Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob West Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is the one and only Susie Quatro. Susie,
Speaker 1: glad to have you on the podcast. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a pleasure to be on you. What the last name?
Speaker 1: You know, what nationality is that name? You know how
Speaker 1: it is? The ancestors came from the old country, They
Speaker 1: hit Allis Island whatever it was, turned into something else,
Speaker 1: and it's a Jewish name, but the derivation even I'm
Speaker 1: not even sure. My grandpa came over as Rocky and
Speaker 1: he emigrated at Ellis Island and they took one look
Speaker 1: at his name and they said he was a little boy.
Speaker 1: They said, Michael Quatro done okay, once again, pronounced the
Speaker 1: name as it was before it was shortened Quatro quatroky, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they just for four eyes and they just shortened it.
Speaker 1: So he entered America as my Quatroll. And that's the
Speaker 1: family name. And my dad told me a million times
Speaker 1: that anybody with the name Quatroll has got to be
Speaker 1: related to us. Are there a lot of Quatrolls? No,
Speaker 1: well there isn't. My family. Millions in my family, but yeah,
Speaker 1: there there's no there's not that many, and there's no
Speaker 1: real Susie qus But me, well, what about the song?
Speaker 1: I said, there's no real Susie. Cuse okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: how did you decide on the spelling, because there's different
Speaker 1: ways to spell Susie. Oh God, I had a T
Speaker 1: shirt made up recently and I'm going to sell him
Speaker 1: on my merch side. I hadn't made up from my crew,
Speaker 1: and it says six different names of Susie spelled wrong,
Speaker 1: all crossed out and then at the bottom and has
Speaker 1: it correct. I've been spelling. My name has been spelled
Speaker 1: every which I get s u s I E s
Speaker 1: u z y s u z i e as and
Speaker 1: and then I get quatrill quadrille. I just decided in
Speaker 1: the Pleasure Seekers, when we were all taking stage names,
Speaker 1: that I would be Susie A s u z I,
Speaker 1: soul a s o U. Well, because I did a
Speaker 1: lot of otis writing and stuff like that way back
Speaker 1: when I was fourteen. I don't know how that spelling
Speaker 1: came out, but it just looked right. And everybody has
Speaker 1: asked me, everybody, including Mickey most, what's your real name?
Speaker 1: Because it looks and sounds like a stage name, doesn't it? Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: the question becomes many people changed their last name when
Speaker 1: they have an ethnic or hard to pronounce uh last name. So,
Speaker 1: but when it was the Pleasure Seekers, you were Susie Q,
Speaker 1: but it was still Quadr. Do you ever think you're
Speaker 1: gonna be like Susie Smith or something else? No? No,
Speaker 1: And in fact that was funny because when I got
Speaker 1: to England after I was discovered and put solo by
Speaker 1: Mickey most Um, we were sitting in his office when
Speaker 1: I first arrived. And because I have been calling myself
Speaker 1: Susie Soul always, I'm born Susan K Quadro, always Susie.
Speaker 1: And I said to me, a key, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to think of I don't want to be Susie,
Speaker 1: so I have to think of a good stage name.
Speaker 1: What should be? And he said, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: I went, what he said, sissit Quatro was about the
Speaker 1: best name I've ever heard, And I went, oh, so
Speaker 1: just be me. He said, yeah, just be you. That's good. Okay,
Speaker 1: you are sitting a room with umpteen gold records and
Speaker 1: platinum records. Where exactly are you right now? I am
Speaker 1: in the dining Actually, I call it the bragging room. Um,
Speaker 1: it's the dining room of my fifteen century. It is
Speaker 1: beat in a manor house, nine bedrooms, three and a
Speaker 1: half acres um. I've been here since nineteen eighty. I'm
Speaker 1: actually gonna be buried out there. I'm gonna be cremated
Speaker 1: and are good at my ashes? Put around a four
Speaker 1: bass guitar carved out of an old tree that died.
Speaker 1: Have you seen wood carvers how they do that? So
Speaker 1: four bass guitars coming out of the ground that I said,
Speaker 1: that's where I want my ashes with a planque. And
Speaker 1: I've been here for a long time. It's the longest
Speaker 1: I've ever lived anywhere. I love this house, absolutely love it.
Speaker 1: If I'm gonna be locked down, this is where I
Speaker 1: want to be. Okay, because even though you're American, most
Speaker 1: Americans really don't have a comprehension. So let's try to
Speaker 1: locate it. How far from London is your house? Uh? Sixty? Okay?
Speaker 1: And where it is is that like rural? Is there
Speaker 1: a town? What's there? Like? There is a town? I
Speaker 1: live in between two towns. I live fifteen minutes from
Speaker 1: a very good airport, which standstead. I live fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: there there you go fifteen minutes to around the county
Speaker 1: town of Essex. So I'm fifteen minutes away from Chelmsford
Speaker 1: and fifteen minutes away from Braintree. That way, Um, there's
Speaker 1: a great train service into London. But I'm secluded. This
Speaker 1: is what I like. I can be somewhere if I
Speaker 1: want to secluded. How much property do you have? Three
Speaker 1: and a half acres? And do you own the house outright?
Speaker 1: I bought it out right? Wow? And I bought my
Speaker 1: first house out right when I was twenty And where
Speaker 1: was that house? That was about twenty minutes from here?
Speaker 1: Because when I married my guitar player, my ex um,
Speaker 1: when we we wanted to move somewhere near one set
Speaker 1: of parents. My parents are in Detroit, so we moved
Speaker 1: more near his parents. That leaves near family, you know.
Speaker 1: And then but then we came out here. I found
Speaker 1: this house on the cover cover a big house magazine
Speaker 1: and pulled about the front there and this, you know
Speaker 1: how you get a feeling this is my house? And
Speaker 1: is there a wall a gate? There is two big
Speaker 1: brick pillars. There's a walled garden here with flowers. There's
Speaker 1: an orchard back there just beautiful with food trees and everything. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a brick pillars there too. There's three floors, nine bedrooms.
Speaker 1: On the third floor, I have my ego room. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you have I love it. Um. You have to go
Speaker 1: up two flights of stairs. The second flight is very precarious.
Speaker 1: You can bang your head on the ceiling. You know,
Speaker 1: it's crooked and everything. It's it's it sounds like an analogy,
Speaker 1: but it's the extra truth. And you finally get to
Speaker 1: this big, heavy wooden door at the end of the
Speaker 1: at the end of the house, and it says on
Speaker 1: the door, I had a sign made and it says
Speaker 1: Ego room. Mind your head, and you go in and
Speaker 1: this is your life book. Um. Pictures everywhere, posters, jumpsuits
Speaker 1: over here, bass guitars, seeds, videos. I mean absolutely every
Speaker 1: inch is covered with me, everything I've done from the
Speaker 1: beginning of my career up to the present day. And
Speaker 1: you kind of go in if you want to, and
Speaker 1: you enjoy and you come out and then you shut
Speaker 1: the door. And this is how I survive in this business.
Speaker 1: You shut the door. I leave my ego up on
Speaker 1: the third floor. How often do you go up there?
Speaker 1: At least twenty five times at night door. And I
Speaker 1: don't know that was a good question. I don't go
Speaker 1: up there much at all, actually not at all. Lots
Speaker 1: of times I go up to do a job if
Speaker 1: i'm writing something, because I'm on my sixth book now,
Speaker 1: and sometimes I need information, And certainly when I wrote
Speaker 1: my autobiography, if you had a black spot, you know,
Speaker 1: a memory block, you can go up there. You'd find
Speaker 1: the year on a tour book or a scrap book
Speaker 1: or something, and you could. And I really spent the
Speaker 1: light a lot of time up there then. But sometimes
Speaker 1: every now and again, you just go up and you
Speaker 1: pull out the old tapes. And when I when I
Speaker 1: let people go up there, I don't see them for
Speaker 1: two days. Okay. Now. Bill Wyman, famously of the Stones,
Speaker 1: famously collected everything. How much of your stuff do you have? Everything? Um?
Speaker 1: Oh my god. I made it a point of getting
Speaker 1: every article about me, And at first I used to
Speaker 1: put him in square books and all that. I don't
Speaker 1: do that so much anymore. But I have just about
Speaker 1: every article has ever been written on me. So many videotapes,
Speaker 1: so many videos of every show I've ever done, all
Speaker 1: the CDs, all the records, um let me see. Pictures
Speaker 1: are just awards, stage passes. Everything I used to collect
Speaker 1: when I was like fourteen, fifteen, sixteen seventeen, all the
Speaker 1: hotel room keys, and I kept him in a big
Speaker 1: hues tin waste paper basket. And then I got bored
Speaker 1: of that, so I went down to the local mailbox
Speaker 1: and poured them all in. That was bad at me.
Speaker 1: I can imagine that that that mail man when he
Speaker 1: came to get because it says it says, you know,
Speaker 1: mailer back to this address. I put them all in.
Speaker 1: I got bored with that. But I've got everything, just
Speaker 1: about everything. Okay, no one lives forever when you do
Speaker 1: move on? What's going to happen to all the stuff
Speaker 1: in the ego room? I am hoping. I've tried to
Speaker 1: set it up so it is this way that my
Speaker 1: um my son will take over the house and this
Speaker 1: house will be my legacy. This is what I want
Speaker 1: to happen. I kind of want my this is my graceland.
Speaker 1: How else can I say? You know, I mean maybe
Speaker 1: even someday people would like to come and see it.
Speaker 1: Who knows. I wanted to continue. I don't want this house,
Speaker 1: so I've put that in my will. Okay, now, many
Speaker 1: people have a family, the kids move out and they
Speaker 1: wanted downsize. Growing up, always wanted a big house, I
Speaker 1: could have one room for everything. Never quite hit that.
Speaker 1: But what's it like living with so few p ballue
Speaker 1: in such a big house. Well, it was full at
Speaker 1: one point, for it started off with just me and
Speaker 1: my ex, and then we had two kids, and plus
Speaker 1: we didn't live in nanny, so the house was full
Speaker 1: and that kind of stayed even after after we divorced,
Speaker 1: got married a year later to somebody else. Um, I
Speaker 1: always needed a nanny here because I work, and you know,
Speaker 1: my kids were little, and then we had two people
Speaker 1: staying here and living here. One was a gardener and
Speaker 1: moment was the nanny. And then finally they were old
Speaker 1: enough that I could get rid of the nanny's and
Speaker 1: my daughter moved out first. Then my son moved out,
Speaker 1: and that was not nice at first. Of course, I
Speaker 1: was rambling around this house and I oh my I
Speaker 1: hated it. Didn't even want to go to the third floors.
Speaker 1: But he used to live, my son. So what I've
Speaker 1: done now is I've made every rear dream, every single
Speaker 1: room in this house has a of Chris every single moment.
Speaker 1: Even on the third floor. I've made two of the
Speaker 1: rooms into two extra bedrooms in case I have guests over.
Speaker 1: One of them became my mother's room. She's been gone
Speaker 1: a long time, but I I ended up by accident
Speaker 1: putting a cover. She got me, putting a pillow, she
Speaker 1: got me putting pictures of her, putting a big portrait
Speaker 1: of my mom and dad, and everybody calls that. The
Speaker 1: kids call that grandma's room, so it became her room.
Speaker 1: You know. I don't know how that happened. But my
Speaker 1: son uses one room for his guitar repair room. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's another bedroom on the third floor that my granddaughter
Speaker 1: has claimed as hers. There's my ego room. The next
Speaker 1: floor there's one, two, three, four more bedrooms. Only one
Speaker 1: of them is used now, but I do have people
Speaker 1: stay over if I have guests, you know. And then
Speaker 1: down here, I've got the TV room, the laundry room,
Speaker 1: I got a patio out there, got a studio in
Speaker 1: the back, which is fantastic on the grounds. I got
Speaker 1: my dining room here and in there. In there is
Speaker 1: mys the oldest part of the house, and that's where
Speaker 1: I write and I can't write anywhere else, and I've
Speaker 1: tried it everywhere. That's my writing room. I got my guitar,
Speaker 1: even though it's my main lounge and it should be
Speaker 1: everything perfect. I've got all my guitars in there, you know.
Speaker 1: I got my pen and my paper, my sheet music,
Speaker 1: and my my white piano that's never moved since I
Speaker 1: moved in. Um, that's the creative room. That room in there. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of questions here. One do you are
Speaker 1: you the type person who's a homebody or if you
Speaker 1: go into town everybody knows you. You say, Hi, what's
Speaker 1: your forgetting COVID? For a minute before that, what's your lifestyle?
Speaker 1: Sort of like, UM, I made a choice in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, and it was after the first time I
Speaker 1: was on television with my first number one can the
Speaker 1: Can and uh. We watched it, my me and my ex,
Speaker 1: and then we went out to the local public we
Speaker 1: always go for a drink, and we walked in and
Speaker 1: the place erupted. It's her, it's her, it's her, it's
Speaker 1: I went what what we had to leave? The pub
Speaker 1: never happened to me before, so I kind of thought
Speaker 1: about it started to happen and happen, it happen, and
Speaker 1: then I thought, okay, I can baseball cap ponytail, dark
Speaker 1: glasses and hide, or I can just say hi. And
Speaker 1: I chose hi. It must have happened eight times yesterday
Speaker 1: in town, five times today. And it's it's so funny
Speaker 1: because it happens the same way. Every time you're walking
Speaker 1: by and sew you, somebody will go and I'll just
Speaker 1: go yes, and they just because you know what they're
Speaker 1: gonna say, um so I say hello. Yes. Sure that
Speaker 1: They added a little, but it got a little bit crazy.
