Suzi Quatro has always been a performing musician. Born in Michigan, she was in successful bands but got her real career break when super-producer Mickie Most saw her perform live. She flew to England in 1971 and went on to quickly create the monster hit ‘Can The Can’ with songwriters Chinn and Chapman. Two and a half million copies of this song were snapped by an entranced public, catapulting her to the top, where she has stayed. A star was well and truly born.
Having now sold over 55 million records, she featured in the UK charts for 101 weeks between 1973 and 1980! Suzi has never lost the knack for great rock and roll. Suzi has also proved her versatility over the years: ‘Stumblin’ In’ was a duet with Chris Norman that sold a million copies in the US but she has excelled in many other areas too. Acting, writing novels, broadcasting her documentary film ‘Suzi Q’, and presenting her autobiography “Unzipped” Live as a successful one-woman show! She has released albums with her peers and with her son, “No Control” and “The Devil in Me,” and in 2023, “Face to Face” with KT Tunstall.
There are some occasions when the chance to say hello to an artist cannot be ignored. There is no chance that we would not grab a chance to say hello to the wonderful Suzi Quatro; there is, after all, so much to talk about with that wide career to choose from.
We started with the early days in Detroit, where Suzi Quatro was Suzi Soul and she was in a family band called The Pleasure Seekers. We wondered how much of that band was driven by her elder sister Patti and whether it was Patti who got her into music.
Suzi: Patti was the one who suggested we all got into a band, but the whole thing began before that. The whole family is a musical family; there were five kids, four girls and one boy, and we were all trained in various musical instruments. I play, read and write for piano and drums. That’s classical piano and percussion; I also play self-taught bass guitar. My sister Patti reads and writes for piano and plays guitar. I have a sister who plays violin, one who plays harp, and my brother is a wonderful piano player. My dad was a musician all his life. Patti was the one who had the idea for an all-girl band for sure, but everybody was quickly into it. We found two other sisters who lived around the corner, myself and Patti, and another girl whose father played clarinet, and we formed an all-girl band. No one wanted to play bass so it was given to me; it was fate because when I put that on, it felt right.
From memory, Paul McCartney ended up playing bass for The Beatles because none of the others wanted to do it!
Suzi: Yes, but Paul plays with a pick, and I have had this out with Paul! I am a bass player, heart and soul. I don’t use a pick because I didn’t go from guitar to bass. If you think about the instruments I was trained on, piano is a percussive instrument, as is percussion, so I am on that side anyway.
The CV for Suzi is pretty amazing! Over 50 million records were sold. But imagine Suzi was dropping in in around 50 years from now and was picking up a book on rock history. What would she want to read for her entry? Would it be her role as a trailblazer for girls with guitars, would it be the 50 million records plus sold or would it simply be something saying how happy she had been to pursue exactly the lifestyle she wanted?
Suzi: None of those. I would have it read: Suzi Quatro, she was the first, but had no idea that she was being the first. She accepted the fact many years later and she always stayed true to herself.
If you read Suzi’s book, it finishes around the time she went on a trip to Eyypt, and it is really interesting as a chapter as it talks about her visit to one of the pyramids and her belief in reincarnation. Would she like to come back again to rock n’roll all over again, or would she want to tread a different path?
Suzi: We are into more serious territory here. First of all, there is so much left to do. I have been an artist all my life. I have my seventh book coming out soon and there is so much still ongoing. Even though I believe in reincarnation and have known this since I was a very young girl, this was my last time here. I won’t be back. That is probably why, and I have had this feeling all my life without, at first, knowing what I was feeling—that I had to leave a legacy. I had to communicate, create and entertain. That is what I had come back this time for, and that is what I am still doing at 74.
In the book “Unzipped,” Suzi describes the time in Egypt as one where she experienced a strong sense of deja vu.
Suzi: Definitely. Absolutely. And everyone has different beliefs. I said to my husband before we were married, and I have been married now for over 30 years, that I wanted to go to Egypt; it was my dream place and I felt I had a connection, as it is for many people. There is something fascinating about Egypt. The pilot asked me if I wanted to come in for the landing in Cairo and I said yes! So I am in the cockpit and we are coming into Cairo, my dream place to go to and I started to cry. I then said quietly, and I hoped no-one would hear me: ‘I told you I’d be back.’ I instantly put my hands over my mouth, but they were too busy landing to notice or hear. These kinds of things have happened in my life, and I can’t help that.
