Suzi Q (2019) Movie Script

I am always bitterly disappointed
that women's rock groups are so bad.
Although there are rock groups coming up in the states
who are trying to lay down a kind of heavy feminist rock.
But it's nothing like the explosion of creativity
that happened among the boys.
You know, everybody had a guitar.
The girls just somehow never picked them up.
Most of the girls we lost along the way
because they got bored with it,
or they didn't want to take time off for the dating,
or they went to do something else.
You know? I mean, I gave up most of my early life
to the business, and a
lot of women aren't prepared to do that.
Mm. Rightly so. Probably. I mean, very few make it.
And, and gentlemen, miss Suzy tro,
that's Susie Quatro on American Band.
Yes, she can. It's Suzy Quattro.
Here's Suzie.
Oh, she was the first
And broke the ice and kicked the
Door for us gals. She
Was such a pioneer in the
quintessential rock and roll chick
Back when we were first starting at 64, 65, 66.
The girl bands were few
and far between. Few and far between.
Of course, there were early trailblazers
who were musicians, female musicians
playing instruments in rock bands.
They were making great music.
But in the shadows, Susie was the one
who really smashed it wide open
and broke into the mainstream with that string
of top 10 hits around the world.
She was the first.
Did you start something nobody else did?
Did you actually succeed at it?
How long did the career last?
Was there quality to what you did? Were you an innovator?
Susie was an innovator. Absolutely.
It was just unbelievable.
It was like, you know, that thing where your chills go
through your body and you're just, um, freaking out
because it's like, did I really just hear this?
Susie was authentic.
When that young lady was in her leather with her guitar,
that audience got crazy and she's still doing it.
Young kids these days, you know, unfortunately for them,
they don't really know Susie.
And that's a shame
because they should, especially anybody that wants
to get into this business, they should study Susie Cuatro.
Most any successful artist would,
would only see it in hindsight.
But, um, knowing the cost of fame
and success, there's always a trade off.
A massive trade off. Huge. Um,
Huge. How, I
mean, do you, how does one reconcile themselves
with that knowing that you do pay a price
that the public just don't see?
You have to say goodbye to a very comfortable,
perfect existence.
And I knew it, taking it out.
I knew it the first time I went on the road with the
Tell you, I'm hot
streak.
I gonna, again,
I got my food on.
And the gone When you
and you push me, I'm the,
I'm get outta my way.
Hey, hey, Suzy Q what's cooking with you?
WJ Estate Detroit.
I was born Susan k Quatro.
My father's name was Arthur Quatro.
My mother's name was Heaven Quatro.
You know, I just don't think my father wanted four
dependent daughters.
So he brought us all up, very ballsy,
and he loved my mom very much.
They were together over 50 years.
But my mom was more the strict one.
I'm very close to my mom.
I think she's the only one that really knew me.
I mean, she knew me, knew me, knew me, could never fool her.
If I came in like 13, 14 after being out with some people
and I'd had a beer or a cigarette
or something, she'd be sitting six rooms away
and she'd say, Susan, come here.
I can smell smoke and I can smell the drink.
And I couldn't lie. I am very much my
mother's daughter, morally.
She was a Catholic lady and very strict.
She gave me the tracks to run on for the rest of my life.
So there's that part of me.
And then there's the performer part I get from my dad.
I love that melody. I love that melody. Heart of my heart.
Love my, brings back a memory.
Brings back when we were kids,
I was in a very musical family with five kids,
and my father played various instruments in various bands.
So we all grew up with a million music lessons.
I took drums, I took piano.
We had a joyous life with our family.
It was always, uh, singalongs
around the organ, all that stuff.
Mickey had his own stardom,
and he was young, you know, he was a teenage prodigy.
And on national television,
Susie got that entertainer, gene.
She had that charisma to draw people and tell jokes
and be upfront.
Dad was very thrilled that we all went into music
and followed his dream.
He was January in 1956,
the whole family were watching the, uh, ed Sullivan show.
He brings out Elvis.
And when he went well,
and I had my first light bulb moment at the age of five
and a half, I'm going to do that.
She never was told not to.
You know, she, no one ever said,
you can't do this 'cause you're a girl.
You just thought like, I wanna be Elvis. It's rad.
You know, let's go for it.
And I, I think that's, that kind of spirit is
what makes rock, rock, rock and roll, rock and roll.
And it was right after watching the Beatles,
us neighborhood Girls got on the phone talking about
how great they were every babbling at the same time.
And Patty suggested, what about an all girl band?
And we all went, yay.
That first band was the neighborhood kids with the,
uh, two sets of sisters.
And I remember it exactly.
Nan went, I'm gonna play the drums.
Mary Lou said, I'm gonna play rhythm guitar.
Patty said, I'm playing lead. And I went, hello?
She said, you're gonna play bass? I went, okay.
And I went and asked my dad, did he have a bass?
And he gave me this, and I really did literally plug it in
and just said, yeah, it was for me,
the real sort of, uh, pivotal point of my life starting
that band and being on
that stage the first time playing the three songs
that we knew, three chords, three songs same, three chords.
Um, and I was up there with the bass and I looked down
and I remember going, that's it.
Here I am. This is it for the rest of my life.
The guitar always looked too big because she was so small.
I'm surprised she didn't get a smaller guitar.
Here's this little woman, you know, petite
playing this enormous heavy bass
and just making it look like it was a feather.
As it went on, we got more and more popular.
We had our little single out. Susie was 14, I was 16.
What a way to die. The girls from the garage arriving
pre punk before punk,
I mean five Catholic girls singing a beer and drinking song.
So it was very popular, as you can imagine.
We read a gig and we round the, um, on the floor
of the gymnasium because they didn't have a stage for us.
And somebody said, we can't see the
singer put her up on a table.
So I was up on top of the table looking down at the crowd.
So I was looking down at the people,
and I just was got, all of a sudden I went, wow.
And they went like that. And I went, oh, okay.
You like that?
I left school very young.
My dad let me go. I went on the road.
So I've, I've gone away from the normal school attitude,
you know, with your girlfriends
and the sleepovers and this and that. I'm on the road.
Wow, what away to die.
I'm playing in nightclubs, doing five shows a night,
not even supposed to be in there.
And I remember thinking, oh my God,
all my friends are at school
and I'm not part of that life anymore.
Wow. And there's a whole chunk of growing up
that got missed out, which
probably explains why I've got a big vulnerable streak in
me, even though I'm a tough girl.
That part never got, never grew up.
And there was almost like a nostalgic that I wanted
to go back and be with them,
but at the same time, I couldn't go back
because I found what I wanted to do. Wow.
Wow.
