Kris sits down with Go-Gos bassist Kathy Valentine to discuss her new memoire, All I Ever Wanted.
On this Track, Kris welcomes GoGo’s bassist Kathy Valentine as she discusses her memoir, “All I Ever Wanted”. From latchkey child in Texas to Madison Square Garden, Kathy and the GoGos broke barriers as the first successful all-female band. Like her rock mentor, Suzi Quatro , also a recent guest on Text Prose & RocknRoll, Kathy helped to forge a path for others. But things didn’t come as easily to Kathy, who fought addiction, and inner-band drama along the way. This is the first of a two part interview.
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Special thanks to Allison Ellwood, Melissa Dragich Cordero of MadInkPR, Michelle Gutenstein Hinz of ParkLife Unlimited, and everyone at University of Texas Press And a very special thank you to our guest Kathy Valentine whose music was used exclusively during this podcast. You can hear Kathy’s entire memoir soundtrack by purchasing the audiobook version of All I Ever Wanted, or by visiting her page on Spotify
CLICK HERE TO HEAR THIS EPISODE'S SOUNDTRACK
About the Podcast:
‘TEXT PROSE AND ROCK N ROLL’- is the only podcast dedicated to the written account of musicians. From artist memoirs to band bios, and anything in between. You'll hear first accounts from those who lived the lifestyle; a Book Club that rocks - literally.
It was Created, Hosted & Executive Produced by Kris Kosach.
It was Produced & Edited by Charlene Goto of Go-To Productions.
For more on the show, visit the website.
Or follow us on Instagram and Facebook @Textproserocknroll
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THE FOLLOWING IS AN UNEDITED< RAW TRANSCRIPT OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH KATHY VALENTINE. MUCH OF THIS INTERVIEW DOES NOT APPEAR ON THIS PODCAST AS IT WILL BE BROADCAST IN SUBSEQUENT EPISODES.
TPR - Kathy Valentine - Zoom INTV - UNEDITED
[00:00:00] Kris Kosach: [00:00:00] You must do Zoom a lot these days.
Kathy Valentine: [00:00:02] I did a thing this morning with Suzi, Quatro, uh, and a couple of telephone things.
Kris Kosach: [00:00:11] Wait, what thing with zoom with Suzy? Cause you're doing your cohost.
Kathy Valentine: [00:00:14] It's a documentary that's gonna screen. It was supposed to be at the attrical release, but it's going to do a screening on. July July 1st. It's the first time,
Kris Kosach: [00:00:26] you know, the reason why
Kathy Valentine: [00:00:27] he's kinda, he's been asking quite a few times, she's asked me and Cherie Currie to promote with her.
So it's kinda cool because. You know, it's like, I wouldn't have my career if it wasn't for Suzi, Quatro, which
Kris Kosach: [00:00:42] I want to talk about. So she was a guest on here and we're rolling out her episode next week to coincide with Susie Q. And I know that you're doing your Q and a with Sheree, and that's why I'm asking about the zoom, because I.
Did I miss
Kathy Valentine: [00:00:57] it? No, the Q and a [00:01:00] was prerecorded.
Kris Kosach: [00:01:01] Oh, Oh. Oh, I get it.
Kathy Valentine: [00:01:04] Okay. Yeah. And this was, um, this was for a Canadian entertainment tonight or some, maybe an entertainment show. Okay.
Kris Kosach: [00:01:13] Alright. Uh, her, her publicist's CC told me like, uh, July 1st or next week.
Kathy Valentine: [00:01:20] I think it's the first, but we went out a few weeks ago.
Kris Kosach: [00:01:23] Great. All right. Well, I want to talk about Susie towards the end of this for two reasons, because number one, um, well actually there's a couple things I need to talk to about, besides this. Interview because number one, um, we're gonna do go goes a doc with Alison again. And so maybe rather than, I don't know, no.
How you guys are doing publicity for that. If you're going to do like a. Round table or, or if I should just grab a couple of soundbites from you now, and then slip them in there,
Kathy Valentine: [00:01:55] it's pretty hard to round up the band for stuff. They, they [00:02:00] co we have started doing some stuff. In fact, two of the things I did today were for Go-Go's, but, um, uh, no, yesterday, I don't know.
I get mixed up, but I can, um, I can definitely let our manager know that, you know, and he'll send it. They have a whole different PR than what I have that universal hired for the documentary. So, uh, I'll definitely send the info on to you, but you can always ask me anything.
Kris Kosach: [00:02:31] Okay. Thank you. I was just, if there's going to be a junket, I want to be part of it.
So, um,
Kathy Valentine: [00:02:37] I mean, there's nothing like that. There's no junk it personally. Cause Melinda's in Thailand. Uh, everyone is really spread out.
Kris Kosach: [00:02:45] Okay. Alright. Yeah, I'm gonna get, get a cup of questions from you and then talk to Alison. And then the other thing is I want to talk to you about this Suzy campaign that I'm trying to I'm so pissed off that she's not in the hall of fame, so there's a [00:03:00] bunch of people doing a grassroots campaign to try to, to get her that fan vote.
So I want to get your 2 cents on that at the end. Okay.
Kathy Valentine: [00:03:06] Yeah,
Kris Kosach: [00:03:07] but first it's all about you. Um, so with that, uh, Shar, if you could make a note, I'm gonna roll on nothing but Kathy right now. Okay. Got it. Right. Sweet. Um, Kathy. Dan you did more living in the first 12 years of your life than a lot of people do their entire life.
Um, that's insane. When you sat down to write the book, um, was it all just kind of like ready to come out you or did it take a little bit of self prodding to get
Kathy Valentine: [00:03:38] going? No. I had wanted to write a book for a while and I had wanted to write it more of, I didn't think I had the discipline to do it. Um, I felt competent as a writer because I've been taking enough college classes and even creative writing.
Even if it wasn't a writing class, you know, you've got to do essays and stuff. So I, and I. [00:04:00] I was good. I knew I was a good writer, but memoir is a it's, you know, it's its own genre. It's, it's a very different thing, but, um, So my big plan was that I would get my English degree go into it, an MFA program. And I, that would be an assignment.
I thought if I have an assignment, I'll write the book. Um, but what it turned out instead was I got a book deal from UT press and I was really excited about university of Texas press because they had, they had done some really cool books. They did a book with Kristin Hersh and, uh, And a revenge of the seat C punks
Kris Kosach: [00:04:42] that is hard. A real title comes together where you just
Kathy Valentine: [00:04:45] flub something up like that, that she'd done. Vivian Goldman's. They had done Vivian Goldman's book. So what I loved about, um, university of Texas press was they number one, they wanted to give me a deal just without. A [00:05:00] manuscript. They were just like, we want this book.
We really want this book. So that's real rare from what I understand, I'm a new writer I feel. Um, and secondly were letting me write my story. Um, I had been told by people in the business that if I tried to present a person puzzle or anything to a publisher, that they would probably want like a real, um, Spill the dirt kind of like tell all sort of thing.
And that was never the book I wanted to write. I knew the Go-Go's would be part of my story, but I felt like my story as a adolescent and what, and how rock and roll kind of came into my life and saved me and gave me. All I ever wanted. And so I, it was, um, I knew I wanted to write a memoir. I'm going to get to your question in one second.
So one thing they required, the one thing they wanted was an outline. And I was so resistant to that. I'm like, I don't write [00:06:00] like that. And I just, it just flows out of me and I'm not like that, but it was the, the best thing I could have possibly done now. I'm a big fan of the outline because it was my blueprint and it helped me give some, a framework that I knew I didn't have to stick with, you know, but, but it gave me a framework.
It let me, as I was going in a chronological linear way, it showed me the arc of where I wanted my story to fall. That was all by design. So many people said, Oh, what'd you stop at 1990. There's so much to tell, but. It was a natural arc that from seven 1979 and 1990, I loved it. I loved that the seventies were such a distinctive era.
And Austin in the seventies was such a distinct, distinctive place. Setting. An eighties is such a era and Los Angeles in the eighties. So I felt like it was just [00:07:00] like a present was a big bow on it. Just everything seemed to fit really well to me. So when I sat down to actually start writing, I knew where I was starting.