Speaker 1: I was in the post office. This has never happened before,
Speaker 1: and of course you started talking and then everybody sees you,
Speaker 1: and everybody's looking and better. It happens all that, especially
Speaker 1: when you're in a line, you know, and then people
Speaker 1: and they start they start to a whisper, look whisier,
Speaker 1: gout it out it out. Anyway, the lady next to
Speaker 1: me here, she got very friendly. She said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Then she was going on and on
Speaker 1: on that. She went, can I can I ask your favorite?
Speaker 1: And I thought she wanted a selfie? I said sure.
Speaker 1: She said, can I just play you some of my
Speaker 1: favorite songs from my um on my phone. So I
Speaker 1: just sit and listen to her favorite songs on her
Speaker 1: phone while the line was getting up to them and
Speaker 1: you and you can't be rude. You know you can't
Speaker 1: do that. She doesn't mean any harm. But that's the
Speaker 1: last thing I wanted to do, is listen to her
Speaker 1: favorite song. So that's actually quite funny. Does it ever
Speaker 1: get old? And are you ever upset if people don't
Speaker 1: recognize you? Um? No. In fact, I made quite a
Speaker 1: joke out of it. Sometimes, you know, I'll go into it.
Speaker 1: I do it on purpose. I'll go someplace and maybe
Speaker 1: I'm ordering something from the guy and he's taking my information.
Speaker 1: I went into an art shop just yesterday, brand new
Speaker 1: art shop, and I said, how much is that huge?
Speaker 1: What I picked out? A million and a half. I said,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, I got good taste. Anybody. We're talking talking,
Speaker 1: and I saw that he didn't know who I was.
Speaker 1: So as we're talking, I said, by the way, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm very famous, and he went, you are. I said, yes,
Speaker 1: I am, So this is what I do. He goes,
Speaker 1: what's your name? I said, Susy Quadro, google it. You
Speaker 1: googled it. He went, Oh my god, I said, next
Speaker 1: time I come in, know who I am. So I
Speaker 1: I do do that a lot of times. I'll see youngsters.
Speaker 1: I say, you might not know me, but you should
Speaker 1: sense of humor at all times. Okay, are you always on?
Speaker 1: You're like, you're very on in this moment. Is that
Speaker 1: who you just are? Or is it just when you
Speaker 1: know the mic is on? No? No, I'm I'm I've
Speaker 1: been told. In fact, the phrase used to describe me
Speaker 1: by people who know me best as I am exhausting.
Speaker 1: But I take that as a compliment. I Um, I'm
Speaker 1: a glass softball girl. Um. I love conversation. That's my key.
Speaker 1: I love conversation. Uh, nice glass of wine and a conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm a happy girl. I love to argue the toss
Speaker 1: into the middle of the night. You know so, but
Speaker 1: there there there is a quieter shore when nobody's around.
Speaker 1: I well, my way of being quiet. If I'm not
Speaker 1: watching a movie, which I love movies. I watched movies
Speaker 1: all the time. I'm a bit of a movie buff. Um.
Speaker 1: I will watch something my way of relaxing. I'll have
Speaker 1: agressive ryan, I'll watch who wants to be a millionaire
Speaker 1: on TV and at the same time, I'll be doing
Speaker 1: online scrabble. Who are you playing with? Who have words
Speaker 1: with friends? I mean? Are these always with friends? Who
Speaker 1: you play with? Anonymous people? Any anybody? I'll play with anybody.
Speaker 1: I just I just like to win. Are you pretty
Speaker 1: damn good? Pretty damn good? I'm I'm something like twelve
Speaker 1: or thirteen and the big you know, and lots and
Speaker 1: lots of people say I'm pretty good. I have I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot of the weird words, and you know,
Speaker 1: I love word games. Anyway, I'm one of those people.
Speaker 1: And I'm waiting for somebody to tell me the scholastic
Speaker 1: word for this talent that I have. I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to look it up, maybe google it. You know, when
Speaker 1: you have a word wheel and it's got one letter
Speaker 1: in the center and then like cut like a pie,
Speaker 1: and like eight letters around it, and you have to
Speaker 1: make as many words as you can for letters and more, yeah,
Speaker 1: and use all the and then it makes one big word.
Speaker 1: You look at it and one big word is made
Speaker 1: out of that. I can guess it with three or
Speaker 1: four seconds, sometimes instantaneously, and I and I know there's
Speaker 1: a word for that is it? I can make that.
Speaker 1: I can make sense out of the chaos. I can
Speaker 1: put the jumbled words together. And I don't know how
Speaker 1: I do that or why I do. It's the way
Speaker 1: my brain works. It sees the word. Is there a
Speaker 1: word for that? Not that I'm aware of. But no,
Speaker 1: I'm not as good with words as you are. Let's
Speaker 1: go back to a second. You watch movies. You watch
Speaker 1: movies essentially every night. Yeah, pretty much, kind of like
Speaker 1: a routine. When I'm not on the road, of course
Speaker 1: I will watch. I'm a routine girl. Okay, to your
Speaker 1: two favorite movies, God, it's so boring Gone with the Wind,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I just never get tired of it. I
Speaker 1: actually know the entire dialogue of that movie, every character.
Speaker 1: My husband one time was sitting on the bed and
Speaker 1: we were watching it just because we felt like watching it,
Speaker 1: and he didn't watch the movie. He looked at me
Speaker 1: because I did every bit of dialogue. And I think
Speaker 1: my other favorite movie, it's hard to pick two. I'd
Speaker 1: say probably all about Eve. Okay. And do you tend
Speaker 1: to watch the movies over as obviously as the case
Speaker 1: with Gone with the Wind, or are you always interested
Speaker 1: in watching something new. Well, I do like to watch
Speaker 1: new movies, but I'm afraid I'm a very impatient Gemini,
Speaker 1: and it's got to grab me. It's got to grab me.
Speaker 1: And you can grab me from the titles alone. But
Speaker 1: if I start to watch a movie and they're casting
Speaker 1: whoever they've cast in the plot does and pulled me
Speaker 1: in the movies off? And yes, I do watch movies
Speaker 1: I like again and again and again. I will do that.
Speaker 1: I'm quite anal um. I'll read books I like again
Speaker 1: and again and again. Right now, idiot that I am.
Speaker 1: I asked my husband to send me the complete works
Speaker 1: of Friederich Nietzsche. And you want to talk about heavy reading,
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. What inspired you to
Speaker 1: want to read that. I have been writing a psychological book,
Speaker 1: my sixth novel, my second novel, but my sixth book.
Speaker 1: And it's all about people that meet six people that
Speaker 1: meet up better psychology class. And I'm getting very much
Speaker 1: into the mind. And so many books that I've read
Speaker 1: people mentioned this guy as being incredible, and I always wondered,
Speaker 1: what's so good about him? And I even said to
Speaker 1: my husband, because he's a German philosopher, he said, Oh, Susie,
Speaker 1: he's he's hard going and that made me money. He
Speaker 1: is hard going boy. You have to really really dive in.
Speaker 1: I don't think he was a very happy man. So
Speaker 1: what have you learned that he really can talk? He
Speaker 1: he I've learned that he's um. He finds a way
Speaker 1: of making one sentence jumping about eighteen different areas, and
Speaker 1: he finds a descript where even he finds out how
Speaker 1: to He has an adjective for an adjective. If you
Speaker 1: see what I mean? You know, okay, you but you
Speaker 1: have to do is you have to read it very
Speaker 1: slowly and take it in and I'm determined. I'm determined
Speaker 1: to do it. I've read Warren Peace, you know, so
Speaker 1: I'm one of those. Have you read an k No?
Speaker 1: I think that's the best book ever written. It depends
Speaker 1: on the translation unless knowing you you learned Russians to
Speaker 1: read it. But I literally think, you know, there's this
Speaker 1: philosophical elements. Some people skip through those. But it's just
Speaker 1: amazing how president and how easy it is to read.
Speaker 1: But you know you're talking about doing all this reading.
Speaker 1: It's well, let me go. Have you talked about psychology?
Speaker 1: Have you ever been in therapy. Um, that's one of
Speaker 1: the jobs I wanted to do if I hadn't gone
Speaker 1: into show business at fourteen. Professionally, UM, I was very
Speaker 1: much interested. I'm an art chair of psychologist. I one
Speaker 1: time went only one time, and it was after my divorce.
Speaker 1: I was with my ex for twenty years. I'm a
Speaker 1: Catholic girl. You don't divorce. I had two kids, so
Speaker 1: it really I wanted to go. It really messed me up.
Speaker 1: There was nobody else I wanted to go. And I
Speaker 1: met my future husband and we were newly married, and
Speaker 1: I I didn't want to visit. My old problems are
Speaker 1: my old failings, my my ex husband's failings on him.
Speaker 1: Do you see what I mean? Yeah? I went to
Speaker 1: see it a psychiatrist one time and I talked about
Speaker 1: this to me to him and I said, um, I
Speaker 1: always remember it. I said to him, why didn't he
Speaker 1: loved me the way I wanted him to love me?
Speaker 1: And he didn't want the divorce. I was the big
Speaker 1: love of his life. And he looked at me and
Speaker 1: he said, Susie, you went to the butchers for perfume.
Speaker 1: He didn't have it on a shelf. Wow. Wow, I
Speaker 1: thought that was brilliant, a brilliant way to explain it.
Speaker 1: But he loved me, how he could love me. Okay,
Speaker 1: did you meet and was it a romance with your
Speaker 1: new husband before you got divorced or after you got divorced?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, No, I didn't. It wasn't way. I
Speaker 1: didn't even know him. Um. I was single for a year,
Speaker 1: single for a year. He had booked me, and I
Speaker 1: knew who he was, but absolutely nothing. I just just
Speaker 1: my husband and I ran out of steam. He we
Speaker 1: just ran out of steam. We grew apart. We're good
Speaker 1: friends now to this day. But ran out of steam,
Speaker 1: not for him, but for me, love him, not in
Speaker 1: love anymore. But the new one booked me. You know,
Speaker 1: he just booked me. Okay, wait, wait, a couple of questions.
Speaker 1: Did your ex husband ever get remarried? No? And I
Speaker 1: find that very sad because I would have loved him
Speaker 1: to have settled down to somebody else. But in all honesty,
Speaker 1: and he said it, you know, he said it to
Speaker 1: me before he said it to anybody who listens. I
Speaker 1: was a big one and I don't think he wanted
Speaker 1: to play the hand again. You know, he's been with
Speaker 1: people is that everybody didn't. He didn't stay with anybody.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's great. We have a great friendship.
Speaker 1: He comes over and sits in the studio while his
Speaker 1: son and I record together. Are our son, and he's
Speaker 1: he's very very much into the process, loves watching, you know,
Speaker 1: loves being part of it. Um. I'm glad that we
Speaker 1: could stay close. It's important. Now your present husband is
Speaker 1: a German concert promoter. Is that true? Correct? Okay? You
Speaker 1: are an American transplanted to the UK. And although we
Speaker 1: live more of a global village than we did, then
Speaker 1: English people are different than American people. Yes, and then
Speaker 1: one step beyond that is German. What's it like being
Speaker 1: involved with a German guy? Oh? Well, okay, Germans Germans. Um.
Speaker 1: The annoying thing about German people is how correct they are,
Speaker 1: and if even if they're gonna fold up a piece
Speaker 1: of paper and put it into an envelope, it's done perfectly.
Speaker 1: And this can drive you mad. You know, German efficiency,
Speaker 1: They really are efficient. I mean I one time was
Speaker 1: standing in amber at a light. There was no cars
Speaker 1: and I crossed, and the way they looked at me,
Speaker 1: I thought I was gonna get shot at Sunrise because
Speaker 1: I went against the rules, you know. Um, yes, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a it's a strange match in that way
Speaker 1: because I'm very Detroit, you know, and he's very German.
Speaker 1: But he's been a promoter for many years and worked
Speaker 1: with a lot of American acts, a lot of British acts,
Speaker 1: so you know bits of it, rub Off. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a big shock when I came here to England.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so different to America, but it were
Speaker 1: it works somehow. I don't know the language, okay, but
Speaker 1: he speaks, you know, many Germans do speak English. He
Speaker 1: speaks You're very American, very upfront centered whatever, you know.
Speaker 1: The English tend to be more reserved, at least with
Speaker 1: their feelings. Okay, what is the general personality Since you're
Speaker 1: so closely involved for decades with a German, obviously their
Speaker 1: language is different and they're more rigid, as you say,
Speaker 1: But are as the forthcoming as Americans? Are they like Americans?
Speaker 1: Are they still different? Well? They they do speak their mind,
Speaker 1: but they I think just by the nature of the
Speaker 1: way the language sounds. It's a guttable language, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean when when when when your husband says to
Speaker 1: you and that means I love you. I mean, that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound nice, doesn't you know what I mean? It
Speaker 1: just doesn't work. Um No, they're very straightforward, very straightforward.
Speaker 1: They tend to be more harsh with their comments. They
Speaker 1: don't pretty things up kind of boom you know at
Speaker 1: this my husband does. Anyway, he's got a big mouth.
Speaker 1: I got a big mouth too. So I am the
Speaker 1: optimists and he's the pessimist, and so we we complete
Speaker 1: the picture for each other. Does it bother you that
Speaker 1: he's a pessimist. Well, it's actually part of my book
Speaker 1: that I'm writing. But that's a fiction book. The fiction
Speaker 1: book I created two main characters out of the six
Speaker 1: psychology students, and one of them is called Penelope Perfect
Speaker 1: and she's she's the optimist. And the other one is
Speaker 1: called Max Morose. He's the bits, which I know he's
Speaker 1: gonna recognize himself. But tell you, Okay, now you're someone
Speaker 1: who's reading Nietzsche, writing books, playing scrabble words with friends,
Speaker 1: very into uh words. Yet you dropped out of high school.
