The Go-Go’s Documentary Sets The Record Straight About A Trailblazing Band

The biggest takeaway from The Go-Go’s a new documentary directed by Alison Ellwood about the popular band from the 1980s, is: why aren’t they in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? In hindsight, the story of how the Go-Go’s became one of the most beloved and successful acts at the dawn of the MTV era is an underdog one. Formed in the late 1970s during the Los Angeles punk scene, the Go-Go’s were founded by five young women who at the time didn’t know how to play their instruments and appeared more like a novelty act. Gradually, through personnel changes and dogged determination, the Go-Go’s established a growing following in L.A. and later signed to I.R.S. Records. Their 1981 debut album, Beauty and the Beat, went to number one on Billboard—the first time that an all-female band who wrote their own songs and played instruments achieved such a distinction.

For the next four years, the Go-Go’s – singer Belinda Carlisle, guitarist/keyboardist Charlotte Caffey, guitarist/singer Jane Wiedlin, bassist Kathy Valentine and drummer Gina Schock – were on a roller-coaster ride of fame and fortune as America’s musical sweethearts. At their height of their popularity, the Go-Go’s were feted with hit singles such as “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “We Got the Beat,” “Vacation” and “Head Over Heels”; sell-out shows; and maximum media exposure, including the infamous Rolling Stone cover. But it wasn’t all fun: the group battled both the male-dominated music industry and themselves amid a mixture of substance abuse and personal and creative tensions that eventually led to their breakup in 1985. Even though they have reunited and toured since then, the Go-Go’s legacy had already been established in paving the way for future female rock acts: from the Bangles to the ‘90s Riot Grrrl bands.

Overall, this candid and absorbing film by Ellwood (History of the Eagles, Laurel Canyon) does justice to the band’s turbulent and triumphant story. As the new documentary (which airs this Friday on Showtime) shows, the Go-Go’s were a group that did it their own way without the guidance of a controlling male figure. In addition to interviews with the members of the classic lineup and archival footage going back to their early punk incarnation, The Go-Go’s also features testimonials from I.R.S. Records co-founder Miles Copeland; the Police’s Stewart Copeland; the band’s former manager Ginger Canzoneri; and Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna, among others. Coinciding with the film’s release, the Go-Go’s recorded a new song, the anthemic rocker “Club Zero”—their first one in 20 years. (The band’s 40th anniversary tour was rescheduled from this year to 2021 due to the pandemic).

Ahead of The Go-Go’s broadcast, I interviewed Caffey, Schock and Ellwood about the film and aspects of the band’s unique history. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you talk about working on the film?

Alison Ellwood: I was thrilled because I’ve always been a Go-Go’s fan. They’d been toying with the idea of having a film made. They were very gun-shy because of the experience with VH1 [Behind the Music]. They did not like that. So we started talking, probably close to three years ago now, and there were a lot of conversations. Then we finally met up in person and talked more about it. They finally agreed to do it. I said: “I’ll make you a film that is a fair film, but I’ve got to trust you to be honest with me. I don’t want to do a fluff piece.” They promised, and I promised. I think everybody’s happy.

How do you feel about the way the documentary turned out?

Charlotte Caffey: Honestly, we were so nervous in the beginning. 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. We were very clear with Alison we didn’t want all that nonsense. We’ve worked through a lot of gnarly crap between each other, and we’re here now. We want to celebrate the band. That’s what I think it did. I love it so much. I’m so excited for people to see it.

Gina Schock: I’m really happy with the way it came out. It’s what it is. Alison is a really good storyteller. We just had to trust her. We’ve been so afraid to do anything like this, we don’t want another VH1 story. She promised us that she would do the right thing. And she did.

What was it like watching yourselves on the screen?

Caffey: It was a very healing thing for all of us. There was something that brought up a lot of great feelings and I didn’t expect that to happen at all. And at the end of it, I was filled with warmth and love for all the girls. It was really cool. We keep getting together and doing these things, like the musical [Head Over Heels] that happened several years ago. They just keep coming to us, it’s nothing that we search out. So there’s a reason where we keep getting together. And when we do, we have a really great time. We are just the most twisted, sick, hilarious people that I know. It’s great to be at a good place with everybody.

Schock: The girls are such a part of my life. When times are tough, we sort of pull together as like a family does—not always liking each other, but certainly love each other at the end of the day. I’m just in a very grateful mood right now, and I think everybody else is.

Going into the project, did you have an idea of how you were going present the band’s story?

