Legendary entertainment
Muirsical Conversation with Suzi Quatro
Muirsical Conversation with Suzi Quatro
Legend is a weighty word to throw around, but given Suzi Quatro’s fifty-three years (and counting) in the music and entertainment business and her trailblazing, multi-discipline career (first woman instrumentalist in leather clad rock and roll; singer; musician; TV actress; talk-show host; acclaimed stage and one woman show performer; poet; author; radio DJ) it’s a word that deserves to be associated with her name.
It therefore follows the word would also feature on the cover of a new 20 track compilation that reconfirms Suzi Quatro is about a lot more than canning the can and heading down to Devil Gate Drive; Legend : The Best Of features a number of stylistically different deeper cuts lifted from Quatro’s six studio albums released in the seventies plus three tracks from her comeback album, 2006's Back to the Drive.
The new compilation also, of course, contains the hits that set the bass playing girl from Detroit City on the rock 'n' roll road to stardom (55 million record sales and counting); many of those famous and well-loved chart successes will be heard again when Suzi Quatro takes to the arena stages of the UK in October to headline the Legends Live tour.
Suzi Quatro took time out of her always busy schedule to talk to FabricationsHQ about some of the song choices on Legend, her new QSP project with fellow 70s chart topping alumni Andy Scott (The Sweet) and Don Powell (Slade), the Legends Live UK Arena Tour and her unwavering philosophy of optimism in the face of adversity...
Ross Muir: I’d like to jump back three years to 2014 and your fiftieth anniversary of being in the music and entertainment business. That year saw the release of an anthology box set and an Australian tour that you referred to as your "final" tour.
That sounds like you were both celebrating the music career and wrapping up the live performances…
Suzi Quatro: Negative, negative, negative! [laughs]. I had decided, having done thirty tours of Australia, that just after my fiftieth anniversary, and with the release of the box set, I should do my final tour of Australia.
It was a fantastic tour but, about four months after I got back, I thought "oh oh" [laughs] – because I cannot not be on stage – it’s just not possible
That's why, when I did my last tour of Australia earlier this year, called the encore tour, I said on stage "you will never hear the F word from me again!" [laughter]; there was a big gasp from the audience but I said, "no, I mean the word final!" [laughs]
So "final tour" was a really dumb thing to say, but at the time I thought it was just such a nice swan song to end down there. But, as I said, I just cannot not be on stage.
RM: That was the follow-on question because when I first heard you had made that comment I found myself wondering is she serious? Is that tongue-in-cheek? Is she really thinking of unplugging the bass?
SQ: No, it was really only about the Australian tours, but when reality set in I realised I just couldn't do it.
So you’re stuck with me!
RM: [laughs] From the F of final to the F of finally because in October the UK gets to see you on the Legends Live arena tour. It's been a long time since we saw you live in the UK…
SQ: My husband Rainer, who looks after my touring, kept turning down gig after gig after gig in the UK; to which I was forever saying "for Christ sake, Rainer, I really want to work the UK again!"
Then, of course, this offer to headline an arena tour came along and he said "that’s why I kept turning down all those offers!" [laughter]. So I bowed to his superior knowledge; I’m just the artist, what do I know! [laughs]
But even then, before I said yes, my question was "who else is on it?” because I didn’t want to be stuck on a tour with people I didn’t like.
But I love them all – Hot Chocolate were my old stable mates at RAK; The Osmonds speak for themselves; David Essex I have known forever. I’m very much looking forward to it.
RM: It’s a something for everyone seventies show – soul-pop, vocal-pop, pop-rock and hard rock and roll.
I was a huge fan of David Essex because, like you, he didn’t just have the hits; he had the albums and deeper cuts too, including some great, rock theatre styled long-form numbers.
And, again like you, he went on to be successful in TV roles and in musical theatre.
