The message from the Ouija board was blunt. “It spelt out ‘House Dirty’,” Belinda Carlisle recalls. She and her friend, Pleasant Gehman, “a world-renowned belly-dancer/ghostbuster”, were using it in an early 80s Los Angeles punk clubhouse called Disgraceland. “We said ‘That’s rude’ and the board replied ‘Shut up sluts’.
“It freaked us out. I don’t use Ouija boards now. I had lots of strange experiences. I think they can be a portal for weird things.” By her own admission, Belinda, who turned 67 a few days ago, was a feral teenager, agonising her parents by taking LSD, running away from home, and immersing herself in LA’s nascent punk scene.
She found fame with The Go-Go’s before becoming a global solo star with her 1987 platinum-selling chart-topper Heaven Is A Place On Earth. Back then Belinda was fuelled by Oasis-levels of alcohol and cocaine. She’s a different woman now. Sober for 20 years, she meditates daily and has found her earthly heaven in Mexico City. “I will probably live here for the rest of my life,” she tells me. She and Morgan Mason, her film producer husband of 39 years, moved to the Mexican capital in 2020. “We love the people, the culture, the art, the food…it’s vibrant, it’s exciting. There’s so much history. The mixture of paganism and Catholicism is unique. The smells, the sunshine…it reminds me of my childhood.”
Belinda grew up in Thousand Oaks, Greater LA, with a stepdad who drank his wages and a mother hooked on lithium. “We were among the poorest of the poor – we ate oatmeal and Bac-O-Bit sandwiches for dinner,” she says. At school, kids called her “Belimpa” and mocked her for having only one outfit.
Born in Hollywood, the eldest of seven, Carlisle was five when her carpenter father left. Her ultra-religious mother remarried an older petrol station attendant with an alcohol problem. Music was her escape hatch. “Californian radio was amazing then,” she buzzes. “Every day after school I’d go to my best friend’s house and lay in front of the speakers, singing along to all these incredible songs on 93 KHJ and KRLA. Every summer, we’d go to Zuma Beach, it was adjacent to Malibu but not developed; there were no shops, just a lifeguard and a smokestack.
I was there all the time It was like living in a movie. I remember listening to Wolfman Jack on the radio for the first time. And my babysitter took us to Santa Monica pier where we’d see incredible surf artists – including the Beach Boys who are part of my DNA. I tried to surf, it didn’t work with me.” Later she recorded with Beach Boys genius Brian Wilson, singing backing vocals on two of his solo albums. He returned the favour and sang backing on her song California – “one of the most memorable days of my life, watching him work as he layered his vocals.”
Belinda’s new album, Once Upon A Time In California, is her homage to the music of her childhood. The covers include Marmalade’s Reflections Of My Life and the Hollies’ The Air That I Breathe. It opens with Bacharach and David’s Anyone Who Had A Heart which has the attack of Cilla Black’s version.
“I grew up with Dionne Warwick’s version but Cilla’s is full-on from the first note. I tried to keep the integrity of each song. I wanted to cover Holiday by the Bee Gees but that was impossible and Split Enz’s songs were too complicated, chord-wise and structure-wise.”
All very different to the sounds of her adolescent rebellion. Inspired by the Sex Pistols and The Clash she became Dottie Danger, the drummer in the Germs. “I had no musical training. I just got behind the kit and beat the hell out of it.” Her singing with The Go-Go’s was more impressive. They were the first multi-platinum-selling all-female band to play their own instruments and write their own hits, including Our Lips Are Sealed.
Their 1981 debut album Beauty And The Beat topped the US charts. The Go-Go’s were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 2021 – the same year as the Foo Fighters. Belinda and Foo-Fighters/Nirvana guitarist Pat Smear both started in The Germs. “We joked about that. Who would have thought that two teenagers from an obscure punk band would be inducted at the same time? I’m lucky to have been a part of that scene in 1976 and ’77. Without that, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you now. The industry took over eventually, but there was an innocence about punk then. It was such fun.”
Carlisle went solo in 1985, clocking up a dozen top 10 hits and enjoying success all over again. “I enjoyed it more than the first time around, I was in self-sabotage mode the first time. When I went solo, a famous manager told me I’d be huge if I ‘showed more tit’ and sang songs like Stick It In Me. That’s not me at all.” Her 1987 album Heaven On Earth sold a million copies in Britain. The follow-up went platinum too. She had 14 UK Top 30 singles.
Belinda met husband Morgan, 70 and the son of Yorkshire-born Hollywood star James, at a party in 1984. They moved in together after their first date and married in April 1986 after “eloping” to Lake Taha. It’s their ruby anniversary next year. Belinda says he’s a saint for putting up with her contrary nature. Their adult son, James, 33, lives in LA “just a three-hour flight away”.
The family moved to Fréjus, southern France, in 1994, and then to Bangkok in 2016, gleefully immersing themselves in new cultures. Belinda started recording her new album in 2017, finishing it after the pandemic. During those dark days, she took art classes. She still paints. She also gets up every morning at 3:40am to chant and meditate. “It changes your perception of things, it contributes to my well-being my happiness, I never miss a day. I re-read The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle every year, and right now I’m reading another of his books, Stillness Speaks. My practice is daily and it’s pretty strong; I’m much better at it than I used to be.” Buddhist Belinda does yoga and Pilates too, and takes Spanish lessons three times a week – “My progress is slow but I’m getting there. I’m using quite complex sentences now.”
She loves comedy – “Ricky Gervais, Dave Chappelle, Larry David…I like my comedy politically incorrect” – but despairs of politics and social media. “I don’t think social media has done society any favours. Instagram was one of my favourites but even that has got ugly; it’s gone the way of Facebook and Twitter. I don’t want to see nasty reels.” Belinda quit her decades-long addiction to cocaine and booze in 2005. At its height, Maurice Gibb had to pull her aside at the Grammys to tell her wipe her nose. She once admitted: “I can’t believe I’m not dead. I should look like the Phantom of the Opera with just two holes in the front of my face.”
The Go-Go’s were “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll without the sex,” she says. “We sometimes got our roadie to go out and invite guys backstage and when they did, we’d hide. We used to trash hotel rooms and then tidy them up because we felt bad about it.” The band reunited again this year to play Coachella in April and the Cruel World Festival in May, but currently have no future plans. Belinda’s UK tour starts next month. “After that I do my world travel – a trip to southeastern Turkey and Armenia and Mount Ararat then go back to work in December. Next year, I want to slow down a little. “I’ve ticked all my boxes. I have my animal charity, the Animal-People Alliance, which I co-founded in 2014, and we’re opening a donkey sanctuary in Mexico.” All proceeds from her belated birthday party at London’s Vauxhall Tavern next Thursday will go to the charity.
“I think I’ve achieved everything I’ve ever wanted to achieve but at the same time I’ve always kinda winged it,” she laughs. “I still feel punk. I was born that way. I’ll always be a contrarian.”
*Belinda Carlisle’s new album Sometime In California is released on Friday [Aug 29]. She tours the UK from September 5.