As a total change of direction, we noticed that Suzi had done the School of Rock with Gene Simmons. Now we love Gene here at Rock the Joint Magazine, as regular readers will know, and we had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of years ago (Naomi interviewed him at Download). What memories can Suzi share with us of her time on that show?
Suzi: My husband actually got a little bit jealous, and it was quite funny; my kids laugh at me. Gene and I got along really well at an intellectual level. We had dinner after the show and we talked for ages on so many subjects. My husband got a bit jealous because I was saying, ‘what a lovely man Gene is, so intelligent…’ But then he met Gene some years later and he told me that he found Gene just the same. But my brain is my erogenous zone; you have to connect with me here or you get nowhere. Of course he is brash and money! But he’s up front about it. (We commented about how he had been to us when we met him, very giving with his time, and kind to Mark’s young son.). He’s a great guy; we talked about so much. I asked him if he remembered that Kiss had supported me on my first tour of the US when I had just had my hits in 1974, and he said, ‘of course I remember all of that.’
Again, referring to “Unzipped,” Suzi wrote that her dream come true was playing in the production of ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ in 1984. Would she have been happy with a career in musical theatre?
Suzi: I am unequivocally an artist, and I do enjoy different styles of music. Maybe if I’d been born at a different time—I was born in 1950—maybe then rock n’roll wouldn’t have called me. I do love acting; I love it all. I love creating. Creation, entertainment and communication are the three key words I hold to. If I can’t do that, then I am dead in the water.
Suzi is definitely not dead in the water; her last album came out in 2023, “Face to Face,” with KT Tunstall. She has adapted herself to a new era of music, the era of streaming. Gene, returning to him, did comment to us that the music business did not sufficiently protect artists from streaming, which hit the business side of music hard.
Suzi: Absolutely, we are at the bottom of the food chain. This is wrong. There are moves to address this now; a lot of bigger acts have come out to say that this is our living. This is what we do; we create music, not a product. It is a livelihood for us. It makes me angry, actually, but it never stops me from doing what I do. They are expecting artists to work for free and it is highly annoying, but it is the world we live in. I will not stop creating because of that, however. I make my money at my gigs; you don’t really make much on the records anymore.
With all the different charts, streaming figures, social media accounts and so forth, how does an artist today quantify if they are being successful?
Suzi: With a combination of the above. My last albums have had amazing reviews; “Face to Face” has had such a great reception. My concerts are selling out; I have just played a rock festival to 85,000 people, and I am getting the best reviews of my life. I think today you judge yourself less on whether you are in the charts and selling records; it’s social media and everything else. I have had a revamp ever since working with my son; he has put me back in touch with me and I don’t know how he did it. I gave birth to him, but he has reborn me; he turned me back to the original Suzi Quatro. Because that is what he grew up with; he saw his mom on stage as Suzi Quatro; that is who I am to him. When he started to work with me, he wouldn’t let me get away with anything.
It is sometimes difficult being the child of performers who are on the road a lot. One of our friends here at the magazine is Shirley King, BB Kings daughter. She commented to us that for a while she turned away from the blues because it took her dad away from her as a child.
Suzi: Well, my son was able to take me back to my beginnings. But I would say that as far as guitar playing goes, BB is my number one. I saw him in Detroit, and what I loved was how he was a blues entertainer, and I am a rock n’roll entertainer. This is where I connect with him; he never just played; he did a show. When I got my passport at first, when I was with The Pleasure Seekers, and you have to put your occupation on mine, it said entertainer. My sisters said, ‘What?’ but I said that is what I am. I am a musician, but I am an entertainer first; that is what the universe screams at me.
And the tour…
Suzi: This is my 60-year celebration tour in the UK. 13th November is the London Palladium; be there or be square! The 15th is York Barbican; not a seat to be had. Cardiff is the 17th, Liverpool Philamonic Hall on the 18th and lastly Leicester on the 20th. I have a solo album coming out next year at some point and I have recorded one track already in Detroit. I have my seventh book about to be published and then my eighth book will be a poetry book, and I am busy, busy! I am honestly at my performing peak, and I know it. I say this because it is how I feel. I am giving the best of my life. I am entertaining, my voice is the best it has been and the reviews I cannot believe. Sixty years in the business!
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Buy tickets for the tour here
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By Mark C Chambers
and Lorraine Foley