I knew where I was going and I knew what had happened chronologically because of that outline. Um, And that's when I would see like, Oh, wow. Oh my God. You know, and I was kind of excited to see that there was, there was a series of things even before the Go-Go's that were quite good, compelling, you know, that made me excited.
I always thought the story I want to tell is not the history, three of the Go-Go's. Right, right. I knew. I was really relieved when I thought this could be some compelling stuff. That's, you know, maybe some people will get the book and just go, Oh, I just want to read about the GoPros, but I think they'll be missing out.
Kris Kosach: [00:07:46] Absolutely. Well, your book, like the Go-Go's is. It's dark. It's it's a little, um, complicated. It's uh, it goes in places you don't expect it to go, but overall it is so much fun. I [00:08:00] actually laughed out loud a couple of times. Your funny lady, funny person.
Kathy Valentine: [00:08:04] Yeah. I was worried. I wanted that, you know, I wanted to be who I am and in life, I am actually very funny, but I don't, you never know whether that's going to come out in your writing, you know?
Kris Kosach: [00:08:15] Mission accomplished. It was great. Um, so university of Texas, of course, Austin, that's where you're from. Um, you know, it's a music hub. Now. We all know that as this big music hub, but it wasn't when you were growing
Kathy Valentine: [00:08:26] up as well. Yes. So it was before it became a branding thing. It was an incredible city of music.
I often thought that I don't even know if I would have wanted to be a musician. If I hadn't had that kind of. Uh, saturation, I mean, and it was such a wide spectrum of music. And I feel really fortunate to have been immersed in that. And my mom was a little bit was kind of on the fringe that she wasn't a mainstream conventional mom.
She, her best, her closest friends [00:09:00] worked at the Armadillo world headquarters, which was the premier. Concert facility. So we're hanging out there all the time. I had a lot of access. The clubs were very loose. I mean, from the time I was 16, I was hanging out at bars and clubs and seeing, you know, music that not everyone gets to have exposure to.
Right. I was writing about that too.
Kris Kosach: [00:09:23] Oh, that was great. And the people you rubbed elbows with, like the bond brothers and, um, and Charlie Sexton and just it's, it was really neat for any audio file. I'm a huge audio file. It's, it's really exciting to see these names and you did it in a really nice way. Some people are name dropping.
I didn't find that at all. It was just, this is my story. That's that was person was in that corner. That person was in that corner. You did a really nice job there. Um,
Kathy Valentine: [00:09:49] so I always read about that. I wanted it. You know, I ultimately thought if it, cause there's a lot of no name dropping, I put it down that I did put in there not to be a [00:10:00] big tease or anything, but I kinda just thought if it.
If it provides a setting and a context that helps move the story forward and it happened. And I remember, I felt like it was a value to the story, but there were other things that, you know, I would have loved to stuck a stick in there, but it would have been named Robbie. Cause it didn't really serve a purpose other than to say, Oh yeah, I'm guessing where else, you know, so.
I mean, it's just like what I discovered with writing a book. It's like, you know what I learned over my many years as a, as a songwriter and a musician, it's, you know, your whole style and your whole voice and everything is really about what you choose to leave in and what you choose to leave out. So.
Kris Kosach: [00:10:44] Right. Absolutely. And flow to, you know, being a songwriter. I would imagine. Cause you say, whereas this quote, I watched, I do a deep dive and that John DOE interview was fantastic. I think you said that, uh, [00:11:00] Uh, gosh, darn it. I can't find it now, but basically you were saying that, um, that you love to write and you love to write, uh, it brings like the music in and that you would, your process was you'd write a little bit, go write a song.
You'd write a little bit, you'd go write a song. So, um, and your soundtrack that goes over along with the book, that's really novel, no pun intended. Um, but that was very clever as well. That was great. So do you think that was part of your. Workflow that you did. Did you do that? Did you write a chapter and then go write a song about it?
Or did the song that you wrote about these chapters help you kind of like do some of your writing?
Kathy Valentine: [00:11:38] Does that make sense? Actually, it wasn't. I don't know what, what. What I might've been referring to with the, in the conversation you heard, but that isn't how it was at all. Maybe I was talking about something else, but, uh, maybe, but, uh, I wrote the entire book and then I decided to do a soundtrack and.
I had worked on the book for almost three years, [00:12:00] eight months of it. I wasn't writing cause my dad was, um, going through the end of his life and I had to know him for the first time. So I kind of, it was too intense to write. So I say it took three years, but eight months of that, I wasn't writing hardly at all, but by the time I did get done, I was really.
I'm really missed music and making music and PR and writing and working in my studio. I was scared. I wouldn't even remember how to do pro tools. I just hadn't done much. Uh, I think the last song I had put out had been from 20, uh, 2016 or 17. I'd done one song anyway. I, um, I just started thinking I. Cause with when you do a book, you turn it in and then you kind of just that's it for like the next day, 18 months, you know?
And it just didn't feel, it was a very weird feeling after something had been such a big. Part of my life and focus to just walk away from it. So I started feeling like [00:13:00] I wanted to explore some of the themes musically. There was a lot of thought that went into it. I felt that some of the chapters, when I just looked at him, all the chapter titles, I, they were just meant to be placeholders, but then I got used to seeing them and they just became the chapters.
But a lot of them inspired me to write, I'd look at, I got us, seems like that could be a song. And, um, some of it, some of it was really emotional. Some of the songs that I wrote that went along with some of the deeper chapters
Kris Kosach: [00:13:31] you're talking about, just do it.
Kathy Valentine: [00:13:32] Yeah. It really brought. A deeper sense of loss and grief and mourning than even writing the pros did, there was something about singing it that just kind of just like music can tap right into you and just kind of go right to the source of your feelings.
Uh, writing does that too. And there, I mean, as soon as I wrote the first couple of lines and saying them, I, I started crying and. And [00:14:00] then the crying was loved. That kind of like, you know, it's been buried a long time crying when it just starts kind of like, you feel like a tidal wave coming out and that went on for like days.
So, um, I was, and then, and people hear the song and they cry so many people just like, they go, you got to stop it for a minute.
Kris Kosach: [00:14:21] You know what I actually did. I couldn't get through the song cause I read the book first and then I started listening to the music and even I could come keep it down,
Kathy Valentine: [00:14:31] let me draw.
And I, you know, For me, it's a, it's a regulatory to be that vulnerable and open when I've gone. My whole life would acting like everything's okay. And being okay. Cause that's how I survived. That's how I had to survive. So to me, it's kind of freeing and regulatory to be open and vulnerable and, and say, when I need help, this is all something in my later years that I've learned how to be.
But. I don't think I [00:15:00] realized like how difficult, like that level of raw, just raw grief makes people uncomfortable.
Kris Kosach: [00:15:07] Yeah. Yeah. Well, our first two points, first of all, you inspired me because for every episode of this podcast, we're not going to do a soundtrack. If it's available to us, we'll link to it like yours.
We will directly link to your Spotify sound, uh, uh, at, uh, soundtrack. Um, but if not, then I'm usually going to create one or ask somebody like a band biographer to create one for me, and then I'll link. So thank you for that.
Kathy Valentine: [00:15:37] And a lot of people, I was surprised how many people told me that as they were reading.
Um, for one thing, the soundtrack is part of the audio book. So people love that, but it completely apart there's two other musical components to this. Um, completely apart from that, um, some people told me like, if I wrote, like I loved on main [00:16:00] street, you know, everything about that record, dah, dah, dah, dah, whatever I wrote.
And like so many people have said that they would stop reading and they would go play exile and they kind of would play the music that I was writing that I wrote about that was part of my life. So that's one cool musical thing, and I should make my own playlist of that too. But another thing I did was I made playlist of each year.
Uh, what I was listening to, like, what was, what was I listening to in 1973 when I was 14 and tire playlist. And I went through and comb through like movie soundtracks, what was on the charts? What was on the FM stations? What was regionally going on? Like bands that might've had records. And I did that each year.
