Books That Changed My Life.
The comedian revisits Pamela Des Barres’ iconic groupie memoir, I’m With The Band, and shares her unique reading.
LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, September 3, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — During a recent installment of Books That Changed My Life, comedian Margaret Cho—joined by her lovable dog—sits down with host Chris “Bulldog” Collins to champion Pamela Des Barres’s celebrated memoir I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie. Cho first discovered the book as a teen while working at her parents’ San Francisco bookstore; she says it taught her that “longing and bubbling over with life is a lifestyle.”
For Cho, this selection carries personal weight. Des Barres has been a friend of Cho’s for years and previously served as her editor. Yet Cho contends the book has suffered from its own reputation. Where early audiences focused on the celebrity names (Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Marlon Brando), Cho returns to it as a historical document of the 1960s and a depiction of a young woman “so in love with life.”
The discussion traces how that influence took hold. Cho grew up at Paperback Traffic, the gay bookstore her Korean immigrant parents opened on Polk Street in 1978, when she was nine. An introverted child, she read constantly. I’m With the Band, she notes, was “probably the first adult book that I read,” and it planted the fantasy that eventually led her to backstages of her own—starting with Fishbone at 17, later Chris Isaak, whom she briefly dated after meeting him following a concert.
Cho interprets Des Barres’s diary entries—the Paul McCartney rituals, the sudden shifts between Chris Hillman infatuation and Chris Hillman analysis—as an organic discovery of what modern gurus call “manifesting.”
That perspective opens onto her own spiritual routine. Cho starts every morning by writing a joke, then sits for an hour of silent meditation. She appreciates the Muslim call to prayer for the structure it imposes—”five times a day you’ve got to stop and talk to God”—and views the rock concert as a comparable space for transcendence. When asked at the episode’s end how I’m With the Band changed her life, she delivers the line that shapes the entire program: “Rock and roll is a religion, and she showed me the way to live.”
The episode covers the contrast between comedy and music audiences, a backstage anecdote from GWAR’s Bonnaroo set involving Altoids and silicone costumes, the moment Des Barres refused Elvis Presley, and, in a memorable digression, the guidelines and regulations of Cho’s hypothetical cult movement, the “CHOsen.”
Cho wraps up the episode by talking about her current stand-up tour, Choligarchy, which she will record as a special in Palm Springs on November 7, and her role in Gregg Araki’s upcoming film I Want Your Sex, starring alongside Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde.
View the full conversation HERE.
ABOUT BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE:
“Books That Changed My Life,” hosted by bestselling author Chris Collins, is a YouTube series that investigates how great books transform us in deep and surprising ways. Every episode brings in a special guest to discuss a book that shaped or inspired them, sparking rich conversations and revealing raw personal stories.
Recent guests include actor and comedian Patton Oswalt, soap opera icon Susan Lucci, former covert CIA officer Andrew Bustamante, actress and reality star Lisa Rinna, Dancing With the Stars pro Jenna Johnson, Good Morning America legend Joan Lunden, and television icon Kelsey Grammer.
Press Contact: Ryan Oshinsky
Syndicate X
+1 650-773-8983
email us here
Visit us on social media:
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube
TikTok
X
Margaret Cho on “I’m With the Band”:
