Suzi Quatro rules out retirement: ‘I don’t know what I would do’
By Casey Cooper-Fiske, Press Association Senior Entertainment Reporter
Rocker Suzi Quatro has ruled out ever retiring from performing and recording, saying she would not know what to do if she was not in music.
The 75-year-old Can The Can singer released her latest studio album last week, called Freedom, and is to perform a UK tour in April.
Asked whether she would ever consider stopping on BBC Breakfast, Quatro replied “pardon me”, before adding: “It’s so much in my blood, when you’ve been doing it all your life, I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have that outlet growing up.
“That for me is the happiness to go on the stage and just be one with everybody and see the little smiling faces.”
Quatro said she still got a “wonderful feeling” from performing, and added that she still thought “I hope they like me tonight” before going on stage at every gig.
She added: “If you don’t have that little moment before you go on that stage, that’s very dangerous, because that means you’re taking it for granted.
“I get serious about this, every single audience is a different animal, and you’ve got to feel what they want from you on that particular evening, they might want the cute, they might want this, you have to feel it, and it’s your job to win the audience every night, to win them.
“It’s not doubt, it’s almost like a little kid.”
For her latest record, Quatro has recorded a cover of the MC5’s Kick Out The Jams with long-time friend Alice Cooper, who she said she had watched “fall in love with his wife” on the Welcome To My Nightmare tour in 1975, and also spoke about an incident which saw her break his nose.
Quatro said: “I actually told him, last time I saw him, you thought you were hiding it, I said I saw it all (him falling in love with his wife).
“And you know the famous story, I broke his nose.
“We were having a dart gun fight, and all the bands were involved, everybody in the band was involved, and we were out in the corridors with mattresses and all that, and we ended up in one of the rooms, and he hid behind a TV set, and he stuck his nose out to see where I was, and I went boink.
“And he wore my T-shirt out of respect, it is rock and roll, and we remain friends.”
Quatro began her career in her native Detroit in the late 1960s with the all-girl garage band The Pleasure Seekers, before a move to England during the glam era of the early 1970s to become a solo artist saw her popularity boom in the UK – although she rejects being a glam act, seeing herself as a rock and roller.
The singer and bass player has had two UK number one singles and a top 10 album, her best known songs include Devil Gate Drive, 48 Crash and Daytona Demon.