I am suitcase Lizzie from Detroit City
out to try my wings.
I'm suitcase Lizzie from Detroit City. I can do anything.
They have an advantage over other groups
because they not only play so well, but they look so fine.
The pleasure seekers.
When my eldest sister's husband started
to manage the band, I remember him saying, we need
to put most of the spotlights on Susie
because she's the front person.
So I kind of always knew that
and developed my craft on that premise.
My brother opened up the concert industry
that opened up big time.
He brought in Hendrix, he bought in the Rolling Stones.
He did festivals all over the region. He was the promoter.
In fact, when I had the agency,
it was the easiest thing in the world for me
to promote the girls.
From 65 to 70. I put 'em on every show.
I helped them get their record contracts. I did everything.
I remember I came home after my first big time away
and I called all my friends to talk, hi, I'm back.
And they all didn't wanna talk to me.
I think there was a jealousy that I'd escaped.
When you're in Detroit, it's like, you know,
the foot on the gas and it doesn't stop.
And that's how it is. And the kids wanted
to escape the car factories.
They didn't wanna end up there like their parents.
There's just nothing else to do there in la You can go
to the beach in New York.
There's so many distractions in Detroit.
There's nothing else to do. So you
do what you can to get outta there.
We were the earliest female group that rocked hard,
didn't play like girls, like ky, ky.
You know, imagine the influence of Detroit.
Detroit was the hard rock capital.
There was no no city like Detroit.
And the first time we saw the pleasure seekers, you know,
they were all in white, and they were all kind of like,
I don't know what they were going for,
but they couldn't get the Detroit out of them.
They were still, you know, hard rock girls.
We did all covers. And then we started writing.
And when we started writing, we went to New York
and we broke, and we got signed to Mercury by the president
of a BC records.
I discovered pretty quickly that the rock industry had a,
a lot of big mouths in it and a a lot of danger elements
and a lot of seedy agents, CD clubs.
And you know, I saw through that pretty quickly.
And so I developed a smart mouth,
which kept the as away.
We didn't get successful.
The record didn't do anything, you know, we never had a hit,
but people knew of us
because we were an aga band and we were different.
We were touring, touring, touring, touring,
and played with everybody.
We came back home and everything had changed.
We were suddenly out of date
When we did a festival in 69.
It was awful full of people like, uh, mc five, um,
frigid Pinks, Alice, just, you know, heavy
barefooted Blue Jean.
And we were a show band.
So, you know, we came with our costumes on it. We died.
We died.
All of a sudden it was the heavy rocking Detroit sound.
Arlene got remarried.
She ended up leaving the band to take care of her kids.
And we brought in Nancy, she could whale her ass off.
What a voice.
I actually told Susie, you're old news. We need a new voice.
I don't think they would've survived if
they hadn't made a transition.
It had to be made. Or you just stay a show band.
I never liked Cradle. It wasn't my band.
I quite happily took a backseat because I said, let's keep
Good.
Just became his good bass player. And I jammed.
She says that. But it wasn't a backseat. It was both.
I just felt at that time that we needed an influx
of this heavier thing.
Susie Kim coming from Detroit, same thing for the Stooges.
You know, also from Detroit,
there was something really gritty about Detroit,
and there still is.
Yeah,
There is, um, for sure a pulse in Detroit,
and it's its own pulse.
And it is a lot to do with the automobile industry
and the black and the white
and the rich and the poor. There's a pulse.
You're the style. Welcome to downtown Detroit.
Let's give a warm welcome to this group. It's called Cradle.
I remember the drummer at the time saying,
we have to get serious.
We have to say something. We have to write our own stuff.
We have to get political. We have to do that. Why?
To me, it took the joy out of the band.
And this is why I was never comfortable in it.
We're looking for a record deal.
And I'm telling you, it was harder than hard in those days.
No matter how good we were, no matter what we did,
the executives, the suits, they, they wouldn't sign you.
And they were scared you'd get pregnant
or fall in love, that you wouldn't stay serious.
It got so hard and we got so tired of it.
And Susie got impatient.
I was always waiting from the time Cradle began.
In fact, in all honesty,
from the time the band began when I was 14,
I was waiting for my shot.
Mickey most flew over from England with Jeff Beck
to record at Motown.
And my brother, who was kind
of semi managing cradle at the time, helping us out a bit,
uh, he found out he was in town, said,
come see this all girl band.
My brother had set up Mickey Mouse coming in.
He was always trying to push us. And we did our, our thing.
We were doing the show and Nancy was singing.
And then I wa up and I remember it.
Attitude City, you know, gonna do one.
I wrote Brain confusion just like that, you know?
And when we were done playing, he went like this, went
to the back of the hall and he said, uh,
how would you like to make an album?
And I said, yeah, I would like that. I said, what do you do?
Complete bt. What do you do? He said, I'm a producer.
I went, oh, are you? I played it dumb.
Oh,
I guess he liked my attitude.
And then he said, we talked a bit and he said, um,
would you like to come over to Motown, uh, tonight?
Just you? I said, okay. So I went over to Motown.
This is the studio, studio a Motown, made all the hits here.
He brought me here with Jeff Beck
and Cozy Powell into this studio.
And we jammed down here on this floor,
and we did a song called Sissy Strut,
but Pow,
Pow.
Mickey asked my brother to fly to New York.
He called me into New York,
Made, made an offer.
I had to go back and tell the sisters
An offer was made through my brother for Susie.
And, um, that he wanted just her.
Mickey went back and told my dad
and Patty that Mickey most only wanted me and not the band.
And the decision was made not to tell me about it,
because they wanted him to take the band,
which wasn't really a very nice thing to do
because you're preventing somebody
from following their path.
And that's never okay.
Patty wanted it really bad,
so there would've been more
feelings, you know, and there were,
I did grow up in a loving family, you know,
we were all close in our way.
My mom and dad were great and everything.
It was pretty idyllic until I started
to get a little bit older and needed to get away.
They stayed. They kept cradle going for two years,
Patty went and joined Fanny.
Her impression of, um, how we might have even felt
with her leaving is very different than how I felt.
It devastated them, you know?
And it devastated me emotionally.
I was in bits that I was leaving, but I still was going.
I astral playing towards Heaven's door,
soaring higher in my mind on the wings of an angel.
I fly into the light, leaving the rest behind.
I went to London with that bass guitar
that weighs more than Me, a little suitcase.
And I lived in this room about as big as just here.
Tiny, tiny bed, a sink, a cracked mirror.
No toilet place to hang your coat. I lived there.
I came from this beautiful house in Gross Point
with a Cadillac out in the driveway, home-cooked food
to a little tiny room with no money, no friends, no family.
