Suzi Quatro told David Hennessy about her new album, 60+ years in music and weeping when she realised who she had inspired names like Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde.
Suzi Quatro is the trailblazing female rocker known for hits like Can the Can and Devil Gate Drive both of which went to number one.
Every female rocker of note who followed- Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde credits her as an inspiration.
Suzi Quatro has sold over 55 million records worldwide.
She is also renowned for her acting career, most notably playing Leather Tuscadero in the iconic show, Happy Days.
Further hits include 48 Crash, Daytona Demon, The Wild One, If You Can Give Me Love, She’s In Love With You, Rock Hard and the US million seller Stumblin’ In.
Earlier this year Suzi released her 18th studio album, Freedom.
The album includes Kick Out the Jams, a cover of the MC5 song, which sees Suzi combine with long time friend, Alice Cooper.
Suzi Quatro took time to chat to the Irish World.
You have just released your latest album Freedom which includes a cover of MC5’s Kick Out the Jams featuring Alice Cooper. You and Alice go back a long way, don’t you?
“Yeah, I think we were about 15.
“He was 17.
“I think that’s when we first met on the music circuit in Detroit.
“I was in a band, he was in a band.
“We met up and it was a very natural friendship from day one and when you watch the video, you can actually see that, you can see the closeness that we share.
“We go back to the 60s.
“Sometimes you just connect with somebody and him and I always connected and we maintained that friendship through the years.
“This track has a little bit of a history, this Kick Out The Jams.
“This is the third Suzi Quatro album done with my son producing, playing guitar and co- writing since we started in 2019 with No Control.
“I always do two covers on every album and he’s been on at me to do this Kick Out The Jams and don’t ask me why (I didn’t want to do it), I don’t have a reason. I love the track.
“I’m from Detroit. Love the band.
“He really wanted to do the track.
“He came to me as we got near the end of Freedom and said, ‘Mom, we need the other cover. I’m only going to say it one last time: Kick Out the Jams, call Alice’.
“And when my little brain I went, ‘Now there’s a reason to do the song’.
“Things like that I have to have a reason, it has to relate to me.
“And when he said, ‘Do it with Alice’ then it became two old friends from Detroit going back to Detroit, standing in front of microphones live and honouring a band that we both knew very well.
“And then it made perfect sense.”
You have had hits like Can the Can and Devil Gate Drive to name just two, did you know what you had with such songs when you were writing them?
“You can.
“When we were recording Can the Can, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.
“Yes, you do know the good ones.
“When I was approving the mixes for Freedom, the album was going to be called Choose Yourself, that’s one of the tracks on the album, for a long time.
“And as I’m listening Freedom just kept coming out and hitting me in the face.
“You can’t get away from the track.
“And the video is what it is, freedom and it’s perfect so in the end I said, ‘Sorry, guys. This is the single and this is the cover and that’s the name of the album too’.
“So yeah, you do kind of know.
“Sometimes things can change as you’re recording.
“One that maybe seems strong as you were recording isn’t so strong when it’s done and vice versa.
“But yeah, you can feel the magic.
“I always know exactly which new songs will go into the show from an album so this one, Freedom and Little Miss Lovely open act Two, they went down a storm.
“Great videos to both, great video to Kick Out The Jams too. Just brilliant video.
“So yeah, you do get a feeling for it absolutely.”
I love the Freedom video, the image is like you driving down the road with a younger you beside you on a motorbike, did you like that visual?
“Oh, I love it.
“In fact the whole album is like me at 75 shaking hands with my younger self.
“The whole album, it’s personal freedom: Nothing left to prove, being comfortable in your skin and every track kind of goes that route.
“That took on that shape as we were writing it.
“Even Choose Yourself so it’s all about owning who you are, owning it.”
That has very much always been your take, hasn’t it? You celebrate your back catalogue but you don’t live in the past..
“Absolutely, I never live in the past.
“I’m just always creating.
“I’m writing for the next album now already.
“I’m a very creative girl.”
You have a funny story about turning down an invitation from Elvis Presley who was such a hero to you but you were just too busy at that time to see ‘the King’..
“I was.
“It was 1974.
“My version of All Shook Up from my first album was in the American charts.
“I was in Memphis and the phone rang in my hotel room and somebody said, ‘Hello, we have somebody who wants to speak with you’.
“And he came on the line.
“I nearly died.
“I’ve been a fan since five and a half.
