know, everybody, Benny Goodman,
Speaker 1: you know, anybody was playing big band stuff. They were
Speaker 1: always playing and dancing too, which was hard to take,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it was that house was full of music
Speaker 1: all the time. And how did you get into popular
Speaker 1: music as opposed to the big band Because I still
Speaker 1: love big band stuff. That's kind of some of my
Speaker 1: favorite genre of music. Uh that Uh, I just it
Speaker 1: was I was drawn to it. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I When I was a kid, Uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: had that little transistor radio, you know, am stuck to
Speaker 1: my ear waiting to hear my favorite songs of the day,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. And then I called into the radio
Speaker 1: station and request something that I wanted to hear and wait,
Speaker 1: you know, seven hours to hear at two o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning. Um. You know. I had that transistor radio
Speaker 1: under the covers, um. Um. You know. And as I
Speaker 1: got a little bit older, I just I started to
Speaker 1: want to go. After my brother took me to my
Speaker 1: first concert, which was led Zeppelin opening for the Who,
Speaker 1: and then it was NonStop. That was an addiction that
Speaker 1: never ended. Many people have a transitional moment where they
Speaker 1: really get the bug. Was it the Beatles? Was it
Speaker 1: something you heard on the radio? What made you go
Speaker 1: all in? You remember, yeah, seeing led Zeppelin opening for
Speaker 1: the Who in nine nine Mary with the post pavilion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you were listening to you were listening to the
Speaker 1: radio before that. What got you started doing that? I
Speaker 1: don't know, it just it spoke to me. It was
Speaker 1: something that that I felt that was important. To me.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know why do you love doing
Speaker 1: what you do? It just it speaks to you. It
Speaker 1: touches you in a way that other things don't. I
Speaker 1: knew as a kid that I wanted to be involved
Speaker 1: in music. I didn't know what part I would play,
Speaker 1: but I, like I said, it spoke to me, It
Speaker 1: touched me, It was important in my life. Okay, so
Speaker 1: tell me how you ended up going to that led
Speaker 1: Zeppelin who gig. My brother had the babysit may and
Speaker 1: so he took me and I just remember, you know what,
Speaker 1: see led Zeppelin. That was our first tour of the States,
Speaker 1: and that was mind blowing. But then to see the
Speaker 1: who come out and play and then destroy their instruments
Speaker 1: at the end of the show. I mean, I'm a kid,
Speaker 1: I'm eleven years old or eleven or twelve, and I
Speaker 1: that blew my mind. I was like, I want to
Speaker 1: be on that stage. I don't care what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: if I'm singing or playing the dramas or playing bass,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, I want to be up on that stage.
Speaker 1: This is what I want to do. I never thought
Speaker 1: about gender. That didn't I didn't even think about that
Speaker 1: for a second, Oh I'm a girl. That never occurred
Speaker 1: to me. It was like, I want to do what
Speaker 1: they do. I love this, this is what I want
Speaker 1: to do. So you went home. What was your first step?
Speaker 1: Did you buy the Zeppelin album? Do you get an instrument? No?
Speaker 1: I uh. First think for me was I got a
Speaker 1: base a bass guitar because I thought, oh, it's only
Speaker 1: four strings, that will be easy. And it didn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't crazy about it. So I bought a guitar,
Speaker 1: took a couple of lessons, and that was too slow.
Speaker 1: I could like listen to the things bob and figure
Speaker 1: out how to play it. You know. I think I
Speaker 1: have an ear. That was a gift, I think. And
Speaker 1: then I thought, well, I'll try drums. So I saved
Speaker 1: up all my allowance money and I bought a drum
Speaker 1: set and what kind of drum set, what brand? And
Speaker 1: that they were leto supremes. And I bought him at
Speaker 1: Old Man Petro and his his music store up on
Speaker 1: Eastern Avenue. To ride my bicycle up there. And you
Speaker 1: remember how much you paid? I don't, but I bet
Speaker 1: you I have. I think I had those receipts around here, somewhere.
Speaker 1: I didn't save it. I had that. I'm not kidding you,
Speaker 1: I do have that bob um. I got those drums
Speaker 1: and put my head phone and I had the drums
Speaker 1: set up in my bedroom and I started playing. And
Speaker 1: I knew right away that this was going to be
Speaker 1: the instrument that I would choose to to spend my
Speaker 1: time trying to get good at it, you know, be
Speaker 1: better at And because it felt really easy, it felt
Speaker 1: like I didn't have to think about it. Uh, it
Speaker 1: felt it felt easy. And you know, when you're eleven
Speaker 1: or twelve years thirteen years old, you don't want to
Speaker 1: you don't have time to mess around with stuff. You
Speaker 1: just want to go out and do it. And so
Speaker 1: playing drugs, I didn't have to think. I just put
Speaker 1: headphones one and it came very naturally to me. So
Speaker 1: you never took a lesson, never took a lesson. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're playing at home. Then how do you get
Speaker 1: in a band? Oh? Well, first of all, there weren't
Speaker 1: a lot of girls playing drums during that early seventies,
Speaker 1: late sixties, early seven, so that it was easy to
Speaker 1: get in bands. And I'll tell you what I was.
Speaker 1: I remember being in a couple of bands and these
Speaker 1: and the guys it was always guys, um. You know,
Speaker 1: they were in their twenties and they would have to
Speaker 1: sneak me in the backtor because I was under age, um,
Speaker 1: and they were all doing we're doing covers, you know, um.
Speaker 1: And that went on for several years, and then I
Speaker 1: got into a band and these were guys in my
Speaker 1: neighborhood called we and our band was called Scratch and Sniff,
Speaker 1: and we were Baltimore's first punk new wave band and
Speaker 1: it was great. I learned a lot from George and Charles.
Speaker 1: They were really based on guitar player, really good musicians,
Speaker 1: and it opened up my world to like Brian Eno
Speaker 1: and Roxy music, and you know, I started listening to
Speaker 1: more than just Aero Smith or Leonard Skinner or the
Speaker 1: Stems or the Beetles all of that. Um. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it was pretty incredible. We would do we played four
Speaker 1: sets a night. We do two sets of original songs
Speaker 1: and two sets of covers. That was a big deal
Speaker 1: and we got We did a couple of shows at
Speaker 1: the Marble Bar, which was the premier punk club to
Speaker 1: play in in Baltimore because like bands would come in
Speaker 1: like the ramoons or talking heads. They play at the
Speaker 1: Marble Bar. So that was a big deal. And were
Speaker 1: you getting paid? Yeah, but who remembers what that was.
Speaker 1: It didn't I didn't care what if we were making
Speaker 1: any money. It was just to be able to do
Speaker 1: My question is if you got paid, what did you
Speaker 1: do with What did you do with the money. I
Speaker 1: probably bought clothes. I don't really remember, but I would
Speaker 1: imagine that. You know, I probably bought some really cool
Speaker 1: bell bottoms or something. I don't know. Yeah, I probably
Speaker 1: brought clothes. Okay. So and what was your experience with
Speaker 1: Catholic school? Now you're in high school, you're in a
Speaker 1: how's that going? Yeah? I got suspended, you know, um,
Speaker 1: but it was you know, I was just used that
Speaker 1: the nuns used to scare the ship out of me.
Speaker 1: I mean they were they were tough, and I guarantee
Speaker 1: a man, I did my homework every night. It was
Speaker 1: kind of a drag because everybody in the neighborhood when
Speaker 1: they get home from school, you know, they were out
Speaker 1: playing and having fun. But I'd be in there doing
Speaker 1: my homework because I was afraid of those nuns coming
Speaker 1: into school the next day and getting smacked in the facer,
Speaker 1: having my hands mashed with a pointer. You know, I
Speaker 1: mean they were rough, they were tough. But I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what, Um, they're part of the reason why I
Speaker 1: had the work ethic that I do. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like if I you know, if you're gonna, I
Speaker 1: feel like you're gonna do something, do it right. Don't
Speaker 1: mess around with the half fast situation here? Why bother? Um?
Speaker 1: And you know, so it was it was part. It
Speaker 1: all worked out well in the end. Although I must
Speaker 1: say that I would like to send by psychiatrists bill
Speaker 1: to the Catholic Church because they did screw me up
Speaker 1: in many ways, Like they filled me with guilt. I
Speaker 1: was always I'm still guilty about everything. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. So that was gonna be my next question.
Speaker 1: So you go to the therapist, Yeah as an adult,
Speaker 1: I know. So how long have you gone? How frequently?