SQ: We have a lot of similarities, David and I; the meat of my stuff has always been my own songs, which is something I say on the new Best Of album – what Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman did was put that three minute, commercially sounding single on to what I do, which was great; it became the perfect combination.
And yes, TV and musical theatre, because I’m also an actress. I’m a writer too and have been a DJ since 1999 on Radio 2. I do a little bit of everything; I’m an artiste.
RM: That’s exactly it though. You’re not just a musician; you're in the entertainment buisness.
SQ: I am, yes, and everything within that great big circle of entertainment I love; I really do love it all.
I released a poetry book last year called Through My Eyes, which everyone is loving; I released my first novel, The Hurricane, back in May; I’ve got the QSP album, with Andy Scott and Don Powell, coming out in the UK later this year. That album has already been released in Australia, where it made number 23 in the charts, so that’s something else for the UK fans to look forward to.
I’m just goin’ and goin’ – fifty-three years on and I’m not stopping!
RM: The mention of both the Best Of and QSP brings us neatly to discussion of those albums.
Why I think Legend works so well, and this reflects what you said earlier, is the Chinn and Chapman penned hits dovetail perfectly with your own material; it mixes the hits with your personal choice of stylistically different album cuts from the seventies catalogue, plus three songs from 2016’s Back to the Drive.
Also, the tracks from the seventies have been given a great remastering job; it separates out the sound of the instruments wonderfully well.
SQ: Yeah, a lot of people have been commenting on what a great job has been done on the remastering.
The thing I really wanted for Legend – and I think I’ve done it because you’ve just complimented me on it – was to not put out anther compilation that was just another compilation; I wanted it to represent the body of my work. I think I’ve done that successfully.
RM: Yes, because it’s a selection of songs that showcase the very different sides of Suzi Quatro.
Just to cite three examples, there’s a seventies soul-vibe running through Skin Tight Skin; Cat Size has a piano blues core; Shine My Machine is a great little slice of Detroit and honky tonk rock and roll…
SQ: It is, isn’t it! Shine My Machine is real vintage Suzi; you can definitely hear it on that one...
It therefore follows the word would also feature on the cover of a new 20 track compilation that reconfirms Suzi Quatro is about a lot more than canning the can and heading down to Devil Gate Drive; Legend : The Best Of features a number of stylistically different deeper cuts lifted from Quatro’s six studio albums released in the seventies plus three tracks from her comeback album, 2006's Back to the Drive.
The new compilation also, of course, contains the hits that set the bass playing girl from Detroit City on the rock 'n' roll road to stardom (55 million record sales and counting); many of those famous and well-loved chart successes will be heard again when Suzi Quatro takes to the arena stages of the UK in October to headline the Legends Live tour.
Suzi Quatro took time out of her always busy schedule to talk to FabricationsHQ about some of the song choices on Legend, her new QSP project with fellow 70s chart topping alumni Andy Scott (The Sweet) and Don Powell (Slade), the Legends Live UK Arena Tour and her unwavering philosophy of optimism in the face of adversity...
Ross Muir: I’d like to jump back three years to 2014 and your fiftieth anniversary of being in the music and entertainment business. That year saw the release of an anthology box set and an Australian tour that you referred to as your "final" tour.
That sounds like you were both celebrating the music career and wrapping up the live performances…
Suzi Quatro: Negative, negative, negative! [laughs]. I had decided, having done thirty tours of Australia, that just after my fiftieth anniversary, and with the release of the box set, I should do my final tour of Australia.
It was a fantastic tour but, about four months after I got back, I thought "oh oh" [laughs] – because I cannot not be on stage – it’s just not possible
That's why, when I did my last tour of Australia earlier this year, called the encore tour, I said on stage "you will never hear the F word from me again!" [laughter]; there was a big gasp from the audience but I said, "no, I mean the word final!" [laughs]
So "final tour" was a really dumb thing to say, but at the time I thought it was just such a nice swan song to end down there. But, as I said, I just cannot not be on stage.