Speaker 1: So do you feel any inadequacy there, something you're covering
Speaker 1: up for or that's not a factor whatsoever? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I've always been clever, and I don't mind saying that
Speaker 1: I'm a clever girl. Uh, I did leave school early,
Speaker 1: and I have a unquenchable thirst for analogy. I always said,
Speaker 1: maybe that is because I left early. But you know,
Speaker 1: but then again, when I used to be at school
Speaker 1: like Kenny Levn TV and all that, and the summer
Speaker 1: vacation would start, I would go home and the next
Speaker 1: day I would play school. Is that crazy? It is
Speaker 1: to me? But keep going, that's not so? But um
Speaker 1: saying that, Yeah, I'm very well read. Maybe it's to
Speaker 1: make up for the fact that I did in grade
Speaker 1: right high school. But I am now Dr Quatroll by
Speaker 1: the way, officially, Okay, where'd you get your degree at Cambridge?
Speaker 1: Honorary Doctor of Music? Wait? Wait, Cambridge like Oxford and Cambridge.
Speaker 1: I got made honorary Doctor of Music at Cambridge October
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen. I am officially Doctor Quatroll. Okay, tell
Speaker 1: me the backstory there. Well, they called me up and
Speaker 1: they wrote to me and they said, we'd like to
Speaker 1: honor you. Would you like to be honored? I said,
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? I mean I say it on stage,
Speaker 1: I say, I say, I am officially Dr Quatro. You know,
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. I was in tears. I was
Speaker 1: in cap and gown, you know me. Wow. But that's
Speaker 1: as good as it gets, I know. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: better than Yale or Harvard, I mean Cambridge Oxford gets.
Speaker 1: That's that's the top. You banged the gong, as they say.
Speaker 1: I know, Dr Quatro, I can't believe it. Every time
Speaker 1: I think about it. I'm allowed to use it in
Speaker 1: my passport and I'm Dr Quatro. And when I stood
Speaker 1: up to make my speech, my husband was in tears,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to hold it all together. You know,
Speaker 1: all these academics out there, Jay's McCambridge and at my
Speaker 1: speech here. But I pushed it over. That's so much me.
Speaker 1: I pushed it over and and I just started to talk.
Speaker 1: And the basic gist of what I said was we all,
Speaker 1: we all have a job in life, and every one
Speaker 1: of us, and it doesn't matter rich, poor, black, white,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. We all have a job, and that's to
Speaker 1: go inside and find that little light and turn it
Speaker 1: on and let nobody ever switch it off. And then
Speaker 1: I started to cry, Oh dear, what a moment, What
Speaker 1: a moment, I'll be forever proud of that, staying with
Speaker 1: staying with education. Were you when you were in school
Speaker 1: for a long time? Good student, bad student, class clown friends?
Speaker 1: What was that like? I was a pretty good student. Um.
Speaker 1: I excelled at believe it or not. You have music, English, um,
Speaker 1: geography crap um, math crap, science and I didn't care
Speaker 1: home economics I failed dreadfully. Um. Can you can you
Speaker 1: cook today? I am not known from my cooking I do.
Speaker 1: I do my cooking in the bedroom. I used to
Speaker 1: always say that. Um. I would say, Oh, my mother
Speaker 1: kept for me all of bigfold, all the kids off
Speaker 1: five kids, religiously, every report card, every immunization, you know,
Speaker 1: and she gave it to us when we left home.
Speaker 1: And I was looking at my report cards just the
Speaker 1: other day, old ones, seventh eighth grade, and one of
Speaker 1: the teachers had written, if Susie could concentrate a little
Speaker 1: bit more instead of trying to be popular, she would
Speaker 1: do very well. Well guess what. Guess what made me
Speaker 1: famous trying to be popular? Yes, exactly, So she got
Speaker 1: it wrong. Okay, you know you're talking about technical stuff.
Speaker 1: Before we began. Dudge says, you're pretty up on technical
Speaker 1: and say no, no, no, and you're giving examples. So
Speaker 1: how good are you with technical stuff? You ran that,
Speaker 1: no problem. Well, you gotta remember my generation was not
Speaker 1: a computer generation, so I had when I finally started
Speaker 1: to learn it, I had to learn as you need
Speaker 1: to learn kind of thing. I'm not too bad now,
Speaker 1: you know. I can do certain things, but I get
Speaker 1: things wrong. I mean I went into the studio the
Speaker 1: other day when my son was recording with two other
Speaker 1: guys in there, and I said, Richard, we need to
Speaker 1: work on that one song. Did you get the stem cells?
Speaker 1: And he just went and the best one, the best
Speaker 1: one to see. I've told everybody this because it's amazing
Speaker 1: that fifty eight years in the business that I could
Speaker 1: do this. I was sitting in the and it's not
Speaker 1: technical thing, it's it's something else, sitting in there with
Speaker 1: my guitar, and I had this tuner right, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure how to use it because I've never used
Speaker 1: it before because I've had hits. So people tuned for me.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I put this tuner on the tuning peg.
Speaker 1: It's called the tuning peg tuner. That's what we've named it. Now.
Speaker 1: It's a headstock tuner. But I didn't know this, so
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out how you made it work. So
Speaker 1: I figured it would pick up the vibrations from each string.
Speaker 1: Because I put it, don't even go there. I put
Speaker 1: it on the tuning peg, and I'm and I've got
Speaker 1: it on that and I'm following it around as I'm
Speaker 1: tuning it to see how it's and my son came
Speaker 1: in and he went, Mom, he screamed to me, and
Speaker 1: I went, what I knew I was doing something wrong?
Speaker 1: He said, what do you do? I start up tuning
Speaker 1: a Mom, it's a headstock tuner. Where do you think
Speaker 1: you put it? I said? Oh? And you wouldn't believe
Speaker 1: that somebody could do something so stupid. Do you normally
Speaker 1: have common sense and these are just outliers or you're
Speaker 1: not known for your common sense. I can be both.
Speaker 1: I'm extremely quick with it. I'm very clever, and I
Speaker 1: can do really dumb things too. I'm just like that.
Speaker 1: And it's only because in my brain I thought I
Speaker 1: can figure this out. No, I couldn't. It made logical
Speaker 1: sense to me, Oh don't. It's so embarrassing. How could
Speaker 1: I do that? It's a head stock tuner, but we
Speaker 1: all call it now a tuning peg tuner. It's changed names. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to Detroit. So there are five kids
Speaker 1: in the family. Not everybody is completely familiar with your history.
Speaker 1: So where are you in the hierarchy? I I am
Speaker 1: the fourth out of five, my eldest sister Artie, then
Speaker 1: my brother Mickey, than Patty, than me, and then Nancy.
Speaker 1: Then how many years between everybody? Oh? God, let me think.
Speaker 1: My dad always called it his two wave of kids.
Speaker 1: So are Lean and Mickey I think are two years apart,
Speaker 1: and then there was like five or six years and
Speaker 1: then Patty, me and Nancy. So you have the two,
Speaker 1: and I think there was a couple of miscarriages in
Speaker 1: there and stuff because my mom was always pregnant. I
Speaker 1: think she had nine pregnancies and five kids. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there those two and then the US three. And
Speaker 1: those two were off married and the kids and everything.
Speaker 1: And it was my elder sister, Patty and I that
Speaker 1: started the band. Okay, you call him Mickey. For those
Speaker 1: of us who don't know him, we call him Mike.
Speaker 1: So was he Mickey or Michael? What's the story? We
Speaker 1: always called him Mickey? But as I think, he always
Speaker 1: went professionally as Michael Quadrille or Mike Quadrille, but us kids,
Speaker 1: we always called him Mickey. I never called him Michael never. Okay,
Speaker 1: So just to be clear, how old were those kids?
Speaker 1: The oldest two kids relatives to the next three kids. But, um,
Speaker 1: let me see Arleen. Okay, Arlein, now is hang? I
Speaker 1: gotta see, I'm dumb at Matt's seventy one. She's gonna
Speaker 1: be eighty this year, so she's nine years older. Mickey
Speaker 1: is seventy eight, Patty is I'm seventy one, Patty is
Speaker 1: seventy four, and then Nancy is sixty nine. So the
Speaker 1: three of us are worked together in those two Leans
Speaker 1: nine years old and Mickey seven years older, and then
Speaker 1: there was five years between Patty, me and Nancy. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I grew up in a family with only
Speaker 1: three kids. I'm the boy in between two girls, and
Speaker 1: traditionally there's a middle child syndrome. Every child has a
Speaker 1: different you know, psychology. So were you kind of lost
Speaker 1: in the shuffle or did you get a lot of
Speaker 1: attention where were you in the family. Um, I wrote
Speaker 1: a lot of songs based on this. I talked about
Speaker 1: a quite openly. I was UM, the square peg in
Speaker 1: the round hole. Always. That's how I saw myself. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of its perception, you know, but that's
Speaker 1: how I perceived it. I didn't fit anywhere my whole life.
Speaker 1: I didn't fit anywhere. I didn't know where I fit
Speaker 1: in the family. I didn't know where I fit in
Speaker 1: the world. I didn't know where I fit um until
Speaker 1: I but on stage that first time. That that's catting
Speaker 1: it short, but that's the truth. Fourteen did our first gig.
Speaker 1: I remember getting up there with my basse and I
Speaker 1: went in my head, I went, I'm home. Then I fit.
Speaker 1: What happens when you don't fit anywhere? And when you
Speaker 1: you're one of the crowd with five kids, you're one
Speaker 1: of the crowd. You know, It's just how it is.
Speaker 1: And Right says I was the Cinderella syndrome, that I
Speaker 1: was the dark purse. Nobody better. I'm not so sure
Speaker 1: if he's got that right, but maybe he does. But
Speaker 1: I know that the whole time I was growing up,
Speaker 1: I was searching from my voice for what was like
Speaker 1: the speech I made, for what my thing was. And
Speaker 1: I noticed quite young, like maybe eight seven or eight
Speaker 1: when we started to do family shows. We always did
Speaker 1: family shows. My dad was a musician, and we would
Speaker 1: sing and play and you know all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And I noticed very young that whenever I did my
Speaker 1: little bit, whatever it might be, the room stopped and
Speaker 1: watched me. And I remember going into my brain, I'm
Speaker 1: good at this. I'm good at entertaining a crowd. I
Speaker 1: knew it from very young. So I think that's how
Speaker 1: my life developed after that. I could tell a joe,
Speaker 1: I could do a sketch, I could act a scene.
Speaker 1: I could play bongles, I could play piano, I could
Speaker 1: I could reside a poem. So whatever I was doing,
Speaker 1: it would hold hold the people. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: like why I guess I did what I did. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're good on stage, needless to say, you can't
Speaker 1: be on stage. No one can be on stage more
Speaker 1: than like two hours. And I so if this late
Speaker 1: date as your go older, what's it like being lost stage? Um?
Speaker 1: Do you mean right now? Well? I mean in your
Speaker 1: life and your interior life. Okay, yeah, yeah, Um, well
Speaker 1: I mean I I give everything on stage. That's my
Speaker 1: that's my love. I love entertaining UM, I'll never get
Speaker 1: tired of It's still every gig, it's the same. Just
Speaker 1: before I go out, I think, oh God, I hope
Speaker 1: they liked me. That's always that same attitude when I'm
Speaker 1: not on stage. I'm not on stage. That's the performing
Speaker 1: part of my life. You know, I don't have to
Speaker 1: be okay. But as I say, if let's assume I
Speaker 1: dropped by and I said, Hey, we're gonna go hang
Speaker 1: at people's houses and it's gonna be like fifteen people,
Speaker 1: there is that something like you're gonna say, WHOA, this
Speaker 1: isn't gonna work for me, and say, oh, I want
Speaker 1: to go. I'll talk to everybody, which which where do
Speaker 1: you feel? Internally? Um, I'm more comfortable one to one.
Speaker 1: And I've been told by a lot of different people
Speaker 1: through the years that if they're having a dinner party
Speaker 1: that they know that they can sit me anywhere and
Speaker 1: I will start a conversation with who I'm with. I'm
Speaker 1: not so comfortable walking into parties of people. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. I feel a little bit shy. Believe it
Speaker 1: or not, Yeah, I have. My mom always told me
Speaker 1: that I was a very shy little girl. There you go,
Speaker 1: so I guess it's my alter ego, but it is.
Speaker 1: But I am. I am the kind too. It depends
Speaker 1: dinner parties. I'm great at you know, when you can
Speaker 1: sit and talk, you have your one to once. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't have to take the stage and be Susie
Speaker 1: Quatroll when I'm out with a bunch of people. I
Speaker 1: don't like doing that. In fact, I've been to a
Speaker 1: couple of parties where they said sing and I've said, no,
Speaker 1: you and if I did me, didn't you me? That
Speaker 1: annoys me. You know that they expect you to sing
Speaker 1: for your supper. If I hones sing, I will. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't need to be asked. I'll say hey, and
Speaker 1: I'll do what I want to do. But don't don't
Speaker 1: expect me to do that otherwise, you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: like a monkey, like a performing monkey, and that's not
Speaker 1: who I am. Have a real thing about going out
Speaker 1: with people, like after a show, for dinner somewhere, if
Speaker 1: there's friends and stuff, because it's just you have to
Speaker 1: perform because he's still being Susie Quatra. So I do
Speaker 1: separate the two. That's why I have the ego room.