Speaker 1: When did you start? Oh, I've been doing it for
Speaker 1: many many years. I haven't. I haven't done it for
Speaker 1: a while though. I go not that frequently. But I did,
Speaker 1: like in the nineties, go a lot because you know,
Speaker 1: I had to deal with like the guilt of making
Speaker 1: it and you know, oh my god, what people think
Speaker 1: and all you know, it's there's a there's a Catholic
Speaker 1: guilt and it's a real thing. It's it's real, um
Speaker 1: and it definitely definitely got me. How does it affect
Speaker 1: you today? If it all, it still does affect me. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm not worthy of things. You know,
Speaker 1: It's weird. It's like I put the time and I
Speaker 1: do all the right things, but then I feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, you're not really worthy. You know there's people
Speaker 1: that deserve that more than you do. Then I then
Speaker 1: I draw strength from what the way my parents raised me,
Speaker 1: that we're sort of kick ass and yes you can
Speaker 1: do anything. This crazy dichotomy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But and they set meid to Cathoit school. So, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay, are you still a believer? Do
Speaker 1: you still go to church? No? I don't go to church.
Speaker 1: I might go a couple of times a year or something.
Speaker 1: But when I walk into a church, I feel, uh
Speaker 1: it's a good place that's to meditate or something. I
Speaker 1: you know, I choose to believe what I believe. I Uh,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm a spiritual person, but organized religion
Speaker 1: is a little disturbing to me. Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of mixed up about it all, to be
Speaker 1: honest with you. Uh okay, So why did you get
Speaker 1: suspended in high school? Oh? Jesus because the disciplinarian nune doctor.
Speaker 1: Her her name was John Helene. How do you like that?
Speaker 1: I just I don't believe I remembered her name, John Helene.
Speaker 1: She was such a bit um. She didn't like me
Speaker 1: because I was. I spent half my time trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to get how to get into trouble
Speaker 1: without getting caught, and she knew that, and she she's
Speaker 1: I was. I was suspended for having a bad attitude.
Speaker 1: There was nothing that I actually did that she caught
Speaker 1: me at. And actually my mother and father went up
Speaker 1: there and we're like, what do you mean a bad attitude?
Speaker 1: What is what does that mean? You know? It's crazy.
Speaker 1: Catholic school was sucking nuts. I gotta say, so did
Speaker 1: you gra? Did you graduate? Yeah? I did, Yeah, of
Speaker 1: course I did. And he fought of going to college
Speaker 1: or like, I'm done? What was going through your head? No?
Speaker 1: I mean I you know, I couldn't wait to finish
Speaker 1: school so I could just starting playing in clubs and stinky,
Speaker 1: dirty clubs. All I want to do was be, you know,
Speaker 1: a musician, be a drummer, and and and and work
Speaker 1: and make some money, and you know, try to find
Speaker 1: a band that I fit in that really spoke to me.
Speaker 1: And you know, Scratch and Sniff was a band that
Speaker 1: that I love those guys and I loved where we
Speaker 1: were going. Um, But after I'm gonna get ahead of
Speaker 1: myself because after that, I got the opportunity to work
Speaker 1: with Eat the egg Lady from John Waters film Let's
Speaker 1: Let's wait. I want to get into that. Let's go back.
Speaker 1: One thing you put in your book is you basically
Speaker 1: went to see everybody. Tell me about your tell me
Speaker 1: about your concert going experience, where you got the money
Speaker 1: for tickets, Who was good, who was bad? Well, let
Speaker 1: me tell you something. I had albums full of photographs
Speaker 1: with my instematic camera from all the continents I went to.
Speaker 1: And I learned that, okay, they played, if they played,
Speaker 1: the bottom were Civic Center, the hotel they were going
Speaker 1: to stay and was gonna be the holiday and which
Speaker 1: was right next door. So I was like, okay, how
Speaker 1: am I going to meet these people? I got to
Speaker 1: meet him. You know, I need to learn from them, right.
Speaker 1: I'd see him on stage, I was just knocked out.
Speaker 1: So I would go across the street and try to
Speaker 1: get their autographs and take a photo with them. And
Speaker 1: I figured out that the way to get to meet
Speaker 1: them was you go up the service elevator and you
Speaker 1: go on the floor. You get on the phone, and
Speaker 1: you asked to be You asked to be connected to
Speaker 1: either the bass player of the drummer, because they were
Speaker 1: usually the guys in the band that gave their real name.
Speaker 1: They didn't have an alias, and so I would ask
Speaker 1: for them and i'd get the room. I get like
Speaker 1: a four digit number. The last three digit was the
Speaker 1: room number. So I would go and I'd have somebody
Speaker 1: with me, you know, a friend, and we'd rap on
Speaker 1: the door. I'd say, can I take a photograph? Can
Speaker 1: I take a picture with you? And they always said yes.
Speaker 1: But I remember, like Paul Rodgers um for Bad Company,
Speaker 1: I have a photograph of him where he's putting his
Speaker 1: arm up because he didn't want his picture taken, but
Speaker 1: I took it anyway. And like I had pictures of
Speaker 1: Ted Nugent and Aery Smith and at Rod Stewart, and yes,
Speaker 1: and you name it. I was taking I was taking pictures,
Speaker 1: and I was meeting these people and saying, I want
Speaker 1: to do that, the guys in Jay Giles band, I
Speaker 1: mean I it was all I lived for, Bob. I'm
Speaker 1: getting excited just talking about where did you get the
Speaker 1: money for the tickets? Save up my allowance? Dishes, doing dishes,
Speaker 1: cleaning the house every weekend, cut the grass, taking the
Speaker 1: garbage out, doing anything I could to make the money
Speaker 1: to buy those tickets. So tell me the eat story,
Speaker 1: the eating stories. So when I moved out of my
Speaker 1: house at the age of twenty, I moved into Fell's Point,
Speaker 1: which was sort of the Hit area, and eat at
Speaker 1: a store on we called Edith's Shopping Bag. And I
Speaker 1: would go in and visit her all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: And she'd be sitting at a cash register with her
Speaker 1: like hand, her servant, lady Jeannie, who looked like a
Speaker 1: crazy old witch, but she waited on eady hand and foot.
Speaker 1: It was a strange thing, but kind of great. Only Baltimore,
Speaker 1: it's such. It was all John Waters film, the whole thing. Man,
Speaker 1: It's incredible. Anyway, I'd go in there and I talked
Speaker 1: to her be facing Oh Ganea, hell are you what
Speaker 1: are you doing? And I gotta punk band I want
Speaker 1: to put together. Are you you know if you want
Speaker 1: to get in they I was like, yes, I want
Speaker 1: to get in this band. We're gonna get to New York,
Speaker 1: LA and San Francisco, of course. So we put together
Speaker 1: this band, myself and two other girls and with Evie.
Speaker 1: We rehearsed a couple of times, put a couple of
Speaker 1: songs together. I even remember they were. It was all
Speaker 1: slapped together quickly. It was just the thought of getting
Speaker 1: to play at cebe GEB's Max's Kansas City, and then
Speaker 1: getting the first time I ever flew on a plane, okay,
Speaker 1: find across the country to play in Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: l a Hollywood whoo um, three nights, three shows, one
Speaker 1: night at the Neward Theater, and then up to San
Speaker 1: Francisco to play at the Newer at the Sorry the
Speaker 1: Warfield Theater. This was like a dream come true, and
Speaker 1: I could thank Eadie for that, which ultimately goes down
Speaker 1: to thanking John Waters, you know, for for discovering Eadie,
Speaker 1: who was just the sweet, old, kindly lady that loved
Speaker 1: all the attention she was a doll, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: So we did the Eating of the eighth shows. That
Speaker 1: was fantastic. Uh. You know, I couldn't believe all that
Speaker 1: I was experiencing. And the punk scene was thriving great.
Speaker 1: And came back to Baltimore and I was I knew
Speaker 1: that it was time to make a decision and I
Speaker 1: had to leave. I had to go. Uh after experiencing that,
Speaker 1: there was no turning back. Um Ok, I saved up
Speaker 1: money for like a year, and then I asked my
Speaker 1: friend Babs from high school, you want to go to
Speaker 1: l A. And she was like yeah. So we got
Speaker 1: my dad's pickup truck everything I own and and flew
Speaker 1: across I mean, and drove across country. And at that
Speaker 1: point I still had like an instematic camera that I
Speaker 1: was taking photographs with. UM drove across country and in
Speaker 1: search of a band. I didn't know who it would be,
Speaker 1: where I knew it was going to be in l A.