Ellwood: By the time we started the interviews, I had a sense of what the narrative was going to be. When I first started researching, I was not familiar with their punk background at all. So that was revelatory to me. When I dug into that and started listening to the earlier music, and even listening to the earlier versions of the songs that became their pop hits, they were very punk-sounding, much faster, much rawer. So that was really fun to know that there was going to be that evolution in the music. By the time we did the interviews, I knew that that was a huge part of the story.

The Go-Go’s achieved a lot in a relatively short period, from playing punk shows in L.A., to recording a #1 album in Beauty and the Beat.

Caffey: We have been selling out shows for a couple of years in L.A. And when we were in England, we would call in to Rodney on the ROQ, [Los Angeles radio deejay] Rodney Bigenheimer’s show, and totally lie: “We are so famous here.” (laughs) We were making crap up left and right. We got back, and the lines were wrapped around the Starwood. We played our ‘welcome back home’ show there. That was a short time before the New Year Eve gigs when Kathy played.

We couldn’t get a record deal, no one would sign us—no one. We went to every record company there was, and Miles [Copeland of I.RS. Records] was the only one. But the thing that kept me going were the songs that we were writing, it was incredible. Like that first record [Beauty and the Beat], it was just so awesome and our live performances were very punky. The first record sounds a certain way because our producer Richard Gottehrer really wanted to highlight the songwriting, and it wasn’t like our live shows, which were still very rough and punk sounding because we just played that way and we still do. I could only hope that something big was coming, but I had no idea how big it was.

Schock: I always thought: “Oh my God, we are going to be famous, we’re going to be huge.” We were 21, 22 years old. You think anything is possible and then you’re going to make it, thank God. Because I really did believe that we were going to be huge.

The first album is a special one for most bands or most artists in general. The first record is your whole life, and then after that you have a couple of months to write stuff and get it for the next record. That was also just kind of a crazy, lucky thing that the first record took off the way it did. But there was a lot of strategic planning on Miles Copeland’s behalf. He said: “We’re touring in a van all over the country.” Then he said, “How do you feel about opening for the Police?”, because the Police were playing arenas. So we started doing that and then the sales started picking up. Before you knew it, people were coming to the shows to see the opening band as well as the headliner. We’d walk on stage and the place was full.

As shown in the documentary, from 1981 to 1985, the Go-Go’s packed so much in the career from having hit singles to constant touring.

Caffey: There was a lot that jammed in, and what comes with that is pretty overwhelming. As much as I loved people loving those songs that I wrote or co-wrote or coming to our concerts, it was very overwhelming and very invasive and like: “Whoa.” And of course, I’ve been an open book about my drug addiction forever. So putting those two things together, it was like a powder keg for me. But I had loads and loads of fun. We all had such a good time. It was a whirlwind and there was no stopping, and we did not stop it. That’s probably why we burned out because you can’t just keep going like that, especially when you add in all the partying.

Schock: I wish that we all would have slowed down and savored the moment, loved what was happening and then appreciate it. It was going by so fast. Whatever the record told us to do, we’d do. We were just constantly touring, and then MTV happened and that kicked things up a notch for everybody. All of a sudden, everybody’s making videos. So a lot was happening during that period of time in the music business. It was a whole lot packed into those several years. But that’s all we knew. Whatever they told us to do, we’d do. I wish we would have had more time to really enjoy it. But it happened the way it was supposed to happen, I guess.

Did you know the impact the Go-Go’s were having in breaking down the door for female rock musicians, or you were too caught up in the moment at the time?

Caffey: We were definitely in the moment because there were all these major things we had to do ahead of us on any given day. We thought we’re going to bust through, there’s going to be all these female bands. They trickled in: the Bangles came next, and then there’s Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill. But if you really think about, there really isn’t just an ocean of them. And we were surprised.

Being in a band, whether your female or male, is really hard. We were really dedicated. We put the band above everything, including relationships, because you had to. It’s like the kind of thing where you can’t help but do it—like if you just have to do it, there’s no other thing that you can do, this is it. I felt so strongly about what we were doing, and I believed in it so much. I wasn’t even thinking in terms of fame and fortune—I was thinking in terms of: “Oh my God, we’re so good.”

Schock: I never thought about that. I don’t think any of us did. We were too busy doing our job and having a great time being rock stars. That’s a lot of fun. (laughs) We had a great time doing that, until it stops being fun. I certainly didn’t realize the impact we had all these years later, too busy in the throes of it.