Speaker 1: And if you read my autobiography, um unzipped. It's written
Speaker 1: in two people, Little Susie from Detroit and Susie Quatro,
Speaker 1: and all the way through the book, both people have
Speaker 1: their say and it's important. Okay. A lot of rock
Speaker 1: stars do it for acceptance. A lot of performers do
Speaker 1: it for acceptance, looking for the love that they didn't get,
Speaker 1: maybe from their parents, or the accepted they didn't get one.
Speaker 1: Was that an issue too? How are you internally? Are
Speaker 1: you still looking for that acceptance? Are you comfortable in
Speaker 1: your own skin? I'm comfortable in my skin, but I
Speaker 1: think that that that there is a a need in me.
Speaker 1: It's in my heart and soul. There's a need in
Speaker 1: me to go out there and do my show. I
Speaker 1: love doing it, you know, and I many times I'm
Speaker 1: up there and I'm being very honest with you. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll be up there doing a show and I'll think,
Speaker 1: I'll think to myself, and you're paying me for this.
Speaker 1: I love entertaining. I love seeing people come in maybe
Speaker 1: you know Saturday night crowd like that, you know, and
Speaker 1: then the swinging from the rafts. I love it. I
Speaker 1: love what I do. I love having a good conversation
Speaker 1: with somebody. But I won't do small talk, so be warned.
Speaker 1: I don't I do not do small talk. If we're
Speaker 1: going to converse, we're both gonna remember it. And that's
Speaker 1: how I treat my life. Okay, you said you're very
Speaker 1: much as Detroit girl to find that. Uh, there's an edge,
Speaker 1: There's an energy, there's an acceptance of all the different
Speaker 1: things that Detroit has to offer. There's an electric there's
Speaker 1: a danger element in Detroit. I think just about and
Speaker 1: I've had this talk with many other Detroit musicians. Um,
Speaker 1: there's something in the air there. And and if you
Speaker 1: look at a lot of the people, a lot of
Speaker 1: the musicians to come out of Detroit, you'll you will
Speaker 1: see a similarity. You got me, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop,
Speaker 1: MC five, Bob Seeger, eminem Kid Rock, White Stripes, God
Speaker 1: am I forgetting any bocaby, a million people, um, Ted
Speaker 1: Nugent Uh. And then you got all your motown but
Speaker 1: all the ones I just said, there's there's something that
Speaker 1: fits there. You know, it's an edge. Okay. You know,
Speaker 1: as I say, this is an audio podcast, but we're
Speaker 1: looking each other via zoom in order to facilitate conversation
Speaker 1: and as you move your hands, I notice you do
Speaker 1: not wear a wedding ring. Do you never wear a
Speaker 1: wedding ring? What's that about? Um? I got into the
Speaker 1: habit of not wearing rings at about the age of
Speaker 1: fourteen when I had on a cheap ring and I
Speaker 1: was slapping my bass and it broke off and went
Speaker 1: into my finger. So, because I played bass, I very
Speaker 1: often don't wear rings at all. If I go off
Speaker 1: for dinner, I might put it on, but it don't
Speaker 1: wear a wedding ring. Now, I don't need to. I've
Speaker 1: never felt the need to wear one. Now I feel
Speaker 1: the similar. Had a similar experience. I went to a
Speaker 1: dude ranch with my parents and we got a ring
Speaker 1: made out of like a horseshoe nail. And of course
Speaker 1: when you're a little kid, you're growing and I had
Speaker 1: such a hard time getting it off. Never wore rings
Speaker 1: after that. Yeah, it's scar does want anything like that? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: I mean it actually went because it was a cheap one,
Speaker 1: it actually it into my finger. I thought, I don't
Speaker 1: need this. So I can never wear any jewelry when
Speaker 1: I play, And so I guess maybe it's only when
Speaker 1: I'm going out for dinner or something, and I have
Speaker 1: a lot of nice jewelry. I'll put my jewelry on,
Speaker 1: you know. But now I've never been a wedding leen wearer. Now, okay,
Speaker 1: So you say you grew up your father was a musician,
Speaker 1: you're playing. To what degree did you take lessons on
Speaker 1: any instrument? Um? I started on bongo drums at the
Speaker 1: age of seven, begged my dad to get me a pair.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a hippie and a coffee house,
Speaker 1: smoking cigarettes, playing bongos and reading my poetry. Okay, Um
Speaker 1: so I used to go with my dad at the
Speaker 1: age of seven, round eight when I started to get
Speaker 1: quite good, and let me sit in front of the trio.
Speaker 1: Then I took classical piano for eight years at least.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, oh yeah, I read. I read and write
Speaker 1: and play classical piano, and I also took percussion. I
Speaker 1: was in the school orchestra, first chair in the percussion section.
Speaker 1: Uh so I'm trained in piano and percussion, and then
Speaker 1: at fourteen self taught on base. Okay. So, for many
Speaker 1: peep Benny Boomers, the line of demarcations the Beatles by
Speaker 1: the same token. There was a lot of popular music,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned Motown, etcetera happening in Detroit. What do
Speaker 1: you mean what turned on your lights? Obviously you came
Speaker 1: from musical family, but what were the records for the
Speaker 1: type of music that all of a sudden you said, Man,
Speaker 1: I just got to go in this direction. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: got some pivotal moments that are very important. Um, five
Speaker 1: and a half, I was watching the Ed Sullivan Show
Speaker 1: with the family, like we all did, eight o'clock at night.
Speaker 1: Everything stopped Sunday at Sullivan and um, you know, he
Speaker 1: always would bring on something for the youngsters at the
Speaker 1: end of the show. And this particular night, Elvis came
Speaker 1: on and he was doing Don't Be Cruel. And my
Speaker 1: eldest sister by nine years, she was survited age. She
Speaker 1: was screaming, and I remember, like it was yesterday. I
Speaker 1: looked at her and I thought, cent, what's the matter
Speaker 1: with you? I was only a little girl. And then
Speaker 1: I looked back at the TV and I went into
Speaker 1: the screen. I went into it and lightbulb moment. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do that. Don't ask me why, but it happened
Speaker 1: that age. Wow, And he stayed with me my whole life.
Speaker 1: It's it's a it's a whole of this whole other interview.
Speaker 1: There's like nine elvous epiphanies that you can't write. And
Speaker 1: then at fourteen, we were watching at Sullivan again and
Speaker 1: the Beatles came on, and as soon as they were finished,
Speaker 1: we called our two two friends, sisters and another girl.
Speaker 1: Everybody's on the phone and we were all oh eyeing
Speaker 1: over the Beatles, and Patty said, my older sister, she said, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't we have an all girl band? And everybody
Speaker 1: said yeah, great, great, great, great great. Everybody chose an
Speaker 1: instrument real quick. I want rhythm, I want drums, I
Speaker 1: want piano, I want lead, and I wait hello, and
Speaker 1: Patty said to me, you'll play bass, okay? And I
Speaker 1: did you know? I find base unfathomable, especially forget to
Speaker 1: stand up base, but just in a regular guitar base.
Speaker 1: A lot of legendary basses play without frets. Uh, how
Speaker 1: do you learn him? How do you do it? What
Speaker 1: without fritz? No? Just base in general? Oh god, I
Speaker 1: didn't even think about it. Um. When I was little,
Speaker 1: I used to put a broomstick and put rubber bands
Speaker 1: like that, and betime I was doing this. Um, My
Speaker 1: dad gave me precision to start with. That's like the
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce of bass guitars. Um. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: there were smaller bass guitarist. All I knew was this
Speaker 1: is what he gave me to learn, so I learned it.
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was a big bass, but I
Speaker 1: sort of felt real comfortable with it right away because
Speaker 1: don't forget, I'm a percussionist and a pianist, and they're
Speaker 1: both percussion. Pianos is classed as a percussive instrument, so
Speaker 1: that's where my brain is anyway. Um, And because I
Speaker 1: learned the bass and became lead singer together, it wasn't
Speaker 1: difficult because I was playing a singing so everything off.
Speaker 1: I learned this and I learned it just fit fitted
Speaker 1: together like a jigsaw puzzle, and bass became my favorite
Speaker 1: stage instrument. Oh right away. I fell in love with
Speaker 1: it very much suited me. Okay, so it's February, the
Speaker 1: Beatles are on TV. You get on the phone. What
Speaker 1: is the next step with the group. Then we decided
Speaker 1: we were gonna have the band. Um, Like I said,
Speaker 1: I got my bass from my dad. NaN's parents bought
Speaker 1: her a bass drum and a snare drum in one
Speaker 1: symbol because they weren't sure if she was serious. Patty
Speaker 1: got a cheap guitar, Mary Lew got a cheap guitar.
Speaker 1: Diane got a little funky little world sir. And we
Speaker 1: started to rehearse, and we talked to my sister, talked
Speaker 1: to the owner of the hideout, which was the local
Speaker 1: dance all that everybody went in too, to let us
Speaker 1: do a gig there in a month's time, a month
Speaker 1: a month and we what We only learned three songs
Speaker 1: and they were the same three chords, so we played
Speaker 1: it safe and yeah, we were up a month later. Wow,
Speaker 1: And that was that was a real wake up call
Speaker 1: for me, you know, to be up there and I
Speaker 1: really what wait wait wait what were the three songs? Oh?
Speaker 1: Latin Blu twist and shout and long talk text And
Speaker 1: so you get up and you play. What's the reception? Like?
Speaker 1: It was fantastic? And did you sing longfall text in
Speaker 1: like the record? Yeah? Well I'm alone tall text in,
Speaker 1: I ride a bit? Why or is he cons on
Speaker 1: texas sound a big don't? But oh yeah, I did
Speaker 1: it all. I was the lead singer, I was in front,
Speaker 1: the whole front person. I didn of the songs singing.
Speaker 1: So after that great debut, what happened with the act?
Speaker 1: We then started to play colleges teen dances. Um, the
Speaker 1: drummer went off to college. We went off to ann
Speaker 1: Arbor every weekend to play the Friday T G I
Speaker 1: F parties and all that. UM. Then one person dropped out.
Speaker 1: Then another person dropped out in my elder sister Arlene,
Speaker 1: who was married to three kids. She joined the band
Speaker 1: and her first husband out of seven I love saying
Speaker 1: that he started to manage the band, so he left
Speaker 1: his job and he had to support three kids on
Speaker 1: what we earned. So we worked and we started to
Speaker 1: become a show band, UM with costumes, playing all the clubs,
Speaker 1: you know, doing five sets a night. That was pretty normal,
Speaker 1: forty five on, fifteen off. And we worked all the time.
Speaker 1: We worked more than the guys did. And we went
Speaker 1: into club land, you know, we were a show banding
Speaker 1: club land. That's where I learned my craft. How much
Speaker 1: money were you making? Well, I remember being seventeen eighteen
Speaker 1: and earning a thousand dollars a week, which was pretty
Speaker 1: good back then. Oh yeah, yeah yeah, I mean he,
Speaker 1: like I said, he had to earn a living. You know.
Speaker 1: So he got us good money and we were an
Speaker 1: all go a band, so we were different, we were
Speaker 1: unique and it was easy to book us and we
Speaker 1: went coast to coast NonStop. I was on the road
Speaker 1: from fourteen until last year because of the pandemic. Okay,
Speaker 1: so how did you decide to drop out of high school?
Speaker 1: I was in New York. We were playing Trudi Heller's
Speaker 1: in Greenwich Village, fantastic and see end of the summer,
Speaker 1: it was time for me to go back and finish
Speaker 1: my school. And I was sitting on the bed in
Speaker 1: my hotel and little tiny single bed. I called home
Speaker 1: collect of course, and uh, I remember because my dad
Speaker 1: got on the phone and my mother got on the
Speaker 1: extension and I said, Dad, I think I found what
Speaker 1: I want to do for the rest of my life
Speaker 1: and I don't want to come back and finished school.
Speaker 1: And there was a real silence, and then he said,
Speaker 1: is there anything I can say to change your mind?
Speaker 1: And I said nope, And he quietly put the phone down.
Speaker 1: He cut me off, but he didn't do it mad.
Speaker 1: He just went click. And how clever, How clever because
Speaker 1: I had made this statement and he didn't yell at me.
Speaker 1: It's almost like click, you better think about that. And
Speaker 1: I did. I said, on to bed for about maybe
Speaker 1: twenty minutes or so, and I'm out. I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: Never regretted it, not for a second. Okay, so this
Speaker 1: is in the heyday of beans. People have no idea
Speaker 1: what it was like. There was no internet. Everybody picked
Speaker 1: up an instrument after the Beatles, there were bands battle
Speaker 1: of the Beans everywhere. So now you're a professional, what
Speaker 1: is your life and career look like? And are your
Speaker 1: dreams bigger than being in a show band playing clubs? Um?
Speaker 1: I loved the Pleasure Seekers. It was a fun band,
Speaker 1: and I was learning all the time. I was enjoying
Speaker 1: the You know, my god, how I learned how to
Speaker 1: use my throat without losing your five shows a night. Um.