So when I was writing, I could play that music and it really helped. Put me in the feelings, which is how I want him to write with a memoir. I want it to be writing from the feelings and the music helped put me there because a lot of times I [00:17:00] would be, I would read it, you know, I'd read three or four pages and I go, this is good.
This is good. This is good writing. And then this little thing would, and I'm like, it's good writing for an essay. It's good writing for, but it's not memoir. Get deep, get deeper. And, and that was challenging. It's hard to like throw something out that, you know, as well done, but you know, what it needs to be.
That was, that was a hard lesson to learn.
Kris Kosach: [00:17:26] Well, it ended up being very honest, very you're forthcoming and honest and not biographies are like that, frankly, but, but you were, and I appreciate it for sure. Um, all right, so let's, let's cut to your, uh, Oh, and by the way, the other point is that, uh, When you're, you know, when you're down, when you're lonely, when you're sad, that's when the best art comes to that's when you wrote that.
and, and, um,
Kathy Valentine: [00:17:55] uh,
Kris Kosach: [00:17:56] yeah, I can't stop the world and I'm sure a bunch of other songs when you were [00:18:00] in that space. Right. So, so tell us about that time a little bit. I want you to ask you to talk to me too much about the Go-Go's, because again, we're going to talk about, um, the documentary here in a couple of weeks, but.
We have to mention some of it. So you're a young girl coming to LA and, um, was that, was that weird? You weren't really fish out of water really because you had been to LA before, but, um, but was it scary? Was it exciting? Was it all of those things?
Kathy Valentine: [00:18:29] Well, I hadn't really been to LA. I mean, I went for a very quick trip when I was 12, but it wasn't what, uh, to live there and it certainly wasn't a visit or it wasn't as a tourist.
Um, I mean, if you're, if you're talking about when I went there for like an abortion at 12, I wouldn't call that. So, no, I just.
At before at all. And it was, and adventure. I mean, I was 19 and I was determined to [00:19:00] make it in the music business. And I thought, you know, this isn't going to happen in Austin. You gotta go to New York or LA. So I was very. Excited and determined. And I was with my best friend and you know, our other band mate was going to be moving out in a few months and I was pretty well into it.
But what happened was I get there and my best friend abandons me just complete betrayal, abandonment. And it's all based on the fact that she can stay in a nicer place than what we could afford. And because the drinking age is 21, there she has a fake ID. I'm 19. I'm I've been going out for years in Austin where the drinking age in club age was 18.
And even before 18 as an underage person, no, I'm in LA and I can't go in anywhere. I don't have an ID. And the only person I know is just dumped me and I was so I just, I mean, I was so bitter and angry, but so [00:20:00] sad and lonely too. I mean, I was either. Either just like playing my guitar or writing, like making up these terrible mean like cartoons where like I got my on Maryland.
Um, but the thing that I, I wrote about that really happened was that's when I discovered songwriting and how songwriting could take me out. Of what's going on emotionally or whatever strive I'm experiencing and kind of take me out of that, make something out of it. And I, I certain songs before, not very many, but that's just the first time that songwriting, it was the beginning of songwriting being my lifelong crutch therapy, a processing tool, whatever you want to call it.
That was the beginning.
Kris Kosach: [00:20:52] That's awesome. And so. Tell us about the night that you, you go and you meet Charlotte. Tell us that story.
Kathy Valentine: [00:20:58] Yes, I, um, [00:21:00] I had been playing finally. My other band mate came out and we started this band, the text stones, and we were doing pretty good. I mean, we'd done, we'd had some cool things happen and we'd gotten a single or two out on the English label, but it also felt like it just wasn't quite like other bands that started at the same time.
We're doing better. And. I started feeling like it's two bands in one, my, you know, my friend Carla would write and sing her songs and I'd write and sing my songs. And I just left the band one day, I just left the band and I that's, that was like the first time I hadn't been in a band. And since I've started this whole quest and dream and journey, so I was a little bit at a loss and about two months had gone by where I was in a band.
And I moved in with a friend. And she was gone cause it was Christmas time. And my mom had come to visit and I'm like, well, I'm bored. So I go down to the whiskey by this time I'm 20 I'm [00:22:00] 21 years old. So I can go anywhere I want. And I guess, Oh, Oh wait, stop a second.
Kris Kosach: [00:22:09] Hold on a second. Sorry, stop a second.
Charlene. Did you get that? Are you still there? Sure. We had a glitch right there. Where I don't know where Charlene is, but we did get it. You did? We're good. We're rolling. Okay. I'm sorry. Sorry, Kathy. I didn't mean to cut you off. I don't want to lose your story.
Kathy Valentine: [00:22:29] No, not a problem. I'll just start it. Some more words, easy to edit.
Um, I, so I, I decided to go down to the whiskey. It was Christmas night. One of my favorite bands to ex was playing and I go to the bathroom and I meet a girl there who asked me, she says, I'm in the Go-Go's. And I knew who the Gogos wore. The Gomez were pretty popular by that time they could. You know, everyone knew who they were.
And she said, we have some shows coming up, starting on new year's Eve. So it's Christmas night. They have [00:23:00] basically four nights or is it three nights? I can't even remember now. I can't remember all the details, but I, in the book it's right. Whatever I wrote is right. So they have several nights of sold out, shows two shows a night, and she said in our bass player is sick and we need somebody to take her place.
And can you play the bass? And I just said, well, yeah, I can do that because I was, you know, kind of at loose ends and I missed playing and what am I going to do next? I need to put another end. So at first it was kind of a Lark and I thought I figure it out. And I had several days to learn the base, to get a base, learn the base, not a big deal.
If you play guitar, it's really just, you know, the same strings, but they're thicker and there's less of them that wasn't the big deal. Um, It was hard to learn the songs back then. We just had a little, so roughly recorded cassettes on like in rehearsal rooms where the sound is bouncing everywhere. So it was hard.
But what I, what I started figuring [00:24:00] out pretty quickly was that this band, the Go-Go's was had great songs and I just started. The cylinder started filing, you know, a firing it's like, this is why I came here. I want to be in a band with likeminded girls who can make it all the way. And I think this band could do it.
These are really good songs and they're already popular. People liked this band. It wasn't that many bands that could play two shows a night for four nights at the whiskey. So by the time time I went on stage for my first show. Which was all of five or six nights later after meeting Charlotte, I was so into it and I desperately wanted to be permanent.
I did not want to be a temporary replacement. And it's funny because I, in the book, I, I, in my, in my mind, I almost willed it and manifested it. But in the book I have to write, like, you know, it was probably just like tiny things, just timing worked out, but [00:25:00] also. You know, chemistry's, uh, it's not a tangible thing all the time.
It's just something you feel. And I think they've felt something about me and the way I played, I felt like maybe this is like, I thought maybe this is the band. That'll take me where I want to go. I think they might've thought maybe this is the band member. That'll help us get where we want to go.
Kris Kosach: [00:25:21] Yeah.
Well, you sure did. With some of the songs you wrote that's for sure. Um, so, alright, so you signed with miles Copeland and after everybody else doesn't work out, thank God that happened by the way, because if you really think about it, it was Indy. You got to do whatever you wanted to do. That's kind of unheard of in the music industry and they tell you how to spend the money.
New York sounded so exciting and recording this. I spent some time in New York. You took me back there. It was fantastic. Um, and so anybody that was in New York in the, in the eighties or in the, even in the nineties when I was there, um, it was great. You really illustrated it nicely. [00:26:00] Um, w they were like, it was like a sorority.
I think you liken it too, right?
Kathy Valentine: [00:26:05] Oh, it's just for me. Um, and again, like my story it's like, I don't know anybody, any reader is going to understand how important and meaningful on such a profound level that the band was to me, unless they knew where I came from. So for me, It was kind of checking all the boxes that I'd never gotten in these pain, even though I'd started playing music and I'd gotten far away from the painful adolescent years, that pain kind of sits with you.