Speaker 1: Um that was the easiest place. The cost of living
Speaker 1: was easier in l A than in San Francisco to
Speaker 1: New York. And yeah, so that was it. We we
Speaker 1: we started our journey across country and I was taking
Speaker 1: taking pictures all the time. Okay, you land. What's the
Speaker 1: journey from there to getting into Go Goes. Well, I
Speaker 1: was staying with a guy named Steve Martin, not the
Speaker 1: Steve Martin UM. He's a filmmaker. And Steve and his brother,
Speaker 1: Doug Martin, they're identical redheaded twins. Um had done the show,
Speaker 1: produced the shows at the newer So I stayed with
Speaker 1: Steve and he was taking me around to all the
Speaker 1: clubs and I got into bands right away. I put
Speaker 1: my name up at all the stores, you know, the
Speaker 1: music stores and um so and Steve started taking me
Speaker 1: around to different different venues to see bands. And he said,
Speaker 1: there's this band, the Go Ghost Genia. You need to
Speaker 1: see them. You need to get the band kicked the
Speaker 1: drum round, you need to be the drummer and then
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna be You're gonna be big stars.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, Steve. So he took me
Speaker 1: to Club eighty eight to see the Go Those play
Speaker 1: and it was fantastic. I they were having such a
Speaker 1: great time on stage. It was like such a joyful experience.
Speaker 1: It was like I, because I was so seri sarious
Speaker 1: about music, everything had to be perfect. I was way
Speaker 1: too serious and they injected this this whole fun thing
Speaker 1: which I never thought about. Oh, this can be fun
Speaker 1: as well. They were having the best time on stage.
Speaker 1: They were making mistakes, it didn't matter um and people
Speaker 1: were loving it. Mistakes and all, you know. And and
Speaker 1: I also heard something in the songs that they were
Speaker 1: playing that I felt I had value. And I just
Speaker 1: was like, I told Steve verywait, yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: get in this band. So his brother Doug was having
Speaker 1: a party that weekend and his place down in Santa Monica,
Speaker 1: and he invited the girls and whoever else was in
Speaker 1: the scene at that time, the punk scene, and they
Speaker 1: were there and I met I think I met Belinda,
Speaker 1: Margot and Jane and they were said they were looking
Speaker 1: for a drummer. Uh, and I said, well, I'm looking
Speaker 1: to join the band. And I invited them over to
Speaker 1: Steve's house that weekend. They were the following weekend, and uh,
Speaker 1: Steve was so good to me. He allowed me when
Speaker 1: I dream across the country. I had all my vinyl,
Speaker 1: I had a p A system and that drop all
Speaker 1: my clothes, everything I owned. I had a p A
Speaker 1: set up in his living room in the house on
Speaker 1: Beverly Glenn and I brought amps with me as well,
Speaker 1: So the girls came in. We started playing, and a
Speaker 1: couple of songs later, I knew that this was going
Speaker 1: to be the right, the right fit for for all
Speaker 1: of us. And and it was and everything changed. It
Speaker 1: all changed after that. Who was the who was the
Speaker 1: drummer before you? How did they get rid of that drummer? Um?
Speaker 1: They got rid of a Lisa. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't as I was told. I don't think she was
Speaker 1: like really into playing drums. I think it was just
Speaker 1: the fun thing she was doing. Not that they were
Speaker 1: that serious side of um. They just want to hang
Speaker 1: out with their friends and have fun. But I don't
Speaker 1: know whatever the problems were. But I was more than
Speaker 1: happy to step in because when I stepped in, they
Speaker 1: thought I was like a big shop because I could
Speaker 1: actually play, you know what I mean. I was like
Speaker 1: really serious, and I was like, you know, guys, we
Speaker 1: need to rehearse, you know, every night after work. They
Speaker 1: were used to rehearsing a couple of times a month,
Speaker 1: and I had come for this background where you know,
Speaker 1: you rehearsed after work every day, like four or five
Speaker 1: nights a week. You gotta you gotta play to get better.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna happen unless you spend the time and
Speaker 1: put in the work to make yourself better at your
Speaker 1: instrument or at your songwriting, whatever it maybe, or you're singing,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. You gotta put the time in. And
Speaker 1: they went right along with it. They were happy. They
Speaker 1: were happy to uh to change their ways about that.
Speaker 1: They were they were willing to put the time in
Speaker 1: because I think everybody kind of knew that we were
Speaker 1: something different, something special, and if we if we put
Speaker 1: the time in, it was gonna it was gonna happen
Speaker 1: for us. Okay, this was at the tail end of
Speaker 1: a huge scene in Los Angeles. All the you know,
Speaker 1: the only ones who really broke through were the Knack,
Speaker 1: but a million bands were sign right Motels. They made it,
Speaker 1: they actually got a deal with they were But it
Speaker 1: will happen even a little later though. But in any
Speaker 1: of that, you know, got all those bands. I have
Speaker 1: those records, like Danny Wilde had his band and God
Speaker 1: and then there was the other band on Arastuty. You know,
Speaker 1: you know all those things, such a scene. But you're
Speaker 1: playing gigs. What's going through your mind in terms of
Speaker 1: the next step forward. Obviously people knew who the Go
Speaker 1: Goes were, but you weren't getting signed and it wasn't happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was um, you know, I guess some of the
Speaker 1: labels wanted to take a take a chance on this
Speaker 1: old girl band because there had never been an all
Speaker 1: uh female band that had been hugely successful. And we
Speaker 1: all know how record labels are. They want to they
Speaker 1: find a formula that works and then they stick to it,
Speaker 1: you know, um, because they figured, you know, they're gonna
Speaker 1: make plenty of money. It's all about making that's the
Speaker 1: bottom line. Are they going to make money. We came
Speaker 1: into the picture and we were sort of like it
Speaker 1: or not. We're here, We're not going anywhere. Look at
Speaker 1: the crowds that are coming to our shows. You can't
Speaker 1: deny that we're getting We're getting bigger and bigger. You know,
Speaker 1: the line is now around the block. It's got to
Speaker 1: start like registering that this something's going on here. And
Speaker 1: you know, it did finally, but only with I R.
Speaker 1: S Records, who was sort of as indie label that
Speaker 1: was distributed through A and M, which was fantastic UM
Speaker 1: and John Cornaria is a guy that worked at I R. S.
Speaker 1: Who who came to see us play, and then he
Speaker 1: told Mill Scope and You've got to see this band.
Speaker 1: Of course, Miles came and we signed with Miles April
Speaker 1: Fool's Day of nineteen, Okay, and that was it. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back a little bit slower because I'm on
Speaker 1: the other side of the fence. I'm reading the news
Speaker 1: back when you read a physical paper. There wasn't even
Speaker 1: article in the l A Times. Why have the Go
Speaker 1: Goes not gotten a record deal? Really? Okay? Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that makes sense because nobody would give us a deal
Speaker 1: and we were goddamn selling out every club we played
Speaker 1: in And we're going to San Francisco and we played
Speaker 1: in New York. We're selling out all these places. What's
Speaker 1: the problem. So did you sign the deal with I
Speaker 1: R S before you went to England or did you
Speaker 1: go to England first? Yeah, we went to England. That
Speaker 1: really got the ball rolling because when we went to England,
Speaker 1: we toured with Madness and the Specials. So we got
Speaker 1: really tight during those tours because it was I mean,
Speaker 1: it was rough. Those those the audience did not want
Speaker 1: to see us. They hated our guts and let us
Speaker 1: know by throwing bowels and spitting all over us all night. Um.
Speaker 1: So we came back and we you know, we had
Speaker 1: been we had we just finished the School of hard
Speaker 1: Knocks when we played the UK. Um so uh, when
Speaker 1: we came back here, it was crazy. We thought we
Speaker 1: were going to really happen in the UK, and as
Speaker 1: it turns out, we didn't. We kind of flopped over there.
Speaker 1: But when we when we came back to the States,
Speaker 1: we got the beat. The single on Stiff was happening
Speaker 1: in the club scene. People were playing it and it
Speaker 1: was really starting to, you know, become a club favorite.
Speaker 1: People were knowing who the go goes were. And we
Speaker 1: get back to l A and that's what it really
Speaker 1: It really did change because then then it was like,
Speaker 1: instead of playing one night at the star Wood, you
Speaker 1: have to do two or three nights. Uh. It changed
Speaker 1: a lot. And we were really tight by that time
Speaker 1: because we've been playing every night. Um. And that was
Speaker 1: a pretty cool time. We played playing the Rosy and
Speaker 1: the Whiskey and the star Wood and then going up
Speaker 1: to Sandwich is gonna play with buo Hey And then
Speaker 1: then the venue stop bigger and bigger. It was. It was,
Speaker 1: it was. It was all welcomed. Okay, the Stiff single,
Speaker 1: we got to beat the original version that was done
Speaker 1: before the I R S deal, right, Yes, yeah we
Speaker 1: did that. Regarding Dave Rock, I think it was a game.
