Belinda Carlisle On Finding ‘Kismet’ Ahead Of Summer Tour

Singer Belinda Carlisle was initially ready to wind down professionally from music—her last studio album was released in 2017, and her band the Go-Go’s were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame four years later. But then a chance encounter at a Los Angeles coffee shop almost two years ago between her adult son Duke and an old friend of hers, the legendary hit songwriter Diane Warren, changed Carlisle’s plans.

“She said, ‘What is your mom doing? Let’s call her,’” Carlisle recalls of Warren’s conversation with Duke. “So they FaceTimed me. She said, ‘What are you doing? Get down into the studio right now, because I have some songs for you.’ And I thought, ‘Well, that’s a big commitment. Do I really wanna open that door?’ But Diane being Diane Warren, it would be stupid not to at least go down there as a courtesy. So I went to the studio and I was completely blown away. She played me two songs and I was like, ‘Oh my God, these are amazing! And yes let’s do something!’”

The renewed collaboration with Warren (who wrote the singer’s 1987 hit “I Get Weak”) resulted in Carlisle’s new five-song recording Kismet, which comes out Friday ahead of her Decades tour beginning this July. “That’s why the EP is called Kismet,” says Carlisle, “because it was like a series of weird coincidences and almost sort of like a divine intervention that came in and said, ‘No, you’re not retiring right now. You have some more singing to do.’ So that’s what happened.”

A sleek-sounding pop record, Kismet is the first English-language recording for Carlisle since 1996, with all its songs written by Warren. Issued ahead of Kismet‘s release was the first single, the romantic and yearning “Big Big Love.” As Carlisle recalls, the demo version of the song reminded her of Don Henley’s 1984 hit “The Boys of Summer” and she thought it would follow a similar stylistic vein. “But when we started recording it, it sort of kind taken on a life of its own. It became almost like a song that would be like a continuation, let’s say, of “Runaway Horses” [from my 1989 album of the same name] or whatever. It’s full-on. It was challenging to sing, that’s for sure.

“it was really fun to put together,” she continues, “as were all the tracks. I love singing lead vocals and I also love coming up with background vocal parts. The creative process was just joyful, and I do think it shows in the recording of the song and the vocals. I’m really, really happy with it. It sounds like me, but it sounds super modern.”

Then there is “I Couldn’t Do That to Me,” a dramatic, sweeping track that showcases a very mesmerizing performance by Carlisle. “It was emotional for me to sing that song, too. I love hearing ballads. There haven’t been a whole lot of ballads that have my way that I’ve really resonated with, but that one I could. I love that song, and I think it’s my second favorite song of the EP.”

Carlisle says the cinematic-sounding track “Sanity,” with its soul-searching lyrics, has a sort of punk element. “There’s something about the chorus. First of all, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever sung. It reminds me of something classical, too, at the same time…It’s a really weird song and I love it for that. We went for weird on that song, and I think we achieved it.”

As for whether Kismet is a harbinger for a potential new full-length solo record, Carlisle is noncommittal at the moment. “I haven’t planned on it or I haven’t thought about it. I love the creative process, so who knows? When we were finished, Diane said,’We should’ve done an album.’ And it’s like we should have, but there was really no time. Who knows? I can never say never. All I know is that I really love working with [producer] Mathia-Mathithiahu Gavriel and Diane, and we just had a blast. So that’s what it’s about. It’s fun.”

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Carlisle’s reunion with Warren also extended to a new Warren-penned song, “Gonna Be You” from the recent movie 80 for Brady; the track features Carlisle, Dolly Parton, Gloria Estefan, Cyndi Lauper and Deborah Harry. ‘I love the song,” says Carlisle, “and I love the idea of singing with those other women. Everybody did their part separately, and everybody did the video separately with the miracle of green screen. Hopefully, there’ll be something will come along that will allow all of us to sing together in the same room.”