Ellwood: To this day, they’re the only female band to have a number one album and play their own instruments and write their own music. It’s crazy 42 years later. I talked to all of them about this. Belinda says in the film “We wouldn’t have called herself feminists back then, but we were.” I think they as people don’t really label things, and I think that because their songs are so catchy, I think they were labeled as the sort of girl next door and they were certainly not that. (laughs) They were pretty wild, but so were a lot of people back then. It was the ’80s.

One of the most heartbreaking moments of the movie was when the group split up in 1985 amid tumultuous circumstances.

Caffey: That was terrible. For me at that moment in my life, because I was three months sober, I had to make a choice. I had to choose my life over this band. I didn’t think I could stay sober in the band because there was too much animosity and too much stuff that had come down. And plus Jane had left the band. Paula [Jean Brown, her replacement] helped me get into rehab and I’ll be forever grateful to her. It wasn’t a popular decision at the time. But that was the way it was, and I celebrated 35 years of sobriety a few months ago, not the Hollywood kind. I have never taken a drug or a drink since February 1, 1985. so it’s like: “It’s just me” That’s what I need to do for my life. I’m like: “What was I thinking?”

We really wanted to be honest. There’s no hiding in this band, I love Jane talking about her depression and stuff. It’s good for people to hear that, to see people moving through things, and it’s important.

But then five years later, the Go-Go’s reunited.

Schock: We were all busy with our solo careers. In 1990, Belinda’s management got a call from Jane Fonda’s people saying: “Could we get in touch with all the girls? We have something we’d like to offer them, and we hope you’d be interested.” [Jane Fonda] was busy trying to get a green initiative on the ballot in L.A., and she wanted us to be a part. We all said of course. So we started having dinners together and talking. We went to her house three or four times hanging out with her, which was really cool. She’s awesome. We did a show at Universal as part of Jane Fonda’s thing, and later that year we were back on tour. (laughs) It all fell right back into place. We’re just like family…we can’t get away from each other.

For the documentary, the Go-Go’s recorded “Club Zero,” their first new song in nearly 20 years. How was that experience like?

Caffey: When we decided we wanted to write an end credits song, it could be cool to all of a sudden have something new. I had just written this music with Anna Waronker and I’ve worked with her for years. That’s what we wanted to write: “Let’s do something really up and anthemic and punky and cool.” So here’s this music and all of sudden I’m putting lyrics and I’m like, “Oh my God, this is f***ing working.” So I showed it to everybody, everyone loved it. Then we continued on and Kathy, Jane and I finished the lyrics. It’s kind of this cool and right for this moment. We didn’t even know what was coming when we wrote it like a year-and-a-half ago. We think it’s just perfect for the documentary and for this moment right now.

Schock: We all worked on it, got together, went in to record it. We knocked it out in two days, which kind of amazed me because we haven’t recorded in 20 years. We went into the studio and two days we were done, backing vocals and all, boom! Done! I was like kicking myself in the butt: “You know what? We really are pros.” I was amazed, no problems at all, and we went in there and kicked ass. Everybody’s voice in this band is super important. Without the five of us, it’s not the Go-Go’s.

Ellwood: I had no idea that they were going to end up writing a new song. I had secretly hoped that they would try to do that. Then once I realized they actually were seriously doing it, I said: “Please let us film you playing around with it, it would be such a great ending for the film.” That’s what we shot at the Whisky [in Los Angeles]. It was fun for them to come back to where it all began, once they were pretty big.

What do you hope viewers will come away from the film?

Caffey: I hope they walk away being uplifted, number one. This is a story about a group of girls who got together and started something that we felt passionate about, and we just kept going. 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. And we showed ourselves: “Hey, we really are something.” I say it not in a conceited way. I say it in a proud way because I love this band, and we’ve been through a lot.

Ellwood: A full understanding of who they were and are as women and the band, and that their contribution to music was substantive. I think that they tend to be written off a little bit too easily, people perceive them as being a little bit fluffy. But if you listen to their lyrics, there’s a lot of subterfuge going on. The lyrics are much darker at times than the music sounds. Just a full appreciation of who they are as musicians and as women who’ve contributed something to this world that is worthy.

What accounts for the Go-Go’s longevity after 40 years?

Schock: For each of us, this is the longest relationship that the five of us have ever been in. After that amount of time, it is like family. It’s the old cliché: you might not like your family all the time, but you love them. I think that’s the bottom line with us. We’re like a bunch of kids when we get together.