Interview: Suzi Quatro

Originally published on the now retired music and culture site heltersmelter.com in 2011

Suzi Quatro was just five and a half years old the first time she fell in love with Rock n Roll. “ I saw Elvis on American TV and he was doing ‘Don’t be Cruel’, and my sister was screaming and I was looking at her like she was crazy”. Crazy or not, something clicked for Quatro and she knew she had found the thing that would drive her for the rest of her life. “That was it. I was always going to be an entertainer. End of story”. Suzi feels like there was never any other choice for her, and truth be told I have to agree. You just can’t imagine her doing anything but that wide legged bass strut, shag haircut flying in a skintight leather jumpsuit and singing at the top of her lungs. “There were no other women doing it” she says “But I had a need to do it, and I wanted to do it. For all the right reasons. So I set about learning my craft”.

I’m talking to Suzi in the leadup to her 2011 Australian tour, to promote her latest album In The Spotlight. For this album she is working with Mike Chapman again, the man behind some of her most well known tracks including Can the Can, 48 Crash, and Devil Gate Drive. As soon as I mention the collaboration, her voice lifts a notch and she becomes noticeably animated. “I’m really excited about it” she says “It feels like a rebirth for me”. She last worked with Chapman for her 2006 album Back to the Drive, a highly autobiographical album that led Quatro through the process of telling her life story and featured ex-husband Len Tuckey on guitar as well as a duet with her daughter Laura. She followed this with writing her autobiography ‘Unzipped’ and after exorcising those personal demons, she was ready to come back to her roots and make a rock n roll album. “I walked through my life in song and words” she says, “and now I’ve come back to the beginning”.

I ask her whether her professional relationship with Chapman has changed now that she has so much performing and writing experience behind her. “We’ve always worked together” she says, emphasising that the relationship is one of collaboration rather than direction. “When we did this last album he said to me ‘Oh your voice is so much stronger now…it’s even better because it has this depth to it’, and a lot of people have actually said that to me when they’ve heard me sing on this latest album”. Indeed, Quatro seems to have gone back to her 70’s roots for this album but there’s an added power to her voice that is the product of having looked after it carefully and valued it as one of her most important assets “You know some people, if they don’t use their voice properly it gets worse over time, but I have always looked after mine” she says.

Quatro has a well deserved reputation for being a dynamic live performer who plays off the energy of her audience. I ask her about how she harnesses that energy to work in the studio, and she says “It’s a different animal, you know, it’s like the difference between doing theatre and TV acting. The main thing in the studio is to get the feel down for the tracks, and I am a real stickler for old fashioned recording. I stay in the studio with the musicians and really work with them”. When the tracks are done, she takes them out on the road and “that’s when they get a little bit of a different energy” with Quatro and her band responding to and feeding off the energy of the live audience.

Energy seems to be the key to Quatro’s performance, and I mention that I witnessed how well she conveys that energy to the audience at the Enmore Theatre show for her last tour. “Oh that was a great show” she enthuses, “One of the best on the whole tour…there was a great feeling in the audience that night”. Quatro has indeed toured extensively with several international tours under her belt, and I wonder if the touring lifestyle can get a bit demanding. Asking her how she keeps her energy on the road she laughs and says “I have always been blessed, or should I say cursed with a lot of energy – I used to drive my mother mad”. While she looks after herself on tour, jogs every day to keep fit, and makes sure to warm up before she sings to protect her voice, it’s the rocknroll dynamo within that keeps her going night after night “When I get out on that stage I just give it 300%” she says. “I really believe in giving it your all”.

One reason I was particularly excited to do this interview was that being a female bass player myself, it was Suzi who made it all possible. There has become a fairly well established tradition of women in bands picking up the bass now, but at the time she entered the scene there were no women playing rock n roll. Almost half a century after Suzi started playing there are still very few who wield the bass the way she does, holding her own as a frontperson rather than as part of a supportive rhythm section. I ask her what it was like the first time she picked up the bass, and why she chose it as her instrument. “Somebody had to play the bass” she says, referring to her position in a very musical family that spawned her first band The Pleasure Seekers. Quatro recalls being given a Fender Precision bass to play, “and I strapped it on, and I just felt at home”. It’s a powerful feeling that I know well myself, and it’s amazing to hear someone like Suzi voice such a similar experience. “You know a lot of musicians that I have worked with will say that I feel like a bass player” she says, and it’s clear that she has a deep bond with the instrument. “I’m a bass player. I’m not a failed guitarist, I’m a bass player”. When I ask her whether she finds it challenging to sing and play the bass, she laughs and says “You know, people ask me that, but I don’t find it hard”, and suggests that it may be due to her her experience in playing piano and percussion instruments that demand that she be able to do two things at once. “There’s only one song I had to practice, She’s In Love With You, because it’s got a real machine gun bass line and the vocal is kind of behind the beat, but that’s the only one in my whole career that I’ve had to practice playing and singing at the same time”.