Speaker 1: Robinson Sift Records, Yeah, um uh yeah, he saw the
Speaker 1: band play and he had talked with Ginger several times
Speaker 1: about doing a deal he wanted. Our publishing with Ginger
Speaker 1: was like no way. Um, but we did do that
Speaker 1: that single deal with him. And you know, as much
Speaker 1: as we were like, oh, that's such crap, we don't
Speaker 1: really care about that, it worked to our advantage when
Speaker 1: we came back to the States because, like I say,
Speaker 1: it was happening in the clubs, they were playing it,
Speaker 1: so people all over the country were here in the
Speaker 1: go those for the first time. Um. Being an English import, fine,
Speaker 1: whatever takes um. So when we came back here, I
Speaker 1: think that the crowds that were showing up at our
Speaker 1: conscious were so big that people couldn't ignore it. And
Speaker 1: you know what what's funny is that I'm thinking about this,
Speaker 1: all the major labels offered up several major labels offered
Speaker 1: us uh EP deals nobody will offer us an LP
Speaker 1: deal except the I R. S Records, So we signed
Speaker 1: with them. Okay, you signed, You went to the u K.
Speaker 1: You came back. What was the process in the time
Speaker 1: period of getting it together and recording the album? Okay,
Speaker 1: so we get back to l A. We signed our deal. UH,
Speaker 1: milescope and had an idea of bringing in Richard Gotterer,
Speaker 1: a very famous songwriter, a great producer. He he had
Speaker 1: produced a couple of Blondie records. I thought it were
Speaker 1: a perfect fit and it was. Um. So we packed
Speaker 1: up and we went to New York for several months
Speaker 1: to work on our first album, Beauty and the Beat,
Speaker 1: and Richard was was guiding us and helped us to
Speaker 1: UH realized that what we needed to do was slow
Speaker 1: everything down a little bit. You could actually hear the melody,
Speaker 1: the vocal melody, which was sort of flying by so
Speaker 1: finished you couldn't appreciate it. We slowed it all dawn.
Speaker 1: We're still a punk band at heart, but we'd be
Speaker 1: came what was happening. He had these great pop mullies
Speaker 1: over top these punk punk chords, and you know, we're
Speaker 1: playing really fast. Um. He helped us change that up
Speaker 1: and make it more accessible to the general public. And
Speaker 1: it was at first when we heard our record we
Speaker 1: hated it. We thought, oh god, this isn't what we
Speaker 1: really sound like. What has he done to us? And
Speaker 1: then seven or eight months later, when the records number one,
Speaker 1: we were like, Richard is genius. What a trade guy.
Speaker 1: He knew exactly what to do, and we didn't, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: Richard is genius. He's a great song man, and he
Speaker 1: did know what to do with those songs, and he
Speaker 1: gave it a very classic sound. Okay, it wasn't exactly
Speaker 1: what we wanted, but it's classic. Cool. Okay. When when
Speaker 1: you showed up in New York, were the songs already written? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were. They were already written when we got there.
Speaker 1: We had, you know, several songs, and he chose what
Speaker 1: he thought would be best on the record, and we
Speaker 1: worked on him. We worked on the arrangements, which were
Speaker 1: pretty close. But he really he was Richard, such a song.
Speaker 1: It's all about the song. You gotta start with that
Speaker 1: or you got nothing. You gotta have a great song.
Speaker 1: So did he hear the stuff before you came to
Speaker 1: New York? Did you work with you? No? He had
Speaker 1: been sent tapes. Okay, so now you're in New York
Speaker 1: for months, Needles just say, I hear kachin, kachin, kachin
Speaker 1: the bill, which is ultimately being paid by you. But
Speaker 1: you were also portray a wild time in addition to recording,
Speaker 1: You're hanging out with people, Jodie Foster, going all around.
Speaker 1: What was what was going on? Then? We were we
Speaker 1: were kids having a great time in our early twenties.
Speaker 1: We got a little money. Finally we're on our way
Speaker 1: to perhaps being rock stars. And it couldn't get much better,
Speaker 1: you know, we were. I mean that was sort of
Speaker 1: when the rat Pack was happening, all with Rob Lowe
Speaker 1: and Andrew Carthy, that whole bunch that was all happening
Speaker 1: at the same time. We were all part of it.
Speaker 1: I am so lucky to have been involved in all that.
Speaker 1: It was great, Bob, it was great. You know. It
Speaker 1: felt like, oh my god, we have arrived. Here are peers.
Speaker 1: Look at everyone. I mean, we're all like, we're all
Speaker 1: on our way up. We're all working. Everybody stuff their
Speaker 1: ship together. We are partying, but we're young, and so
Speaker 1: that makes a difference. And it was the eighties where
Speaker 1: you're sort of I don't know that mentality was so
Speaker 1: different than um. Okay, so let's just assume it's the
Speaker 1: eighties for eaving today and I dry and I say,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be this great party. You have to go alone?
Speaker 1: Is that cool with you? Now? I have to have
Speaker 1: my my group with me. I've had my girl gang
Speaker 1: with me. I notice, anyway, what none of us went
Speaker 1: anywhere alone. We always had somebody, a couple of girls
Speaker 1: from the from the band. We're always hanging out together.
Speaker 1: You know, safety and numbers, bob. Okay, So you go,
Speaker 1: and it helps to have your wing people. But are
Speaker 1: you the person starting the conversation making friends or are
Speaker 1: you the one talking after they've already brought these other
Speaker 1: people into the circle. I've probably talked after they've brought
Speaker 1: into a certain because I am believe you're not kind
Speaker 1: of shy, so I wait for introductions and let other
Speaker 1: people do that, and then I'd sort of weasel my
Speaker 1: way in there. Okay. So when we first got on
Speaker 1: camera here, you were a ball of energy, really upfront,
Speaker 1: really energetic. Then we touched upon your parents, you got sad.
Speaker 1: So in terms of your personality, do you get depressed?
Speaker 1: Are you always upbeat? How do you cope? What do
Speaker 1: you like? Bob? I'm human, that's all. Of course I
Speaker 1: get depressed. UM, but I try to stay as positive
Speaker 1: as possible because you only go around once, and I
Speaker 1: want I want to look back on my life as
Speaker 1: as a as as a gift and and and try
Speaker 1: to keep it a joyful experience because you know what,
Speaker 1: there's so much crap going on that can bring you
Speaker 1: down on a daily basis. And I tried to, Um,
Speaker 1: I absorbed only so much and then I have to
Speaker 1: shut it out because everything it affects me deeply. And
Speaker 1: I you know, I just want to be happy and healthy,
Speaker 1: and I want the people that I love to be
Speaker 1: happy and healthy. And you know, I want to be
Speaker 1: in the Rock and Wall Hall of Fame. It's happening
Speaker 1: in a couple of weeks. Duh. I'm I'm pretty. I'm okay, Bob,
Speaker 1: I'm okay, Okay. So the record comes out. When's the
Speaker 1: first time you hear a song on the radio? And
Speaker 1: what's that like? I'm in my car and I heard
Speaker 1: I think it was our Lips are Steeled, and um,
Speaker 1: that's what I felt like, Oh my god, we really
Speaker 1: are going to make it like this is it. We're
Speaker 1: on the radio. My parents can hear this, my friends
Speaker 1: can hear this. I started getting calls from back in Baltimore.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I heard you on the radio. You know, Wow,
Speaker 1: it's great. How incredible is that. I'm a kid from Dune, doc.
Speaker 1: You know, I go to l A with everything I
Speaker 1: have in the back of my dad's pickup truck, and
Speaker 1: here it is. A couple of years later, I got
Speaker 1: a strong on the radio. Pretty magical. Okay, you have
Speaker 1: your story, but let's just assume the Go Goes didn't exist.
Speaker 1: Would you have made it anyway? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: had no idea. I know that I was very driven
Speaker 1: and I was looking for the right people to work with,
Speaker 1: But I have no idea. I really don't. I would
Speaker 1: have kept playing and played until I found the right fit.
Speaker 1: I know that. Okay, So over time the record builds
Speaker 1: ahead of steam and it's mega successful. You were on SNL.
