Page 60 - Classic Rock (February 2020)

SUZI QUATRO

Suzi (on bass) with the
Pleasure Seekers, circa 1968.

I could read and write for percussion and classical Suzi and her band
piano. But when the band started I picked the bass on a British tour
up and, like seeing Elvis on Ed Sullivan, it was an with Slade in 1972.
epiphany. When I put it down I went: “Yeah…” It
was just correct. You can see by the way I play and
hold it that it’s just part of me.
“I didn’t want to be just another child. I had to find
How was it attending Catholic school, and did a place to be. I had to separate myself. And I found
your interest in rock’n’roll immediately set
you at odds with authority figures? I could hold an audience at a very young age.”
My mother took me out of Catholic school after
the first year because I was driving the nuns crazy, Weiss had a lot of balls, with the we began, my eldest sister’s first
but then she made me go to the Catholic after- leather waistcoat, and I thought: husband, who was managing us,
school once a week for all the training, so that I was “Yeah, there’s something happening said: “We need to put more lights
raised Catholic. I can’t ever remember rock’n’roll here.” As you’re coming through, on Suzi.” Everybody went quiet
being at odds with my beliefs. It’s my profession, you get your bits and pieces from – and I never asked for this
it’s what I do, it’s rock’n’roll and it’s natural. a lot of people. Everybody does. conversation, I was just up there
As an artist you soak things up. doing my job. He said: “She is the
Rock’n’roll seemed synonymous with focal point.”
rebellion back then, so an interest in the music The Pleasure Seekers, started Then in Cradle, my brother
might well have cast you in the role of a rebel, by your elder sister Patti after [Michael Quatro, an independent
however unintentionally. seeing The Beatles, was soon to include two entertainment executive and songwriter with 11
When it began in the fifties it was very tribal, more Quatro sisters: Arlene, and you albums to his name] put us on at these big
very sort of ‘we have our own music now’, – Suzi Soul – singing and playing bass. rock’n’roll festivals. Now we were a show band,
but by the seventies, when I started to have It was a promising start, contracted so we went on dressed in our club outfits and we
my success, the most rebellious thing to Mercury. So how was life in died. People were going: “What?” because we didn’t
about me was that I was female. a mini-dress and wig in the fit. Then I saw this other girl band go on after us in
mid-sixties? T-shirts and blue jeans, barefoot and jamming, and
Meanwhile, elsewhere in sixties The mini-dress thing, that was the I went: “Wow, I like that.”
Detroit, Berry Gordy was sending sixties. I looked quite cute in it. But So we went home, had a big band meeting, and
The Supremes to charm school, mainly we had to dress in that era’s everybody agreed that it was time to change
teaching them deportment. style because we weren’t successful. direction. Which I agreed to. The drummer decided
I didn’t go to charm school At recording, anyway. We were she wanted to write her own songs, I agreed with
[laughs]. a successful working act, and that. Let’s get a bit heavier, and let’s bring Nancy
club owners always into the group, my little sister, to be singer. Nancy
But women in music wanted us to dress like was of this generation coming up, three years
were expected to women. There were younger than me, and it was decided I’d better step
smooth off their some cute outfits, back from the main limelight, which I was happy
rough edges, to be but I always felt to do. So she started to sing, it became a different
demure. Did the more comfortable band, and I concentrated on my bass guitar for
Shangri-Las offer in T-shirt and eighteen months, I only sang a few songs a night.
a refreshing blue jeans. And it was invaluable. I became really good on my
glimpse of the instrument. So when Mickie Most discovered me
shape of things The Pleasure [producer Most signed Suzi to his RAK Records
to come? Seekers split in label in 1970] in that band – he picked me out
They were edgy. I used to ’69 and transformed from doing two songs a night – I was able to marry
dance on a TV show when into Cradle. the performer, the upfront person, with the bass.
I was twelve and thirteen in Detroit, It was a big, pivotal moment So now you’ve got Suzi Quatro.
part of the regular audience. We’d in my life. From age fourteen,
see all the acts up close. And 1964 to ’68, I was the main Mickie Most was a confirmed hit-maker, and
I remember The Shangri-Las focal point of the Pleasure while he saw enormous potential in you as an
impressing me. I thought Seekers, I sang 98.9 per cent of artist, he didn’t really know what to do with
[Shangri-Las lead vocalist] Mary the songs. About two years after you at first. Ultimately, isn’t it fair to say that GETTY x2

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