You know, it's kind of always there. So like, I just felt I get it checked all the boxes. It was like, I have friends, I belong with, they, they accept me. They love me. We're having fun together. Um, it felt like a slumber party. It felt like, uh, just. You know, instead of being a Debachi's messed up person. And not that I wasn't a Boxster having fun, but it was a [00:27:00] different sort of spirit to it.
It wasn't this desperate escape that it was when I was when I first started using. Um, so, and it was so important to me that I get the feelings on the page because I knew that. That my readers, number one, I knew that not everyone was going to know who I was or care or, you know, I'm, I'm very practical and I say this without any self-deprecation at all, but big deal, the bass player wrote a book.
So I went into it knowing this book has to be good. This has to be real. It has to be about a journey and a person that people are going to identify with and care about and relate to. So. And I wanted people to know what it felt like to me. And because everyone has had the same thing, even if you're not a Go-Go's fan, even if you're, I'm not a musician, everyone has had that feeling of belonging.
Everybody has had that feeling of, you know, working for something and getting what they want and then having it ripped away or [00:28:00] dissolve or fall apart, everyone has had been proud of themselves or had their pride. Get in the way or their ego. I mean, it's just, if you can get the feelings on the page, I feel like you have a rapport with the reader that you've never met him with a gig.
You know, I can be playing and look right at somebody or when I write a song, somebody can listen to it. So it was a homie way of having a rapport with a reader to make sure that my feelings were presented and, and. On the page, you know? Yeah.
Kris Kosach: [00:28:34] Yeah. Alright. Well, mission accomplished.
Kathy Valentine: [00:28:35] Go for it. It felt like you were along for the journey.
Kris Kosach: [00:28:38] He really was. It was, it was really great. And again, you know, all I ever wanted is the name of the book. You gotta read it and kind of understand what she is saying. Um, so, uh, alright. I'm trying to do some math here. I looked a few things up and I hope this was right. That I found, it looks like you signed with miles Copeland, IRS.
Um, on April fool's day, 1981 and, and [00:29:00] accordingly. And what I found, I think I can't find it. Oh, there, um, in may of 1981, uh, you released, we got the beat and then our lips are sealed, was released on July in July of 81, but MTV launched August 1st, 1981. So in a four month, five month period here, You sign, you release the songs and then MTV starts and you guys were the darlings of MTV, your eye candy.
Why wouldn't you be? You're all beautiful. And you're all talented. And you're all rocking and very little girls all over the country. Um, we were like, well, look at this, like you did with Suzi Quatro, which I should also say right out of the gate with this book, you credit Susie as being the person that kind of made you go, huh?
What's that? Um, who who's she. And, and I think you did that for millions of little girls, and I'm not trying to say that to be suck up E but I really think it's true for my generation. We all looked at you guys and went, wow. That we can, we can do that. Um, but [00:30:00] anyway, so my question is for you. MTV is such a BMR.
It's such a thing. Or at least it was at the time, you know, the first time that like the music wasn't enough, it was also this visual. And here you have these five gorgeous girls on video frolicking, literally in a fountain having a really good time. Right. Do you think that that, that. Helped you record sales and did it, was it a two, a two sided coin?
Did it help record sales, but did it kind of take away from your musicianship? And again, I think what I'm getting at is, is this where the sexism stuff kind of started to coming. You
Kathy Valentine: [00:30:39] think. Well, um, I mean, that's, so there's a lot to unpack they're up and not to fault your research, but actually our lips are sealed was the first single and it took us probably five months to get it into the top 30.
We got the beat. Didn't come out until. Our lips are sealed, peaked. So [00:31:00] what they do is they put it out and you push you, push you, push it, push, and then once it starts going down the chart, you release your second single. You don't want to be off the charts completely. So, um, we got the beat was the second single.
Um, then the first video was the, our lips are sealed video and I think what it was that, um, a lot of people hadn't seen. Uh, an all female band before, you know, of course we weren't the first one, of course there had been the runaways, lots of bands in the sixties, but people didn't see that them a lot. You know, they didn't filter down to my world.
Right. I had never seen a female rock and roller until I went to England. And saw Suzi. Quatro never occurred to me. I could be in a bed. So just like I hadn't seen it until I went to England, saw Suzy. A lot of people hadn't seen the runaways. They hadn't seen Fanny. Yeah. And we were the first and all of a sudden were beamed into their living rooms.
You know, they're watching solid gold or Mike Douglas or, and these are like [00:32:00] for your people that are don't know what I'm talking about. These are like TV shows that were, you know, regular. Dealing shows and all of a sudden this band comes out. And, um, I think that, I think maybe, you know, the, I mean, we all, we, we always were shown performing, so it was very clear that we were a band and we weren't.
You know, we were, we looked very, uh, approachable. We look very, we weren't like sex moms. We weren't like wearing, you know, weren't hypersexualized, everybody was writing. Right. And we weren't. You know, camping it up a lot. We were pretty much acting like a bunch of, you know, college roommates might have acted if they went out and just had some fun and went shopping and had lunch, you know?
I mean, basically not to just, it was just very authentic, you know, we weren't putting on airs. We weren't.
Kris Kosach: [00:32:56] No. And I'm sorry if it came off
Kathy Valentine: [00:32:58] like that, I'm [00:33:00] not saying that for saying, I think that's what. Ultimately helped was that not only were people seeing in an all female band for the first time, but we're having a good time.
No, it's not like where up there, pretending we're just having a good time and yeah, the city that I think, I think that audiences they're always pretty receptive and perceptive about what's authentic. And I think there's something about. Authenticity that that always resonates. And I think that's true for the ages.
So, but the bottom line is the music. I think we could have been guys driving around in a convertible with a great song and MTV could have been putting that. And I think that would have done the trick too. I don't, I mean, we were female and that was really revolutionary, but I think it's the songs that did it.
I mean, it's the songs that have carried us over decades.
Kris Kosach: [00:33:54] Yeah. And they. They really have Carrie, you know, they're kind of evergreen, just like the [00:34:00] cover of beauty and the beat. That was really smart to be like an evergreen style and not have like trendy hair, trendy clothing. That was very, very clever because it really,
Kathy Valentine: [00:34:10] yeah.
We didn't want to be dated by that one album that we did were like our clothes and have our hairstyle. Was our third album. And it's very obvious that that's a mid eighties Dauman because no, we kind of went against our little Cardinal rule of not dating the album cover.
Kris Kosach: [00:34:30] It's it makes me smile. When you look at that, it's a lot of fun.
Um, okay. I'm on page 152, you write, um, and then the money changed everything. So, um, can you talk on that a little bit? How did, how did the money change everything?
Kathy Valentine: [00:34:49] Well, the thing is, nobody went into this thinking, Oh, we're going to sell 4 million records. You know, we were very much in the moment we felt.
Like a [00:35:00] success kind of each step of the way, you know, I, I should probably go, just speak for myself to me not having a day job. I'm a success, you know, I'm, I'm playing in a band and paying my rent and I don't have to get up in the morning and go wait tables or go into an office for a day job that felt like the pinnacle of success to a 22 year old.
And then I have a record deal. I'm making an album in New York city. We have an actual record deal on someone. Paying us to record our music that felt like the pinnacle of success. So each step along the way felt that felt like a, you know, a huge success. Uh, and yet it kept going and going and we get to the point where we're playing arenas and we are, we've sold millions of records and.
The money takes a long time to come all this time. We're getting a salary because all these other, I write in the book, I was amazed at how quickly [00:36:00] people get. You know, that people are making money off the band and the band is maybe not even making as much as everyone else because you've got touring personnel and hotels and insurance and business manager and agent.
And so like, whatever is being made, you might be pushing your or career or further down the road, but maybe you're not getting so anyway, Sorry to be so longwinded, but it needs a context. So when the first big money came in, it became evident that some people had made way more. And I don't mean just a little more, but like, you know, eight times more than other people in the band and it didn't feel fair.
Now I was stuck in the middle. I'd made kind of right in the middle. I was grew up poor. I was thrilled to me, even if I did just stayed on my $1,500 a month, I would have been fine. You know, I just wanted to be an abandoned rock out with my friends and tour and make music. So, [00:37:00] but, you know, I want him to get once, once we're getting paid.
