Gina Schock is perhaps best known for being the drummer and one of the songwriters of The Go-Go’s, arguably the most successful all-female group in the history of rock music, with enduring hit songs including “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “We Got The Beat” and “Vacation.” She and the band faced overwhelming odds and relentless sexism in an industry that hadn’t quite accepted that women can rock. Through force of will and hard work, The Go-Go’s overcome these obstacles and made their indelible mark on music.
In 2021 Schock and The Go-Go’s took their place amongst other rock legends and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And in the same year Schock also published her book Made In Hollywood (2021), documenting her personal account of the band and its history. And so it was with great anticipation that I interviewed Schock to further clarify how she was able to achieve success against such long odds. How did she have the temerity and the tenacity to see her dreams through?
But our conversation took an unexpected turn when Schock delved into how she actually retreated from the spotlight and from her career several years earlier to take care of her parents, John Conrad Schock and Helen June Schock, as they both suffered from Alzheimer’s. As Schock spoke, it became clear that her choice – to drop everything for her family – was actually following a family tradition. Over 60 years ago, Schock’s father, who was an aspiring professional baseball player, decided to give up his dream career to take care of his wife and provide for their family. And in our conversation, we explored how Schock’s world view, work ethic and passion for putting family first was shaped by her parents, particularly her father.
Schock’s father was an athlete who dedicated the early part of his life to baseball. According to Schock, her father was drafted by the Cleveland baseball team. “My father was very athletic. He was a very physical guy…,” Schock told me. “And he gravitated toward baseball. He loved baseball.”
And yet while in Florida during spring training, John Schock’s priorities changed on a dime. He recognized that baseball was not paying well. He had recently married Schock’s mother and realized that he needed to earn more money to support his family. “I remember my mom saying that they were so poor that they were picking oranges off the trees every day … They didn’t have much money … baseball didn’t pay anything…,” Schock recalled. “So, he gave up baseball, came back to Baltimore and got a job.”
Schock’s parents bought a house in Baltimore in 1945, and her father worked on the docks. Schock did not feel like her father experienced a sense of loss. Rather, she observed him throwing himself into family life and work. This included personally building a vacation home for the family in Annapolis on the Chesapeake Bay. “My dad would come home … he’d go out and gradually start working again. He’d be building something … down the shore building furniture,” Schock described. “You know, and then the thing was, at five-thirty every day, we all sat down at the table. That’s where we all met, no matter what was going on. That was it … It was always about family and work.”
Schock felt that her father’s work ethic came with a healthy sense of confidence in his ability to achieve difficult tasks. “Whatever my father applied himself to, he could do well,” Schock explained. “My mom said the first time they went skiing…‘Your father put skis on, went flying down the hill.’ … I mean, he was fearless.”
That example loomed large in Schock’s life. She felt that anything was possible if she was willing to put in the work. And soon Schock’s own impossible dream was formed. After seeing Led Zeppelin play a concert when she was 11, she knew she wanted to be a rocker. “From that moment on, my 11-year-old mind believed — fully believed that I could do that and that I had to do it,” Schock said. “I’ve got to make my mark in music … My parents always made me believe that anything was possible. And if I focused and I worked hard enough for that, that I could accomplish it. That was always ingrained in me growing up.”
And so Schock decided to take her shot by moving from Baltimore to Los Angeles to pursue her dream. “When I drove to Los Angeles, in my dad’s pickup truck, with everything I own in that pickup truck, I really was on a mission. And I wasn’t going to let anything stop me,” Schock described.
When we spoke, Schock reflected on the first time she saw The Go-Go’s perform. She saw their potential and sought to apply her family’s work ethic to the band. “The first time I saw them play, I thought, ‘Wow, they are a raggedy bunch, but they have something’ … I felt like if I could be a part of this,” she said. “It was just a matter of practicing … My dad would always say practice makes perfect. …We were a gang of girls having a great time together. And guess what? While we’re having a great time, we’re getting better at what we do.”
During her time with The Go-Go’s, Schock always remained in close touch with her parents. “I talked to them … just about every day of my life … They were my best friends. So, I talked to them about everything that was going on, especially the band because that was my life,” Schock recalled. “I always called my mom and dad up and asked their opinion on everything … Their guidance never failed me.”
In 1985, The Go-Go’s broke up. Schock eventually began a career songwriting for artists such as Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez. She was still passionate about music and was looking forward to this new phase in her career. “Music was my life. That’s all I thought about, all I dreamed about, all I wanted,” she said. “I felt like I didn’t have a choice. It chose me. I didn’t choose it.”
However, at the same time, Schock started to notice changes in her parents. Both eventually developed Alzheimer’s Disease, and her father struggled with prostate cancer. “I was starting to see things changing … When I would talk to my mom … we stopped talking as much as we normally do. And I knew that that wasn’t normal,” Schock explained. “And when I would go back … I started to see, the house wasn’t being taken care of in the way that it should … My mom wasn’t putting her makeup on as perfectly as she always had … Things started changing.”
And as their functioning decline, Schock found herself in a similar position that her father was in decades ago when he realized that his family needed him. And like her father, Schock put her family first and stepped away from the career that she loved so much. She brought her parents out to her home in San Francisco, and cared for them full time. “I just sort of stopped everything and focused on my parents,” Schock explained.
Initially, she and her parents were able to establish a routine in which they would regularly go out to restaurants together. And then Schock noticed that her mother started speaking less. She recalled the last six months before her mother died. “Walking started declining… and then my mother just wasn’t talking,” she described. “I remember one day I handed her something to read. And she looked at the book and then she looked up to me and she shook her head. She couldn’t read anymore. So, I read it for her.”
Schock’s mother was aware that her cognitive and physical functioning was declining and Schock tried to assuage her fears. “I remember lying in bed with my mother one time,” Schock recalled. “She knew things were changing now. And I said, ‘Mom, you know, we’re all gonna die. But I can promise you that I’ll be with you. I’ll be with you to the end. I’ll be there. You’ll never be alone.’ … And that was something that I could give.”
By the time Schock’s mother died in 2018, her father’s dementia had worsened to the point that he wasn’t aware that his wife had died. When Schock’s father would ask about her mother, Shock and her partner, Wendell Goodman, would tell him that she was visiting Schock’s aunt. “Dementia is what kept him alive. In the last three years of his life … If he remembered that the love of his life had died, I think he would have died of a broken heart,” Goodman explained. “He’d say, ‘Where’s my June? Where’s my babygirl?’ We would always say … ‘She stayed at Mae’s house. Your sister Mae’s house…’ According to Goodman, Schock’s father would always respond, “Well, good. Those two are together … I don’t have to worry about a thing.”
Like many adult children with parents who suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease, the stress was tremendous for Schock. “During that period of time, I was drinking a lot … a bottle of wine every day probably,” Schock described. “It’s just the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in my entire life … How am I going to handle this? What am I going to do? How am I going to be able to live without them, without speaking to them every day?”
Ultimately, Schock is proud that she was able to carry on the family tradition of putting family first. “I feel really good about bringing them out and taking care of them and being able to see them every day,” Schock said. “And they died in my home — both of them did.
“And that’s the way it should be.”
Photos provided by Gina Schock, used with permission