Speaker 1: But I didn't care about it being all girls. But
Speaker 1: I don't do gender. Actually I never have. I've never
Speaker 1: I've never thought of myself as a female musician. That's
Speaker 1: why when I looked at Elvis, I said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do that. Never thought about it being a guy. I
Speaker 1: just don't do gender. Um. I was a tomboy when
Speaker 1: I was growing up. But I remember a pivot another
Speaker 1: pivotal moment. We were setting up the equipment because because
Speaker 1: sorry about that, setting up the equipment because some we
Speaker 1: didn't have a ROADI couldn't afford one. And the lights
Speaker 1: were growing up and all that, and we were carrying
Speaker 1: in all of us, the Hammond Oregon, the Hammond organ
Speaker 1: and my our manager, my sister's husband. He said, now
Speaker 1: you girls, you girls do realize that all the lights
Speaker 1: have to go on, Susie, I didn't say that. He
Speaker 1: said that. I remember being quite uncomfortable with that. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know, that didn't come from my mouth. I was like,
Speaker 1: what do you say? But I always kind of knew that,
Speaker 1: Um not kind of. I knew that somebody one day
Speaker 1: was gonna tap me on the shoulder and sec I
Speaker 1: just knew. I knew it. I had a feeling. So
Speaker 1: I was learning and enjoy being with everybody, and then
Speaker 1: and then the call came. I had dreams of every
Speaker 1: I guess dreams of I don't like the words startom.
Speaker 1: I think it has negative connotations. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: well known. I wanted everybody to endure my music. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to reach a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I wanted to be somebody. Okay, what were
Speaker 1: you doing with all the money? Oh that I was
Speaker 1: baking back then? Uh, buying clothes, got some guitars. God it.
Speaker 1: It didn't last that long. That big money didn't last
Speaker 1: that long because Leonder ain't got divorced. So when he
Speaker 1: stopped managing us, we didn't. We didn't end up doing
Speaker 1: quite as well. He was a good manager. I have
Speaker 1: to say he did well. Um, and we still lived
Speaker 1: at home. You know, I can't say I got reaching
Speaker 1: either of those fans pleasure seekers or cread or not really. Okay,
Speaker 1: we live in the me too era. You're a teenage
Speaker 1: girl working in nightclubs across America? What is that like?
Speaker 1: I'm sure you had some experiences were not that comfortable
Speaker 1: many times. Um. I luckily what I lack in stature
Speaker 1: I make up for in mouth. So I learned very
Speaker 1: young to put somebody verbally in their place, and I
Speaker 1: could do it very easy. Believe me, you don't recover. Um. Sure,
Speaker 1: there's been a few incidents, is yeah. One time. I
Speaker 1: remember one time when guy was at the front of
Speaker 1: the stage watching the band, and he made this rude
Speaker 1: tongue gesture you know what I mean, And I took
Speaker 1: my base as it was part of the show, and
Speaker 1: I whacked him over the head with it, and then
Speaker 1: I just had that little innocent look that I'm so
Speaker 1: great at, you know. Oh sorry, Okay, you paint a
Speaker 1: picture of a rambunctious, spinning top tom boy. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: the young men go on the road frequently with the
Speaker 1: intention of having sex. Were you sexually experienced? Was this
Speaker 1: something that was off the table? How did this fit
Speaker 1: in because on some level you were selling sex to
Speaker 1: boot Yeah? Yeah, sure. I had a boyfriend of fourteen.
Speaker 1: We're still in contact now, really good boyfriend. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: I wasn't very experienced at all. No, quite green. Actually
Speaker 1: I talked to a good game, you know. I then
Speaker 1: fell in love with a married man like you do.
Speaker 1: You know he broke my heart. Yeah I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't have that many boyfriends. I didn't. No, we were
Speaker 1: all quite square that way. My mom and there were Catholic.
Speaker 1: My mother was very strict, and that actually gave me
Speaker 1: real good tracks to run down. I wasn't one of
Speaker 1: these sex drugs in rock and roll grow like it
Speaker 1: was just for the stage, but offstage, quite quite square.
Speaker 1: My chapman or he says that that I'm doing quite
Speaker 1: square of stage. And I believe in if you're in
Speaker 1: a relationship, you're in a relationship. I believe in monogony.
Speaker 1: I believe in being. If you're with one person, be
Speaker 1: with one person. Otherwise, don't be with one person, you know.
Speaker 1: But I had fun, I had enough fun. But I
Speaker 1: certainly wasn't promiscuous by any stretch of the imagination. That
Speaker 1: just wasn't me. In fact, the joke amongst all the
Speaker 1: male musicians in Detroit was that you couldn't get near
Speaker 1: the quadrulls. That it was quite funny. Uh no, not
Speaker 1: not permissing. I'm quite square to the question of drugs
Speaker 1: and alcohol. No, In fact, I didn't even get drunk
Speaker 1: until I was twenty two when I met my ex
Speaker 1: husband and he said me, you've never been drunk. Maybe
Speaker 1: I had some beers back in the teenagers, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't wasn't a drinker. Um. And I had my first
Speaker 1: drunk with my ex houseman and he took me out
Speaker 1: to her the Greek restaurant. We had wine and I
Speaker 1: was dancing on the tables. That's funny. And what about drugs,
Speaker 1: the normal pop stuff that you do in the in
Speaker 1: the I was the sixties teenagers, so the drinking parties
Speaker 1: were in fact pop parties, you know. But unfortunately, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I'm one of those people that when I smoke dope
Speaker 1: it makes me speedy, and I'm speedy anyway. And everybody's
Speaker 1: I remember going to I never forget at a pivotal
Speaker 1: moment in my life again, big pot party where at
Speaker 1: everybody's smoking. Everybody's like like this, you know, laying around
Speaker 1: like you do, nobody talking, and I'm going person to person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I heard somebody say to somebody else, next time
Speaker 1: you come, don't bring her oh wounded. And as the
Speaker 1: late seventies hit in in the eighties, come on, it's
Speaker 1: a big cocaine scene. Were you ever doing coke or
Speaker 1: were you just a marijuana girl? I didn't even hardy
Speaker 1: do dope once I saw what it did to me.
Speaker 1: UM never never not interested. UM. I'm not one of
Speaker 1: these people that would ever take a drink, even to
Speaker 1: this day. Although I like a glass of wine, glass
Speaker 1: of champagne absolutely, um, and I have a good collection
Speaker 1: and I'm a snub with wines in champagne like good stuff. UM.
Speaker 1: Never have needed anything to go on to a stage,
Speaker 1: and in fact, I don't like it when people do
Speaker 1: need something. Cocaine just didn't interest to me whatsoever. I've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of people waste a lot of money
Speaker 1: up there nose. You know, no, thank you, not for me. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you're in the Pleasure Seekers, you ultimately make records.
Speaker 1: Then the band morshed into cradle. You know, that was
Speaker 1: a time where there was a clear line between It's
Speaker 1: not like today where anybody can make a record. There
Speaker 1: was a clear line between the people who were happening
Speaker 1: on the radio had deals and the bands were playing
Speaker 1: in clubs. What were your thoughts into what degree were
Speaker 1: you're optimistic? Into what degree were you frustrated? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got signed by Mercury. We made a few sides,
Speaker 1: but that didn't work out. Because this is the Pleasure Seekers.
Speaker 1: They didn't want us to actually play our instruments on
Speaker 1: the record, and we all didn't like that at all,
Speaker 1: so we left the company. Um. Then there was an
Speaker 1: incident where my brother booked us on his one of
Speaker 1: his festivals that he started to do, and uh, we
Speaker 1: we're a custom wearing show band, and we went onto
Speaker 1: this hippie festival and we died. We died with our stage.
Speaker 1: We were a show band and it was a bit
Speaker 1: of a shock because we always did great at clubs.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody loved us. So we had a big
Speaker 1: discussion after that, and it was a case of changing
Speaker 1: the band around, getting heavy, writing our own material. I
Speaker 1: would take a step back and mainly just play bass.
Speaker 1: A little sister would come in and start singing, and
Speaker 1: it became a serious jamming band, long hair and ty
Speaker 1: dyed T shirts and one of those. And I didn't
Speaker 1: like that at all. We couldn't get signed, and we
Speaker 1: didn't really have record success in either band, not really
Speaker 1: um and it was the cradle the band, the second
Speaker 1: wave of the pleasure Seekers, where the two record companies
Speaker 1: came and saw us both in one week of each other.
Speaker 1: Electorate Records came to Detroit, saw the band, didn't like
Speaker 1: the band whatsoever, offered me a solo contract, and that
Speaker 1: very same week, Mickey Most came to Detroit, saw the
Speaker 1: band didn't like the band whatsoever, and offered me a
Speaker 1: solo contract. So yeah, there was definitely a line between
Speaker 1: we're king unit and recording. Yeah, it was srd to
Speaker 1: get signed back then, but like I said, I witness
Speaker 1: a solo with Mickey Most and the rest is history.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, how depressed were you when the band
Speaker 1: more than the Cradle and you're no longer the lead singer.
Speaker 1: I took it with a little bit of philosophical attitude.
Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, I could see the reasons she's more
Speaker 1: in tune with that sort of happening things. She's that age,
Speaker 1: and she video is a little bit heavier and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah um. And then I thought that it would
Speaker 1: be a great opportunity to learn my base really well.
Speaker 1: So I became really proficient on my bass guitar. But
Speaker 1: the joy went out for me. I have to say,
Speaker 1: I'm better as I'm a fun person by nature. So
Speaker 1: I didn't really enjoy my time in that band at all.
Speaker 1: And I didn't like the root it took musically how
Speaker 1: much heavier and we have to say something politically and
Speaker 1: blah blah, No, no, I don't want to do that,
Speaker 1: you know. So um, Like I said, when the two
Speaker 1: offers came with an week, it was to me a
Speaker 1: no brainer that it was my time to move on.
Speaker 1: In that interroom. Before you got those two offers, do
Speaker 1: you ever think of giving up. No, I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: it no matter what, no matter what. Never for an instant,
Speaker 1: even in London, living in a room that was about
Speaker 1: as big as this chair, with nobody, you know, just
Speaker 1: my contract, and going to the studio every day with
Speaker 1: my less Paul recording basement way more than I did,
Speaker 1: crying myself to sleep every night, very lonely. Never did
Speaker 1: I consider giving up. I was always going where I
Speaker 1: was going. In fact, I've still got that exact same
Speaker 1: fire in my belly that I had then. It hasn't
Speaker 1: hasn't dissipated, even even with all the success, It's still
Speaker 1: not going. So I guess that's just my nature. Okay,
Speaker 1: when you're there and your brother Mike brings Mickey mo
Speaker 1: most to you, what goes through your brain? Um? After
Speaker 1: after Okay, I just knew it. Mickey was watching and
Speaker 1: Nancy was singing, and I walked up and I did
Speaker 1: two songs. And I remember it because I knew he
Speaker 1: was there, and I was a big as a big
Speaker 1: fan of his production. I was a huge Donovan fan,
Speaker 1: so I loved Mickey's productions, loved him. Um and I remember,
Speaker 1: I said, I remember doing it. I went here's what
Speaker 1: I wrote. It's called brain confusion. And then after that
Speaker 1: I went going to a party at the County and
Speaker 1: I knew exactly and after the show, he just went
Speaker 1: like this to me. I just had the feeling, you know,
Speaker 1: And he said to me, how would you like to
Speaker 1: come to You gonna make a record? But I thought
Speaker 1: he meant the band. He didn't mean the band, and
Speaker 1: and that's a It's in my documentary. It's a well
Speaker 1: documented story. Um. He flew Mickey to New York to
Speaker 1: talk to him, and Mickey came back with the news.
Speaker 1: But nobody told me that he didn't want the band.
Speaker 1: He only wanted me, And nobody told me that news.
Speaker 1: So I could have missed my shot. But about three
Speaker 1: or four months later, the band started to disintegrate, and
Speaker 1: I rode my bike to my eldest sister at Need's house,
Speaker 1: who wasn't in the band anymore for quite a while.
Speaker 1: She was on husband number two then, and I was
Speaker 1: really upset. I said, what am I gonna do? This band?
Speaker 1: The band is my whole life. Music is what am
Speaker 1: I gonna do? She said? Called Mickey, I said, why
Speaker 1: why I've been sending him stuff with the band and
Speaker 1: you know, and she said he likes you. I said, well,
Speaker 1: what do he means? She said, he just only wanted you, Susie.
Speaker 1: And I went what I had, no idea, no idea.
Speaker 1: I could have missed my shot. That's not right. They
Speaker 1: should have told me, um. I mean, I know why
Speaker 1: they didn't. Obviously they will hope me. He's going to
Speaker 1: take the whole band, of course. But I called him
Speaker 1: did that that day and he said, I understand because
Speaker 1: they didn't want to break up the family band. You
Speaker 1: say he wanted it. He thought it was out his
Speaker 1: last legs anyway, and he said to me, uh oh,
Speaker 1: so the band is going to be split and I
Speaker 1: said yeah. I said good, you're ready to come over.
Speaker 1: I said, yep, done, okay slowly you're in Detroit. You
Speaker 1: literally called Mickey most in England. Yeah, okay. That was
Speaker 1: when the transatlantic phone call was a really big deal. Second,
Speaker 1: I know, and he took the call right away. I
Speaker 1: just said, Sissor Quadro called Mickey out, Hello, Susie Quadri.
Speaker 1: He always called me Susie Quadra. Okay, how long thereafter
Speaker 1: do you end up in London? And where there's any
Speaker 1: anxiety about going to London, what your parents and peers
Speaker 1: have to say. Well, I had the two offers on
Speaker 1: the table. Electric Records wanted to take me to New
Speaker 1: York and put a mail band around me and turned
Speaker 1: me into the next Janis Chapham, which I didn't like
Speaker 1: it at all, And Mickey Mo said, come to London,
Speaker 1: we'll record an album who used the best musicians, and
Speaker 1: I'll make you the first Susie Quadrum. So he saw me,
Speaker 1: but I went to I had to think about it,
Speaker 1: and I went to my parents bedroom and my mom
Speaker 1: was sitting on a chair and my dad was sitting
Speaker 1: on the bed and we were talking, and I said,
Speaker 1: I've had the two offers. Uh, I'm going to take
Speaker 1: the English offer. And then my mom started to cry
Speaker 1: because it was going to be so far away. And
Speaker 1: my dad said something to me that forever pushed me.