So anyway, it became, it just caused problems and there's no right or wrong. It's just one of those issues. There's no right or wrong songwriters. Uh, what did it for me? It was, it started putting me in a position of like, Oh, So, and so is not happy. So, and so's not happy. You know, the people that I'm like I'm right in the middle, I'm happy, you know, the people that are making more they're unhappy because they don't want to give up their songwriting credit or not credit, but songwriting income, the people that are working hard to sell the songs and.
Forming the songs there. So I, because I have it in my character, I'm hardwired to be responsible and take care of everything and make, and I'm also at this point, very fearful of losing what I have found. This is my dream.
Kris Kosach: [00:37:51] You know, that, by the way that comes off in the book, that you were very much kind of like the grounded one, like trying to keep it all together in, [00:38:00] in, um, all I ever wanted, it just comes off like that.
Kathy Valentine: [00:38:03] Well, you know, it can sound grounded. That's the nice spin, but really I was very, quite fearful and desperate of losing it. And that's not, you know, we've all been in a relationship with a desperate fearful person and it's not, it's not the most appealing thing, you know? Um, so I felt very driven that everyone has to be having fun.
Everybody has to be laughing. I think all the problems have to be solved. We can't have any problems. Um, you know, so, you know, Oh, this person said because of this, they miss their boyfriend. Oh no, I'm going to cheer them up. They're going to have fun. This person's, you know, got a drug addiction. No, they don't.
They're fine. They're just party. It's like, I couldn't, I was in such denial of any thing that threatened. What to me was my world. By that time, it was my world. It was my identity. So the money problem became a big issue. Uh, we, we tried, you know, in different ways to address it, but it was kind of one of those [00:39:00] things that, you know, it's like a relationship or a marriage.
And you just kind of find out after you've been married a few years, that maybe the person. Has kind of been, maybe not, I feel like they haven't been treating you fairly, and then you have a bank account that you didn't tell what's all that about. So it's just very much like that. Where a little bit of where there's just a hurt and the hurt kind of just kind of starts.
I dunno, staining
Kris Kosach: [00:39:27] pastoring. Yeah. Yeah. But we
Kathy Valentine: [00:39:30] still had a lot of good times as I wrote in the book, it was kind of like, it kind of just became this unwanted sixth member, the money issue. And it was really not the money so much because everything was split equal. It was really the songwriting. And yet you can't blame a songwriter for saying, Hey, it's my song.
I
Kris Kosach: [00:39:49] wrote. It's just it's. Um,
Kathy Valentine: [00:39:52] A very circular argument. Yeah.
Kris Kosach: [00:39:54] It's just, it's just the harsh reality of the music industry. And you can see both sides of it. If [00:40:00] you are the songwriter, you deserve more. If you are part of the engine, you deserve something. I get that on both ends.
Kathy Valentine: [00:40:08] Yeah. Some bands, they just do it equal.
It doesn't matter to them. It's like, this is the band, this is the chemistry. This is what's working. And so there's an argument to be made. I always felt like if it's working well, but if it's. Chemistry. And it's like, you know, They cation was done by the text tones and
Kris Kosach: [00:40:29] very it's, it's really fun to hear that, by the way.
Kathy Valentine: [00:40:32] Yeah. In a TV show, I'm thrilled about it. But, um, as a theme song, but at the same time, I would be the first person to go. Would it, it wouldn't be the hit. It is without that Go-Go's version without Belinda singing it. Uh, Charlotte helped me stretch out the chorus a little bit and make it a little bit more hooky.
So. You know, I, I kind of, I see both sides. I really do.
Kris Kosach: [00:40:59] Yeah, I do too. [00:41:00] Um, you had a lot of fun, you did a lot of drugs. There's no way around it. Um, one of that's a very harsh reality, but there there's some funny stories that came out of even such dark material like that. Can you tell that story about the morning after you did LSD and had to.
Sign autographs. That's hilarious.
Kathy Valentine: [00:41:24] Oh, it's it has made the band laugh for decades. Um, at the time it was just dreadful, but we, we came home and play. We had just done our album and we came back and we played the biggest show we'd ever played at a place called the palladium, and it's still there and presses the biggest show we'd ever done.
Our record company was there. It was just a big celebration. And I went to a very small party and somebody so said, let's get high, let's do some LSD. And I was like, yeah, I haven't done hallucinogen since I'd been a teenager in like middle school, junior high, we called it. [00:42:00] And, um, Whatever I had done was nothing like this California stuff.
And I was out of my tree, just out of my tree and the band tracked me down on like, you know, this, I probably took it at two in the morning, so anybody that's ever tried, don't try it. Don't do drugs, but, um, You can imagine how I was by like eight in the morning when they came and picked me up and I was out of my tree and they were mad at me.
And here's my bad news. No, I'd just done a record with are my new best friends. And I was so upset yet. I'm out of my tree, like just tripping out of my mind and then the, and I'm trying to put my makeup on and my makeup's all weird and my clothes are weird and we go down the Hill to this record store and there's this.
Line, just snaked around the let's just going down like a mile thousands of people. And it's exciting. It should have been the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. Cause our [00:43:00] albums out. And instead I'm just like riddled with fear and like just like terror and paranoia. And it's just the last thing you want when you're on an acid trip is to be standing in front of thousands of people.
Last thing you want to be going like.
Be like, Oh, it was just horrible and yeah, I'm sorry. It's not meant to be fun. It is what it is in hindsight. It's funny. It's one of those stories like where, when you're living it it's horrible, but when you can tell it, it's, it's hilarious. And, um, It just, I mean, at one point, I don't even know if I wrote this part, but after the signing we had to do photos and they couldn't see us because there was so many people.
So they said, would you stand on chairs? So I'm like trying to balance on these folding chairs and Gina, the drummer. She looks down at my feet cause I've been on my feet [00:44:00] all day and she's like, Look at Kevin's feet. Cause they're like I'm wearing these red patent leathers to lot stilettos. She goes, they look like him and everybody like looks at my feet and it was just, the nightmare just kept going.
And then I go back to my apartment and I swear like three, four hours later, I'm still out of my tree. I was scared. But at that point I was scared. Like, am I ever going to be normal again? It was the last time I ever tripped ever.
Kris Kosach: [00:44:28] Good. Good. All right. Again, don't do drugs, but, um, but, but it was funny. You were signing autographs to people named Rob been as bringing out.
Um, did we cut out again? I'm gonna wait a second until I know we're caught up here. I can't hear anyone. Yeah, she did freeze for a second here. She didn't. Okay.
[00:45:00] Kathy Valentine: [00:45:00] Perfectly frozen. I don't love you guys.
Kris Kosach: [00:45:02] I can hear you now can see ya, but that's okay. Can you hear me, Kathy?
Probably signing back in. Yeah. Okay. Hi. Hello.
Kathy Valentine: [00:45:19] I dunno what happened? You got completely frozen.
Kris Kosach: [00:45:22] Yeah, same here. So thank you for leaving, coming back. Thank you for that. Um, alright. So you know, you guys, so you broke up the Go-Go's broke up, um, in, it was what,
Kathy Valentine: [00:45:35] 1990. No, 1985 may, may of 85. Oh,
Kris Kosach: [00:45:40] may of 85. I'm sorry.
It was 1990. When you guys decided to get the reunion together, when you write in all I, all I ever wanted you right in there, edit that. Shar. I can't talk now. Um, you write in all I ever wanted that you guys got together for dinner. You didn't really discuss the band stuff, but [00:46:00] then. Lo and behold, boom, boom, boom, Ben clam.
Your, your secret name for the band is doing your reunion show in March of 1990. So whose idea was it to get back together for a reunion show?
Kathy Valentine: [00:46:12] It was mutual. I mean, Jane had left the band and we tried to go on, we got a new member, I'm moved to guitar, but the chemistry had changed. The, the glory days were definitely over.
And, uh, you know, it was just like, it was like the. It was like the Lakers, like trying to go on when the star leaves there someday. So we, um, we, after we broke up years had gone by time heals all wounds. And you know, when we got together for dinner, it was just so nice to kind of being enjoying each other.