I didn't do anything. I didn't know
anybody didn't go anywhere.
And that was probably the lowest point in my life.
Mickey gave me my shot.
I was determined I was gonna make it no matter what.
But I very often cried myself to sleep, pounded the floor,
crying, you know, missing, crying, missing crying.
But never once did I consider getting on
that plane and going back home.
I can't remember if the mum and dad phoned me
or phoned them, either one.
And they said,
we are a bit worried about Susie coming to London.
I said, listen, don't worry, I'll take care of her.
So from that day onwards,
I've always felt a bit responsible for her.
I'll never forget, we were in bed one night.
It was the early hours of the morning, and Susie phoned
and said to Mickey, I'm not well.
And he jumped up and he got all these like medical things
together and rushed over there to her.
He was a father figure.
I mean, she had a great father, you know,
so it wasn't like she was looking for a new dad,
but in terms of the business, looked over her.
So I'm alone in London, missing my family,
but determined to make it.
And, uh, they had a Thanksgiving dinner
and my dad even said, you want to come back?
And I hated to fly. And I said, no.
And I didn't wanna go back until I had a hit.
It was big thing. And then my dad set
up a little tape recorder.
He started conversations with people kind
of like egging their mom to say things, you know?
And my dad sent me that tape,
but I put it on all excited. Don
Suzy's a good paint player.
I don't think she's that great.
I don't think Cynthia is that great. A bass player.
I think she's sloppy. Come. Onie is sloppy. She very sloppy.
She's not a technically great bass player.
She doesn't wanna be sloppy. She, she still is.
That's one of her fault. She'll admit it if she'll be
with her on the phone, she has to go slower.
It was like not nice things.
And I thought, first of all,
why would you all say these things?
And second of all, why did you send it?
And I talked to one person about this
and he said, maybe your dad was just plain mad
that you went without the rest of the girls.
And I could kind of understand.
My dad's thinking he was a family man, five kids.
I love you all equal. You're
all talented, you're all beautiful.
That's how he felt. So maybe I really did anger him.
And I've talked to Patty about it
and she said, well, maybe there was some dark
areas in my soul.
After you left for quite a while, she said,
I probably had a lot to get rid of. Yes, for
Susie, she always had a drive
and ambition to be a rock star and a successful musician.
And so she was gonna do it.
Whatever, whatever it took, you know?
I mean, you don't see that ambition in a lot of people.
Some people are like, I'm just here for my music.
She was like, I'm gonna be successful.
I'm gonna be a big star.
And to make it, you have to be that determined.
You can't let anything stand in your way.
I wanted it that bad. I wanted it.
When you're young, you just live
and breathe that determination.
But it's true that unless you have that kind of drive focus
and ambition, maybe you'll get lucky,
but you're probably not gonna get
to the heights you dream of.
I mean, it, you know, it's not for the faint-hearted.
Mickey called me up
and he said, bill, I'd like you to, um, I,
I've discovered this new girl singer
and I'd like you to, uh, do all air press.
And she was squatting in the middle of the room
with all this sort of fuzzy hair and everything.
And straight away there was something different.
She was nothing like these singers you
used to getting around.
And she was sort of totally herself.
There are some people
who have something special about it, right?
When you go into this bridge, it has
to be a complete contrast to the verse.
Alright, look, I'll tell you what,
we'll do have a go with the guitar.
Let me just hear what sounds with the bass.
'cause if I have an idea of
what the bass line's gonna be like in the middle,
it gives me an idea of what I should be looking
for when we do the arrangement.
He knew what I wasn't, he didn't know what I was.
And we were always trying to find it.
And I knew I was a rocker.
He knew I was a rocker too,
but he wasn't, he wasn't quite sure how
to put it on tour record.
So we had, um, a few different tracks we did in the studio.
We worked with different people,
um, just wasn't getting there. You can
Come up with one little idea, a little, little one,
telephone me and, uh, play it to me over the phone.
And if it's any good, you can follow it on.
There's no point you finishing the whole thing.
And then me going, no, I don't like it.
You know, do line by line.
And if I like it, and then it's terrific. Okay? Alright.
And I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Don't forget it.
Don't let me down. Thank you. Bye bye.
I was getting fed up that nothing was happening.
He made a record with her.
And curiously, it went to number one in Portugal,
Age of 16,
doing things you've never seen.
I thought that was really bizarre.
I think there was probably a moment
after about a year of, uh, probably living
like we all did in the squalor of some bed land, uh,
in London, um, where you start to go,
something's gotta change here.
I said to Mickey, I need a band. I insisted on that.
I said, I just, I, I gotta gotta do gigs. I'm not happy.
I can't just be sitting in my hotel room writing songs.
Nothing's happening.
At the time, I was still playing in a
band called the Nashville Teams.
I was just about going to bed in my little bed in,
uh, not in Hill Gate.
And I got a phone call on the house phone,
which means everyone in the place used the same payphone.
Boy, you've gotta come over to my place
because Susie needs a guitar player.
And I said, Susie, Susie, you Susie tro.
So over I went. And, uh, I walk in
and um, Susie was sitting on the floor playing Scrabble
and just sort of looked up, Hmm, huh that sort of deal.
Small sort of scruffy lady from America, basically pretty,
We fell in love.
Uh, he was protective of me.
Mickey always said, if I hadn't been, you know, in love
with my big guitar player, that he would've had
to hire me a bodyguard.
But then he was pretty handy with his fists.
The band was coming together.
We were getting a sound, all my own songs,
and they were all boogie, boogie based
With a Quattro band.
It was almost instant. I dunno why.
It was just the right pay for together. And
Then we went on the Slade tour.
I was the opening act. 20 minutes.
I had all original material.
Now in those days for a, a support actor to be on
with Slade, it was like being thrown to the lions.
And, um, and she definitely held her own.
I thought, this is a lady with guts.
And it, it, you could see it was gonna work.
It was gonna happen for her.
Waiting for the storm to break the labor is long.
I hope it's worth the wait.
We were at home one evening, the phone rang
and it was Mickey Chin.
And he just said to Mickey, we make hit records
and we want to come in and see you.
So Mickey liked his approach.
It took a bit of balls to do that.
So Mickey said, fine,
be at the office tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock.
Well, I knew the kind of stuff.
Nikki and Mike were recording,
and I said to Mickey, I think Chin
and Chapman would be a good producer for Susie.
And he said, oh.
And then I heard him on the phone the next
morning organizing it.
He said to me, uh, Mike, you know Susie Quatro, right?
I said, yeah, I've met her a few times in the office.
And he goes, I've been recording her
for the last uh, months.