Speaker 1: He said, you do realize, of course, that your sisters
Speaker 1: won't make it without you. Wow. Talk about a heavy
Speaker 1: burden to carry, you know, I don't even I think
Speaker 1: it must have taken me maybe ten years to even
Speaker 1: join my Hit Records. I always felt bad, so he
Speaker 1: shouldn't have put that mean, but he did. But at
Speaker 1: the same time. He was giving me quite a compliment,
Speaker 1: but it really was a heavy load that I carried,
Speaker 1: that really heavy. Okay, so what exact year he moved
Speaker 1: to England. I arrived October thirty one nine. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're twenty one years old. Did they have an apartment
Speaker 1: for you? What is your life look like now you're
Speaker 1: in England? They put me in like a little hotel
Speaker 1: um with a small room, a tiny bed, no bathroom,
Speaker 1: a mirror with a cracked a sink with a cracked mirror,
Speaker 1: and a dirty window. Not a nice room. Not a
Speaker 1: nice room. And I had come from a beautiful home
Speaker 1: and gross Point Whids, you know, cross Point Farms actually
Speaker 1: at that point. Um wow, I spent so much a
Speaker 1: long time there then, Like I said, I used to
Speaker 1: cry myself to sleep every night, but I kept thinking
Speaker 1: to myself, this is my pay, my due is part
Speaker 1: of my life and I will make it. And I
Speaker 1: promised myself I would not go back to Detroit without
Speaker 1: hate records. Okay, you talk about low moments during that year.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, now you've got a lot of the whole
Speaker 1: life look back upon. Do you have low moments? Do
Speaker 1: you get depressed or those times that never really happened
Speaker 1: to Susie Quadro Oh gosh. I get those all the time.
Speaker 1: But as an artist, they're my favorite moments because I create.
Speaker 1: You know, I've got a poetry book. I've got a
Speaker 1: lyric book. I've just got an Instagram book. A year
Speaker 1: on lockdown, I'm writing songs all the time. Whenever anything
Speaker 1: happens to me, I let it. I'm the kind of
Speaker 1: girl that walks through the fire I do. I let
Speaker 1: it burn, and I come out of the other side,
Speaker 1: and then I will either put it in a poem
Speaker 1: or a song. I get lots of low moments, but
Speaker 1: luckily I'm I'm basically a glass offtball person. Basically I
Speaker 1: am so the low more and they don't stay long.
Speaker 1: I get them out. You have to get them out.
Speaker 1: At one time, I was not you know this book.
Speaker 1: I just put up called them through my Thoughts Coffee
Speaker 1: table my third in my series of coffee table books,
Speaker 1: and it was on a year long of lockdown, so
Speaker 1: it was like a year in lockdown. I did Instagram
Speaker 1: and I made it into a book with some narrative,
Speaker 1: just put it out and one one one that I
Speaker 1: wrote which every morning I wake up, lockdown, can't see
Speaker 1: my husband, he's in Germany, so really alone, couldn't see
Speaker 1: my kids alone. And I would wake up every morning
Speaker 1: religioucy from March to March to one figure out what
Speaker 1: my day is like, find the right picture and the
Speaker 1: right uplifting message or maybe not uplifting, however, I was
Speaker 1: feeling with short message. One message, I wrote, oh, you know, hello,
Speaker 1: good morning, and this and them about it up um
Speaker 1: and depression. Don't come knock on itt my door. You're
Speaker 1: not getting in. That was in the more. At midnight,
Speaker 1: I hit the wall, and I mean I hit the wall.
Speaker 1: I couldn't stop crying. I couldn't stop crying. So my
Speaker 1: next Instagram the next day was smartass shut up you
Speaker 1: know really, I said, uh, I'm sharing this with everybody
Speaker 1: because obviously the depression was skirting around the edges of
Speaker 1: my mind and I was I was be at all
Speaker 1: ha ha. I said, it didn't even knock on the door.
Speaker 1: It just came in, you know. And it's okay to cry,
Speaker 1: It's okay to hit that wall, which we all have
Speaker 1: to do. You shouldn't stop it. I felt better after crying,
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, I've hit the wall a lot
Speaker 1: of times during this, but I bounced back. I just
Speaker 1: you say your husband was in Germany. Was that just
Speaker 1: during lockdown or do you spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: a part normally. Well, he lives in Germany and I
Speaker 1: live in England. And for the past twenty seven years
Speaker 1: that's worked beautifully because here's ten minutes from the airport
Speaker 1: in Hamburg, and I have ten minutes from the airport
Speaker 1: here fifteen minutes and we just and we were and
Speaker 1: he goes on the road with me, he has done
Speaker 1: since he retired from his promoting. He just looks after me.
Speaker 1: So we go on the road. Um, you're coming here?
Speaker 1: Am I coming there? That's the life we've had. Were
Speaker 1: either going somewhere together or he's coming here and I'm
Speaker 1: going there. And then all of a sudden, lockdown and
Speaker 1: that was over. So all of a sudden, I am
Speaker 1: alone and so we see and we had only skype,
Speaker 1: only skype. So every morning tears, you know, tears. It's
Speaker 1: been really hard. And I can't go over there with
Speaker 1: him full time, and he can't be here full time
Speaker 1: because this is my house and that's his. So everything
Speaker 1: is the way we like it, you know, So we've
Speaker 1: we've managed to make it through. It's easing up a
Speaker 1: bit now. Five months apart last year all together, and
Speaker 1: three months so far this year. He's coming over on
Speaker 1: Sunday pre COVID. If there are three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: five nights in a year, how many are you together? Um?
Speaker 1: We usually are a part for maybe together two and
Speaker 1: a half weeks apart for two and a half to
Speaker 1: two weeks. Two weeks and two weeks. It probably averages
Speaker 1: out like that. And has it been that from day
Speaker 1: one in the relationship yet? I didn't think I would
Speaker 1: like that, you know. And he was the one. He
Speaker 1: kept saying, oh, a lot of a lot of professional
Speaker 1: couples lived this way, blah blah blah. And now you know,
Speaker 1: it's just like when I said, depression, you're not coming
Speaker 1: in ha ha. He hates it, and I'm fine, and
Speaker 1: I'm fine. I'm actually fine with it. So he's the
Speaker 1: one hating it now and I'm the one that's saying
Speaker 1: it's fine. Okay, So you're in this little hotel room.
Speaker 1: What are you literally doing professionally? For that next year?
Speaker 1: We are recording Mickey signed me as a singer song.
Speaker 1: We're writing a musician. Um, so I'm writing all the time.
Speaker 1: He got me a little studio to work in with
Speaker 1: the piano and an amp and a bass, and I'm writing,
Speaker 1: and we're in the studio with some big people, Um,
Speaker 1: Peter Frampton playing on some of my stuff, Big Jim
Speaker 1: Sullivan on guitar, Alan White on the drums. From Yes.
Speaker 1: I mean, we had serious people me on the base
Speaker 1: so making stuff. Um, but it was a very Mickey
Speaker 1: would be the first rest in peace. Mickey. He would
Speaker 1: be the first to say he never was quite sure
Speaker 1: how to get me on record. He knew what he
Speaker 1: knew what I was, and he didn't know what I was.
Speaker 1: He was always searching, and you know, so we weren't
Speaker 1: making the right kind of records. And finally, after about
Speaker 1: oh a year, mab a year and a half, I said,
Speaker 1: I've been advanced since I've been fourteen, Mickey, you know
Speaker 1: that's what I do. I said, I need to get
Speaker 1: a band here and start working because I'm going crazy,
Speaker 1: you know. He said, okay, So I auditioned and I
Speaker 1: got a band. That was the turning point for me. Um.
Speaker 1: He put us on the circuit, on the college circuit,
Speaker 1: doing all my own materials. So really, now I'm developing.
Speaker 1: I got my band, you know, now everything's making sense.
Speaker 1: And uh. Then we went on the first ever national
Speaker 1: Slade tour and they were having hits before I had mine.
Speaker 1: Mickey called his friend Chase Chandler, who used to be
Speaker 1: bass player for The Animals, and he said, I got
Speaker 1: this girl. She's gonna be huge. Can you put her
Speaker 1: on opening the show? He said sure, So I had
Speaker 1: twenty minutes at the beginning of every show, then then
Speaker 1: Lizzie and then Slade and all my own stuff. And
Speaker 1: by the time that tour was over, I was in
Speaker 1: love with my guitar player. We wanted to get married,
Speaker 1: and the band had a sound, had a sound we
Speaker 1: had developed. Obviously, you're playing every night, you're gonna find
Speaker 1: your sound. And Mickey then had just signed Chinn and
Speaker 1: Chapman songwriters, and he said to me, do your mind,
Speaker 1: because I'm the songwriter. He said, do your mind if
Speaker 1: they come along and see a show and try to
Speaker 1: craft a hit single out of your sound. And I said,
Speaker 1: I don't mind whatsoever. The good writers, you know, So
Speaker 1: they came and heard and if you hear the first album,
Speaker 1: you'll hear all my stuff is to do is very boogish,
Speaker 1: you know. So they heard what we did, they heard
Speaker 1: the set, and they went away WI can the Camp
Speaker 1: And that was my first number one. A little bit
Speaker 1: slower he gets them, they see you live. Tell us
Speaker 1: about the creation of can the Camp. Uh, Mike came
Speaker 1: in with this. If you want, don't ever give Mike
Speaker 1: a guitar because he's on eleven all the time and
Speaker 1: he likes screeching, you know. But anyway, he heard the sound,
Speaker 1: he came. But he came up with this demo of
Speaker 1: just lots and lots of noise and guitarist and him singing,
Speaker 1: and he played it for us and we liked it,
Speaker 1: and we down into the rehearsal room at the record company,
Speaker 1: all of the all of us musicians, and we worked
Speaker 1: on the arrangement of this song. So the drummer came
Speaker 1: up with to do. He came up with that excellent um.
Speaker 1: Lenny came up with his little choppy way of playing it,
Speaker 1: and I came up with the nice boogie base line.
Speaker 1: And we had a great great keyboard player, Alistair. Oh.
Speaker 1: He was so good. He's he's called so many of
Speaker 1: them are dead. Anyway, he came up with that, and
Speaker 1: it all took shape very quickly. The band, everybody put
Speaker 1: their stamp on it with their instrument, and then Mike
Speaker 1: said to me, sing it here, and I sang it,
Speaker 1: and he went sing it here. By saying it, sing
Speaker 1: it here, I said, Mike, that's the top of my range.
Speaker 1: He said, that's where it's gonna be. So he took
Speaker 1: me right up. He said, something happens to your voice
Speaker 1: up in that register. Took me right up there. And
Speaker 1: when we were making it in the studio, I put
Speaker 1: the doom do, which really became a real key factor.
Speaker 1: That was Lenny's idea to doom with do do do
Speaker 1: a medal base rift there. And then when we were done,
Speaker 1: I've done the vocal and everything, and Mike said I
Speaker 1: need something just here, and I went right and I
Speaker 1: went out. I did my famous I've been doing it
Speaker 1: since I've been fourteen, my famous scream. And it's a
Speaker 1: good one. It really is. Makes the hairs on the
Speaker 1: back of here that going. Max said, that's the magic.
Speaker 1: So how long did it take to cut the record?
Speaker 1: And how long after that was it released to the marketplace?
Speaker 1: And let me see, now we cut it must have
Speaker 1: been just after the Slave, so it would have been
Speaker 1: around January, February, March about March, and then, um, that
Speaker 1: was all put together. I was number one in May,
Speaker 1: so we we just cut that one side first and
Speaker 1: then I hit number one in May. I was twenty three,
Speaker 1: had my first number one nearly three, and then Mickey said,
Speaker 1: we need to make the next single right away and
Speaker 1: the album. So then we went and started to record
Speaker 1: the album. So they came out after the second hit single,
Speaker 1: after forty eight crash. That was great, That was great.
Speaker 1: A couple of things. Mike will say that he wrote
Speaker 1: the songs and Nikki was just a business guy. You
Speaker 1: align with that, or you see Nikki having an influence
Speaker 1: on the material. Um, I mean, Mike's a very good
Speaker 1: friend of mine. You know, we're still very close. And
Speaker 1: he would say him he said many for many years.
Speaker 1: At the beginning, probably says for the first four or
Speaker 1: five years that Nikki Chin was very important. And because
Speaker 1: he used to edit, he'd say what you got, Mike
Speaker 1: would play it, and he might change a word here
Speaker 1: and there. He was maybe good at hearing a certain
Speaker 1: word or whatever. But but in reality, Mike was more
Speaker 1: the writer Nikki did what he did whatever he did
Speaker 1: in private, and Nikki was very good at business. And
Speaker 1: when I did my big documentary, when I was doing
Speaker 1: my radio shows, I did fifteen years on BBC Radio two. Um,
Speaker 1: everybody that they talked to that got included in the
Speaker 1: interviews when the documentary came out, they all said the
Speaker 1: same thing. So Nikki would tell it different, but that's
Speaker 1: how Mike tells it. Okay, So you hear the version
Speaker 1: finished version of Can That Cant Do you immediately say,
Speaker 1: holy sh it, this is hit record. He say, well,
Speaker 1: we made it. We'll see what happens. No, you could
Speaker 1: hear it. Um, you got goose bumps. So I had
Speaker 1: no doubt that was gonna Mickey heard it. He said,
Speaker 1: this is number one. It's the number one. Um. You
Speaker 1: know when you hear a song like that, that's gonna
Speaker 1: be here, you know it. You know it. It had
Speaker 1: something had an excitement about it. Um. He called me
Speaker 1: into his office and it was about a month before
Speaker 1: the record was due to come out, and he said,
Speaker 1: we have to talk about image now. He said, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a number one with this. We need your image.
