Isaac Mizrahi chats with Belinda Carlisle about being a contrarian, the trials and tribulations of being in an all-girl band, her one regret in life and more.
Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok and catch up with Belinda Carlisle on Instagram @travels_with_mrs_mason.
Being a rock star, people enable you to behave a certain way. You know, you can be a flake and people accept it.
They expect that.
So I gave them exactly what they wanted for years and years.
The thing about me is that I clean up well.
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrati and in this episode, I talked to legendary musician and my personal inspiration, Belinda Carlisle.
Hello, Isaac, it's Belinda.
I can't wait to talk to you and talk about music, mayhem, family, spirituality, getting older, being on stage, and all sorts of stuff.
I cannot wait.
If I didn't know anything about the music that Belinda car Carlyle has made throughout her life, I would still love her just for being this incredible American icon. She is the mother of the first all female rock group. And then when you lay the music on top of it, and when you consider that so much of the music was kind of the background from my young adulthood and what that meant to me, you can maybe get a sense of how excited I am to speak to Belinda Carlile. So here we go. Let's get into it. Belinda Carlile, Hi, Hi, I can't believe how lucky we are to be talking to you today.
I feel very lucky. Are you kidding? Thank you for asking me.
By the way, is Blinda Carlisle that's not your real name?
Right?
Yeah? It was?
I was born Blinda Joe Carlisle Belinda Joe?
Yeah?
Wow? Is that a Scottish something? What is Carlosle?
Okay?
My dad it was American Indian and half Irish, so I'm a quarter American Indian.
That's why I have these. My dad was Cherokee.
It's an incredible, incredible stage name, and I feel like I might have chosen that name if it wasn't my real name. And to think that you are Belinda Joe Carlo, that's pretty significant. Where are you from?
I was born in Hollywood, believe it or not.
And I was raised in Bourbank, California, in Thousand Oaks, which is a suburb of LA about forty minutes outside of LA So I'm a California girl.
Born and raised.
California was an amazing back then in the sixties and seventies, and you know, typical dysfunctional.
Family and now you live in Mexico City and also like Bangkok, Is that right?
Well, I've lived We've lived in eight different countries because we just wanted to experience different cultures. So we were in France for like twenty four years. We've been in England, we were in Thailand for seven years.
And then we were in.
Thailand and then when the pandemic happened, we were step for like a year and a half. We couldn't get out. My dad died, we hadn't seen our son. We thought if we stay here, it could go on for another year and a half, so we made a decision to leave. We had no idea where we were going to go. But with that, okay, Mexico, that's a good end, I know. And that was kind of always on the cards anyway, because I've grown up coming here, you know, with my family.
So here we are, and we've been here for two years.
You know what's funny to me is you and the music that you've made all of these years, and even the music you're making now. Maybe because I'm a certain age and I associate it with a time in America or something, I think of it as such an American thing, and here you are living everywhere but America, and I wondered, how does that work itself out for you? But do you miss us? What do you think about it? Do you think of yourself as an American?
I think, yeah, you can take the girl out of America, but you can't take America out of the girls. So yes, I am American and I still consider myself very American. I haven't lost my accent. I've been away since ninety four. We tried going back to America briefly, and I talk about this with my friends who are expats.
That is like a curse on most.
I mean, it's amazing, But nowhere ever feels like home. This is pretty close Mexico City.
I mean for you, no where ever feels like home.
Mean that doesn't.
After we were living in France before we moved to Thailand. But maybe it's time to go home. So we went back to la for like a year and a half and it's like, no, it's not going to work.
It's just not going to work.
Wow.
So I don't know.
I'm so used to living in countries and different cultures and to me, that's really exciting.
And I see it was just.
Kind of of boring I'm sorry. I was just boring, and I kind of like not being able to understand people, because that would annoy me if I could, probably, So, I mean, that's just the way we're used to living. And I don't miss America because I'm in America like four or five times a year to get my FI adjacent. Yeah, I get my fix. Even from Thailand, I got my fix.
So you were born in La Was it because of your closeness to the business or something that you kind of were attracted to the business. How did you start okay as a singer?