I can't get a handle on what it is that
I need to cut with her.
I'm confused. Would you like to write a song for her
and produce it with her?
Mike Chapman showed up at Rec records, said,
bring the band down, play your set.
So we played our live set, which was all sort
of boogie type stuff, and a bit of rock and roll.
Okay? He said, uh, I've got a few ideas.
I'll, I'll give you a call tomorrow.
Well, he didn't, he called us the same night.
He said, back in tomorrow, I think I've got it.
They went and they wrote, can the can
Mickey listened to it.
He went, yeah,
I could go through a hundred, 200 songs a day.
And there'll be one that when it, if it's a demo form
or suddenly playing the piano, as soon
as it starts, something happens.
You know, you get like goose pimples.
You just know and you say, that's it. That's the one.
I knew she was a bass player.
And I knew that Mickey wasn't really doing much
with the bass on the records that he was cutting with her.
It was focusing on her face and her voice
and her 19-year-old appeal can to,
can made the bass playing a very major part of it,
because that dumped it up
Very hard and driving and cool like that, you
Know? And I remember
he said, sing the, sing the vocal here.
And I did. And he went, now sing it here. And I did.
He said, now sing it here. And I did.
And I said, Mike, that's the top of my chest voice.
He said, that's the key. I went, what? He said, yeah.
I said, why? He said,
because in that range,
your voice takes on a very special quality.
Then Mickey Mos thought it was slightly too slow,
so they actually sped it up.
That's why as Suzie's voice sounds a little bit edgy when
you, you know, on them top, top notes,
Mickey said, we need to to wear.
You have to see what you're gonna wear.
He said, I think you're gonna have number
one what he wanted wear.
And I said, leather. He was against it.
And I insisted, 'cause I'm such an Elvis
fan, I said, I'm wearing leather.
So he said, okay, jumpsuit.
I'll never forget when Mickey sat down at our dining room
table and he drew a leather catsuit.
And he said, that's, that's what I want Susie
to wear on stage, like all the all in one leather.
I said, how did you come up with that?
He said, from the film Barbara with Jane Fonda.
So he said, we'll, base it on that.
When I did my first photo session
with the record playing in the background,
I was in the studio with Garger Kovi, the song was on,
had my first jumpsuit on, and a pivotal moment in my life
because he said, gimme that Susie Quatro look.
And everything came
and I went, bang, pivotal moment,
the record suit, the look.
And when I saw that picture back,
I always remember that moment happening.
You want a Susie Quaru look?
All of a sudden, I had a Susie Quaru look.
I became Susie Quaru in that instant.
We did top of the pops on the Tuesday,
and I think it was showed on Thursdays from memory.
Everyone watched top of the Pops. Yeah.
Everybody, you know,
it was like the holy grail sort of thing.
Everybody was fighting for a slot on top of the pops.
And when you got it, you thought, yes, the foot
Is in the door.
All I heard was, can the can? I mean, that's all I heard.
Everything else was just like little neurons
and synapses exploding in my brain.
I mean, my, my brain literally exploded.
And everybody says to me that they were in shock.
That was their first. And they went, what the hell is that
Wednesday with walking around a load of nobo skill.
And, um, we watched Top of the fox in our little black
and white telly, Susie, me in our little, uh, flat,
of course it came out
and went, bloody ape st just like that.
Bloody hell. We're gonna have a beer. Oh
My God. Yeah. I can
remember going into the pub to celebrate
after our first top of the pop appearance.
And, uh, I honestly had no idea what to expect.
And, uh, we walked in and people started screaming.
That's the girl. That's the girl, absolutely mayhem. Oh
St, that was scary.
So I ran out the door and uh, I realized in that moment
that that was the end of my previous life.
She is super fierce, and she's just being herself.
She's not, uh, she's not really threatening.
She's just got these dudes behind her
and she's the total totally in charge.
And she's this firecracker who is just throwing down
with the talent and the, the energy and the youthfulness
and, um, it's incredibly
empowering, I think.
And Susie's tiny, she's a tiny little thing, you know,
it's like, wow, all that thunder
coming out of this little girl.
And there's the fact that it's, I've never seen a woman
with an instrument in a band.
It's never ever occurred to me that that
could happen. That that could be,
You could see where, where her impact was in,
in like the imagery of a lot
of female musicians.
And there have been so many female musicians
that have followed Susie Cuatro.
So she was very much out on her own as a female singing
and playing an instrument and fronting a band.
And there weren't many, I don't,
I don't know if there were any, when she came out,
The basic, uh, sort of rock
and roll roots, rock music that Susie Quatro was doing, kind
of had a big part in informing what to come, what came
after, which was kind of, you know, punk rock. She
Wore the jumpsuit, she wore a leather, she had, you know,
uh, an unfussy hairdo.
You know, she was a natural beauty.
She didn't wear a lot of makeup.
People who are attractive
and they're not playing the sexy card
that makes 'em even sexier.
She just had this like, perfect little pouty,
innocent face was just adorable.
Maybe girls were trained to not
aspire to those things.
To say like, I can't do that.
And it takes a Susie Quatro to come along to say this is
Possible. I was at
the same time trying to get Tina to be part
of our band, even back when I was in college.
I would help him do anything to advance his career
amusement, whatever he wanted it to become.
But I couldn't, um, conceive of myself doing it.
I played folk guitar and flute
and English hand bells.
Teenage said very wisely, oh, I don't know that rock
and roll that's like for young men.
That's not like for nice girls. I said, oh, that's not true.
Look at this Susie Cuatro,
and look, she's playing the bass guitar and singing
and look at this cool outfit she's wearing,
you know, and listen to this.
She's really rocking out.
She can really do it just like a guy can.
Maybe even better.
Susie was raw. She came, she came from a place so deep
inside, so unmistakable that
she did far more than show that women could play music.
She showed us that we could be who we
Were If we believed enough in ourselves
where there was, because
with Susie, there was never a question.
When I was in my early teens, I go to the teen club
and I put my dime in and I listen to 48 Crash,
8 8 8 8 8 48, 48.
To me, 48 Crash is like her signature song
More Than Can The Can more than Devil Gate Drive.
That's one of her best performances ever.
And of course I'm singing on all those chorus.
It's me and her and Lenny, the, the three
of us doing all the backgrounds on there.
I mean, so, uh, it was like a big party.
There was a lot of negativity because Susie was a female
and she wasn't Cilla Black or Lulu, or,
or your normal female singer.
She had the audacity to play the bass
and play it very bloody.
Well. She had the audacity to sing rock
and roll and do it very well.
And she also had the audacity
to wear leather clothes and kick ass.