Speaker 1: What do you want to wear? Great story of this.
Speaker 1: I said leather, of course, Elvis and he said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. And I said, Mickey, I want to wear leather.
Speaker 1: Said no, it's it's old hat. It's been done, and
Speaker 1: I said not by me. And he went and he
Speaker 1: looked at me and he said, how about a jumpsuit?
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, this is when I can be naive.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, great, And I'm thinking to myself how
Speaker 1: sensible that is, because I'm a real energetic performer and
Speaker 1: everything will stay in place. And I had no idea
Speaker 1: until I got the pictures back that it was sexy.
Speaker 1: And that's why that photograph works, because it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to be sexy. I didn't know I
Speaker 1: was being sexy. But when the pictures came back from
Speaker 1: being to choose, I looked at them and I went, oh, oh, dear,
Speaker 1: oh dear. If I don't it's very funny. Don't see
Speaker 1: you don't see yourself that way, you know. But there
Speaker 1: was a pivotal moment again just before we just I
Speaker 1: went just watching the time you just before we move on. Um,
Speaker 1: when I was in the studio, the photographic studio with
Speaker 1: a very big photographer, gard make of its. He's done, everybody,
Speaker 1: including the Stones, and I was standing there in my
Speaker 1: brand new jumpsuit. The boys were sort of lying on
Speaker 1: this table around my feet. I was a leader of
Speaker 1: the gang and my record was playing in the background,
Speaker 1: and my first ever proper photo session in my jumpsuit,
Speaker 1: and I remember the photographers saying to me, okay, now
Speaker 1: give me that Susie Quatro look, and I had one.
Speaker 1: The funniest thing is I didn't know I had one.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna grab the box set so I could
Speaker 1: show you the look and you'll see what I mean
Speaker 1: one second, because I'll never forget this as long as
Speaker 1: I live, because I you know, you're searching, searching, searching,
Speaker 1: and then somebody says something like that to you, and
Speaker 1: you you do it, and then everything, all the pieces
Speaker 1: of my my performing jigsaw puzzle, my personality, it all
Speaker 1: came boom. I remember this picture being taken. I hope
Speaker 1: believe I'll remember the picture too. See can you see
Speaker 1: what I mean? Absolutely, it's a legendary picture. But okay,
Speaker 1: you're instantly a sex symbol. What's it like being inside
Speaker 1: the jumps dude and everybody looking at you. To me,
Speaker 1: it was it was right. It felt good. Um, when
Speaker 1: you when you don't grow up thinking of yourself as
Speaker 1: a good looking, sexy girl, even wearing that and being
Speaker 1: looked at is not going to change your inside, you know.
Speaker 1: And I always say to my husband that, thank goodness
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up that way, because what that did
Speaker 1: was that give me a very natural balance to being
Speaker 1: stared at and being a sex, very natural balance to
Speaker 1: it all. Because I don't take it serious, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're loving Susie Quadro, and so I do
Speaker 1: separate that way. I mean most of the time. And
Speaker 1: it happens all the time. The guys will come up
Speaker 1: and they go, oh, oh no, I had you on
Speaker 1: my wall, your poster, and you know that. I said, yes,
Speaker 1: I know that, thank you enough information. They want to
Speaker 1: share it with you, you know. So I don't take
Speaker 1: it serious. I just don't take it serious. That's Susie Quadro.
Speaker 1: That's Susie Quatro. Okay, okay, Now, performing leather is not
Speaker 1: that easy. It gets hot and sweaty. I mean, what
Speaker 1: was I'm like, Well, you know, look at this idiot here,
Speaker 1: I'm five ft two. I picked the heaviest instrument and
Speaker 1: the hottest outfit. So what am I like? I could
Speaker 1: have played flute and satin. You know, Um, I just
Speaker 1: got used to it. I I when I zipped that up,
Speaker 1: I still wear it. I become me, become her, become me.
Speaker 1: She is me, She's part of me. But it's still
Speaker 1: performing side. I love. I love the jumps It's what
Speaker 1: a great what a great image. And I could still
Speaker 1: do it now at seventy one. I mean, my god,
Speaker 1: how lucky am I to have the same image. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: That means it worked because Mickey's idea was a jumpsuit.
Speaker 1: Why did you want to be in leather? From Elvis?
Speaker 1: That's another pivotal moment. I saw him on the Comeback Special.
Speaker 1: I was eighteen, and I decided leather was for me,
Speaker 1: and I went and bought my first leather jacket. Next
Speaker 1: pivotal moment, we're making the first album and we record
Speaker 1: I'll Shook Up. Next pivotal moment, I'm touring America with
Speaker 1: my English band. I've had hits. I'll Shook Up is
Speaker 1: in the charts. Um, I me in Memphis and the
Speaker 1: phone rings and it's Elvis's people, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden he gets on the phone, I knewly died, and
Speaker 1: he said, uh, I've heard your version of All Struck
Speaker 1: Up and I think it's the best. It's my own
Speaker 1: and would you like and would you like to come
Speaker 1: to grace Land? And I went, I'm very busy right now,
Speaker 1: not because I was scared, because I wasn't ready and
Speaker 1: I figured i'd have another chance to meet him and
Speaker 1: I didn't. Next pivotal moment, I have to go through
Speaker 1: these now that I started. Nineteen seventy seven, I come
Speaker 1: from Japan to l A. I auditioned for Happy Days.
Speaker 1: Um they said okay. I met the director at the funds,
Speaker 1: read for the part. They said, go back to your
Speaker 1: hotel when we'll give you a call. We have to
Speaker 1: discuss you. So I've put on the TV. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: next to the phone waiting for them to call. TV
Speaker 1: is on in the background, and they called and they said,
Speaker 1: we don't just want you for the two part episode,
Speaker 1: want you for fifteen episodes. I went great, And just
Speaker 1: as they were saying that, the TV said, news flash,
Speaker 1: the King is dead right. You can't write this stuff simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Then two or three months later I'm there to do
Speaker 1: my first taping of Happy Days and the director comes
Speaker 1: over with a little little man and he said, Susie,
Speaker 1: I'd like you to meet this guy. His name is
Speaker 1: Nudy and he's gonna be doing all your costumes for
Speaker 1: the show. That was Elvis's personal Taylor, you cannot write
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. Okay, then it's not coming out
Speaker 1: to the end of it. Now, I'm doing my tribute
Speaker 1: song to Elvis et and google it when we're done,
Speaker 1: called Singing with Angels Um. It was done in Nashville
Speaker 1: with James Burton on guitar and the Jordanaires. Gordon Stoker
Speaker 1: had come out of his hotel bed to sing on
Speaker 1: this song. I wrote it about Elvis, so that that
Speaker 1: is the final, the final one, so I finally beat
Speaker 1: used a thing with him, and the compliment that I
Speaker 1: shall take to my grave is I was outside with
Speaker 1: James Burton, took a little break from recording, and I
Speaker 1: gave him my headphones and I was playing him a
Speaker 1: few tracks from the album I was recording and he's
Speaker 1: listening and he took off. He said, you know, Susy,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you something. I said what he said?
Speaker 1: You got what over said, and I went even when
Speaker 1: I said, now, my heart stops. I said, what what
Speaker 1: do you mean? He said, I can only explain it
Speaker 1: this way. Whatever you do, it's you. Wow. Wow, Let's
Speaker 1: go back to can the Can it's number one. It
Speaker 1: is very hard to follow up a hit. Was it
Speaker 1: all moving so fast you didn't think about it? Or
Speaker 1: were you anxious? How am I going to follow this up?
Speaker 1: I had no doubt I would follow it up. I
Speaker 1: was on a roll. My time had come. I was ready. Okay,
Speaker 1: Like with everybody, the role eventually comes to an end.
Speaker 1: How did you deal with that? How did I just
Speaker 1: say say it again? You know, eventually everybody on the
Speaker 1: chart their day and somebody else takes the throne emotionally?
Speaker 1: How did you deal with it? Deal with that? Um?
Speaker 1: I never felt like I went anywhere. I've always just
Speaker 1: been a working artist. I never went anywhere, So I
Speaker 1: I never had that syndrome. Um, what for me? Once
Speaker 1: you make it to a certain level and you're out
Speaker 1: there and you know you're playing for the crowds, and
Speaker 1: you're doing tours and you're all the time working, and
Speaker 1: whether you're having hits in the charts doesn't really make
Speaker 1: any difference because you've made your name, and then you're
Speaker 1: a working artist, and you're you're doing the circuit, the
Speaker 1: festivals and the private gigs and this and that. So
Speaker 1: I've just always rolled along. I've never felt left out
Speaker 1: because even in the eighties, I I keept, I kept
Speaker 1: changing tracks. You know, UM did did the acting, I
Speaker 1: did musical. Okay, wait wait, wait, before we get to
Speaker 1: the changing, how did you feel being a Detroit girl that,
Speaker 1: prior to stumbling in none of these gigantic records in
Speaker 1: England crossed over in America. Now, wasn't only you the
Speaker 1: other it's very successful acts to talking about Slade, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But how did you being an American? How did you
Speaker 1: feel about? There was something? There was a couple of
Speaker 1: year period of a lot of stuff happening everywhere else.
Speaker 1: Knew it wasn't happening in America. I used to go
Speaker 1: tour there um all the time. We saw quite a
Speaker 1: few albums, you know, but the hit records didn't translate.
Speaker 1: And every time I went over, I always noticed that
Speaker 1: it was Linda von Stadt and the Eagles all over
Speaker 1: the radio. Um in my documentary has explained very well
Speaker 1: by Mike Chapman by Debbie Harry by all these people.
Speaker 1: I was a little bit early. You know, they weren't
Speaker 1: quite ready for this bass playing leader of a rock
Speaker 1: band to to do it. You know that I had
Speaker 1: more of a cult status in America, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I did Happy Days. In fact, this is my
Speaker 1: own take on it, and they saw this bass playing
Speaker 1: girl that all of a sudden it became okay, that's
Speaker 1: how I see it happening. So they didn't discover me
Speaker 1: as Susan Quasta. They discovered me as Leather Tuscadero being
Speaker 1: played by Susan Quadrow in America at that point in time.
Speaker 1: Happy Days in Laverne and Shirley, which were done by
Speaker 1: the same people, were the number one in two shows
Speaker 1: they juggled. What's it like being on a number one
Speaker 1: television show which has international reach even beyond the records. Yeah, fantastic. Um.
Speaker 1: I was very It was a decision I took to
Speaker 1: to even try out for that part, you know, but
Speaker 1: I always I knew I could act, so I wanted
Speaker 1: to do it. One of the nicest three three three
Speaker 1: years of my life. I've kept good friends with Henry,
Speaker 1: good friends with Ron. We email all the time. Um.
Speaker 1: In fact, I one time Astron recently we were talking.
Speaker 1: I was curious, I said, did I ever feel when
Speaker 1: I joined the show like I was a brand new
Speaker 1: person on the show, a new actress? He said no,
Speaker 1: he said, you were just in the show. It was
Speaker 1: like you had been there from the beginning. I can't
Speaker 1: figure out how that happened. It was a really natural
Speaker 1: fit for me, you know, pretty natural. And I love
Speaker 1: I love acting. It's my second love if I have one. Okay,
Speaker 1: do you say, both in words and in the documentary
Speaker 1: that you could have continued. Do you regret that you
Speaker 1: did not continue being on the show and having your
Speaker 1: own spin off? No. I. I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time with Henry, and he was always talking about how
Speaker 1: he was always going to be the Funds, you know,
Speaker 1: and he's a fine actor. And that went into my
Speaker 1: little brain a bit. And then I thought, well, I'm
Speaker 1: Sushi Quatro everywhere in the world. I now Susi Quatro
Speaker 1: playing leather tuscadero. So do I really want to box
Speaker 1: myself into being that person for the rest of my life?
Speaker 1: And the answer was no, I did not want to.
Speaker 1: And I went on to do a lot of other
Speaker 1: different kinds of shows, you know, And I did musicals
Speaker 1: and you know, Midsummer Murders and ab Fab and five
Speaker 1: or six different series that I did. And I made
Speaker 1: the right decision at the right time. I did enough
Speaker 1: of Leather Tuscadero. I didn't need to keep doing it. Okay,
Speaker 1: not long after that, you have children? Did you always
Speaker 1: want to have children? And did Why did you decide
Speaker 1: to have them at that point and what was the experience? Like,
Speaker 1: I always wanted to have kids. I come from big
Speaker 1: family myself. That was a no brainer. Who was going
Speaker 1: to have kids I wanted for Unfortunately, I'm too small
Speaker 1: and I had two cesareans. They were kind of dangerous.
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to get pregnant again. I wanted to
Speaker 1: have them before thirty. Then I found that I had
Speaker 1: trouble getting pregnant, low fertility, and I had to have
Speaker 1: a little bit of help, and I finally got pregnant
Speaker 1: at thirty two and thirty four. Always going to have kids,
Speaker 1: but I insisted that the kids come on the road
Speaker 1: with me. That was one of my things I said
Speaker 1: to my ex. We argued about it. I said, I
Speaker 1: don't have kids and leave them at home. So we
Speaker 1: had to live in nanny and we took them on
Speaker 1: the road until they got to proper school age. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: kids is great, Kids is great. They they changed your life.