By that time I was sober. I'd been sober a year. Uh, Charlotte had been were I think four years, maybe five. So the two of us are sober and, um, it was [00:47:00] pretty much I think, um, and his manager just said, Hey, you know, cause he'd been managing her solo career. And, you know, everybody loves the Go-Go's. It wasn't like, you know, any manager in his right mind once he sees that we're talking.
I think he said, there's an opportunity with the band being into it. And of course we were into it, you know, everybody was excited, but at the same time, you know, I didn't want to think necessarily that the band was back. You know, I just was great. I was pretty, you know, it was a quick study and sobriety and I learned very quickly what.
How gratitude would be the foundation of my sobriety. So I was just very grateful to get to do it. So. Get to I sisters back and, um, to get to do it again.
Kris Kosach: [00:47:48] Yeah, thank God you did. That's what I saw you. I saw you in the nineties on one of your reunion, tourism, you guys, you never lost your magic together.
You still have the chemistry after all these years.
[00:48:00] Kathy Valentine: [00:48:00] Absolutely true.
Kris Kosach: [00:48:01] And so you've had a few different reunions I have to ask, are you going to do another one? Is there a talk even no promises, but is there talk or
Kathy Valentine: [00:48:11] interest. Well, and, and they're not all reading unions. I mean, just to be clear, uh, when we broke up and started playing and again, five years later that would be counted as a reunion.
Uh, we didn't work for several years after 1990. Um, and then from about 1995, all the way up until. About 2011, we worked very consistently and they weren't, you know, reunions. They were just, we would go out and tour in the summer because it was a fun band that I still had the drawing power, uh, based on the songs that we, that we had that are good songs that transcend, uh, the era.
So. Um, we don't do the band [00:49:00] officially retired in 2016, but retired from the idea of touring. It doesn't mean that things aren't going to come along where it makes sense to do something. In 2018, we got to play at the Hollywood bowl with the LA Phil. And, um, it was really special offer and a. So we put a few shows around that this summer the documentary was coming out.
It was going to be a big theatrical release and we were going the tour. Uh, uh, we had about. 14 shows I think, and that was all canceled. The theatrical release of our documentary was canceled. Uh, the, the tour was canceled. My 23 city book tour was canceled. So a lot in terms of work, money, exposure, fun, a lot, um, you know, was lost.
Um, so we do con as of now, it is. Then tentatively rescheduled for next summer, but I don't think [00:50:00] anybody knows for sure what next summer is going to look like.
Kris Kosach: [00:50:03] Yeah. Well, we can help. We can help sure
Kathy Valentine: [00:50:07] that we're, we're definitely open at the same time. It's it's not going to be, uh, It's not going to be a concern or we're like, all, okay, let's, let's go make a new, it's just not like that.
Everybody has very full lives. You know, we're all in our city. And that doesn't mean we can't get on stage and play and be great, but it doesn't mean necessarily people want to leave their homes and they're there in their pets fan and whatever things give them. A fulfilling life, you know?
Kris Kosach: [00:50:41] Absolutely. Um, you know, you in your interview with John DOE yeah.
You said that you hoped, you saw this as a television series and, um, you, you hoped that that could happen. Did your phone ring
Kathy Valentine: [00:50:55] after the interview. No, uh, I mean, I guess [00:51:00] approaches, but I got the feeling that they were like Fisher type people that approach anybody that wrote a new book. Like I did nothing about real serious.
Um, I think it would make an amazing series. I'm a very enamored of the way. Um, Orange is the new black was taken from a book. And yet it wasn't exactly true to the book. It was the premise that was taken and, and the leader, character Piper, Karen, but then it kind of just became a TV series that did what it wanted to do to, to go.
And I, I foresee something like that where it's not necessarily. The Kathy Valentine series or the Gogo series, but whether where you take that, that, um, framework of a very complicated young girl and her very complicated mother and kind of maybe for. A few seasons. It's just that relationship until music kind of brings her [00:52:00] to a big dream.
That's what I envisioned. So now I'm still looking for a way to make that happen. I don't know how. Yeah.
Kris Kosach: [00:52:08] Well, putting it out there is one way to make it how happen, so, okay. You're a mom to a teenage daughter. Has she read the book? And what does she think?
Kathy Valentine: [00:52:17] Uh, she has read through it, like picked it up and kind of leaf through it.
And I think looked at parts and, uh, she's really proud. She's always been proud of me. She knows that I'm not, you know, cookie cutter mom and she's proud of that. Um, I think it came out at a really good time where she had a strong sense of self and, uh, you know,
Crap trying to fit in to find herself in middle school, you know, social hierarchy. I think it would have been hard for her. She had a little trepidation, like what were, you know, what would her friend's moms think. Moms think [00:53:00] they read my book and it's been across the board, just all the feedback I've gotten from moms that were the moms of her friends, just, you know, sending me cards or texting me just saying they loved it.
So I think she she's always been very good at self regulating. You know, she knows what she can handle and when she can handle it. So I think one day she'll sit down and read it, cover to cover, but she knows what's in there. She knows there's some rough stuff. Yeah, I think at this point I'm still mom enough that she might not want to read about moms screw ups at fourth noon.
Kris Kosach: [00:53:34] Does she think you're square? Does she she'd roll? I, I roll you.
Kathy Valentine: [00:53:40] Oh God.
Kris Kosach: [00:53:42] Okay. All right. There's so many.
Kathy Valentine: [00:53:44] It seems like her friend. I'm not like my mom either. I'm not she's she doesn't think of me as her.
We are close, but I'm very much, you know, I do parent, I do put died. You say, you know, I [00:54:00] have rules and all that stuff.
Kris Kosach: [00:54:01] Good, good, good, good. Um,
Kathy Valentine: [00:54:04] I don't think
Kris Kosach: [00:54:07] you don't get the, what.
Kathy Valentine: [00:54:10] I said I don't get the eye rolls.
Kris Kosach: [00:54:11] Okay. That's good. Um, I love how you ended the book with, uh, not the end. That's great. So, um, you say you want to write another book?
What are you running? What do you want to write? Is it going to be nine, 1990 and on, or do you want to try a novel? What do you, what are you thinking?
Kathy Valentine: [00:54:31] See if I,
Kris Kosach: [00:54:33] yeah, this is really messing up sharp. The most important thing is how it is on your end. How is
Kathy Valentine: [00:54:37] that? Um, there is a very, Oh, I got a little thing for a minute that said it was unstable, but now it's fine. Okay, can you hear? Okay, good.
Kris Kosach: [00:54:49] I can hear you. I'm just so worried. We're going to have to chop a bunch of this up.
Okay. Sorry, Kathy. It's technology, right?
Kathy Valentine: [00:54:56] Oh, I'm sorry. I know. Right. And a [00:55:00] lot of it depends on how many other people are, are zooming at the same time. Um, I feel like there's a lot more I'm first of all, I'm a fan of memoirists, like Mary Carr. Who's written several memoirs of different slices of life.
Augustan burrows.
Kris Kosach: [00:55:20] Fantastic. That's wow. What, what a star to have on your book right there. That's amazing.
Kathy Valentine: [00:55:29] Yeah, I was, I was so proud that he read it and thought highly of it. That really made me proud. Um, I, I think there, there is another memoir in me. I'm not sure whether it will be the same. It might be more a collection of essays of writing about.
Very compelling and people that have read the first memoir, they all want to know there's so much more. The [00:56:00] Go-Go's did incredible, pretty to where I am about now. A very compelling journey. My mom. Ended up with a massive brain tumor. My, my daughter ate, I got divorced. I had to reinvent and find myself self in the world again.
Um, the Go-Go's at one point completely betrayed me and kicked me and it was the most devastating thing I'd ever gone through. And then I had to, uh, learn I've had to learn laying and letting go. And there's just that I think pulling and make a great race. I did another memoir bloke. I write not sure, but I want to keep writing.