RM: That was the follow-on question because when I first heard you had made that comment I found myself wondering is she serious? Is that tongue-in-cheek? Is she really thinking of unplugging the bass?
SQ: No, it was really only about the Australian tours, but when reality set in I realised I just couldn't do it.
So you’re stuck with me!
RM: [laughs] From the F of final to the F of finally because in October the UK gets to see you on the Legends Live arena tour. It's been a long time since we saw you live in the UK…
SQ: My husband Rainer, who looks after my touring, kept turning down gig after gig after gig in the UK; to which I was forever saying "for Christ sake, Rainer, I really want to work the UK again!"
Then, of course, this offer to headline an arena tour came along and he said "that’s why I kept turning down all those offers!" [laughter]. So I bowed to his superior knowledge; I’m just the artist, what do I know! [laughs]
But even then, before I said yes, my question was "who else is on it?” because I didn’t want to be stuck on a tour with people I didn’t like.
But I love them all – Hot Chocolate were my old stable mates at RAK; The Osmonds speak for themselves; David Essex I have known forever. I’m very much looking forward to it.
RM: It’s a something for everyone seventies show – soul-pop, vocal-pop, pop-rock and hard rock and roll.
I was a huge fan of David Essex because, like you, he didn’t just have the hits; he had the albums and deeper cuts too, including some great, rock theatre styled long-form numbers.
And, again like you, he went on to be successful in TV roles and in musical theatre.
SQ: We have a lot of similarities, David and I; the meat of my stuff has always been my own songs, which is something I say on the new Best Of album – what Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman did was put that three minute, commercially sounding single on to what I do, which was great; it became the perfect combination.
And yes, TV and musical theatre, because I’m also an actress. I’m a writer too and have been a DJ since 1999 on Radio 2. I do a little bit of everything; I’m an artiste.
RM: That’s exactly it though. You’re not just a musician; you're in the entertainment buisness.
SQ: I am, yes, and everything within that great big circle of entertainment I love; I really do love it all.
I released a poetry book last year called Through My Eyes, which everyone is loving; I released my first novel, The Hurricane, back in May; I’ve got the QSP album, with Andy Scott and Don Powell, coming out in the UK later this year. That album has already been released in Australia, where it made number 23 in the charts, so that’s something else for the UK fans to look forward to.
I’m just goin’ and goin’ – fifty-three years on and I’m not stopping!
RM: The mention of both the Best Of and QSP brings us neatly to discussion of those albums.
Why I think Legend works so well, and this reflects what you said earlier, is the Chinn and Chapman penned hits dovetail perfectly with your own material; it mixes the hits with your personal choice of stylistically different album cuts from the seventies catalogue, plus three songs from 2016’s Back to the Drive.
Also, the tracks from the seventies have been given a great remastering job; it separates out the sound of the instruments wonderfully well.
SQ: Yeah, a lot of people have been commenting on what a great job has been done on the remastering.
The thing I really wanted for Legend – and I think I’ve done it because you’ve just complimented me on it – was to not put out anther compilation that was just another compilation; I wanted it to represent the body of my work. I think I’ve done that successfully.
RM: Yes, because it’s a selection of songs that showcase the very different sides of Suzi Quatro.
Just to cite three examples, there’s a seventies soul-vibe running through Skin Tight Skin; Cat Size has a piano blues core; Shine My Machine is a great little slice of Detroit and honky tonk rock and roll…
SQ: It is, isn’t it! Shine My Machine is real vintage Suzi; you can definitely hear it on that one...
RM: What Legend underlines unequivocally – for those that may have only ever known you for Top of the Pops and the Chinn and Chapman hits – is this is not one-dimensional rock and roll…
SQ: Oh God, no; not at all, especially when you listen to a song like Wiser Than You.
I’m a musical girl so I go all the way from A to Z; that’s reflected on the QSP album too.