“And he said, ‘Hello. This is Elvis Presley’.
“I always remember.
“You can tell by the voice.
“And he said, ‘I’ve heard your version of All Shook Up and I think it’s the best since my own and I’d like to invite you to Graceland while you’re in town’.
“And I just went. ‘I’m very busy’.
“But everything happens for a reason.
“I felt his presence my entire life.
“One of his last girlfriends Linda Thompson said he would watch videos of me.
“I didn’t feel anything sexual in that.
“I think he saw something that was like him.
“I was recording my track Singing with Angels, which is written to him as a tribute.
“We were in Nashville.
“James Burton (Elvis’ guitarist) was on it and the original Jordanaires, even Gordon Stoker got out of his hospital bed to come to this session because of the song.
“We were taking a little break and James Burton was outside and I was listening to my new album.
“He said, ‘What you doing?’
“I said, ‘I’m listening to the album that this song is going on’.
“Oh’, he said, ‘Can I hear?’
“I said, ‘Sure’.
“So he went away with my CD player and he came back about 15, 20 minutes later, took the headphones off and he said, ‘You’ve got what Elvis had’.
“Really my mouth had dropped to the floor.
“I’ll carry that with me for the rest of my life.”
Seeing Elvis perform inspired you to go into music yourself, didn’t it?
“Yeah, that was it.
“When I saw him on that TV show, I was five and a half going on six.
“He was doing Don’t Be Cruel.
“The Ed Sullivan Show was a Sunday ritual.
“Every family sat down at eight o’clock and watched The Ed Sullivan Show from beginning to end and he always brought on something for the youngsters at the end.
“He brought on Elvis Presley.
“I’m five and a half, my elder sister is 14 and a half, exactly the right age and she’s screaming and I’m looking at her.
“I’m only a little girl.
“I’m going, ‘What? Why are you screaming?’
“And then I looked at the TV.
“I remember it happening.
“And in my head the little sentence went through my brain, ‘I’m going to do that’.
“And then my dad switched it off.
“He said, ‘Disgusting’.
“And that even cemented it even further, ‘Oh, I’m definitely going to do that’.
“And then the sequel to that particular story was he came in a couple of years later.
“My dad came in from work because he worked General Motors in the daytime and played music at night, and he came in with the 78 in his hand.
“He hung up his coat a little bit in a mood and threw the 78 down on the hall table- Not nasty but just with force.
“And he went, ‘Okay, okay, so the kid can sing’, and it was Love Me Tender.
“Little things like this happened my whole life to me.
“There’s so many tie ups.
“I was in a band Cradle when I was 19 and 20 with my little sister.
“This is the band Mickie Most saw.
“I remember he was there.
“I went straight into Going to a Party at the County Jail, offered me a solo contract.
“Unbelievable.
“I don’t think I was supposed to meet him.”
You mentioned Mickie Most there. Of course things really took off when he offered you the chance to go solo and you moved to the UK then but it didn’t overnight and there were tough times with you being away from home..
“Yeah, sure it was.
“It was a decision.
“I’ve been in bands since I was 14 and I was the main front person ‘til 1969.
“Then I became the bass player that sang a couple of songs which is fine.
“I was with my sisters and I had two offers in one week to go solo.
“And that’s the universe telling you it’s time to go, two offers in one week.
“The first one came from Electra Records who wanted to make me into the next Janis Joplin which I’m not.
“And Mickie said, ‘Come to England. You’ll be the first Suzi Quatro’ so I went there, but it was hard.
“I had to make that decision to go, leave my home, leave my family, leave everything familiar to me and fly across the ocean with a suitcase and a bass guitar.
“And even though I’m determined and that’s the word most people describe me with, it was hard.
“If I want something, I go till I get it.
“I would never have gone back to America without a hit under my belt and I had a year of hits before I went back.
“But there’s no guarantee.
“Of course there’s never any guarantee.
“But I went over there to make it and Mickie gave me that shot.”
It’s easy to forget there was very little in terms of female rockers before you came along so you really broke ground in that sense. But you never thought of yourself as a trailblazer in that way, did you? You were just doing you..
“I was.
“I’m glad it all turned out like it turned out.
“Like I said, musical family.
“I read and write classical piano, percussion, self-taught on bass. I sing.
“I can do comedy.
“I can act.
“I’m a writer.
“I’m a real creative person.
“We grew up in a very musical environment: Four girls, one boy.
“I went to my dad at 14.