You know, I grew up listening to California radio and every summer I land from the speakers from like eight am to like five pm at my best friend's house and her mother would come home from work and then it was finished every single day every summer. I always fancied myself as singer, of course, like most people. And the only thing I wanted to do when I was a little girl is I wanted to see the world.
So I wanted to be a travel agent. And then when The Runaways.
Came out in the late seventies, I thought, that's a much better way to see the world is being in a band. So at that time the punk rock scene started in LA and all over the world. Actually it was nineteen seventy seven, so I was one of the fifty kids in the early punk scene in LA, like fifty tops.
I mean, it exploded pretty quickly. But everybody, all the other.
Kids were in bands and they were horrible. So it was like, well, we can band a band to be horrible too, And I was in a couple punk bands before the Go Gos. I was in a band called the Germs and the Drummer that never played because I got mononucleosis and had to go back to my parents' house to recover. And then I was a singer in a band called Black Randy in the Metro Squad. But the great thing about the punk saying is that it wasn't like mandatory that you knew how to play an instrument or knew how to sing. I mean I couldn't sing. I thought I could, and then I heard a tape of our first gig and I was like, oh my god, I've got to think you something about this.
That was the beauty of punk rock. If it wasn't for that scene, the Go Gos would never have happened.
I am so shocked. I mean, I know that your roots are in punk rock, but I don't necessarily think of the Go Gos or you as like a punk person. I think of you as more like new wave, right, and also not even so much new wave. Again, I go back to this classic American thing. I don't think of you as fitting into a genre like.
That, right.
Well, first of all, I was born a contrarian. I mean, I'm still a punk rocker. I may not look like one, but I was born a punk rocker, and you know, found my tribe with the scene. And I mean the Go Gos came from the punk scene, but three of us grew up in southern California, and we're very influenced by the radio, you know, classic Americana with lots of harmonies, lots of melody. So that was in our DNA when we started the Go Gos. So as we became more musically proficient because we had no idea how to do anything, and that was, like I said, the beauty of punk rock. So other bands gave us lessons on guitar. I went to the vocal coach and then all of a sudden, when we sorted becoming more musically proficient. It emerged this sort of poppy sound, and all the punks were like, oh, they're not a punk band, they're a pop band.
They sold out, but that was our influence.
Now, I want to go back for a minute, because you're talking a lot about the formation of a band and what kind of motivated you. Maybe politically or something. You're talking about a punk rock scene, But to me, you're such a good singer, like you took singing lessons because you had to get better to be in a band or something. Whereas I think of you as a real singer.
Well, I mean I could carry a tune.
But I remember Charlotte in one of our earliest rehearsals, said, you have a really unusual quality to your voice if you could sing.
No, she didn't say that, but I knew that I.
Needed help because I was screaming, you know, And so from the very beginning I was going to vocal coaches. When I could afford it, I'd save my money and get my vocal lessons.
So I guess I could carry your tone, and I had a quality in my voice that was unusual.
What was the motivation in the creation of songs? If it wasn't a musical thing. I don't think of this music that you've made, even the newest music, as being really like punky or political or something. I think of it as good music. So yeah, motivated you to do that?
Well, every punk scene and all over the world was different. I mean New York was kind of dark and junkie, the UK was political. Detroit was very working class car to hardcore LA at that time. There is nothing to be political about. It was never political. It was a girls club. I remember Jane and I saying we're going to be rich and famous one day. We're going to go rock stars. You had no idea how to do it. I probably was motivated that I didn't want to do the kind of work that I was doing, which was being a secretary at these big corporations. But it was just to make music because we could, and that scene enabled us to do that with no sort of experience.
Well this is mind boggling to me, Like this was really almost a practical thing.
It's funny because I guess I was really smart because I went to secretarial school and I learned shorthand and I learned how to type, So I figured at that time I could go in there, I could go into these jobs. They have to keep you for ninety days for the probation period. We can't fire you. I'd be fired like clockwork every ninety days, and I knew that, but that enabled me to pay my rent. All of our lives were just about making music because we loved it so much.
I remember being at the photocopy xerox.
Machine and like xerox from my boss and just going, I know this is temporary, This is just temporary, you know, but wait, yeah, we always knew.
So how do you get ahead and the musical? Did you audition? Do you make a demo tape and senden who books you? How did that happen?