There’s a song on that album called Broken Pieces Suite; I really hate to say this [laughs] but I refer to that song as my masterpiece, because I don’t think I will ever write a piece like that again.
RM: That's such a dynamically interesting, three movement piece. Kudos to you for both writing it and finding a place for it on what is, essentially a rock and roll album – albeit one with a lot of stylistic light and shade.
SQ: Thank you. I had that song for a long time. We were doing the QSP album but I wasn’t sure if Andy and Don would want to do a song like that because it’s kinda off the wall.
I sent them my piano demo, really just expecting them to say |"well, it’s not really QSP" but they both wrote back saying "oh, yes!" and I thought "wow! OK, let’s do it!"
RM: Broken Pieces Suite exemplifies the QSP light and shade I mentioned earlier, from the children singing opening to it's hard rock finish. Similarly, the orchestrated number Pain; that's a lovely, quite poignant song.
SQ: I have to quote Andy Scott on that song; he always says to me "that song is gold." It’s a great song.
SQ: Oh God, no; not at all, especially when you listen to a song like Wiser Than You.
I’m a musical girl so I go all the way from A to Z; that’s reflected on the QSP album too.
There’s a song on that album called Broken Pieces Suite; I really hate to say this [laughs] but I refer to that song as my masterpiece, because I don’t think I will ever write a piece like that again.
RM: That's such a dynamically interesting, three movement piece. Kudos to you for both writing it and finding a place for it on what is, essentially a rock and roll album – albeit one with a lot of stylistic light and shade.
SQ: Thank you. I had that song for a long time. We were doing the QSP album but I wasn’t sure if Andy and Don would want to do a song like that because it’s kinda off the wall.
I sent them my piano demo, really just expecting them to say |"well, it’s not really QSP" but they both wrote back saying "oh, yes!" and I thought "wow! OK, let’s do it!"
RM: Broken Pieces Suite exemplifies the QSP light and shade I mentioned earlier, from the children singing opening to it's hard rock finish. Similarly, the orchestrated number Pain; that's a lovely, quite poignant song.
SQ: I have to quote Andy Scott on that song; he always says to me "that song is gold." It’s a great song.
As Legend : The Best Of (featuring a mix of classic hits and deeper album cuts) and latest project QSP successfully highlight, Suzi Quatro has always brought stylistic light and shade to her rock and roll
RM: It’s interesting we’re mentioning Andy at the moment because I want to touch on the Back to the Drive numbers on Legend, an album that Andy featured on.
You can clearly hear him on 15 Minutes of Fame; that's a great fun, Celtic-jig rock number quoting Andy Warhol’s famous line but aimed at the modern disease that is the Art of Celebrity.
SQ: I love that one. We also did it live for quite some time; it’s a real audience pleaser, that song.
And, yeah, it’s a little bit of a thumbed nose at the reality shows – "fifteen minutes of fame and then they take your star away!" [laughs].
RM: Indeed. I honestly feel, with the marketable industry we have now and those manufactured reality shows, we’re losing the ability to find, and nurture, true star quality…
SQ: I feel that way too. You don’t find stars – true stars – by sticking them on a reality show after they have been in the business for three minutes; it doesn’t work that way.
And it’s been proved, because after these shows have finished, if someone says "oh, do you remember so and so from that show" no-one does!
Of course a few of them have made it really big but you don’t go on those sorts of shows to be famous – and this is what really makes me angry – you go on those sorts of shows because you need to be in it; you have to be seen.
But being in this business is a calling. It really is; it’s a calling.
RM: I can’t watch those shows; not even for curiosity. It’s the complete antithesis for me of what music, and those who create that music, should be about.
SQ: That’s just it though because what those watching are doing, really, is applauding people imitating somebody else – "oh, you made that song your own!"
No, I’m sorry, you didn’t really make that song your own and it’s not your own unless you created it.
RM: Yes, it’s a created art-form, not a creative art-form.
