Belinda carlisle

The last time Classic Pop spoke to Belinda Carlisle she was enjoying life away from the typical rock star haunts. Based out in Bangkok, she’d just released Wilder Shores, an album of Sikh chants inspired by her love of yoga. Since then she’s returned to the western hemisphere – Mexico City to be exact – and to western music, with her first mainstream pop release since the A Woman & A Man album in 1996. Now she reveals how a chance meeting prompted her return, working with songwriting icon Diane Warren, and why she’ll always be a punk at heart.

It’s hard to believe that it’s more than a quarter of a century since your last pop album. Why the long gap?

I never thought I’d be doing a pop record again. I don’t want to get into it but I’ve had issues that have put a big gap between projects. After A Woman & A Man there was a 11-year gap and then came Voila, the French album and, of course, Wilder Shores – that was 2017. After Voila I only wanted to do things that I felt I really loved. I’m really fussy with pop music. I’ve done it. I’ve worked with the best writers in the world and just couldn’t ever see that happening again. And I know a lot of fans were really bummed out because of that. I was sort of semi-retired. Then my son ran into Diane Warren...

The hugely-successful songwriter who has bestowed hits on well, virtually everyone...?

Yes. He met her at a coffee shop. She said, “What is your mom doing?” And he said to me, “Call her”. So I did and she said, “What are you doing?

You should be singing. Get down to the studio right now. I have some hits for you!” I was like, “Do I really want to open that door?”, but I thought I can’t say no because it’s Diane. When she played me these songs, I was like, “Oh my God!” It was like such a huge gift.

So it was all down to that chance meeting?

Yes. That’s why the EP is called Kismet. The whole thing is very strange – it’s like the universe is saying, “You’re not meant to retire right now.”

How does Diane Warren work? We imagine an artist going into a Diane Warren ‘song boutique’ and her taking something off the peg for you to try on. Or does she tailor the song to each artist?

I met Diane when she wrote I Get Weak and she had this tiny little office in a building on Sunset Boulevard full of cassette tapes, a piano and a guitar. Now she owns that building and there’s a studio on every floor. This is her life. She is very much hands on. It’s not like a fact