We booked ourselves. There was no auditions. We were kids that knew each other vaguely in the scene. We needed someone to show us how to plug the guitars into the alifire.
So funny.
We went to a show with the Star Ward and Charlotte was the only musician in the band. So we went backstage and said do you want to join our band? And she goes, yeah, okay, I was in my trash bag dress. So she joined and she showed us how to do things, so there was never any auditions.
Everybody was pretty driven.
I guess to go from zero to one hundred three years later when we have the biggest band in America, I mean, it's pretty incredible, incredible, incredible, And obviously there was an element of fate and luck and timing and it was meant to happen.
So that was your big break, Darling.
I think when it changed is when we were asked to go to support Madness and I fineteen eighty in the UK.
Madness, what's that?
Remember?
Madness about SKA band? They were really cute guys, they were in suits, so they asked us to support them in the UK. And the strategy at that time, before the age of information, is that we could go there and send letters back home and call back home if we could afford it, and say we're big stars and nobody would know the difference. So we sold everything we had. Our manager she sold her car, jewelry to finance the trip. So we all went to London. We rented a house and we were there for about three or four months, supporting all the SKA bands and really sort of honing our skills as musicians. It was like a really very scary audience. It was national front, lots of neo Nazis, really frightening, but really toughenness up.
Why didn't you say you supported these people? You mean you did back up?
And no, we opened up for them.
I know those opened for them on tour and we tell everybody back home that we were big stars and they didn't know better. And then at that time Madness the band asked the record label as a favor to put we got the Beat out in. The record label did not like us, so as a favor to the band, the Madness, they put a one off single deal. We got the Beat on Stiff Records. It was the import and the States, and it became like a minor dance hit. So when we came back from the UK and did our first show at the star Win in La our strategy work, I remember looking out and seeing.
Tons of kids around the block.
And like, oh my god. That's when everything sort of turned. I mean, before that, we were selling out clubs all over the country and record companies would tell us we can't sign you because you're all girls, and there's not been a track record of an all female band that's been big. I mean there's been the Runaways and Fanny, but like an a cult level. So when we came back from the UK, we just exploded. And then Miles Copeland, who managed the Police and who had a little record label called IRS, he signed us because we couldn't get a major label deal and the rest is history.
I have a question for you, which is about failure, some kind of a setback that was a major, major disappointment, but something that taught you and helped you go further. Can you think of anything, Oh, I've.
Had lots of them, but the one that comes to mind is that time is I think all that rejection. We never thought in terms of gender, so it was really annoying, you know, for quite a while. I mean that was one of the many set back so that I had my career. But that made us tougher, That made us more determined.
You mean, this reaction to girl band and how they just wouldn't let it happen.
Yeah, they wouldn't let it happen.
Well, I always warned about this because it was such a new idea, you know, And if you were the Rolling Stones, darling, you'd still be together. You guys were together from like the late seventies to like what eighty nine, maybe ninety or something. When did you girls disband?
Well, we actually broke up in eighty four after Jane left, and then right there was a five year break and then actually Jane Fonda got us back together to do this environmental benefit in California.
So excuse me, tell me a thing about that life.
I know it's so weird, I'm so random.
I love I love Jane Fonda should call you and say like, hey girls.
Basically really she does that, bless her.
But you get what I'm saying. It's like, here, you had this incredible thing that you created, right, this girl band that really did break the glass ceiling, and then somehow it didn't go further than like ten years or something. And then of course you did the revival, as I remember in the nineties or something, right, there was a revival and you on your own. But you see where I'm going right, right, Well.
We were really young.
We only lasted actually from seventy eight to eighty four, six years, and it was like a whirlwind. And there's a lot of things I would have done differently with that, Like we were on this treadmill and there's no way to handle that kind of success.
We're that young.
So we disbanded, got back together. We worked for thirty years until last year actually was the last show.
By the way, what are the other women doing? Are they still musicians?
Yeah?
I mean everybody has their own thing going right, and you know, the Go Goos are very very complicated dynamics. You know, having five women that I've been working together for you can imagine, right.
So oh wow, Yes it's complicated.
Dat matters a bit, but it's familiar and not even colleagues.
It's family, so we cannot.