SQ: it really is. They’re not reality shows they are unreality shows.
RM: Another Back to the Drive number you chose for Legend, and one that is in complete musical and lyrical contrast to the fun and flippancy of 15 Minutes of Fame, is the moving, and clearly personal, Free The Butterfly…
SQ: It’s one of my very favourite tracks.
When they said to me "you can only pick ten songs for Legend" I knew it had to be on there because I was trying to pick songs that really meant something to me or were a little bit ground breaking – and that one is definitely a ground-breaking song. I did that one live, too.
That song was written when I was leaving my ex-husband, who was also my guitar player for a long time.
I wrote it because I didn’t know how to tell him; I tried to find the right words but couldn’t – I mean how do you put something like that? "Hi, guess what, I want a divorce!"
So, instead, I went upstairs, wrote that song, came back down and played it for him…
RM: As much as you are clearly very comfortable expressing yourself through song, and songwriting, that must have been a far from easy moment.
SQ: It was quite a moment; I’ll never forget it. All he said at the end of it was "Nice song, Suzi."
So, yeah, Free The Butterfly is poignant and it is sad, but it’s sad and hopeful.
I call Free The Butterfly a hopeful goodbye song...
RM: It’s interesting we’re mentioning Andy at the moment because I want to touch on the Back to the Drive numbers on Legend, an album that Andy featured on.
You can clearly hear him on 15 Minutes of Fame; that's a great fun, Celtic-jig rock number quoting Andy Warhol’s famous line but aimed at the modern disease that is the Art of Celebrity.
SQ: I love that one. We also did it live for quite some time; it’s a real audience pleaser, that song.
And, yeah, it’s a little bit of a thumbed nose at the reality shows – "fifteen minutes of fame and then they take your star away!" [laughs].
RM: Indeed. I honestly feel, with the marketable industry we have now and those manufactured reality shows, we’re losing the ability to find, and nurture, true star quality…
SQ: I feel that way too. You don’t find stars – true stars – by sticking them on a reality show after they have been in the business for three minutes; it doesn’t work that way.
And it’s been proved, because after these shows have finished, if someone says "oh, do you remember so and so from that show" no-one does!
Of course a few of them have made it really big but you don’t go on those sorts of shows to be famous – and this is what really makes me angry – you go on those sorts of shows because you need to be in it; you have to be seen.
But being in this business is a calling. It really is; it’s a calling.
RM: I can’t watch those shows; not even for curiosity. It’s the complete antithesis for me of what music, and those who create that music, should be about.
SQ: That’s just it though because what those watching are doing, really, is applauding people imitating somebody else – "oh, you made that song your own!"
No, I’m sorry, you didn’t really make that song your own and it’s not your own unless you created it.
RM: Yes, it’s a created art-form, not a creative art-form.
SQ: it really is. They’re not reality shows they are unreality shows.
RM: Another Back to the Drive number you chose for Legend, and one that is in complete musical and lyrical contrast to the fun and flippancy of 15 Minutes of Fame, is the moving, and clearly personal, Free The Butterfly…
SQ: It’s one of my very favourite tracks.
When they said to me "you can only pick ten songs for Legend" I knew it had to be on there because I was trying to pick songs that really meant something to me or were a little bit ground breaking – and that one is definitely a ground-breaking song. I did that one live, too.
That song was written when I was leaving my ex-husband, who was also my guitar player for a long time.
I wrote it because I didn’t know how to tell him; I tried to find the right words but couldn’t – I mean how do you put something like that? "Hi, guess what, I want a divorce!"
So, instead, I went upstairs, wrote that song, came back down and played it for him…
RM: As much as you are clearly very comfortable expressing yourself through song, and songwriting, that must have been a far from easy moment.
SQ: It was quite a moment; I’ll never forget it. All he said at the end of it was "Nice song, Suzi."
So, yeah, Free The Butterfly is poignant and it is sad, but it’s sad and hopeful.