Oh,
The way she moved and played bass,
like a real bass player, not with a pick.
She just reached down
and pluck those strings like there was no tomorrow.
And singing at the same time, which is really hard to do.
The British press love the underdog,
and as soon as you make it big, they pick you to pieces.
And that's exactly what happens with reviews of shows
and records, et cetera.
A lot of the writers on,
on the new Musical Express were very political.
They obviously were all students at uni somewhere,
and bits sort of lefty, sort of,
and a lot of them, people just couldn't understand
that a female could, uh, have that sort
of success that men had.
That's for men. It's not for women.
I was setting millions of records, you know,
and anybody with success is gonna get some of the doubters
and trying to put you in a box or whatever.
I had plenty of people who said, wow.
And I've had other people who said, oh, manufactured,
if you know me at all,
one thing I could never be is manufactured.
You'll never Lose.
For her to really make it the way that she has so far
shows the, um, the metal of the woman
because, um, at that time,
rock was a male orientated business.
Just before you sit down,
shouldn't we look at the rear of the ear?
Oh, I guess so, yes.
What Suzy Quatro must have went through in that time,
like thinking about like through this fg seventies.
But what we are witnessing today
is actually just a residue of when it was really okay.
When a woman couldn't say st.
I didn't ever think of myself. I didn't then.
And I don't know, as a girl musician,
I think it's because I don't do gender.
So I wasn't up there like a women's liver
and hey, I'm a girl, look what I can do.
That wasn't my attitude, it's just here I am. Here I am.
She has transcended her gender.
I think she is now just considered an icon, at least
to most people I know.
Consider Susie Quatro an icon.
I know now for L seven when we're interviewed,
gender rarely comes up.
It was constantly back in the day.
So I could imagine Susie Quattro was really just like
so tired of that topic
because she probably didn't give a st. And
That's why we wanted to be like her, to have that kind of
power and belief in ourselves, which she just, it, it just,
it came, it poured out of her.
And when you're a young girl, you want what she has.
It was the perfect place for her to slot into
that whole scene.
You know, that glam rock thing.
She wasn't glam rock, but she was part of that movement.
We weren't a glam band.
You know, I've never worn lipstick on anything.
The only one that wore makeup with Susie,
and that would be for a TV show or a photo session.
She was challenging Mark Boland.
She was challenging Slade David Bowie sweet
for the number one spot.
So yeah, she was almost an integral part
of the glam rock scene.
Mike was always full of ideas.
He thought things through very well.
And also Pete Coleman, the engineer
that he used all the time, knew what Mike wanted
A big part of. Uh,
my interest in having Mike Chapman produce Blondie was
the fact that he wrote songs like Ballroom Blitz
or Can To Can or 48 Crash.
He is a task master and,
but he used to come in with job, uh,
a metal helmet like MacArthur
or somebody, you know, with a riding crop.
Well, you know, I think we should try it again.
He doesn't take any bt from anybody.
He will, he will crack
that whip till he gets exactly what he wants.
He's gutted in his head. How
Did the Susie Quatros songs happen?
We look very deeply into, into Susie's character
before we ever wrote any songs.
She's, uh, the type of person that needs something wild.
She's a, a wild personality.
And at the same time in her private life, she's very quiet,
but on a stage she sort of, uh, turns into a,
um, a Mr. Hyde.
I was so inspired. I was like, let me add it, you know,
knocking them out one after the other.
Devil Gate Drive came next.
And that was in some ways the biggest head of them all.
Hey, y'all wanna go down to Devil Gate Drive? Yeah.
And one of the ones we used
to play a lot in my club was Devil Gate Drive.
'cause the opening line of the song, welcome
To the Dive,
Gonna get that kick
goes down.
So
Mickey most had said to me, it's a long flight.
I don't care what you wear on the flight,
you put your leather clothes on when you get off
that airplane because you're legend.
And I went, okay.
So I walked, it's my first, you know, time
with the can, all the cameras on. I
Love the Hey, it's an English band with an American lady.
Yeah. How long have you been together? Um,
I've been together all my life.
Ah, how long do you think you
Can keep on performing to
the extent that you are at the moment
Until they don't wanna see me no more.
How long don't think that's gonna be? I dunno.
Probably until I look old and wrinkled, you know? Well, how
Would you describe your image?
Pardon? How do
You feel about this reception here today?
It was very nice. Where the hell have you been, Susie?
We've been here for two hours.
We've been trying to get our baggage.
Hey, do you know we've got an escort for you? Huh?
We've got a motorcycle escort for you. Yeah.
Do you know that? No, I don't.
The first memory was being met
by all these Hells Angels at, uh, the airport
and they're the real deal in Australia.
It's not like the guys over here
that go home to mum at night.
These were the real, real deal.
There was a lot of them and they were very scary.
It's the first single can, the can,
it was number one record in England.
Within three weeks in Australia,
the album sold 200,000 copies more than
The Beatles for a single album.
And it's still selling. She hasn't made it big
in the United States yet.
That's her next goal. But in Britain
and Europe, she's the first lady of Rock,
The Roar that went up in Melbourne.
And I've never heard anything like
It. Even though we had
enormous fg amps, enormous pa,
it was never loud enough
to get over the audience screaming and shouting.
Hello Melbourne.
Hi, this is Suzie Quatro
and I wanna wish all my fans in Australia a Merry Christmas
and Happy New Year and buy my records
so I can buy all my new cars and houses.
Do you feel that at the moment your strongest following
or one of your strongest followings is perhaps here?
Yes, Australia. And we go a lot to Germany.
We go a lot to wherever we go, a lot of places all the time.
There are reports that you haven't actually
made it in America yet.
What do you say to those reports?
I'm just gonna swear better. I better not.
When I came home in 1974
for my first tour in America, I'd had three or four hits.
So I've coming home
successful, which is what I wanted to do.
And, um, I hadn't been back since 71,
so it was like a real emotional thing for me coming back
to my family home.
Oh my God, my little heart was pounding
and I was a little bit nervous because I had left everybody
and I didn't know how it was gonna be.
And I grabbed Lenny's hand
and I dragged him downstairs
to the basement where my bedroom was.
My clothes were gone, albums were gone, pictures were gone.
The whole room was like stripped where I used to sleep.
I said, where's my clothes to my mom?
She said, oh, Patty cut them up
and made them into Alfreds for herself.
So they kind of like just wrote me out of their lives.
Like, I didn't exist anymore.
That was a real wake up call that was real hard.
I always felt, uh, sorry for Patty.
I always felt that she thought I
took something away from her.
I didn't take anything away from Patty.
Maybe you feel bad
that you left the family, left them out.