Kismet and “Gonna Be You” come ahead of the singer’s upcoming Decades tour in the U.S., spotlighting her 35 years as a solo artist. Carlisle first made her mark as a founding member of the pioneering Go-Go’s, who achieved massive success during the first half of the 1980s with such hits as “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “We Got the Beat“ and “Vacation.” Her solo career began in 1986 with her debut album Belinda, following the Go-Go’s first breakup; the record yielded the Top 10 smash single “Mad About You.”

“I knew I had the opportunity and I didn’t know how to do anything else,” Carlisle recalls about going out on her own at the time. “It’s like, ‘Okay, well, I’ll just do this and we’ll see what happens.’ But then after I finished the [Belinda] album, I was like, ‘What have I done?’ And especially going out on stage for the time on my own, it was terrifying. It took a long time for me to get used to that. I did some solo dates on my own, and then I supported Robert Palmer on a big tour of the U.S.

“But I think especially with the Heaven on Earth album, my confidence grew. I think there was always a little bit of that impostor syndrome up through even the later solo albums—up until about 20 years ago when it’s like,” Oh, this is maybe what I’m meant to be doing in life, is singing” But it took a long time for me to get to that point where I actually felt like this is what I’m meant to be doing.”

Heaven on Earth, the singer’s commercial breakthrough from 1987, contained three Top 10 singles: “Circle in the Sand,” “I Get Weak,” and the number one smash “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,” written by producer Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley. “[Rick and I met] and he understood me and I understood what he was going for. It was an amazing collaboration. When Ellen Shipley and Rick played “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” on acoustic piano, I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ I knew it could be a life-changing song and album. When it exploded, I wasn’t surprised [it became a hit]. It wasn’t like I expected it, but I knew it was special when I was recording it. That song really did change my life completely. It changed everything for me.”

Heaven on Earth‘s follow-up album, Runaway Horses, delivered another hit in “Leave a Light On,” but it didn’t eclipse its predecessor’s blockbuster success. “It was a big everywhere except for America,” says Carlisle. “Also at that time, there were a lot of internal changes at the record company. I’ve been through that so many times where you make a really good album and then all of a sudden the president of the company leaves and then…And then you’re stuck with someone who doesn’t really care about it or has no interest in promoting it.”

Carlisle’s last two studio abums went for something quite eclectic, beginning with her 2007’s Voila, a collection of classic French chansons sung in that language. At the time, the singer lived in France for 24 years and listened to a lot of French radio. “French pop is amazing. So I thought, ‘Well, I felt like I had a little bit of a chanteuse.’ It was at a time in my career when my album, [1996’s] A Woman and a Man, did not do well anywhere. I had a lot of problems on a personal level, and I was kind of trying to find my way. I got sober and then I just put all of my attention, my heart and my soul into making that French album. Actually, that album really helped me stay sober in my early days, and that’s why one of the reasons why it’s so dear to me.” Meanwhile, 2017’s Wilder Shores featured Sanskrit chants in which Carlisle cast mantras in a pop song format. “Everybody went, ‘What is this?’ I chant every day, it’s a big part of my life and I know it’s power. It was something that I really wanted to do, and so I did it. Nobody understood what I was doing.”

As a solo artist, Carlisle has been a familiar presence as a live performer, particularly on the West Coast and especially in the U.K. and Ireland; this upcoming Decades tour will also include some East Coast dates. Today she marvels at the length of her career as a member of the Go-Go’s and a solo artist now going on about 45 years; she herself couldn’t have imagined that she would still be singing since those late ‘70s L.A. punk days.

“I still can’t believe it. honestly. I think I mentioned earlier: I’ve always had a little bit of the impostor syndrome until I got sober, which was 18 years ago. And then I realized, ‘Wow, this is what I’m meant to be doing in life.’ I was supposed to kind of retire this year, and it was like the universe saying, ‘No, you’re not meant to…not yet.’ And then Diane gave me the most amazing songs. Diane could have easily given these songs to artists who were 40 years younger and had a big hit with them. So the fact that she gave them to me was such an amazing, generous gift. I know I did good work on this [EP] and if I don’t do anything else, I’m really quite happy with this. This is an amazing, amazing gift given to me, and that’s how I look at it anyway.”