Speaker 1: You know, you have the famous video where you're jumping
Speaker 1: in the fountain. Were you moving so fast you couldn't
Speaker 1: think about it? What was the experience? That's exactly, Bob,
Speaker 1: That's exactly what it was. Things were happening at such
Speaker 1: a rapid pace that I don't think any of us
Speaker 1: had time to really take it all in. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we were just like just doing whatever we were told
Speaker 1: to do. Uh. And it was all supposed to be
Speaker 1: part of what it takes to make your record sell
Speaker 1: and you know, to be a part of whatever of
Speaker 1: whatever that rock stardom stuff is. We were just trying
Speaker 1: to do what we were supposed to do. Um. And
Speaker 1: we didn't that really, we didn't. We never took time
Speaker 1: to really sit down and talk and think about it.
Speaker 1: And you know, that's the way the record labels pushed
Speaker 1: you back then. You would get off tour and have
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks off and go right back on
Speaker 1: on tour, go right back out on tour. When you
Speaker 1: finished that tour, you come back and work on a record,
Speaker 1: and then you go right back out on tour. That's
Speaker 1: that's the way it worked, and that's what we were
Speaker 1: used to you know. Um. You know, in retrospect, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you need to take time off to
Speaker 1: find yourself and to learn how to really communicate with
Speaker 1: each other. Um. There wasn't a lot of time for that. Okay,
Speaker 1: so who said when to make this second record, the
Speaker 1: record company or the band? And was the band company
Speaker 1: their record company the record company? Did you have the songs?
Speaker 1: And when were they written? We had some of the songs, um,
Speaker 1: but I think that most of that stuff was written
Speaker 1: while we were on tour. We didn't have time to
Speaker 1: go home and work on stuff. Um. You know that,
Speaker 1: you know the old saying the first record is a
Speaker 1: lifetime takes a life time, and make second when you
Speaker 1: gotta quick get it out. And of course we're all
Speaker 1: worried about the sophomore jinks. You know, it could never
Speaker 1: be as good as the first winner. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was incredible that our first album sold the way that
Speaker 1: it did, so we knew the second one was going
Speaker 1: to be tough. You know, we were going to get
Speaker 1: there going to say, oh, the first record you sold this, maney,
Speaker 1: what's the problem with the second one? We did the
Speaker 1: best we could, that's all. Okay. The second album comes out,
Speaker 1: Cathy's got this song vacation. You worked that up after
Speaker 1: it comes a hit. What's the perception being in the
Speaker 1: band of the second record. I think that we all
Speaker 1: felt rushed with that. We did feel rushed on the
Speaker 1: second record, absolutely, and thank god Kathy had written Vacation
Speaker 1: and we brought it into the band, changed it up
Speaker 1: a little bit, worked up the arrangement and it became
Speaker 1: a go go song, and that, you know, was the
Speaker 1: was the single, and thank god Cathy. And what about
Speaker 1: the other songs? Were they written in the studio? No,
Speaker 1: they were written on tour. Did you ever written in
Speaker 1: the studio, Bob? We have to have come in with
Speaker 1: it prepared. Did you consciously say we'd better be writing
Speaker 1: because we're gonna have to make a record, or it
Speaker 1: happens spontaneously. I think it happens spontaneously. I think we
Speaker 1: were all too busy and wound up, you know, at
Speaker 1: that particular time, with everything that's going on around us.
Speaker 1: And that's what I say. What what I'm saying here
Speaker 1: is that there wasn't a lot of thought put into anything.
Speaker 1: It was just do it, do it, do it, get
Speaker 1: it done, put the record out. You know. We we
Speaker 1: should have been allowed a little bit more time to
Speaker 1: do everything, but we didn't know any better. Okay, then
Speaker 1: you make the third record with Martin Russian, who of
Speaker 1: course had used success with the Human Leagues. No, longer
Speaker 1: with us. How did that come together? Um, well, we
Speaker 1: did have some time off then and Martin I adored.
Speaker 1: I thought that Human League record Dare was a masterpiece.
Speaker 1: And when his name was brought up, I think it
Speaker 1: was Kathy and myself that really pushed for him. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean that album like I say that, albam there
Speaker 1: is a masterpiece. And Martin was you know, produced it.
Speaker 1: So I was like, please, just let's do it the
Speaker 1: record of everybody agreed to do it. Whatever to England,
Speaker 1: um to work on that record. But unfortunately, this was
Speaker 1: the hype of the drug intake and also everybody had
Speaker 1: plenty of money and uh, and the band was splintering
Speaker 1: at that point, where you know, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of there was problems, and no, we weren't communicating, we
Speaker 1: weren't realistic about our situation. Once again, we're just doing
Speaker 1: what we're told to do, um and not stopping to
Speaker 1: think about the consequences of not having enough time to
Speaker 1: really work on things on ourselves, you know, on our songs.
Speaker 1: We just had to get it together. I love that record. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: I love Talk Show. I love the way it sunds.
Speaker 1: Martin was a great producer, a wonderful guy. Um, and
Speaker 1: I love that record. I'm happy with that record. How
Speaker 1: did you decide not to use Richard one more time? Oh?
Speaker 1: That was done. It was time to move on. It
Speaker 1: was time, it was we needed to change. It couldn't
Speaker 1: be the same thing again. Come on. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: third record comes out, there's no obvious single. Ultimately head
Speaker 1: over Heels. Head over Heels was a single, okay, but
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say it didn't have the level of
Speaker 1: success of the previous tracks. And then ultimately Jane says
Speaker 1: she's gonna leave. Did you feel that coming? Was that
Speaker 1: a total surprise? What was happening there? Well, Jane wanted
Speaker 1: to be wanted to sing one of the songs Forget
Speaker 1: that day, and uh, we sat down and agreed that
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be good. Belinda would feel her role would
Speaker 1: be diminished as a lead singer, and so you know, Um,
Speaker 1: that's the way that went down. And obviously Jane I
Speaker 1: couldn't deal with it and told us that she was
Speaker 1: going to quit. Of course, I felt that, you know,
Speaker 1: if Jane wanted to do her own material and be,
Speaker 1: you know, be the lead singer, she should. She could
Speaker 1: go out and get a solo deal and still be
Speaker 1: in the band. But like I said, things were going
Speaker 1: so fast, and there was a lot of drugs and
Speaker 1: there was just everybody had their own camp and people
Speaker 1: that were pushing them to do this and that, and
Speaker 1: our management was not guiding us. They weren't really taking
Speaker 1: care of things the right way. Um. You know, they
Speaker 1: got to focusing on Belinda and her and she could
Speaker 1: be a star. It was just coming apart, so that
Speaker 1: the Jay thing was it was not a surprise, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't when it actually happened. It seemed like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I can't believe she's really doing this. And
Speaker 1: then ultimately there's one more splinter with Charlotte and Belinda
Speaker 1: going off. Yeah, well that that was the final. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was it. Uh, that was weird because, um, Kathy
Speaker 1: and I were just trying to keep things together and
Speaker 1: Charlotte and we didn't put Charlotte in rehab and she
Speaker 1: was I thought would come out better and we'd be
Speaker 1: more united and we worked together. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: she came out and I don't know what her Blenna
Speaker 1: we're talking about, but we were all called into a
Speaker 1: meeting at our management office and walked in and were
Speaker 1: told Charlotte when they said, you know, the band is
Speaker 1: over and that's that. And Kathy and I were mortified
Speaker 1: and couldn't believe it was happening. Um, and we just
Speaker 1: had to deal with it. That's the way it went. Dan.
Speaker 1: It wasn't it wasn't right. It wasn't done the right way.
Speaker 1: You know, what disbandinged to do is take a year
Speaker 1: or two off and come back and communicate and you know,
Speaker 1: do what we need to do with each other to
Speaker 1: make it all right. Now. Charlotte, I only spent one
Speaker 1: night sit next to her at some gig and talking
Speaker 1: to her. But based on that experience, I know this
Speaker 1: is a stupid statement. She would be the last person
Speaker 1: I would expect to get hooked on heroin. How does
Speaker 1: someone like Charlotte get hooked on heroin? I don't know.
Speaker 1: You have to ask her. You know, it's a personal thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man. You just uh, maybe the people
Speaker 1: that are around you are doing it and you sort
Speaker 1: of play with it and then it becomes a habit
Speaker 1: before you know it. I had an issue with it
Speaker 1: the nineties, um, and that was out of boredom, and
Speaker 1: my thing was like Oh, we're just smoking it. It's
Speaker 1: not a big deal. Well, yeah, it is a big deal.