Well then all you're doing is projecting your own st.
There was resentment.
I think on one level they were all very proud.
But on another level, there's resentment.
I think they think I have the life of Riley.
You come back and expect hi
and everybody's like that. That's hard.
I think where the altering would happen, first of all,
is if she changed a lot, which I don't feel she did.
But it would also be altered if I put stock
in having a famous sister. And I don't,
Susie, Susie, you'll never peg her completely.
She will protect herself. She's that way.
Is love enough to share the load or heal the child inside?
Or is this never ending road, the road
where something's died?
Miss hearing that five of st ticking rock and roll.
She did a club tour in 74 after the first album came out
and then, uh, came back in late in 74
and, uh, opened for Uriah Heap
and uh, then came back in 75 for the Alice Cooper.
Welcome to My Nightmare Tour. It was a big tour.
We just, you know, looked around
and just said, when somebody says,
who do we want on the tour?
And she was available, we went, well, Suzy's great.
You know, we, she wasn't gonna let an audience down.
I went and I saw her open for Alice Cooper
and I was just an absolute obvious woman.
This tiny little powerhouse with
that base swung so low,
doing a Chuck Berry type thing across this
massive stage of the forum.
We had had some really good times.
It was probably something like six gigs in a row
and then a day off and another six
gigs in a row and a day off
It did that British tour, an American tour, Italian tour,
Scandinavian tour, Japanese tour,
and now an Australian tour in the New Zealand and Indonesia.
Do you ever have any time for rest in all that?
A couple hours here and there.
You were always touring
and the bigger you were, the more touring you did.
So 65 cities in 72 days, when you're
that age, you're indestructible.
You know, you're 20 years old, you're 21, 22 years old and,
and you're traveling and there's an audience
every night full.
It would be back to somebody's room after every gig.
And Al would come to bottle of scotch
and we'd be up till God knows what time
and then crawl back in the van
or on a plane the next morning and go and do it all again.
Susie Quattro, she drank beer, you know,
smoke cigarettes, things like that.
I never ever saw any hard drugs backstage.
I wasn't a sex drugs and rock and roll girl whatsoever.
Nope. Never did any of that.
I didn't feel the need to live the rock star off the stage.
Quite happy to do my job, to be who I am on stage, come home
and lead a normal life.
Your image on stage is all sort of leather.
Uh, very rocky.
Have you ever thought of doing anything else?
Any other sorts of thoughts occurred to you?
Well, yeah. I always have this fantasy
of going out in a look at evening gown
spin, uh, lobster song.
Are you ever gonna do it? I'm only joking.
I can remember when we first got the, the,
the first Rolling Stone cover.
I thought, this is it, America Beckons Beckham Chanel.
When I saw her on the cover of that one, I just went, wow,
you really arrived.
Now that was a litmus for me.
You know that if you can get on there, you're,
you're doing something.
And started reading about a club in LA called Rodney's
English Disco that played all the British glitter music
that American kids never heard.
It was about in about, I'd say 1975 when I started going
to Rodney's and also the Sugar Shack.
Man, could I dance to, can, can
and your mama won't like you.
Ooh,
Was really the, the discos
and the underground that was making it happen
before radio caught on it.
I once gathered up a lot.
We called the kids at the club Glitter Critters.
I gathered up a bunch of glitter critters
and we went to the LA airport,
met Susie Cuatro and her band
And musicians were listening to Suzy Cuatro.
And a lot of girls picked up guitars because of Suzy Cuatro.
A lot of girls picked up drumsticks and basses
because of Suzy Cuatro, and it never occurred to them
before that it was a viable thing to do.
Joan Jett, you know, was one of the girls
that kinda looked at Susie Quatro as a a prototype
because she was the real deal.
Joan Jett looked exactly
like Susie Quatro to the point where we had to dre her hair.
We had to change her clothes, we had to, um, get her
to move differently
because she was picking up all Susie's moves,
like the marching with the legs
and you know, flipping of the hair.
And Joan, you are great at what you do.
You be Joan and you let Susie be Susie.
She was, you know, integral to me figuring out who I was,
finding my own style and, you know, becoming my own person,
but certainly getting strength from her,
um, to do that,
We came out to LA and uh, got friendly with, uh, Joan Jet
and some of the Runaways.
And um, Joan of course was a complete devotee.
She was really, you know, a huge fan of Susie's.
All the bands then used to stay the Hyatt house on Sunset,
which was called the Riot House.
As soon as you walk in, Joan Jet was there, come running up,
gimme an autograph every day she was there. Look,
If you drag her back home,
she's only gonna run away again.
I know Runaways. I've been with him for three years.
There was a, a great magazine outta Germany called Bravo,
and now he's had features Susie Quatro on the cover,
but she was big all over Europe.
But they put up special issues like Bravo poster,
I'd get all my posters and put on the wall my English disco.
And one poster that they had was Susie Quatro
and a leather bikini.
And Joan Jett used to always set in the booth where
that poster was, but somehow that poster was missing.
I have my own posters I wouldn't steal from Rodney.
The key to, uh,
success in the States has always been radio.
You get on the radio, you got a shot.
We were in radio stations in America nonstop.
You know, sometimes probably four or five at time
and you've flown into the city
before you even go to the hotel.
You're in a radio station,
you were in another radio station,
you were in another radio station.
Of course in America at the time, the way
to get a record played there was to, uh,
send the guys out on the road with a suitcase
for the free cocaine and get everyone high.
And then they might play your record a few times
When
Mickey had had humongous success in the US
with the animals, the yard birds, et cetera, et cetera.
But I think that the people that he was associated
with didn't understand Susie.
He just went to his go-to guys.
And there's nothing wrong with going
to a guy like Clive Davis.
And I remember sitting
with Clive in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel
playing him can McCann and playing him 48 crash.
And I remember he had all these young a
and r guys in the room
and saying, we can make this a huge hit here.
His promo guys couldn't get it played.
I thought she'd become bigger American
and it never happened.
When I heard those British records,
I thought she was the best chick I ever heard, you know,
that was amazing.
But that style of music for some reason didn't achieve
what I thought was a no-brainer.
I think it was too soon. It was just
too soon for the industry.
Too soon for the market just wasn't done.
People weren't ready for that in the States.
It was a lot more, uh, macho sort of, uh, you know,
Lynyrd Skynyrd type of attitude.
The public here didn't see that British
glam rock type music as appealing.
There was something that they were missing,
something lost in translation.
And um, after that Alice Cooper tour, there was no real
push to get her back to the States.
She wasn't put on opening for the next big thing, you know?
And I couldn't understand it. I didn't, I didn't get it.