I do want to keep doing music and soundtrack to the writing. I'm really interested in the idea of writing a collection of short stories with music that accompanied them. And my first book I wanted to write was a collection of [00:57:00] short stories, but I, I kind of felt like. Who's gonna, who's gonna think of me as a writer, you know, I'm just player from the Go-Go's and had a couple of hits on nobody's going to buy that.
So writing a memoir was actually a good way to open the door, to like, establish that. Yeah. I have a voice I do have, I do have writing skills, you know, I might not be, you know, the literary genius of all time, but I can write, I know how to do it. And I'm, and I, I think I can find an audience now for maybe some fiction because people might trust.
That I have that ability hopefully to tell a story. Yeah.
Kris Kosach: [00:57:35] That's, that's how it's done. Um, last question. Uh, rock and roll is just not what it used to be. Uh, it's not the, the, the, the music is your right now, but besides someone like a Billie Eilish who might cite the Go-Go's as a pioneer in her field, where are the.
Farm league of girl rockers are, do you know of any, I've been [00:58:00] looking around there's maybe one or two, but our girls coming up to you, um, that are in a band and telling you what they're doing is they're a farm league right now.
Kathy Valentine: [00:58:11] Um, well, When the Go-Go's do tour, we always try to give the opening slot to a female band.
So we always try to bring recognition. Uh, we had an amazing band called potty mouth, uh, open for us. There's so good. Um, there's abandoned Toronto called the beaches that that's all female. They really remind me of the Go-Go's when we were. Young, like they are, and I love them. Um, there's um, FOSS kind of Glint.
Haim is amazing. They're huge. Yeah. There's a lot of females in bands. There's a lot of females playing sessions or touring as touring musicians, you know, pink has Eva Gardner on the base and Beyonce has an all female band beading a Gill on the guitar. There's like so many. [00:59:00] Uh, you know, Jeff Beck hires women, Lenny Kravitz, hires women.
So women are so much more prevalent and music and, uh, there might not be as many bands as I would like to see, but it's hard, you know, for every. Male band landscape. That's come about, you know, with green day and foo fighters and all these bands that have kind of come around and stuck, you know, there was probably, we have a thousand guy bands that didn't, so we have those kind of numbers.
You see why there are such fewer female bands because there's probably not a thousand female bands starting up where that one. Kind of filters up to the top, the way it happens more often. And it's hard for women too. I also feel like, you know, say you're knocking around in a band and you're going to college and you're looking at your options for life and say, you start a family and maybe you're like 26 or 27 [01:00:00] and you have a kid.
What if the guy just keeps going? He just goes up and goes off on the road. You know, I see that all the time. I see bands that were there. People become young adults and they, they kind of create a home life and it's harder for a woman to do that. You know, especially if she's not at the top of the game and, and super successful.
How do you, I know some women that do it, the Dolly rots Kelly, she, she brings, they bring their child, their children with them. And, but it's hard. It's like worlds colliding. It's it's it takes a lot of commitment. And just like, you don't see as many, you know, quantum physicists that are women, as you'd like to, you know, it's just, it's not, it's just kind of a numbers game, you know?
Yeah. I, I think, um, I'm, I think that that is changing, you know, I thought there would be more female bands, but I'm also pleased to [01:01:00] see the progress that has been made.
Alright.
Kris Kosach: [01:01:02] Awesome. Um, well, that's gonna do it for this portion of the interview, but there's like two more questions I'll get from you. Um,
Kathy Valentine: [01:01:09] sorry.
I tend to get.
Kris Kosach: [01:01:13] No, please do not apologize. No, please do not apologize. This is absolutely great. I appreciate your time so much. This is a fledgling podcast I've been in radio for forever. And so this is meant to be. Feeling like a radio show and this might live on a radio station at some point, I'm talking to some old friends and trying, you know, we'll see.
But, um, but please then another more and more content I can get from you the more time I, and the next time you write a book, you call know the problem with that shit out of it, but all right. So Alison love her. She was on for, um, uh, Laurel Canyon for the dock and it was going to come back. Wasn't that great.
Kathy Valentine: [01:01:56] I loved it. I started listening to all that music [01:02:00] again, because at the time it wasn't my kind of music.
Kris Kosach: [01:02:03] Yeah. Not mine either really.
Kathy Valentine: [01:02:05] Right. Thing about music is like, you can kind of discover it whenever. And I started finding like all that stuff was kind of running through my mind all the time after I saw that.
Kris Kosach: [01:02:14] Yeah, but to your point, you know, the stories, I mean, I'm not really into Jackson Brown, no offense, Jackson Brown, but I'm not really into that stuff, but the stories are just like, Whoa, that's
Kathy Valentine: [01:02:24] so cool. I know my imagination was just going nuts, imagining like what it must've been like to like live, because I'm really familiar with Laurel Canyon.
Everybody that lived in LA. Or lives in LA is, and, you know, I mean, every time I drive over it now, I mean, I always knew it's history, but that she brought it alive in a way that I'd never quite tangibly really fired my imagination so much.
Kris Kosach: [01:02:51] Yeah. Yeah. Um, I don't know what kind of generic. Go-Go's question.
I can ask you to get a good sound byte to slip [01:03:00] into. Um, this is, uh, I'm sorry. I hate asking these stupid generic questions. Yeah, but let's
Kathy Valentine: [01:03:07] I can, I can just talk about it if you want,
Kris Kosach: [01:03:09] please just go for it.
Kathy Valentine: [01:03:11] Yeah. Well, um, when we were approached about being, this was not the first time we'd been asked to do a documentary or to do a biopic.
So we were a little. We didn't really want to do it. And some of us were more for it. And some of us were more against that. Alison was a huge factor in it. We looked at her body of work. We love that she was a woman, her enthusiasm, the producers work. Really persistent. I mean, we drag this out for about a year before we finally said, okay, we're going to do it.
We're going to do it. And we're so glad we did. It's really brought a level of healing and bonding that I didn't expect. What I expected was to have a version of our story out that that celebrated us. I felt like all we really had was, [01:04:00] um, behind the music, which had a very formulaic narrative. That they kind of shaped us to fit without really showing, uh, The balance of the drama and the difficulties was how much fun and how, how you know, amazing.
It was what we accomplished. I mean, we really, we did it. We, we proved that, you know, cause we were told an all female band has never been successful. We don't want to give you a record deal. Well, we proved they were all wrong. All the labels and a lot of bands got record deals with our success. And so. It was so, and we had a lot of good times doing it and it was wonderful to have Alison really see like how phenomenal it was that the band came out of a punk rock scene.
It was very organic, you know, I wasn't there, I'm in Texas, but I'm having my world kind of shaken by the punk rock scene too. I'm going. Hey, I don't have [01:05:00] to wait till I play like Eric Clapton to start a band. I can do it now. I could be in a band that's like, you know, the Ramones or something. And, um, That's happening for me for the Go-Go's, you know, they're like, we can start for the band, everybody's starting bands.
We don't have to know how to play. So to come from this, this desire to be a part of, to make music without the permission, without the permission of the record industry, without the permission of the music scene locally, or the clubs saying, Oh, no, you've never played here before. It wasn't like that. You know that these are, you know, Whether it was me in my hometown or the lingo goes, we're doing it.
What are we got permission or not? And I think that's a really strong, good message too, that Alison really captured well. And what I expected was, uh, a documentary that showed. That celebrated us. What I did not expect was the [01:06:00] bonding and the healing that would help that, that it would facilitate with the band because we are an ever evolving chemical equation.
You know, we, we, um, it's the thing that gives us the chemistry that makes it work. That makes it an exciting is also what makes it volatile.
You know, uh, an antagonism at times. So this documentary has brought us together in a way, and kind of brought us back to the ends of what it was like before so-and-so it's feelings got hurt or so, and so felt ripped off or so, and so felt like they were dismissed or so, and so felt like they didn't get the recognition, all those things that happen along the way before all that happens.
That's what it's starting to feel like now.
Kris Kosach: [01:06:56] That's awesome. Thank you. Um, and then I'm going to let you go here in just a second. [01:07:00] The last thing I want to tell you about this campaign. So Susie was on two, three weeks ago. Um, like I said, we're sitting on her interview. That's gonna roll out on Tuesday. Um, and, but the subject of the raw rock and roll hall of fame came up and it, it sucks that she's not in there.