Speaker 1: You you you have no idea what love is until
Speaker 1: you have a child. Wow. Did I just say that
Speaker 1: many perfooms. Uh, I have guilt that they did not
Speaker 1: spend as much time with their children growing up as
Speaker 1: maybe someone with traditional job. Is that enter the picture
Speaker 1: at all with you? No, it doesn't because I had
Speaker 1: arguments about it, and I insisted, and they came on
Speaker 1: the road, so I would get my sleep from the
Speaker 1: gig before on the road, and then they would come
Speaker 1: to spend the afternoon together. You know, I tried to
Speaker 1: make up for when I was home, I'm not on
Speaker 1: the road. I was boring. I never went anywhere. I
Speaker 1: stayed here in this house with the kids, so they
Speaker 1: were with me on the road, and when we were home,
Speaker 1: I was here. My ex used to get quiet, annoyed.
Speaker 1: Why don't we ever go? I said, no, I'm here.
Speaker 1: So no, I didn't leave them when they went to
Speaker 1: school age, and then you couldn't keep taking them out.
Speaker 1: Then there was a few tourists maybe where I had
Speaker 1: to do a couple of weeks in Australian then they
Speaker 1: would lie out in their break that that happened sometimes.
Speaker 1: But I never deserted my kids. No, I was. I
Speaker 1: was a hands on mom and that was not easy
Speaker 1: because I was also the bread earner, so I had
Speaker 1: to wear eight million different hats. You know, now, a
Speaker 1: lot of children of famous people, celebrities, Uh, their childhoods
Speaker 1: are not easy. They end up drugs, alcohol, bad actors.
Speaker 1: How do you work out with your kids? They're they're
Speaker 1: pretty normal to um No, they haven't got they haven't
Speaker 1: got any problems, any addiction problems. My daughter can drink,
Speaker 1: she's half Scottish. Um No, No, they're fine, They're well adjusted.
Speaker 1: My son has had two successful albums with me. He's
Speaker 1: producing people now. He's a fine guitar player. My daughter
Speaker 1: has a good job, she's a good singer. She's got
Speaker 1: her my granddaughter, and she's got a foster kid. Now
Speaker 1: that you know, I made sure that my kids were
Speaker 1: as normal as possible. I didn't raise them as show
Speaker 1: showbiz breadths at all. Okay. In the documentary, a huge
Speaker 1: turning point is when you take the gig in any
Speaker 1: get your gun, let's kind of separate some of these
Speaker 1: things out. Hey, how did you make the decision to
Speaker 1: do that gig? And in the documentary that says it
Speaker 1: closed a for a huge riff with your first husband.
Speaker 1: What was going on all through that? Um? Okay, I
Speaker 1: had my kids. I was branching out into different bits
Speaker 1: and pieces. You know, you can't go on the on
Speaker 1: stage when you're pregnant because that's not good for the baby.
Speaker 1: So I had two years where I wasn't on the road,
Speaker 1: not all the like when I got bigger. When I
Speaker 1: got bigger three or four months, I was fine. Um,
Speaker 1: I'd wanted to And an offer came up. I was
Speaker 1: offered the role of Annie and Annie Gets Your Gun
Speaker 1: and we had to tour boat in Australia. And I
Speaker 1: remember saying to Lenny, this is an offer or we
Speaker 1: had we had an offer of a tour. It wasn't booked, obviously,
Speaker 1: I said, I will not turn this down. I always
Speaker 1: wanted to try my hand at musicals. I love musicals.
Speaker 1: And Annie Gets your Gun. Wow, what a perfect fit
Speaker 1: for me, sharp shooting girl. You know a tom Boy?
Speaker 1: What a perfect fit. Um. I slid into it. Again.
Speaker 1: It wasn't difficult. Um. I took to it like a
Speaker 1: duck to water. Love the songs, love the whole process
Speaker 1: of doing a musical, loved the discipline of it. Absolutely
Speaker 1: loved it. Um yeah wow. But my husband, and you know,
Speaker 1: he had to sit around during happy Days. Didn't like that.
Speaker 1: And he had to sit around during Annie. He's a
Speaker 1: guitar player. So that started to cause a little bit
Speaker 1: of a rift. If you had not taken those two
Speaker 1: gigs and you'd worked in the band with the marriage,
Speaker 1: have worked and continued, or was it going to end
Speaker 1: in any event? I think it was going to end
Speaker 1: in any event because I think I think he kind
Speaker 1: of drifted after the kids. I don't I don't even
Speaker 1: know if he wanted kids. You know, it was we
Speaker 1: were we were growing up heart, you know, And I
Speaker 1: love him dearly still I say it to my husband.
Speaker 1: I'll always love him. Not in love anymore, but always
Speaker 1: will love him. Um. We stopped communicating. That's the killer.
Speaker 1: So how did you tell him? I wrote a song
Speaker 1: called Free the Butterfly, and I brought it down and
Speaker 1: played it from beautiful song. You should google it, and
Speaker 1: I thought he would get it, but he didn't. All
Speaker 1: he said afterwards was nice song, sues it's about the
Speaker 1: ending of her marriage. Um. Yeah, finally, it took me
Speaker 1: six years from from the time I knew that we were,
Speaker 1: not that I was falling out of love. It took
Speaker 1: me six years to go because I had kids and
Speaker 1: I'm a Catholic girl, so he had he had to
Speaker 1: really think, get through and make sure one million percent
Speaker 1: that you were making the right decision. And then finally
Speaker 1: I knew. And when I knew, I knew, and I
Speaker 1: just said, that's it, that's it. How long was that
Speaker 1: after you played him the song? Probably two years? Okay,
Speaker 1: So you're working in and get your gun. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden you start spreading your horizons. You're writing books,
Speaker 1: you're acting, you have a radio show. How does that
Speaker 1: all come about? And is that fit in with your philosophy?
Speaker 1: Is it new? Because is it exciting because it's new?
Speaker 1: Where do you say, well, I'm a rock chick, should
Speaker 1: I be doing that? What's going on? I don't think
Speaker 1: about any of those things. Um, I'm quite comfortable as this,
Speaker 1: very comfortable. This is who I always will be. The
Speaker 1: suit stuff fits, by the way, But I am an artist.
Speaker 1: I gotta start five everybody. You're telling me the same
Speaker 1: jumpsuits you wore in the seventies. You can no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no no no. Okay, for a minute, there
Speaker 1: you're no no no, no no no. Of course not,
Speaker 1: of course not. I would have to be you have
Speaker 1: to be a miracle for that. But I do have
Speaker 1: older ones, you know, newer ones, and they fit. But
Speaker 1: of course they made for me. Now, of course you're
Speaker 1: not the same size, Um, not exactly anyway. But I'm
Speaker 1: still pretty good. Let's let's put it this way. They
Speaker 1: still look good, okay. Um. I'm an artist and I
Speaker 1: can't help with be an artist, and I am a
Speaker 1: communicator and entertainer and a creator, and that's what makes
Speaker 1: me tick. So I have to do those things I have.
Speaker 1: I love doing radio. It's communicating on the air. I
Speaker 1: love writing, it's communicating through my words. I love writing songs.
Speaker 1: It's it's all about that for me. I have to create.
Speaker 1: I I can't exist without creating. Okay. There's a cliche
Speaker 1: in the music business. It's not about the money. It's
Speaker 1: about the money, okay. So let's go back nicky most
Speaker 1: And in that era, traditionally, the acts had to cough
Speaker 1: up there publishing and they had lousy record deals. What
Speaker 1: was your experience in the seventies. It was notorious after
Speaker 1: the sixties when record companies were throwing money at everybody.
Speaker 1: The seventies thing got very tight. So I had a
Speaker 1: normal seventy deal, seventies deal which I be negotiated when
Speaker 1: we negotiating came up. Um, I never got cheated by
Speaker 1: Mackey was very fair with me, ironed, ironed, pretty good.
Speaker 1: You know. I bought my first house with cash, so
Speaker 1: not bad. But make Mickey put me with a good
Speaker 1: accountants and everything, and he was straight with me, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm fine. I don't have to worry about money. Okay.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, the songs that uh uh Mike Chapman wrote,
Speaker 1: the singles you don't collect on, but all of these
Speaker 1: other songs you just get the writer's share in the
Speaker 1: rack days or do you have any of the publishing?
Speaker 1: Um I was signed with my publishing to Mickey, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I get publishing. Sure, I have published cents on the dollar.
Speaker 1: The old deal is the publisher owns the publishing and
Speaker 1: gets and the writer gets. We that we had that,
Speaker 1: we had that fifty fifty. But now I've now got
Speaker 1: seventy thirty because they do all the administration for me.
Speaker 1: I have Butterfly Stroke Rack Publishing, and they do the
Speaker 1: administration for and I get it. And who is they?
Speaker 1: Let's assume you never worked again. You have enough money
Speaker 1: to get to the end more than any now in style.
Speaker 1: In style, I can drink a nice bottle of champagne
Speaker 1: every night of the week. Okay, record royalties which are
Speaker 1: different from publishing royalties. A lot of vacts say they
Speaker 1: don't get those. I don't people with hit records or
Speaker 1: not getting any record royalties not now right streaming? Yes,
Speaker 1: but are you getting any royalties from the records as
Speaker 1: opposed to the songs? It's hard to get. It's it's hard.
Speaker 1: That's hard. I get a lot, a lot from the
Speaker 1: the publishing and the PRS and all the other thing.
Speaker 1: But uh, this is a big, big wrong thing that's happening.
Speaker 1: And I feel sorry for the young X coming along
Speaker 1: right now. Um, the streaming needs to be addressed. It's unfair.
Speaker 1: A lot of big acts are coming out and saying
Speaker 1: so PRS has just send out things to everybody. We're
Speaker 1: addressing this that the artists, you know, nobody's a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't buy records anymore, so you're not getting
Speaker 1: royalties from there, and streaming doesn't really pay you much.
Speaker 1: So this it's not a good business, not route for
Speaker 1: a lot of artists, and it needs to be addressed
Speaker 1: and put right or people will stop making music. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you talk about the fact you need to create.
Speaker 1: You recently put out a new record. What keeps you
Speaker 1: going at this point in time? Creation? God, every time
Speaker 1: I write a new song, I get excited. Every time
Speaker 1: I come up with a great line of the song,
Speaker 1: I get excited. I was up in my bedroom the
Speaker 1: other night writing poetry from my next poetry book, Flying,
Speaker 1: I'm Flying. I love I love creating something I can't
Speaker 1: explain to any better than that. And I've always been
Speaker 1: the same. I love lyrics, you know, and I've I've
Speaker 1: still got. Unfortunately or unfortunately, depending on which side of
Speaker 1: the fence you're sitting on, I have a lot left
Speaker 1: to say. I'm not done. As everybody, as generations change,
Speaker 1: the audience gets smaller. Does that bother you that you
Speaker 1: might write a book and it might reach fewer people,
Speaker 1: or you might play to one quarter of the audience.
Speaker 1: Used to play. Is that depressing at all? Or still
Speaker 1: you're good it hasn't happened. I mean I knew here
Speaker 1: as zeeve uh two thousand nineteen, just before the pandemic year,
Speaker 1: I played to fourteen thousand people. And here's the funny part.
Speaker 1: I'm standing there doing my two hours show with an interval,
Speaker 1: you know, fantastic, and I'm looking at fourteen th people
Speaker 1: and it's the only time I ever thought this, because
Speaker 1: when I'm on stage, I'm I'm in the I'm on
Speaker 1: the stage, I'm concentrating, you know, I'm there in the moment.
Speaker 1: If somebody sneezes, I hear um, you know, I'm I'm there.
Speaker 1: And I looked at all those people, and I thought
Speaker 1: to myself, very fleetingly, you know, if it all stops tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out on a high. And then it stopped.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what did I say that for? Idiot?
Speaker 1: Just like when I said, oh, depression, don't come knock
Speaker 1: it out my door. I gotta learned to shut my
Speaker 1: my brain, you know. But yeah, I'm still playing huge.
Speaker 1: I'm I had shows in the book last year, all
Speaker 1: sold out solo shows with interval, which I love. Two
Speaker 1: hours I love it, take you right the way through
Speaker 1: everything you know, from bongos to everything. And I had
Speaker 1: the same book this year. Of course, a lot of
Speaker 1: them are postponed to two thousand twenty two. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: still pulling in the crowds. So are we gonna have
Speaker 1: to scrape you off the stage as you die of
Speaker 1: a heart attack at some late age or would you
Speaker 1: ever call it a day? I think if I ever
Speaker 1: ever find myself going on that stage and putting on
Speaker 1: a phony smile. I was stopped. But I do have
Speaker 1: a famous quote which I'm going to end this interview
Speaker 1: with because it's my famous quote. I said it when
Speaker 1: I was thirty five years old. Okay, some idiot at
Speaker 1: thirty five said to me, what are you going to retire?
Speaker 1: And I said, when I go on stage, turn my
Speaker 1: BA back on the audience and shake my ass. And
Speaker 1: their silence then I stopped. Hasn't happened yet, but a
Speaker 1: big Susie. You're unbelievable, you know you always do. Until
Speaker 1: you actually talk to someone, you don't really know what
Speaker 1: they're like. You know, you can tell a story, and
Speaker 1: I understand why you're successful. You tell a great story.
Speaker 1: Even someone who knew nothing about you would be entertained.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for doing this. Oh well, thank you
Speaker 1: and thank you for that compliment. I take that that
Speaker 1: that see that goes to my heart. Thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Until next time. This is Bob Leftson