I don't think she ever got over not being able
to be in her own country and make it as big
'cause she should have been by rights huge here.
We got married in, uh, in England.
We bought our first house near his parents.
We were very close, we were very tight.
We were a unit, you know, ne brothers. We weren't tempted.
He may have seemed diminutive in personality,
but I think that his steadfastness
and stature, you know, was, was really important to her.
And I was always aware that it was Susie, Susie, Susie.
And I remember trying very hard in our private life
to make him the important one.
And if you ask him that question, he'll tell you
that he was aware I was doing that.
I didn't want him to ever be Mr. Quatro.
You,
Mr. Udo, who is
the, uh, promoter.
He said, I, I'd like you to do something for me.
What's that, Mr. Rudo?
Well, you just got married in England when it was supposed
to have been a secret, but some bastard opened their gob,
you know, um, he said some
of the Japanese fans won't be too happy.
So if we do a pretend wedding in Japan,
it'll probably appease them all.
Alright? Okay. Not knowing what's gonna happen, of course,
I aware wear a fg kimono
and a pair of shoes that was three times too small
and waddle about like a fg Geisha girl.
So we did that and I just,
as the runaways showed up in the town,
and of course they'd been invited
and they're looking at us like, what the fk you doing?
You'll find out soon enough. It's called promotion in Japan,
Saki Rock.
Slowly but surely I felt that Nikki was taking advantage
of my skills.
I didn't want to feel that way,
but he made me feel that way.
I think perhaps Mike wasn't too happy
that Nick's name was on the getting a writing credit on
the, on the songs.
You know, you know,
Nick is not a musician, he's a businessman.
I wanted to take on America,
and he didn't even understand the first thing about
the market in America.
And uh, so I moved
At that point. He decided
to split from Nikki
and uh, he wasn't gonna work with anybody
that he worked with before.
So everybody was just, that's it, I'm done.
I have a new life in the contract with Mickey.
I had to have a album per year.
And until Mike did whatever he's gonna do, there was a gap.
So Mickey said, okay, I will produce an album
with you contractually, we would do an album.
And Mickey most produced agoraphobia,
Mickey did not know how to produce me.
And it was okay. The album was not bad.
But Nikki doesn't know how to produce my edge.
It's not the sound they want to hear from,
you know, Susie in the band.
It's not.
So Joan Jet in the studio
and Suzy Quatro, Hey, how you doing?
Fine, Susie.
It's been a while since we've seen you couple years, right?
Susie, do you know that Joan was a big fan of yours? Yep.
She used to. Like I used to see
Her at all my shows. Right,
and in the continental hot House lobby. Yeah. Right.
And now, now Joan's a rock star. Now she has record.
That's sure. Yeah.
So Suzie, the when is there gonna be another Susie Quatro
concert in Los Angeles?
Very soon. Soon as soon as there's a new album out.
We're just in between record
companies in America at the moment.
That's why there's been a little bit of a quiet thing.
A place where you live inside your soul.
Nobody knows, nothing shows at all.
The answers you seek are waiting there. Right or wrong.
This belongs to you.
I had a call from a, a woman
who worked in casting at Happy Days
and she said, Hey, do you think, uh, Debbie Harry would like
to come read for this role on Happy Days?
And I said, that part doesn't sound like Debbie Harry at
all, but it sounds exactly like Susie Cuatro.
My oldest daughter had de kaged her her bathroom
with Rolling Stone covers.
And so I told her about the character
and she said, come with me.
Sit on the toilet and look over there.
And there was a picture of Susie on
the cover of Rolling Stone. In
My mind, the character was somebody
who was very cute and sexy.
We didn't like, like hot, hot.
We, we weren't, uh, let's have girls with large breasts kind
of television show.
We were let's have pretty girls and sexy girls.
So we were looking for somebody who was very sweet and cute
and certainly Susie was,
She's gone to Hollywood.
It was very hip. Theon was so cool.
And then all of a sudden, here's Tuscadero, you know,
leather Tuscadero, and it's Susie.
We all went, it's Susie, it's our girl over
Here. Leather. Oh,
there, she's now
Haba, Haba Haba.
Hi Joanie. What's shaking? How
I knew that she was a rock and roll.
What I didn't know was that this incredibly
small package would have so much power.
There was very little bull when it came to, uh,
to Susie Quatro.
You can totally see that.
You know, like while like Richie Cunningham is miming
playing the saxophone, which is like super cheesy
and his varsity sweater that, you know,
she's completely genuine and obviously a real musician.
I'll tell you, a lot of people come up to me
and say, yeah, man,
I saw you on Happy Days Leather at Tuscadero.
And you know, for the first couple of times I said, no,
that's Susie Quatro.
Man, man. But people were so convinced. No.
So after the first few times, I mean,
it's like, what do you say
It did leave a mark and it did.
What it did was it got Mike Chapman motivated
to make records with her again.
And we were still talking to Mike. We're still friends.
And I said, Susie, we gotta get him on side again.
He said, okay, I'll think about writing a song.
Phoned us the next day. He said, I've got an idea.
Can we get the band over? Yep. When now
This was a, a possible opening to reintroduce Susie
to the recording world, and, and Mike jumped on
It. We hadn't even spoken to
Mickey Mos.
I mean, we were assigned to him. We,
he didn't even know Mike sent over the,
you know, the finished cut.
And Mickey went, oh, but have a listen.
Then he see he weren't happy at all. He weren't happy.
And we went in his office and he put it on
halfway through, he took it off,
went, no, it's right, I suppose.
And we thought, he's not happy.
If you can't gimme love took off.
So we found ourselves back on the road heavily again. You
Can't gimme love, love
Then stumbling and happened right
on the heels of that too. Our love is
Alive.
And so we begin
our hearts on the table stumbling.
One of my favorite records of hers Stumbling in,
which was a ballad with Chris Norman of Smokey
was a huge hit in America.
Probably her biggest hit single there,
and yet didn't do very well over here.
Wherever you go, whatever you do,
you know, these reckless thought.
I don't think at that point, Britain had quite got used
to the idea of Susie not being a glam rocker in leather
trousers and holding a big bass guitar.
Then Nikki Chin went to see the Happy Days people,
and he told 'em that Happy Days was interfering
with my kudos as a real rockstar.
And, uh, he didn't think I should do anymore.
So I didn't do anymore. Are you crazy Cat
Rich? I handle
this. Are you crazy?
Happy Days was great. I loved it.
I loved every minute I was in that show.
They did offer me a spinoff, you know, along the same lines
of the Leather Tuscadero thing.
And I thought, well, I don't mind appearing in happy days
as this character, but did anybody wanna make it a spinoff?