Talk, you know, if someone could be pissed off at somebody else or whatever. Different camps and there's still love there and we kind of talk a little bit, but everybody's gone on their way. And it's weird now because the Go Goes almost seems like a dream.
It was like an amazing dream.
I used to think about this all the time because you know, I'm obsessed with you, I obsessed with the Go Goes. I think it's the one concert I ever went to in my whole life. I went to a bet Middler concert. If that's how gay I am. I went to see bet Middler, like clams on a halfshell or whatever the hell.
That was, and I saw you girls.
Anyway, The point is here are these rock stars, but they're not men, they're women. You know. You think about men on the road and roadies and the bus and did you ever troll from men?
Yes?
Same you did, yay.
Right, I remember that was really hysterical.
So we had the roadis going to the audience and go you you come.
And then they came back stage, and then we were so freaked.
Out that we were hiding in our little inner sanctument, going, no, make them leave.
Leave, this is so amazing.
We tried to behave like that, and we tried recon dressing rooms and.
Then we clean it up because we felt bad.
You know, and you know the greatest thing I ever heard.
Yeah, So we took advantage of the situation of being young, famous rock stars on the road, no responsibility. We did everything that the guys did, but I think we had more of a conscience to be all right.
Well that's easy, I mean, that's easy, right. Yes, I never read your memoir now I intend to because of all this fastating stuff. But I know it's called lips unsealed, right, right, And in that book you talk about drugs, right, right, right. You know there are certain people you watch on stage and you go, I'm sorry that person is wasted, or if not, they should be, you know what I mean. You get that that's part of the culture. But with the Go Gos and especially you as a solo artists, right, I never got that from you. And it was a situation, right, I mean, it's.
An occupational hazard. And being a rock star, people enable you to behave a certain way. You know, you can be a flake and people accept it, they expect that. So I mean I gave them exactly what they wanted for years and years. The thing about me is that I clean up well, so I could be up all night and put makeup on and that looks semi normal. Might not behave normal, but I was pretty much a drug addict from age seventeen to forty seven. So wow, there was like a little break well when I was pregnant, I didn't take I didn't do anything, and then the little break from eighty four to like eighty eight, and with the Go Gos, that was one of the big factors of breaking up was drugs, you know, ego, greed, so all the technical things that break up a rock band. But yeah, drugs are a big part of my life. For years and years.
I never did a lot of drugs. I was a party person, so I was on drugs times, but we had to work in fashion, Darling have to be there like from the break of dawn till whatever, and so I never really got into it. You can't work like that. And I was always in therapy. My entire life was in therapy, and I feel like that kind of counterbalance the drugs. What do you think was at the root of your drug consumption? What was it that made you take drugs? Was it fun?
Yeah, it was.
I think that was probably the beginning was probably issues of self sabotage. I remember when the Go Gos album Beauty and the Bit went to number one and I was on like a huge binge for days, and it was like, I don't deserve this.
I don't deserve this, you know.
And.
I think that was probably the imposter syndrome was at the root of all that in the beginning. And then after why you know, it becomes of course an addiction, so you never think that you're going to be addicted. And at that time in the eighties, they didn't think that cocaine was addictive.
I do. And I also remember when cocaine. I say this all the time, Melinda Carlisle. I say, like a little cocaine in the eighties, Darling, it was like a pull porter song. I get no kick from you know what I mean? And now God knows what it is. It's like crack cocaine or something where it's laced with a lot of shit. It's a different world, but it's true. It was almost considered healthful.
It didn't have that, it did not have that stigma.
It did not. It's so funny speaking of like makeup and stuff. And I've texted you this and I mean it. You were always a babe, you were always so cute, but you look better now and I mean that. And I'm not sure what that's about. Is it like a bunch of work? Like what's going on with you? Darley?
Tell me?
Well, of course I do botox like twice years, Okay, But what I do is I do a ton of breath work every day, ah, oxygenating the skin. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't eat me. You know, I have a pretty happy lifestyle. But I do think it's my breath work every day and I do like a half an hour every day.
But you know, like the French they call it the go the face, like your face, Darling, It's like, you have a better face now. I'm not kidding. You look garboesque. Now you're gorgeous now. Before you were like cute, you know, like everybody wanted you to be so cute, and you were. And let's talk about that for a minute, because when I look at your contemporaries, I feel like their physical kind of presence, what they looked like on stage was a real construct, like you know, Blondie or Grace Jones or something. They were art directed creatures, you know, right Madonna, like she was an art directed creature, and you weren't. You were just perfectly natural. Talk about that. What did you do to get ready to go on stage?