I call Free The Butterfly a hopeful goodbye song...
RM: Any of your songs where there is poignancy or sadness – Free The Butterfly, the heart broken and innocence lost story behind Wiser Than You, Pain from the QSP album – are always supported by an upbeat positivity, whether that be musically or how the song concludes lyrically.
SQ: That’s me exactly; you’ve got me in a nutshell.
I’m very sensitive and I can be very poignant within my songs, but it’s never done in a depressing way; there's always something to hope for.
I’m an optimistic person and that’s what you hear on those songs; even although there might be all this tragedy going on I find a good, positive way to put it.
RM: My wife is Buddhist and in Buddhist philosophy everything that happens to us, the positive and the negative, happens for a reason; each life experience helps define and shape us.
The trick is to take that experience and move on, positively, with it…
SQ: Exactly; I say that all the time.
People who read my poetry book, Through My Eyes, will see and read a lot of that in there. I preach that it’s not so much the things that happen to you as what you do with the things that happen to you.
Let’s say you had your heart broken by so and so and, yes, it could have really gone better, but what did you learn from that? The main thing you learn from having your heart broken is that you don't want to have it happen again – but you should always have the attitude that, if someone did break your heart, then they gave you something too.
There’s my optimism biting you on the ass again! [loud laughter]
RM: I think we have to do a follow-on where we talk about such teachings, philosophies and your poetry.
I’ll get my wife to conduct the interview though because the two of you could do a whole feature on it…
SQ: [laughs] I can tell we would, yes; we could probably talk for hours!
RM: As we start to wrap up I want to right some a couple of back in the day wrongs.
As the Legend album helps to prove, there was so much more to the music of Suzi Quatro than the hits – and that famous, low slung 1957 Fender Precision bass certainly wasn’t there for show.
SQ: I know, there was some of that; I guess they just saw me up there doing what I do and didn’t necessarily think of the bass. But then it looks natural on me, so you don’t even think about it.
But yes, I am a musician, a real muso – I read and write music, play percussion and classical piano and taught myself bass guitar. That’s what I am, an all-rounder.
RM: Similarly, the Suzi Quatro Band isn’t going out on the road in the UK with Slade – before you even had a hit – or playing in the US a couple of years later with Uriah Heep and Alice Cooper if you’re not the real deal.
SQ: Oh, you’d better be – if you’re not, you’re just committing suicide!
RM: And a major reason why the word legend can be used legitimately is that you were the first girl to get the leathers on, strap on a guitar and mix it with the rock boys; the role model from which many women in rock and roll followed.
SQ: Yeah, they sure did! There was no blueprint for that until I created that blueprint and I’m always pleased to see people following in those footsteps – but, physically, it’s not an easy job for a girl to do – but I always had the energy.
RM: You also came through at a time when it was almost exclusively a male dominated business and the less-than-equal attitudes of the seventies…
SQ: Yes, but I was of the mindset – as I always have been since I was a little girl and still am now – that I don't do gender; I just don’t do it. I’m not a female musician – I’m just a musician.
RM: And, bringing us back to the present, one whose music career is perfectly bookended by the Then of Legend and Now of QSP…
SQ: It’s great that they are both going to be out there at the same time and then of course the Live Legends arena shows.
I’m really excited about that tour, my new novel and my ongoing Radio 2 show Quatrophonic.
And I’ll be doing another album soon with Mike Chapman – I’m a busy, busy bee [laughs]; but then I really am at my happiest when I’m creating!
RM: Legend by album name; legend by nature [laughter].
Suzi, thanks for talking to FabricationsHQ, see you out on that legendary road…
SQ: Will do! Thank you so much!
Ross Muir
Muirsical Conversation with Suzi Quatro
September 2017
Suzi Quatro website: www.suziquatro.com/
QSP (Quatro Scott Powell) will be made available in the UK as a Deluxe Edition with two bonus tracks through Rhino Records.