Suzi not only opened the door for women to play lead bass, she influenced an entire generation of female musicians by showing them that they can also do what was always thought of as just being available to the boys. It’s well documented that Joan Jett is heavily influenced by Quatro and her music, and when I mention this she agrees emphatically. “I’m really proud of Joan. She came from the Suzi Quatro school of rock n roll, she was one of my graduates”. I ask what it was like to watch Jett attain her own fame and success playing in the Runaways and in her solo career and she replies “She’s done very very well for herself, and I’ve told her that. I’ve told her I love I Love Rock N Roll”. Quatro speaks highly of Jett’s evolution from a young girl to an accomplished performer who’s doing “..very much her own thing. I mean, Joan was a fan way way way back before she started her band and I would always see her in the front row, or in the hallway or the lobby of the hotel…..When you’re that much of a fan of somebody, you’ve got to go out and put it into practice”.

Despite her influential status, Quatro has always maintained that for her there is no link between music and politics. “That’s not why I’m out there” she says, stating that she doesn’t see her music as a vehicle for her opinions, but a way to entertain people and make them have a good time. “I’m a very opinionated person, and you know, I’ve travelled the world and I have my own ideas about politics and religion and everything which I will debate with you until the sun comes up, but that’s not what my music is for… unless of course I feel like something is really important”. I suggest to Quatro that her groundbreaking entry into the music scene as a woman playing tough rock n roll at a time when no-one else was doing it is a political act in itself that has led to her being viewed as a feminist icon or role model, and she says that while she is very proud of being the first woman to get out there and do it, gender wasn’t the motivating force. “You know, you wonder sometimes, why did it fall to me? I mean I had no role models” she says, but for her it was not so much about gender, but rather about the desire to play and a very strong self belief, stating “I never have, and I never will, feel like I can’t do exactly what I want”. She sees herself as a musician and entertainer first and foremost, rather than as a gendered person and reflects that “If I’d had any kind of sexual attitude about it or if it had been a gimmick, it wouldn’t have stood the test of time like it has”.

Quatro’s long career has been documented in her autobiography Unzipped, a deeply personal narrative that spans the early days of her musical awakening right through to her current status as the first lady of rock. I ask her if it was challenging to write such a personal account of her life, and she replies “I don’t really know any other way of talking you know, I’m a very upfront person”. Friends of Quatro’s who have read the book have commented to her that “it’s like I’m talking to them… everything right down to the punctuation is the way I talk”. Writing the book was an intense process that forced her to relive some painful moments, but also allowed her to relive the good experiences and reflect on how she has emerged from the journey of her life so far. “I wanted the book to be very upfront, you know that’s the kind of person I am and that’s the kind of life I’ve had…. It was a real, real good experience, and I enjoyed doing it”. As the book details not just her life, but the life she shares with her ex-husband, children, and friends I ask her what the response has been from those who were featured in the book. Quatro showed the book to her ex-husband and her children before she published it to make sure they knew and were comfortable with what was in it, and was also conscious of the way she wrote it. She wanted it to be real, and that meant including the bad along with the good, but she was careful in the way she portrayed the events of her life. “If you’ve read the book you’ll know I didn’t trash anybody” she says. “I was honest, but I didn’t trash anybody”.

Her career has also been documented personally in what Quatro jokingly calls her ‘ego room’, which fans of her YouTube channel will have seen filled with Suzi memorabilia. “Ah, the ego room!” she laughs “There’s so much in there”. I ask her what her most treasured possession in the room is, and what the story is behind it, and she searches her mind for a few moments to try and think of the one thing that means the most to her before answering “Probably my gold record. That’s when I knew I had made it”. Thinking about the the plethora of tour posters, framed photos, records and assorted memorabilia in her collection, I suggest that the music world has changed dramatically since Quatro began her career, especially with the rise of the Internet and music downloads. I ask her how she feels about the change, and she replies “I think it’s great, it’s made it very accessible to people”. A negative aspect of downloadable music in her view is that it is possible for artists to get ripped off by people who are downloading everything for free, but she comments that “the industry has now caught on to that, which is great”. Quatro also discusses the cultural shifts that have taken place with the dominance of the Internet, saying “I think that reality TV needs to be taken back a notch … we need to come back to something a bit more balanced”, and suggests that “women should try to dress with a few more clothes on, it’s become a bit too soft porn”. While Quatro definitely has a sexy image, she sees a real difference between herself and the highly sexualised imagery adopted by many of today’s performers, stating “I wore the jumpsuit, but I wasn’t showing anything! I still had clothes on”.


The jumpsuit is very much a part of the Suzi Quatro iconography, and when I ask her if she will ever stop wearing it she answers quickly “No!”. It’s become too much a part of what she does now, representing the part of her that will always be Little Suzi from Detroit who took the world by storm, a wild one clad in leather when all the other girls were trying to be pretty and feminine. It’s part of her pre-gig ritual now, a way of donning her onstage persona. “You know, I put my photographs up and I hang the jumpsuit up, I hang up the outfit for the second half of the show, I put on my vocal warmup tape”, laughing that “it’s a whole process! By the time I do all that, I’m ready”. “Ready to go out and kick arse!” I add, and she laughs and responds “Absolutely!”