I mean that was part of the appeal I think with the Go Gos and myself is that we were just kind of real and normal. I've never put a lot of thought I'm planning into my career or my looks perfectly honest. For me, being on stage, it's just about comfort and everything else is secondary, you know.
I do my own makeup.
One of my best friends does all my stage stuff, so I have that built in, but no one's ever controlled my image. Actually, after they Haven on Earth album, there was a little bit of pressure to look a certain way because I photographed really well, so keep your weight down, all your gears.
A little bit too red, and that kind of messes you up.
Especially when I was in the Go Gos, my name was mentioned with how much I weighed. I was pretty and plump, I was cute and chubby. Later I was felt.
So that was the only.
Real issue that I felt like I had to sort of keep together. But everything else it was never art directed or anything or contrived.
Speak to that for a minute. I was thinking about this the other day. You know, our incredible team to turn a right She died. It was a tragedy and I couldn't believe some of the obituaries. You know, the New York Times. On the front page, I swear to god, the headline was something like the lady with the voice and the legs, And it was like, are you kidding? That's the headline that you choose to put on the cover of the New York Times in association with a woman who worked so hard, whereas men don't have to do that. They just get on stage and everybody thinks of them as like a sexy thing. A woman has to fight for her kind of sexual identity, and I think you did a good job of that. Were you conscious of that, Darling.
No, not at all.
I was just myself the whole time, as far as being sexy or being anything. I was just always myself, and I think that was the appeal. I never never thought in terms of that. Everybody else taught in terms of that. But I think it's interesting now being an older singer. It's not slim and spelt or whatever anymore. It's Linda Carlosle sixty four. It's like Debbie Harry.
Blah blah blah.
Yeah exactly.
It is always next to the names. So I have to work a lot harder. I think if you're a woman in the business, that's for sure.
Are there things that are great about being a woman artists? What victories do you have that men don't get a chance to have.
I never thought of that, Oh gosh, only.
Because there are so many things that men just are given and women have to fight for and finally get. Is there anything a woman finds easier about show business than men. Or is there some kind of great thing that you love now?
I can't think of anything, to be perfectly honest.
Wow, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, it's like there should be some perk.
I honestly think that we have to work a little harder, and I don't mind doing that.
That's been my whole life. But the perks at the top of my head, I can't think of any.
Well, forget about in the business. One thing I always did think was a great perk about being a woman was being able to bear children, Like that is the greatest gift in the entire world. And you bore a very wonderful kind of who I met on a few occasions James James Duke Maysa. What was that like? And when did you have him?
I had him when I was thirty two, and I remember I wasn't feeling so good and I took a pregnancy test it was positive.
I was like, oh, no, right, you know, because.
I'm the oldest of seven, I had mixed feelings about having a child because I helped my mom raise my siblings, so it was kind of traumatic, even though I was really happy at the same time, I was horrified. You know, I don't know how to do this, but I went on, Hia, it is because I was really sick every single day and then had him when I was thirty two, and then it was like the best thing that's ever happened to me. Can be told about how it's the best thing until it happens to you, you.
Don't really understand it.
So I think that that kind of changed everything for me as far as priorities. It took me out in my head. Were you in a relationship at the time my husband we were married. We've been together for almost forty years, but we were married, we've been together for five or six years, so we were ready.
So that made it a little bit easier, a.
Lot easier, a lot easier.
I mean, once I got over the shock of it, I was really excited, but it was shocking.
You were saying that it's something that you don't understand until you actually do it. Like what about it changed? You put it into words a little bit.
It made life less about me.
Here I am giving birth to a little person, and it's like I want to make sure that they're okay. I want to do the best possible job I can do. It's like all these things that I never thought about. I was never really that maternal, to be perfectly honest, but once I had him, it just snapped too and it was actually maternal. But it just makes you realize that life is a miracle and it just takes you out of your neuroses.
You know.
We made a conscious decision not to have kids because I am very selfish or something. I think I would be a very good parent. Do I think I'd be able to guide someone? But I don't know if I want to give up all of these freedoms that I have and all of this kind of self centeredness. You know.
That was my issue.
That was why I was so horrified, is that everything has been about me for so many years, and all of a sudden, it's not going to be about me anymore.
What do you mean somehow that becomes okay?
Yeah, it does become okay. Like I said, I was shocked, and I was like, how is my life going to be? What am I going to do? And how am I going to work? I had so many things spinning around in my head. Am I going to be a good mother?
You know?
Like I said, I wasn't that maternal. I became maternal, but it completely freaks me out.
And yet you did such a good job because he's a real doll.
He's a great human being. And my husband is a great dad. So I think the two of us were both kind of extended. And it's funny because I remember saying Grace Slick on the Mike Douglas Show and she had her daughter with her and she was like, really out there, I'm so eccentric, and the daughter was very laced at, very straight, and same with our son.
He's very sort of normal.
I used to take him to the punk store in can and say, come on, grandpa, let's go buy some punk rock clothes. And I was like, no, you know, all buttoned up. But I think we both did a good job with him.
You did. One thing that I note about him that's different from you is he is political. That's what he does. He's like an advocates.
Oh, he's like a political savant.
He knows everything about everybody, every president. He's been like that for ever since I can remember. He was reading the John Deane book, the Watergate book, at like age seven.
Right, right, this is a tricky question to ask I'll give you an example. My husband understands that my work comes first, and he just knows that. And it's like the red shoes that never comes up, whether you have to choose between art and your lover. He just never comes up. And I think about my dogs, and he knows, like if I were in a burning house and I had to save either him of the dogs, I would probably take the dogs, which is a horrible thing to say, but it's the truth that he knows that. But what I want to ask you is, you're an artist, your mother, you're a woman. Put that in order. Artist, woman, put that in order.
I say, wife, mother, artist.
Wow, Yeah, Linda Carlisle, that's a beautiful thing.
My husband's like the coolest.
He grew up with show business all around him, so there's never been any issue. He's always been so supportive. He knows how important my work is to me and it's my outlet. He realizes that, and he's just there in the background sort of supporting me, as probably your husband is too.
Yeah. And when you were talking about this idea of imposter syndrome and you don't deserve it and whatever, we all go through that. And sometimes I think about my husband, and I go, what did I do to deserve that? How came I got this incredible person who thinks of me and supports me? Do you think about that with your husband?
Yeah, it's like, you know, the whole thing was so weird when we met, because we moved in together after our first day and everybody thought you're crazy, but we just knew it. And we've been together for almost forty years and it means better than ever. So of course, if any relationship that goes on that long, you have ups and downs, but it's better than ever. So yeah, I always think about how lucky I am. I'm into gratitude every single morning when I get up and before I go to sleep.
Right, are you religious?
I have a pretty strong spiritual foundation. I wouldn't call it religion, but I start every day out with a great teacher like an Eckart totally or sad guru around us. I'm doing course and miracles right now, which is pretty hardcore, but I start every single day with that for at least a half an hour, I go into my practice, which is chanting.
It's a yoga practice.
But yeah, I have a big spiritual foundation that I never thought that i'd have in those early pump days.
Speaking of spiritual I find your new record quite kind of enlightened. It's like your brain opened up and suddenly you can see everything you know. And I really love it. And what I love so much about it is it really gives you the kind of Belinda Carlisle thing that you just die for. You know, sometimes artists, as they progress, they drop stuff, and you have and we all have, but I think you managed to keep the Belinda Carlisle thing like fresh all this time. I'm not blowing smoke up your eyes. I'm just saying I really like the record.
It's total accident.
I wasn't going to do this, and then my boy ran into Diane Warren and she said, let's SMI your mom.
I know, she was an answer on Jeopardy Research, she did a bunch of answers on Jeopardy. She's amazing Diane Warren.
So yeah, I.
Wasn't planning on doing any more recordings. So that's why it's called kismet. It was a chance meeting between Diana and my son who called me and she said, get to the studio. I have hits, And I was like, do I really want to do that because it's a big commitment, you know. But then I went to the studio and I love Big Big Love and the other single, and then I thought, okay, yeah, I'll do it. And I hadn't done an English speaking pop album for twenty six years.