Speaker 1: You know. Heroin is the fucking devil. It's bad news,
Speaker 1: bad news. So how long were you doing heron and
Speaker 1: how did you get off? Oh? I was in rehab
Speaker 1: like three times and before I got it together. Most people,
Speaker 1: that's one thing I have to say about charge. She
Speaker 1: was in rehab once, since she stayed sober. Most people
Speaker 1: would take several times. It took me three times before
Speaker 1: I got myself together, and that's been over twenty years.
Speaker 1: I'd never do that, never do it again. It's a
Speaker 1: you just become a different person. I look at that
Speaker 1: and I think, like, that's not That's not who I am.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not that person. It's dark. It's really dark. Okay.
Speaker 1: You know it's especially prevalent heroin now as a result
Speaker 1: of the OxyContin situation, and need to say, heroin is
Speaker 1: much less that's one of the reason people take it.
Speaker 1: It's much less expensive than OxyContin, which also is harder
Speaker 1: to get. But what was it like? You know, if
Speaker 1: people like David Crosby, who lose everything, you're taking heroin.
Speaker 1: You know, traditionally people say they spend all day thinking
Speaker 1: about where they're going to get their next fix. What
Speaker 1: was your experience, No, I just get what I need,
Speaker 1: that's all, and just stay at home and do it.
Speaker 1: That's it. When I would do that drug, I was
Speaker 1: I had a lot of it would give me a
Speaker 1: lot of energy, So I was constantly doing something. So
Speaker 1: if I had asked you at that time, if it
Speaker 1: was open, you're doing heroin, and I said you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing it, you would have said, mind your business,
Speaker 1: mind your own business. It's that nothing to do with you.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you something. When you're doing that drug,
Speaker 1: people would say whatever they want, and people around you
Speaker 1: can die, can overdose from it. It It doesn't matter. You
Speaker 1: stop doing drugs when you are ready to. And I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly that when that happens or how that happens,
Speaker 1: but everybody has that moment if they're lucky, I had
Speaker 1: that moment and I stopped, and at the end of it,
Speaker 1: for me, I would never I would never deal with
Speaker 1: that drug again because, uh, trying to get off of
Speaker 1: it is such a horrible experience. I couldn't live through it.
Speaker 1: So I'll never that. That will never be in my
Speaker 1: life again. Okay, so if you went three times, you
Speaker 1: obviously relapse twice. What was going on there? It's easy
Speaker 1: to relapse, you know. It's just it's familiar territory. It
Speaker 1: numbs you up. It just makes you numb, so that
Speaker 1: everything around you good, If there's any kind of anything
Speaker 1: that's good or bad, it just evens it all out
Speaker 1: and you're numb to everything that's around you. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's easy to live day by day that way. You
Speaker 1: don't you don't hurt, You don't hurt. However, what about
Speaker 1: the potential concept of odine? You just put that out
Speaker 1: of your mind. Or you're trying to be if you're
Speaker 1: if you're if you're iron, and if you're using a needle, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so. I don't know. I would have never
Speaker 1: touched that. My stupidity on my behalf was that I
Speaker 1: was smoking it, thinking oh, it's not such a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's like smoking pot. But of course that's ridiculous. Okay,
Speaker 1: the band breaks up. What goes through your head? You
Speaker 1: ultimately get a deal with House of Shock. What's what's
Speaker 1: going on there? Well, you know, when the band broke up,
Speaker 1: I was it was so bitter about the way that
Speaker 1: went down, and I couldn't. I don't gonna wallow in that,
Speaker 1: so I bitterness. So I just thought, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get myself together, and I worked with Kathy for a while.
Speaker 1: We tried to put a band together, and that didn't
Speaker 1: didn't gel in the way I hoped it would. And
Speaker 1: then I thought, okay, I'm just gonna start from scratch,
Speaker 1: and uh, look for the right people. I found Vance Degenerous,
Speaker 1: and Vance and I started writing, and then we found
Speaker 1: other players to work in the band House of Shock.
Speaker 1: I got Miles Copeland to manage us. We would rehearse
Speaker 1: up in his ass, and we did a show at
Speaker 1: the Roxy, and record labels were invited and we did
Speaker 1: one show and got a record deal with Capitol Records,
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, that's pretty cool. Do one show get
Speaker 1: a deal? Very very cool? And then how did it
Speaker 1: play out after that? Well, then we got Richard got
Speaker 1: I brought I said, I want Richard back to help
Speaker 1: make sure the songs are all together. And Richard came
Speaker 1: in and we did the record and then I brought
Speaker 1: in Chas Stamford, who had written I Ain't missing you,
Speaker 1: missing you whatever. I knew he was a good songwriter
Speaker 1: and a good producer, or brought him into sort of
Speaker 1: work on the single, fixed the track a little bit
Speaker 1: more um um, and we put the record out and
Speaker 1: did what it did not a hell a lot. Didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of I didn't didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of money behind it pushing it. But I did get
Speaker 1: a call. This sort of makes me happy. I got
Speaker 1: a call from Billy Steinberg, who was a great songwriter,
Speaker 1: and he said to me, Gina, I just had to
Speaker 1: call you to let you know. I was driving to
Speaker 1: Palm Springs from l A, which is where he lived
Speaker 1: at the time, and he said, the song came on
Speaker 1: the radio and it was so good I had to
Speaker 1: pull my car over and listen. And at the end
Speaker 1: of it, they said, oh, this is house of Shocked,
Speaker 1: Gina Shocked, and the go goes. He said, I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you that single is fantastic, Gina. You've done a
Speaker 1: great job and it was a song middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: and that meant so much to me and it still
Speaker 1: does to this day. You know, you know whether you're
Speaker 1: whether your record makes it or not, as it's all
Speaker 1: timing and there's a lot involved in whether something happens money,
Speaker 1: it's sort of out of your hands. Once you make
Speaker 1: that record, you do the best you can to set
Speaker 1: it all up and h so the record is not
Speaker 1: as successful as you have as it happens, I'm disappointed,
Speaker 1: were you? And what happened with the act and what
Speaker 1: was your next step? Well, I was, yeah, I was disappointed.
Speaker 1: And then to make matters worse, Uh, the whole regime
Speaker 1: at Capital Records changed. Our guy who was the head
Speaker 1: of Capital of the time he got asked, and even
Speaker 1: my head of the A and R. Tom Wally who
Speaker 1: signed me, who actually went on to help make UM
Speaker 1: Much Records. I can't think of it um anyway, interscope,
Speaker 1: thank you um And it was a tough time, but
Speaker 1: I thought I've done the best I can and you know,
Speaker 1: if this is what it's all about, I'm done with
Speaker 1: this crap. So I just thought, nowhere bands, I'm done
Speaker 1: with this. Then I went to New York and thought
Speaker 1: I was just going to be a songwriter, and so
Speaker 1: I got a record deal on I mean a publishing
Speaker 1: deal with m c A in New York. John Alexander
Speaker 1: signed me and then I just wrote for several years
Speaker 1: and you know, worked on my songwriting skills and and
Speaker 1: in the meantime, the go goes. We started playing and
Speaker 1: again started getting together. Sorry, okay, a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Ginger was the original manager, then you became part of
Speaker 1: the h K Empire. Why did you get rid of Ginger?
Speaker 1: And retrospect? Hole important? Was Ginger to your success? And
Speaker 1: to what degree did her absence contribute to the breakup? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ginger was the glue when when we when Ginger left,
Speaker 1: we didn't fire her. We didn't want her to go.
Speaker 1: We thought that, you know, Jimer just started out with us,
Speaker 1: and we thought like, wow, we've reached this point where
Speaker 1: we might need a bigger management company to sort of
Speaker 1: oversee things. Can we have Ginger work with a bigger company?
Speaker 1: And you know, I guess a lot of things went
Speaker 1: down that we weren't pretty to back then, And I
Speaker 1: only found out since then when I talked to Ginger
Speaker 1: um and all of a sudden, Ginger was gone. She
Speaker 1: left l A and was in New York. I don't
Speaker 1: know what happened. It was, you know, we were sort
Speaker 1: of like, oh my god, we didn't want her to go.
Speaker 1: We wanted her to work with with the newer management company,
Speaker 1: a big company, you know, because we knew that her
Speaker 1: input would be sorely missed and it was and as
Speaker 1: it you know, turned out, the band broke up. I
Speaker 1: feel like if Ginger was there, she would have guided
Speaker 1: us the right way where things like that wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Bob, you know, Okay, Ginger is out.
Speaker 1: Is she bitter? Um? I think she. I don't think
Speaker 1: she was bitter about the band. You have to ask her,
Speaker 1: but I don't think she thought that we were sort
Speaker 1: of behind the way she was being treated. Nevertheless, she's
Speaker 1: being treated really shabbily, and I I just felt really terrible.
