[3] A high school acquaintance, Victor Hayden, introduced Des Barres to his cousin Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, a musician and friend of Frank Zappa.

Van Vliet, in turn, introduced her to Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, which drew her to the rock music scene on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.

She started to spend her time with the Byrds and other bands, and when she graduated from high school in 1966, she took various jobs that would allow her to live near the Sunset Strip and take part in the rock music scene.

[5] The GTOs had only one performance under that name along with the Mothers of Invention, Alice Cooper, Wild Man Fischer and Easy Chair at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, on December 6–7, 1968.

During the 1970s, Des Barres pursued a career as an actress, appearing in movies (including Zappa's 200 Motels), doing commercials, and playing a recurring role on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow throughout 1974.

Today, Pamela Des Barres continues to author books, contribute to others' works as an editor and consultant, and pen articles for online and print publications.

She writes a regular column for Please Kill Me,[13] in which she confessed that she once kissed murderer and former Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil in Golden Gate Park during his pre-Manson days.