Wow. That's so that's.
Why it's fresh. It's like, oh my god, this is totally unexpected. I love these songs and I love singing this kind of music. Again, for me, it was fresh.
And are you now committed to doing a giant tour? Is that going to happen to you?
No, I won't do that. I think sixty four. You know, I'm going to be sixty five in a few months.
Wow. And I do it on my terms. Now I know how to say no. I can't slog it out anymore.
I just did in the UK.
I did sixteen shows in twenty one days, which was amazing that I got through it with my voice and my body intact, because there's a lot of physicality, as you know.
I know.
So the East Coast and West Coast is summer of Australia at the end of the year, and then after that, I don't have any commitments or anything, and we'll see.
I mean, I don't know.
But I feel like you like performing because you do every venue. You do giant stadiums and then you do like the Carlisle little clubs.
Yeah, I do like performing.
It's what goes along with it that I'm not crazy about the traveling, you know, anymore.
That's harder than getting on stage. So I don't know.
I don't think I'll ever totally retire, and I'll always work because I.
Do love to sing.
You get stage fright, Not really. No.
I used to always go on stage a little bit tweaked, you know, on something or a couple of glasses of wine, and I was really horrified about, oh my god, I'm going to go up there sober. But for me it was like way easier because, as you know, I know this sounds really pretentious, but you're able to tap into something that's greater than yourself and it's almost like channeling in a way. It's weird, and for me being on stage is like meditation. Now I just don't even think wow, so I don't get nervous. I just do my thing, and when I'm off stage it doesn't feel like the same person.
It's weird.
Well, I don't exactly understand how you do it. We do it. I get terrible stage fright and I am freaking, and like everything just goes black, like seriously black. I'm not kidding. You have some dark thoughts, and then like an hour before the show or fifteen minutes before the show, it starts to click in and then the nerves like somehow transfer and become excitement. And then you know that scene in that Judy Garland movie where she plays a singer in London and they catch her backstage. It's called I think the movie is called I Could Go On Singing And she's backstage like she hears her music and she's clutching at the curtain and she's kicking her legs and she's so excited to go out. And then you're out there, and it's like the most unbelievable amazing thing in the world to be out on a stage, right.
Yes, yes, when it's going well, and then when it's not going well, it's absolute hell. It's like being second tier of vortex and everything kind of goes gooey and.
And uh.
So, I mean, thankfully that doesn't happen too often, but yeah, do you feel like you're the same person when you're out there as like off stage.
No, but I feel like I am like a bullion cube of myself or something like, I am so much myself that if you could never live to that kind of extent off stage. All right, So I have a few questions left. I have this one question which I'm just going to come right out and ask you. Do you have any regrets?
I think my only regret that I wasn't as present as I should have been as a mother because I was really struggling with my own demons.
And also one thing that.
I realized when I was writing the book, it was like therapy times one hundred, is that. Yeah, I'm remember that Duke my Son said to me, Mommy.
Why do you live at the airport?
And I was like, oh my god, you know, and that was kind of horrifying to me at the time. So my only regret is probably I wish I had been more present when I was at home. I did the best I could. My husband's amazing. I don't remebert any of the drugs or anything else, right.
I did. The Evangelista once said to me, you know, she used to like my clothes. Aside from being in my shows all the time, and she used to pick out clothes and we'd say, like, where should we send them? And she said, oh, Darling, just send them to the Air France concord last and they'll think.
To me.
That always resonated with me. It's like, Wow, did you like all of that traveling? Did you like being on the road a lot?
Yes? I did. I did it. Yeah, I liked it for a long time. I still like it.
I liked traveling with Morgan more. I don't like to be away from him, but I still do. I like room service. I like cushi, Brad, you know, I love all that. I love that laying in my big cushy bad and just getting room service.
Well, no, you know, I love it.
You know. I used to travel with all these executives from Target and they were like rich people, much richer than us, and they would say, oh my god, the bedding at the Peninsula Hotel, and I think, if you like the bedding, go and get the bedding right right now.
I totally get that. I like that part of it.
When I'm not traveling for work, I'm still traveling for pleasure. I just got of a big, weird trip to Turkey, but yeah, I love the buzz of checking in and opening the door.