Speaker 1: We all feel terrible about it because we didn't, like
Speaker 1: I said, there were things happening that we didn't know about. Um.
Speaker 1: When when Asoft's company came in, UM and we loved Irving,
Speaker 1: he was great, you know, Irving, Irving such a trip. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I you know, I couldn't say one
Speaker 1: thing that. You know, we're all friends and we love
Speaker 1: Ginger and she's sort of back in the phone and
Speaker 1: has been for a while, and it's really nice nice
Speaker 1: to tap her back. Okay, let's stay with the songwriting.
Speaker 1: Ultimately you have some success even today, like with Miley Cyrus.
Speaker 1: So tell us about your songwriting career. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't a writer initially, and then I saw how
Speaker 1: much the songers. Man, I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm working just as hard. Please give
Speaker 1: me a break. I don't know what we got. The
Speaker 1: beat would beat without that drum beat, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I just had all these It was I
Speaker 1: couldn't figure it out, and I was really angry. And
Speaker 1: that was that was a big part of why. That
Speaker 1: being kind of I'm sure it was why of being
Speaker 1: kind of broke up um a part of it. Um.
Speaker 1: So I just continued sorry and trying to get better
Speaker 1: at my craft. And you know, in the like the
Speaker 1: two thousand eight or nine or whatever, I was writing
Speaker 1: with a couple of guys um and we wrote. We
Speaker 1: wrote a bunch of songs, and Miley Cyrus heard one breakout.
Speaker 1: She had had a record done, but she heard that
Speaker 1: song and love it. She went back in and recorded
Speaker 1: that became the title track of her record. That was
Speaker 1: where she was going for being like a kid into
Speaker 1: a young adult. And then Disney called us and John
Speaker 1: Allixander was like, Hey, I got this other young U.
Speaker 1: Her name is Selena Gomez, can you write something for
Speaker 1: So we were brought in to write for Selena and
Speaker 1: we wrote, uh, the first thing, all the title track
Speaker 1: and you know, four songs for her that record. Um
Speaker 1: and uh. So I felt like, well, guys, I actually
Speaker 1: can write, and let me just show you what I've done.
Speaker 1: So I felt vindicated at the end of the day
Speaker 1: because you know, um, if you're in a band and
Speaker 1: the way some things are sort of setting stones. Certain
Speaker 1: people want to write with certain people and I get that,
Speaker 1: and when you bring another elements that might mess with
Speaker 1: that formula or whatever. But it was tough to get
Speaker 1: into their into the songwriting group with Charlotte and Jane
Speaker 1: h it was difficult, and so I just would write
Speaker 1: what I would write, and whatever was accepted by the
Speaker 1: band was But when I wrote stuff out on my
Speaker 1: own and other artists chose to record it, that made
Speaker 1: me feel really good and made me feel like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I am a goddamn songwriter and somebody's appreciating.
Speaker 1: And I didn't feel that much from the band, but
Speaker 1: just the way it goes, you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: it was a conscious effort on their behalfor just sort
Speaker 1: of the way things were working. I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: are you still writing songs today? I have not been.
Speaker 1: I haven't been for like I say, the last six
Speaker 1: years have been all devoted to my mom and dad
Speaker 1: and uh, but I'm gonna start getting back into that.
Speaker 1: I've been just super busy with you know, the last
Speaker 1: year and a half writing this book and uh, putting
Speaker 1: the book together, getting the photos together, all that, um,
Speaker 1: and then of course there's always something going on and
Speaker 1: go go land and which I'm super happy about. I
Speaker 1: feel very good about the band and the way that
Speaker 1: we communicate with each other. I just can't believe it,
Speaker 1: all these years later, we're still it's still a five
Speaker 1: of us, and we still like care about each other,
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a little family here. Man. It's
Speaker 1: a good thing. It's a good thing. Okay, let's go
Speaker 1: back to thirty years ago. You do an House of Shock.
Speaker 1: You're going through your thing. Meanwhile, Belinda has a couple
Speaker 1: of very are you significant hits with videos? How do
Speaker 1: you feel about that? Oh? I was piste off, but
Speaker 1: then when I got my House a Shock deal, I
Speaker 1: was fine because I was like, okay, I can do
Speaker 1: this too. And I was just the drummer in the band.
Speaker 1: It didn't get much songwriting in in in the go
Speaker 1: goes um. But you know what, when pushed came to
Speaker 1: a shove, I went out. I got a record deal,
Speaker 1: and you know I can do that. I you know
Speaker 1: where it ends up is I only have so much control.
Speaker 1: But I still felt pretty good about what my contribution
Speaker 1: was and what you know, what I tried to do
Speaker 1: or what I did. So how did the band come
Speaker 1: back together? Jane Fonda got this band back together. Jane
Speaker 1: Fonda is the reason the band got back together. She
Speaker 1: contacted contacted all of us Belinda initially about getting together
Speaker 1: and wanting us to do a show at Universal for
Speaker 1: a great initiative that she wanted to get on the
Speaker 1: back it. And of course we said yes because we're
Speaker 1: all environmentalists, and we also said yes because it's Jane Fonda,
Speaker 1: you know, a hero of all of ours. And so
Speaker 1: we met many times at her house in Santa Monica,
Speaker 1: and uh, everybody just started talking. We started going out
Speaker 1: to dinner, and you know it was a comfortable fit.
Speaker 1: You know, we're fatily What could I say? And before
Speaker 1: you know it, we're touring. We started touring a nine
Speaker 1: nine haven't stopped. Okay, in the interim before Jane fond
Speaker 1: it tracks you down, how much contact do you have
Speaker 1: with the other four? And now since you've been back
Speaker 1: together when you're not actually working, how much contact do
Speaker 1: you have with the other four? Um? We we know
Speaker 1: what we all Okay, we Lena's just has moved from
Speaker 1: Bangkok now she's in Mexico City, Kathy's in Austin, Charlton,
Speaker 1: l A. James in Hawaii, and I'm in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: So it's not like we get to see each other.
Speaker 1: We're not even the same place. But we do talk
Speaker 1: quite a bit, believe it or not. Um And because
Speaker 1: we have so much going on right now, so it's
Speaker 1: it's a necessity that we all speak and get on
Speaker 1: the same page about decisions that need to be made.
Speaker 1: So it's it's like I said, it's pretty good now, Bob.
Speaker 1: I feel pretty comfortable with everybody and happy the way
Speaker 1: things are moving forward with the band. Where you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're talking about doing some things next year. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty excited about things. The other thing I have to
Speaker 1: ask because I remember the final tour. Told I told,
Speaker 1: I said, don't put final tour. The gogoes are never over.
Speaker 1: Don't say final. That's ridiculous. Well, anyway, that happened, and
Speaker 1: that was a stupid move. I feel. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say it was really dumb, because you know what, we'll
Speaker 1: just tour until we fall am and that's the truth.
Speaker 1: We walk away from each other for six months or
Speaker 1: a year, and then we come back together. We're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's do some shows. Oh I miss you, Let's go
Speaker 1: on a vacation together, Let's do this, let's do that.
Speaker 1: Going was the decision? What? Why was the decision? Saying
Speaker 1: it was a final tour because people thought they were
Speaker 1: really out or you wanted to sell tickets was gone.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a ticket thing. It was just a bullshit thing.
Speaker 1: I don't remember who. It wasn't whatever that you know,
Speaker 1: they don't want to work anymore. It doesn't matter. It
Speaker 1: always resolved. And that was bullshit, and it's embarrassing. As
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned, that final show, final tour crap
Speaker 1: that everybody does. I was not a part of that. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. Okay, Rock and Roll Hall of fame. Where
Speaker 1: you at on that excited happy It's about time. I
Speaker 1: didn't care initially, but now it's like when it actually happens,
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. I sing icing on the cake. Okay,
Speaker 1: So looking back, you were progenitors all girl group. There
Speaker 1: haven't been a whole hell of a lot since there
Speaker 1: was the Bengals. A to you. Now we're in more
Speaker 1: of a solo era. What can you tell us about
Speaker 1: being a woman in the music business as a performer?
Speaker 1: To what dick we are you held back to? What?
Speaker 1: What have you learned? I don't figure how back so
Speaker 1: much anymore. In the early eighties, late seventies, you worried
Speaker 1: because you had something to prove um although there aren't
Speaker 1: there still is not an all female band that has
Speaker 1: done what we've done, and I'm waiting desperately for that.