It's so wrong. So I said to her, and I probably shouldn't have made any promises, but I have a big fat mouth. So I said to her. I'm going to move the, move, the needle on thing that just pisses me off. And I can really be a real pain in the ass when I want to be so, so she's like, yeah. So, uh, anyway, I got myself into this, so I started digging around and looking for petitions and a couple of other people have tried doing petitions and I stopped this one lady in Canada, and now I've befriended her and she relaunched another petition.
And I'm part of that. And I'm going to start. I'd love for you to sign it. Sheree signed her last one and I'd love for Sherry decide this one, but this one I want to get to 10 or [01:08:00] 12,000 and I'm going to get it to everyone I know at rolling stone and spin, and I'm going to write an article or two for myself for Hearst and, and see if we can get some heat because she really deserves it.
And I really, really want to at least get her nominated, you know, so I don't know any. Advice. Do you want to say something? Will you be willing to sign that for me? Anything like that? I don't want to put you on the spot or how you feel about that stuff, but tell me what you think if you're honest.
Kathy Valentine: [01:08:31] Well, I absolutely agree that that Suzi Quatro should be in the rock hall of fame.
I believe the Gogo should be in the rock hall of fame. You know, we, we face the same, uh, stuff that she does. She was the first. That showed so many of us that we could, you know, be in a band. So absolutely. She deserves it there. Uh, and, uh, I, I support just more women. I [01:09:00] believe that their, their role as a, the museum should be to educate.
Yeah. Uh, I think the people that are in place, there are very good people and they are really trying to right. The, the, the tilt of. Of the women that are left out. I know, I know the whole team in place there, and I know that it matters to them that they don't choose though. There's a committee that, that ex and there's also fans that go in and vote.
So, um, you can't really just blame the museum, you know, there's the committee. That that is in charge, you know? Uh, and I'm not sure what it's about, but, um, I do know that the rock hall of fame has become a big attraction for Cleveland, and it brings a lot of tourist money and dollars and bodies into a city.
And I get that, they think, Oh, we need to put in names that people, everyone knows and, [01:10:00] uh, I think if they can shift it more to being about education, because Suzi Quatro, when you say her name so much of the time here, what you get is, Oh yeah, leather Tuscadero and it gets on my nerves because. No, not to demean that it was in a great role.
Great. For her recognition, but the people that go, Oh, leather, tusks, they don't know this Suzi, Quatro that I know. And that the people that Joan Jett knows and that Sheree Curry knows. Yeah. And that had hits in Austria. Yeah. And all over Europe and England number one song. And so I think that's probably part of the problem is that there was no hit records.
And America and that's where they need to start. And the, and the Go-Go's. I have no idea. We made music history. There's no, I don't see any reason why they go. Those shouldn't be in there. Wow.
[01:11:00] Kris Kosach: [01:11:00] You watch after I get Susie and that I'm
Kathy Valentine: [01:11:03] good. Okay. A lot of people campaigning for us too, and I think it's just a matter of time, you know, it's just a matter of time.
Uh, and I think as they shift their approach, rather than being, just wanting to please the masses that come in, but see a role where they can educate people and go, Hey, You that per this, this woman, you know, you know who Joan Jett is, but you know what, there wouldn't have been a Joan Jett. If there hadn't been a says, you know what I mean?
So why I think that that's a perfect opportunity for them to go, you know, here's this exhibit, but guess where she came from, you know, and not to take that away. Joan Jett. Absolutely. Yeah, so, but I don't feel like anybody should be taking anything away for anything. I think we don't have that many of us.
There's [01:12:00] not that many, uh, of us, so why not celebrate and educate and lift up and, and shine a light on to make a difference. And, um,
I can lead people to want to start bands, but
Kris Kosach: [01:12:26] I couldn't agree more. Thank you. Thanks for that. Um, yeah, no, you guys, you will be, I think, you know, between us off the record.
I think you'll be in there before, before she will, frankly. Um, but I, it, I think the is also changing.
Kathy Valentine: [01:12:49] Wait, say that again are very against us. Why? I said they're, they're quite against wow. There's people on the committee that don't, I don't know. [01:13:00] I don't know. It's all a big secret, but they're very against us and I don't know why.
Kris Kosach: [01:13:06] That's fucked up.
Kathy Valentine: [01:13:09] No, no, it's not the people that run it. They're embarrassed.
I mean, I went there. I went there. This is off the record. I hope. But I went, I went to the rock hall last August to do an event and they took us into the secret room and there was all the stuff about women who rock. And I'm like looking and I'm like, why is there really
right?
And it's like, people, the public is like, they take their [01:14:00] cues, they take their cues.
The people that uplift that. So this is unbelievable, but I've seen women writers who say that the Go-Go's don't belong in there. So I'm just saying, if a woman music writer won't give us our, do you know, it's like, okay,
Kris Kosach: [01:14:29] Laura,
Kathy Valentine: [01:14:38] You know, bikini kill and Courtney love and tons of people wouldn't, you know, because of you, Susie and she's. So I don't know. We'll see. I don't want to, it's not going to be what I sit around and worry about less for sure.
Kris Kosach: [01:14:53] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's it's yeah, whatever. Anyway, um,
Kathy Valentine: [01:14:59] it felt bad to [01:15:00] be in there and see all this stuff about women that are.
Rock and not have the first female band that it had a number one record that still can be heard on the radio and still sell out a tour. Anytime we decided to play.
Kris Kosach: [01:15:16] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess the court of public opinion is more important than some museum in Cleveland, Ohio, right? And again, that's off the record.
So yeah, the people there are very, very nice. They are very nice, but you know how this is? It's like the, uh, Academy it's like the, the Oscars people never went for the. Movie that they were amazing. And they usually like get it after they did some killer role.
Kathy Valentine: [01:15:44] You know what I mean? And look at the Grammy's.
I mean, look, I mean, it's like anytime, I mean, rock and roll is just supposed to be so anti-establishment and when you bring all these establishments into it, it's, it's already kind of fucked up for me already, you know? [01:16:00] So. It's like, I don't really like elitist. I've always had a real kind of distaste for elite ism or pedestals or honors that recognize this person.
I think it was Phillip glass, somebody, one of these people, like might've been thought it might've been John cage or one of these, you know, kind of not rock people, but they got some big award and somebody said, You know, how do you feel that you finally got the award? How did it happen? And he goes, someone died, which meant that somebody, one of the deciding committees.
So that's what, I don't want to say it cause I don't want to be like, I'm cursing someone, but somebody's going to die on this stupid committee eventually. Well, that's funny. That's good.
Kris Kosach: [01:16:44] Okay. Um, alright. Well, this was great. Thank you so much. And um, and I
Kathy Valentine: [01:16:50] hope to.
Kris Kosach: [01:16:51] To help you out, um, in promoting anything or I hope to
Kathy Valentine: [01:16:55] be on the list
Kris Kosach: [01:16:56] of people that sounded really condescending.
Um, I hope to be on the list [01:17:00] to help promote whatever you have coming down the pike. So
Kathy Valentine: [01:17:03] Alison, because Alison, she would probably have more pull than me in terms of like, You know, pitching you to, to the publicity team because the publicity team for the documentary is I don't have any contact with
Kris Kosach: [01:17:19] no problem.
I mean like your stuff in the future, when you have something, let me know.
Kathy Valentine: [01:17:24] Okay. Well thank you. Yes.
Kris Kosach: [01:17:26] I have pie in the sky, lofty ambitions for this humble little show that we started during a worldwide pandemic.
Kathy Valentine: [01:17:34] It's a great concept. I love that right away. When I heard the name of, I just loved the idea, so good concept and good luck.
All right.
Kris Kosach: [01:17:46] Thanks. You have a great afternoon and a stay safe,
Kathy Valentine: [01:17:50] right? Okay.
Kris Kosach: [01:17:52] Right,
Kathy Valentine: [01:17:54] right. Okay.