Ah, it's awesome learning about theater, but it's a completely different musical landscape from rock and roll.
Charlotte Caffey
We had that horrible experience with 'Behind the Music' where they just made it all salacious. That's not about the band - that's a soap opera. If you're together with a spouse or a partner for 40 years, you're going to have arguments. But if you're with four other people, you're going have exponentially that many more things happen.
I daydream about romance and stuff.
We did three records in three years and I don't know how many world tours, and we were just in our early 20s. And then we imploded.
We struggled for years before we got that record deal. It was tough because we were girls. People were slamming doors in our faces for years.
There was something about the chemistry of the band and we would feed off each other. It was a gang of girls unleashed.
We're a band and we just happen to be chicks, that's the way we've always thought of ourselves.
We were a bonded group of girls, and it was us against the world and us against the odds.
I mean, when we put out our first album, it was 'Gosh, we really hope it sells 100,000 copies. That was the innocence.
A lot of it was really, really fun, but at some point, things started getting weird. We didn't allow each other to breathe. We didn't really have a sense of ourselves individually. We were very insecure... We were really threatened by the thought of 'Oh my God, what if someone goes off and does something outside the band?'
The energy between all the girls - we were hysterical together. That energy could go really bad and it could be so hateful and horrible, and then it could go really good and we'd write really good songs.
We're definitely hanging up the touring shoes but we'll do other things. We'll do an odd gig here and there but going out and actually touring for a month or two, we're not doing that anymore.
While we were touring for 'Vacation,' we weren't aware that the record wasn't doing well. It was a good tour, but the album didn't go over with critics.
The '80s, no matter what kind of wacky fashion or whatever else that went on in the '80s, the songs that came out of it, there was really great songwriting, in my opinion.
We were anything but 'America's sweethearts.' On the inside we were total sassy rebels.
We were pretty crappy in the beginning. We really didn't sound that great.
I'm working in theater. I did not grow up loving or even knowing anything about it, except for 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and 'Tommy.' But I love it. It's such a great collaborative thing.
We were up for a Grammy, we sold millions of records and we toured the world I don't know how many times. It was insane.
I was fortunate enough to be living in Hollywood, CA, when the underground punk rock music scene started. It was a small group of artists, misfits and weirdos, where everyone was welcomed and encouraged to express themselves.
In the year after we signed with I.R.S. we made a record, started our own tour, toured with the Police, and our record went to No. 1. It was insane.
The worst thing about the music business is the business part of it. Business has nothing whatever to do with writing, playing and performing.
The spirit of the Go-Go's is fun.
My whole world up until punk was this total repressed Catholic lifestyle.
We all came to the conclusion that we have an undeniable chemistry musically, that we might not ever find again. The mix of friction and camaraderie channels good songs, performances and laughs.
We would rent this old van and drive anywhere we could get in 10-to-12 hours. We scraped by with little money, but there's a lot to be said for those days. We were naive, but there was no pressure and a lot of freedom.
Legendary photographer Annie Leibowitz persuaded us to pose in our underwear. When the magazine hit the stands we were horrified to see the caption 'Go-Go's Put Out.' Regardless, I was extremely excited to see us at every newsstand on every corner, our faces on the cover of 'Rolling Stone!'
The freedom of punk really appealed to me because I came from the rules and regulations of studying classical piano.
We would go to photo sessions and it was just the most ridiculous stuff. It was like, 'Here, lick on these lollipops.' And we're like, 'What?!' It was horrifying. But we would laugh.
We say, 'Wow, look at Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Their clothes were always so cool.' Maybe not Mick Jagger when he wore Spandex in the '80s.
The odds were against us being an all-female garage band from California.
Look; being in this band, of course it would be great, yeah. But, I mean, I don't live and breathe every minute of every day thinking like, 'Oh, my God. We have to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.'
It wasn't much fun being Charlotte Go-Go. I like being Charlotte Caffey better.
I wrote 'We Got the Beat,' which is a fun song, and people equate us with fun, but there's so much more to us than that.
Being in a band is being punk, no matter what. You have to dedicate your life to it.
There's definitely sadness happening in this band. I get melancholy every day about things.
In April of 1978 I was asked to join an all-girl band that was just taking shape, The Go-Go's. It was one of those moments in my life - and there were many - when I just blurted out 'Yes!'
I had written or cowritten eight of the ten songs on 'Beauty and the Beat,' and I had written our biggest hit, 'We Got the Beat.' How was I going to top all of that?
Oh, everything we did was completely organic - from the way we looked to the way we sounded, the way we played - everything.
To all musicians - forget gender - to all musicians, it's about - do what makes you happy. Just go for it, you know?
We're really funny, focused, and we put on a great live show.
I went through an extreme depression.
I've lived kind of a sad-happy life. It's like, every time you take a breath, it's heavy, but on the outside you're like a clown family traveling along the universe.
I didn't know how to play lead guitar. There was a freedom in not knowing how to do it.
I ran to get my cassette recorder and sang 'We Got the Beat' into the recorder to document it. I knew I had written something special. It took two minutes. I didn't labor on the lyrics. It's a simple song, which goes back to the '60s, when I had my ears glued to the radio for the Stones, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys.
People at the record labels were like, 'We don't want to sign you, you're girls' - sexist, ridiculous nonsense.
Here's the thing about The Go-Go's: Onstage, any moment could be a total train wreck.
We are just the most twisted, sick, hilarious people that I know.
Being in a band, whether your female or male, is really hard.
We had so many obstacles. We had a lot of sexism and misogyny, there's a lot of things that were against us. But we've just pushed forward and we showed everybody.
I've been married for 23 years to Jeff McDonald from Redd Kross.
