YOUTUBE: Go-Go's Interviewed by Moon Zappa on VH1's Darcy's Music (1994)

Go-Go's - Darcy's Music Interview with Moon Zappa 1994

Rumor has it that the Go-Go's 1994 reunion to support their double CD retrospective 'Return To The Valley Of The Go-Go's' was anything but a happy experience, and in this interview from late 1994 for 'Darcy's Music' (VH1's 'Adult Alternative' program at the time) we can definitely see the tension between the band members show.

'Darcy's Music' host Moon 'Unit' Zappa (best known for scoring a Top 40 hit with her father Frank Zappa on the song "Valley Girl" in the early 80's) does her best to impart some enthusiasm upon the four Go-Go's present (Kathy Valentine, Gina Schock, Jane Wiedlin and Belinda Carlisle - guitarist Charlotte Caffey was absent due to pregnancy), but all we really get are a couple of forced laughs, responses that sound somewhat insincere and the collective feeling that the four couldn't stand to be around each other.

Despite their comments about how the band was in it for the long haul, the band would finish the promotional duties for this project and once again go their separate ways. Talks of a new album in 1995 stalled due to internal band strife, and shortly thereafter Gina Schock sued guitarist Charlotte Caffey for unpaid songwriting royalties for the song "Beautiful", putting the kabosh on any future Go-Go's project (or so it seemed.)

By 1999 however, the 'schocking litigation' had been resolved and the band announced 'another' reunion - this time as a series of summer tour dates, which they would repeat in 2000 co-headlining with the B-52's. That blossomed into the first Go-Go's album in 15 years 'God Bless The Go-Go's' in 2001, and since then the band has been loosely 'together' performing at least a handful of dates each year. [Note: one might conjecture that the Schock settlement and subsequent annual reunion might be more directly related: allegedly Schock was the only band member gung ho about continuing as the Go-Go's following the 1994 tour, and the litigation was probably partly the result of bitterness at her former bandmates and also out of financial necessity, as she was without any other form of income at the time. It seems that by all five Go-Go's agreeing to perform at least a handful of dates each year, they would insure at least a modest income for each Go-Go annually, a increasingly more important matter as time goes by and the royalties start coming less frequently and side projects are less successful.]

However, in 2010 Belinda Carlisle announced that the upcoming summer tour would be billed as the 'Farewell Tour' and that this would be the last time to see the band. All good things must come to an end, I suppose.

Thank god Gina is getting lots of songwriting royalties from co-writing songs by Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez these days!