Speaker 1: We talked about this all the time. Why where's the
Speaker 1: next goes? What the hell is going on? Well? There
Speaker 1: may be some neat bands coming around the band that
Speaker 1: are going to happen. I hope you know, um um like,
Speaker 1: I love the Linda Lendas. Have you heard them? Bob? Yeah?
Speaker 1: They're very good, aren't they great? I just I've spent
Speaker 1: the weekend with them last last week last week in
Speaker 1: l A and I actually did. I played they play
Speaker 1: a go Goost they played tonight and so I played
Speaker 1: drums that song with them and they they filled me
Speaker 1: with joy. They are so wild and they're having such
Speaker 1: a great time, and they remind me of us, except younger.
Speaker 1: You know, they're so excited about everything. Oh man, I
Speaker 1: hope they make it. What do you think, because there's
Speaker 1: a huge buzz. Why do you think there's not a buzzle?
Speaker 1: It hasn't happened already. I don't know. I don't know,
Speaker 1: and you tell me. I have no idea, But it's
Speaker 1: about time. I'm glad those girls are doing what they're
Speaker 1: doing and they're serious about it. And their parents like
Speaker 1: they're sending them to you know, they're they're all. They
Speaker 1: take guitar lessons, they take piano lessons, drum lessons, like
Speaker 1: their parents grew up watching us do what we do
Speaker 1: and then started taking them as little kids. So they
Speaker 1: know their history and they are excited about doing what
Speaker 1: they do. They love it. Like the drummer is, she's
Speaker 1: like eleven years old or twelve. It's crazy and all
Speaker 1: this girl is sixteen. I love it. It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: It's about time. Okay. You know, we live in the
Speaker 1: me too era? To what degree do you have your
Speaker 1: own bad stories? So what degree do I have my
Speaker 1: own bad stories? Me two moments where guys were doing
Speaker 1: things that were inappropriate, I've never had that problem. I
Speaker 1: think most guys are afraid of make and afraid of
Speaker 1: this bam, and we're all together. The guys were always
Speaker 1: afraid of us. When we bring them back into the
Speaker 1: dressing room, they're like cowering in the corner. I mean,
Speaker 1: when the five of us are together. I guess it
Speaker 1: must be scary for guys. I don't know, but that's
Speaker 1: the way it's always worked out. I don't need problem
Speaker 1: with guys at all and getting you know, getting pushed around.
Speaker 1: We stand our own ground. That's why we were successful.
Speaker 1: That's why we've done what we've done. Okay, and the
Speaker 1: hopefully thirty years you have left. Other than playing with
Speaker 1: the go goes, you want to play until they bury you?
Speaker 1: What else do you want to accomplish? Oh, God, Bob,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, Um, I'm really happy to
Speaker 1: be in this span and very grateful, and I hope
Speaker 1: we play a lot longer, and I think we have
Speaker 1: we have some things up our sleeve that perhaps will
Speaker 1: be around next year. We're working on stuff all the
Speaker 1: time behind the scenes. Um. All I hope for is
Speaker 1: that I stay healthy and happy and I am allowed
Speaker 1: to do what I love to do, which is music,
Speaker 1: which will be writing, maybe some producing or you know,
Speaker 1: and playing with the band. Um. I think I've I've
Speaker 1: my life as far as been pretty fantastic. So I
Speaker 1: don't know what else is in store for me. All
Speaker 1: I know is that I'm gonna keep my ship together
Speaker 1: and um, you know, be open to whatever may come
Speaker 1: my way and be grateful about it. Well, Gina, you're
Speaker 1: really a force of nature. I gotta tell you. I've
Speaker 1: had a rough couple of days, been very busy, and
Speaker 1: I was pretty fried. But as soon as you hit
Speaker 1: the screen, blit right up right into the groove. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could feel the energy, and I'm sure that is
Speaker 1: part of why you're so successful. I don't know, Bob, everybody, everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody tries the best way to know how. I'm tired
Speaker 1: to hear myself sound like such a good T shirt.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of an asso sometimes, But you know what, Um,
Speaker 1: after being around for a while, I just, you know,
Speaker 1: when I see somebody you know, becoming famous or you know,
Speaker 1: I'm also happy for them because it's a tough business.
Speaker 1: It really is, you know, And I would not want
Speaker 1: to be trying to get a deal this in this
Speaker 1: day and age. It is just so crazy. Um And
Speaker 1: so I you know, I watched younger artists or bands
Speaker 1: and I am I am their fan. I'm there in
Speaker 1: the background going yeah, yeah, do it. Well, I you know,
Speaker 1: I echo all that stuff. But being in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: for forty five years and hearing everybody's bullshit and knowing
Speaker 1: how hard it is to make it. Talent is at
Speaker 1: most the other at work and drive. So anybody who
Speaker 1: made it I have respect for because they really, they
Speaker 1: really had to go through the mill. It doesn't happen
Speaker 1: when people say, oh I was just in the right
Speaker 1: place at the right time. I was lucky. That's just
Speaker 1: horse ship. If you got there, you had to be
Speaker 1: one minded. Yea, yeah, you had to be a little lucky.
Speaker 1: But you have to make your own luck because this
Speaker 1: is a town where everybody comes to make it and
Speaker 1: almost nobody does. Think of all the bands you played with,
Speaker 1: the Club eight eight, etcetera. Who knows where those people
Speaker 1: are day They never even got signed, never mind, didn't
Speaker 1: ever hit record. You're you're absolutely right. Yeah, it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's scary. I mean, I can't imagine being one of
Speaker 1: those first one of those people that that you know,
Speaker 1: tried and tried and never really happened. Oh God, I
Speaker 1: don't know what I do. I feel so lucky. And
Speaker 1: you're right about all that. It does. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't just you don't just you're not just in the
Speaker 1: right place at the right time there. You have to
Speaker 1: work to put yourself there, and you have to know
Speaker 1: how to negotiate the situation. Yeah, because you know, what's
Speaker 1: the other thing. You know, we're musicians, we're not lawyers,
Speaker 1: we're not managers. That's not what we chose to do.
Speaker 1: But yet you have to have a little bit of
Speaker 1: that with what you're doing where you're gonna get screwed.
Speaker 1: You've gotta you gotta learn the game. You gotta learn
Speaker 1: how to play, and that takes that takes a while
Speaker 1: before you really know the rules and you know how
Speaker 1: to how to look out for yourself. Well, you talk
Speaker 1: about you know, Charlie Watts and Bill. Why I'm in now,
Speaker 1: Daryl Jones, You're anchoring the band. And I think the
Speaker 1: most the most significant thing you were talking about is
Speaker 1: when you joined the band, you were the pile driver
Speaker 1: said we gotta rehearse, we gotta do this. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't lift the whole band, but I can light
Speaker 1: a fire under you. Well, I just that was my way.
Speaker 1: It was the only way I knew how to do things.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, I didn't have the magic formula. All
Speaker 1: I knew was that if we I felt like, if
Speaker 1: this band rehearsed more something great, what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: I really believe that. And I think the girls, you know,
Speaker 1: adhered to that whole concept because they were they were
Speaker 1: doing it, and they were excited about it, and they
Speaker 1: felt that they believed in that idea and and and
Speaker 1: you could see the band transforming, you know, from week
Speaker 1: to week, month to month. Everybody was getting better at
Speaker 1: what they do. And so that is something that really,
Speaker 1: you know, propels you forward. It's like, Okay, well I
Speaker 1: see a difference now from a month ago. Make sure
Speaker 1: want to continue what you're doing and know that you're
Speaker 1: doing the right stuff to make things better, to get
Speaker 1: your songs out there, to be a better musician, to
Speaker 1: be a better writer. All that goes into it. A
Speaker 1: better performer, better at handling record labels, you know all
Speaker 1: that stuff. It's a big picture. Well put and on
Speaker 1: that note, I think we're gonna leave it. Gina, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for doing this. Bob. It's a pleasure. You're
Speaker 1: a sweetheart. I really enjoyed talking with you. Good luck
Speaker 1: editing it, and um we are editors. We've really much
Speaker 1: let her rip because we wanted to be honest. You
Speaker 1: condensed it too much, you lose the essence. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Uh, I think it'll turn out pretty good. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know it's good keeping You're like, you got some
Speaker 1: energy up. That's good. Well, you know that's good. You
Speaker 1: know I'm guiding and I'm judging whether it's good. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking about. Seven. As I say you earlier,
Speaker 1: as soon as you hit the mic, I said, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be no problem. Alright. Good. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: felt that way. Dave Um and I appreciate your gians
Speaker 1: through this. Okay, until next time, it's Bob left Sis