Of the hotel room and going, oh right, well, what if it's a nightmare, then what do you do?
I stayed at the worst hotel I've ever stayed at in my entire life. Where was It was in southeast And I've traveled to India many times and I've said it dump, I've sayed it dumps, real dumps, but.
This was like beyond dump.
It was in a town I call it Kaka, but it was called Kaka, and I mean I can do dumps. I know how to do too, so I just like, Okay, this is a dump, and I just adapt because I am a big traveler.
Do you travel with your husband and James ever?
Well, I travel.
With my husband on the road, but when I do these crazy trips, I never would do it with my husband or I have a friend that I do all the crazy trips with. James sometimes, but he has work and I used to take him with him when he was a baby. I took him to South Africa with me. I took him to Central Region with me. But I thought it was more important to see the world than it was to go to school.
And I was right.
I thought, I don't care if you can add or subtract, but if you can read, you can speak, and you can spell, and you can write, and then I don't care if you go to school. I'm going to take you out of school. I'm going to show you the world. And that's what I did.
That's a smart thing, I thought.
So.
By the way, this thing you were talking about earlier with James, how there may be a little regret that you didn't stay home more or something and be a baby. From my observation of the two of you, I can see who you are and I can see who he is, and there isn't that gap that I think you probably felt with your parents, like there were probably things that you will never be able to resolve with your parents.
Is that true or that's true, that's true.
Whereas I feel like you will give that opportunity to James to really resolve shit with you, you know, Oh no, no.
We talk about everything, I mean everything, and we're a very very close family and we have a really close relationship now, much closer than I ever had with my parents. My parents were from my generation. They never talked, never expressed themselves. But we've always expressed ourselves even when he was in school. So, yeah, I wish I was home more and I missed out on a lot of.
Stuff, right, I see, I understand, but I think that that has its upside as well. You know, you have to be able to rationalize that. Okay, here's my final question. Okay, obituaries, because this is what I'm obsessed with every single morning. That's the first thing. You read The New.
York Times obituary every day, every.
Day, every day. And I've seen that movie, the Obituary of the Times Obituary movie. What do you want your obituary to say? What do you want the headline to be? And then what do you want it to say about you? Belinda?
Oh gosh, I mean American singer. But I like to put the punk rock thing because I was born a contrarian. That's kind of what's got me through the years. But what I wanted to say, honestly, I was born without fear.
I don't have that chip. For whatever reason.
I like to be mentioned as fearless singer against all odds, and I've done a lot of different things. So they have to mention all of that too, not just the singing, right, so mother wife, singer, fearless, fearless and contrarian.
This is amazing to me. I mean, I get it. You've said it so many times in the interview. I feel like it's really holds a lot of weight for you. But I don't think of you or the music, or the go gos or anything as I think of you as something completely use.
Yeah, I guess doing what we were doing against all odds because there was nobody doing it. I mean, everybody in that band was a bit of a rebel. If you stayed here at the house for like a week, you'd see, because that's just the way it is.
I was born that way.
Well, I love it. You've just been so great. Thank you so much.
Oh my god, you're asking best questions.
Thank you the best. You're the best. How about Belinda Carlisle. I was so surprised by so many things she said. For me, the most surprising thing is that she thinks of herself as a contrarian. That was not the first thing I thought. You know, however, many years ago and I discovered how much I loved her music, I never thought of her as a punk derivative artist. I always thought she was just this incredibly American kind of clean pop musician. But I guess there were other punk scenes besides the New York London punk scene, and I think she really did get inspiration from that. So anyway, the whole thing was just so fabulous to sit and talk to someone I admire, to know in someone who has really really inspired me. Darlings, if you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor and tell someone, Tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell everyone you know. Okay, and be sure to rate the show. I love rating stuff. Go on and rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes such a gigantic difference and like it takes a second, so go on and do it. And if you want more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast. This is Isaac Misrahi, Thank you, I love you, and I never thought I'd say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by Imagine Audio, Awfully Nice and I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by me Isaac Msrahi. Hello Isaac is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti. Executive produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Karl Welker and Nathan Cloke at Imagine, Audio production management from Katie Hodges, Sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson. Original music composed by Ben Waltzer. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah Katanak at i AM Entertainment