“This explains my attitude.
“I said, ‘Dad, me and Patti are going to start an all girl band’.
“He went, ‘Good’.
“’I’m going to play bass guitar’.
“’Good’.
“’Do you have one?’
“’Sure’.
“And he gave me a 1957 fender precision, the rolls royce of basses.
“So I did not grow up thinking that there was anything strange in a woman playing or a girl playing an instrument in a rock and roll band.
“It didn’t occur to me.
“So all those years I’m doing it Mickie kept saying to me, ‘You’re so unique’.
“’I kept thinking, ‘Why you keep saying that? Why am I unique?’
“I didn’t get it and the refreshing thing about it is that because I didn’t know, I was not manufactured. Otherwise it would have been a plan, ‘Oh, let’s do this and do this and make her like this?’
“No.
“Nobody told me how to stand, nobody told me how to sing, nobody told me how to act.
“I was the first female rock and roll musician to have world wide success but I never did gender.
“I still don’t do gender now but I watched my documentary in 2019, Suzi Q.
“I was booked for the Q and A after and I snuck in to watch it with the audience because I wanted to feel it.
“You feel the audience and I nearly died because, like I said, I had no idea that I was doing this.
“Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, Tina Weymouth, Kathy Valentine, Donita Sparks, KT Tunstall- At different times in the film they all said the same thing, not exactly the same way but they all basically said, ‘I would not have done what I did had Suzi Quatro not done it first so at the age of 69, the penny dropped and then I was crying.
“It made me cry.
“I went, ‘How could I not know that?’
“But now I’m 75, I accept the accolade but I honestly didn’t know I was doing it.
“I was just being me.”
You have toured with the Irish rockers Thin Lizzy as they were starting out, what are your memories of that time?
“That was before I’d had success of my own, 1972 and it was the first national tour for Slade.
“We all had a great time.
“Great time.
“Nice people.
“I remember Phil very well.
“He told us to stay at his mom’s guest house when we were in that area.
“It’s a shame about him because when he passed, he was just getting it together.
“Good bass player, nice man.
“I have fond memories of that tour and that’s when I fell in love with my first husband too.
“During that tour, he was my guitar player.”
How have you liked it when you have got to Ireland?
“I’ve been there quite a few times.
“I love playing Ireland.
“We’re going to go there on the next tour.
“We’re gonna do 15 dates and we’re including Ireland.”
Of course you have had such a great career and so many special times, what leaps out as a special highlight of it all?
“There’s so many things that leap out but I’m the kind of artist that I don’t actually make a goal to reach because if I do, then what do I do after that?
“I’m constantly reaching for the next.
“I’m always going for the next one.
“There’s so many highlights that you never forget.
“You never forget your first number one.
“You never forget your first big tour where everybody’s paid to see you and they’re screaming your name, also your first TV show, your first musical.
“There’s so many things but the greatest part is my memories are still being made.
“That’s what I love.
“I’ve said it before.
“At 75 getting these reviews and I’m going, ‘Wow, thank you Lord, I guess I’m in the right job’.
“I was born to entertain.
“I know this.”
That is why you don’t like people who ask you about retiring..
“I have three answers.
“One has followed me my entire career.
“I was 35 the first time I got asked that question.
“What a stupid.. 35.
“’When you going to retire?’
“So I gave him a glib answer.
“I said, ‘I will retire when I go on stage, turn my back on the audience and shake my ass and there’s silence’.
“It followed me my whole life.
“Then when I was 65, I did a little nod to 65 and I changed it.
“I said, ‘Okay, I will retire when I go on stage, turn my back on the audience and my ass shakes by itself’.
“And then at 75 I’ve now got the last of the quotes, and this one I stick to, ‘I will retire when I go on stage and I don’t deliver to my standard’.
“And I will know it.
“They won’t because I’m a pro, I will know it and then I will say, ‘Thank you. Time to get off the ride’.
“That’s a long time coming though.”
Did you think when you first set out you would still be playing all these years later?
“I did.
“I remember the first gig that we did.
“We got the local club owner to put our band on.
“We only knew three songs but he said, ‘Okay, you can do them tomorrow Friday night at the dance’.
“We were up on stage about ready to start, got my bass on, ready to go into the first song which was Louie Louie by the Kingsman, three chords and I looked down at the audience and I remember thinking, ‘I’m home’.
“I’m home.”
Freedom is out now.
For more information, click here.