Photo credits: Tina Korhonen
Audio tracks presented to accompany the above article and to promote the work of the artist.
No infringement of copyright is intended.
SQ: That’s me exactly; you’ve got me in a nutshell.
I’m very sensitive and I can be very poignant within my songs, but it’s never done in a depressing way; there's always something to hope for.
I’m an optimistic person and that’s what you hear on those songs; even although there might be all this tragedy going on I find a good, positive way to put it.
RM: My wife is Buddhist and in Buddhist philosophy everything that happens to us, the positive and the negative, happens for a reason; each life experience helps define and shape us.
The trick is to take that experience and move on, positively, with it…
SQ: Exactly; I say that all the time.
People who read my poetry book, Through My Eyes, will see and read a lot of that in there. I preach that it’s not so much the things that happen to you as what you do with the things that happen to you.
Let’s say you had your heart broken by so and so and, yes, it could have really gone better, but what did you learn from that? The main thing you learn from having your heart broken is that you don't want to have it happen again – but you should always have the attitude that, if someone did break your heart, then they gave you something too.
There’s my optimism biting you on the ass again! [loud laughter]
RM: I think we have to do a follow-on where we talk about such teachings, philosophies and your poetry.
I’ll get my wife to conduct the interview though because the two of you could do a whole feature on it…
SQ: [laughs] I can tell we would, yes; we could probably talk for hours!
RM: As we start to wrap up I want to right some a couple of back in the day wrongs.
As the Legend album helps to prove, there was so much more to the music of Suzi Quatro than the hits – and that famous, low slung 1957 Fender Precision bass certainly wasn’t there for show.
SQ: I know, there was some of that; I guess they just saw me up there doing what I do and didn’t necessarily think of the bass. But then it looks natural on me, so you don’t even think about it.
But yes, I am a musician, a real muso – I read and write music, play percussion and classical piano and taught myself bass guitar. That’s what I am, an all-rounder.
RM: Similarly, the Suzi Quatro Band isn’t going out on the road in the UK with Slade – before you even had a hit – or playing in the US a couple of years later with Uriah Heep and Alice Cooper if you’re not the real deal.
SQ: Oh, you’d better be – if you’re not, you’re just committing suicide!
RM: And a major reason why the word legend can be used legitimately is that you were the first girl to get the leathers on, strap on a guitar and mix it with the rock boys; the role model from which many women in rock and roll followed.
SQ: Yeah, they sure did! There was no blueprint for that until I created that blueprint and I’m always pleased to see people following in those footsteps – but, physically, it’s not an easy job for a girl to do – but I always had the energy.
RM: You also came through at a time when it was almost exclusively a male dominated business and the less-than-equal attitudes of the seventies…
SQ: Yes, but I was of the mindset – as I always have been since I was a little girl and still am now – that I don't do gender; I just don’t do it. I’m not a female musician – I’m just a musician.
RM: And, bringing us back to the present, one whose music career is perfectly bookended by the Then of Legend and Now of QSP…
SQ: It’s great that they are both going to be out there at the same time and then of course the Live Legends arena shows.
I’m really excited about that tour, my new novel and my ongoing Radio 2 show Quatrophonic.
And I’ll be doing another album soon with Mike Chapman – I’m a busy, busy bee [laughs]; but then I really am at my happiest when I’m creating!
RM: Legend by album name; legend by nature [laughter].
Suzi, thanks for talking to FabricationsHQ, see you out on that legendary road…
SQ: Will do! Thank you so much!
Ross Muir
Muirsical Conversation with Suzi Quatro
September 2017
Suzi Quatro website: www.suziquatro.com/
QSP (Quatro Scott Powell) will be made available in the UK as a Deluxe Edition with two bonus tracks through Rhino Records.
Photo credits: Tina Korhonen
Audio tracks presented to accompany the above article and to promote the work of the artist.
No infringement of copyright is intended.