Thanks Milwaukee.
We've turned down Happy days for the past two years, right?
Uh, because otherwise I'll be boxed in.
That'll be my character. Everybody else say, well,
Susie does leather Tuscadero.
So we've stopped doing that. I did enough for them,
for everybody to know I can act Now.
We're looking at movie scripts.
She was offered this film about,
based on a true incident in Australia, where a gang
of bikers take over a town.
But she turned that down as well.
Nicky and Mike were both now living in la.
Thought I was getting rid of him,
and he moved about a year and a half later
and bought a house three doors up on the same
street in Beverly Hills.
I thought, okay, he's good at business stuff.
I, I know he is good at that.
So I said, Nikki, I wanna start a record label
and you are gonna run it.
So I said, dreamland records, I'll find the talent,
I'll make the records, you run the company.
I said to Nikki, you know, would make sense for,
for the Dreamland brand to have a star on the label.
Why don't we sign Susie?
Mike said to me,
I don't wanna work with anybody.
Now that isn't on my label. Mike was my producer.
Mike wrote a lot of my hits, most of my hits,
and I just went, whoa.
She,
The Rock Rock
Made a deal with Robert Stigwood,
huge, millions of dollars.
And it was either gonna work or that was it.
Mickey didn't think it would, it didn't fancy the idea,
and I think they lost a lot of money.
It didn't work. So that was it.
And that was the end of the partnership
because I said, well, you didn't do your job.
Bye.
Hi, I am Susie Cuatro.
I started on Countdown in 1974,
and I'm still gonna be there in 1984.
Cut. If someone like Susie had been
starting out in the eighties, she would've had mega success
through MTV because then you, you can see stuff like,
you know, can the can number one in America, I'm sure
I left America to come over here
to make my name, which I did.
This half of the world was ready for America, was not.
Then I did happy days
and then the world from leather tuscadero on Happy Days was
ready for somebody like Joan Jett to have a hit.
I Shame
People thought it was me.
They called me up from top of the pops,
oh, you're back on the screen.
I said, no, but you can be mistaken for thinking.
So
you think you've done it all.
You know what you need, what you want. Too clever.
I won't get trapped. Not me cried the fool yet.
Here you are.
Turn around.
I always wanted kids. Love kids, love kids.
I had as much coverage as Princess Diana on my first child.
I was front pages of lots of papers. I'm thinking, why?
'cause it didn't go along with the image.
I'm a normal person. I wanted kids. I wanted a family.
And when I left the hospital,
there was something like 200 photographers there.
I remember Lenny saying to me, don't go on Mumsy on me.
And I remember thinking, what?
Just remember you're Susie Quatro.
And I'm thinking that's a dumb attitude
because yes, I'm Susie Quatro, but I'm also Laura's mother,
but I guess I'm his livelihood.
So he wanted to keep me in that mode. Who's that singer?
Who's that? Mom? That's mommy? Yeah, Richard.
That's not Richard. Richard Richard.
She knows that mommy is Susie Quatro.
She will point to the TV and say Susie
Quatro, but she knows that that's mommy.
But she also knows that that's mommy working
and this is mommy not working.
We took her to a show the other
night and she went all the way home.
She's going 48 crash.
I didn't want them to be famous persons brats.
And I sent them both to normal school.
So I tried to make their life very normal.
I was brought up normal. I was brought up by great parents.
My mother was very strict with me
and I wanted to make sure they were the same.
Um, I didn't have any problems being a normal mother.
Other people have problems with me being a normal mother.
But then it was
after the kids at Lenny, just he went somewhere else.
Went somewhere else. Uh, he started
to be out every day shooting and going to the pub.
And he really kind of separated from me in some way.
Just kind of was distant.
And then when I started rehearsals for Annie,
get Your Gun, I was spreading.
And I could see the resentment on Len.
He won't tell you this. He'll say he wasn't
resentful at all, but I felt it.
He just wanted me doing rock and roll.
And instead he's hanging around watching me do a musical.
This is not who Lenny is. I understand his resentment.
If you'll just step over there, I'll give you a lesson in
Marksmanship.
You couldn't gimme a lesson in long distance spitting.
Anything you can do. I can do better.
I can do anything better than you. No, you can't. Yes I can.
No you can. Yes I can. No, you can. Yes I can. Yes I can.
I suppose the fact that she was American helped, certainly
with British audiences, perhaps,
but, you know, no, she can act.
She can sing. She's got a great stage presence.
And Annie Oakley is the story of a woman like that.
It's a sort of 19th century Suzy Quatro. Really? Annie,
I suppose. You know, you're
giving up your only quote.
I had always waited my entire life for my dad
to praise me, always with my family.
I always waiting for the praise that I never seemed to get.
And I remember thinking to myself
before the show began, do I want my dad
to tell me how great it was?
And for the first time ever, I was 36 at this point,
I thought, you know, I don't need it.
And he came in and he said it.
God dammit, Susie, I'm so proud.
I'd never heard those words before. Never.
Unfortunately, when she did Annie, get Your Gun.
I was talking a lot to, um, uh, the guy at CBS and loved.
He was very interested in doing something.
As soon as it came out in the press
that she was doing, Annie, get Your Gun.
He, he just said, you know, if if she wants
to go that way, it's up to her.
You know, I'm not saying anything, but you can't do that.
And then expect British public to, uh, buy rock
and roll records from the same artist.
It doesn't work the next stage pantomime.
But for a rock and roller to do a pantomime, it's a kiss
of death in, in the uk absolute kiss of death.
I think Lenny began to feel like Mr.
Quatro and sort of lost his balls.
Whatever, you know, he wasn't as involved.
She was expanding and she
didn't want anybody holding her down.
That's her big thing. She wanted anybody holding her back.
Not her own husband. Not anybody, not her sisters, anybody.
Just keep going. Keep going. Foot on the gas.
I won't be boxed in. I will not be boxed in.
What you're trying to do is clip my wings.
And how can you do that to any human being on this earth?
Just because he fell in love with Susie Quattro
with the bass guitar doesn't mean that's all I was.
I wanted projects. I wanted something to do.
I found a book of Toda by chance.
I found a book in the library.
It was like, it was given to me.
Started to read it.
And I thought, Hey, I can write a musical about this lady.
She'd done so much in rock music,
but she wanted to open out even further.
So the Toula Bank head musical helped
her to do that. Really,
I liked it because she seemed to me that nobody got her,
nobody got inside her skin.
She had this facade.
And I said, I'm gonna read this, these books,
every book I can find, I I'm gonna get into her character.
She was a little girl. She was lonely.
She needed her daddy's love. She didn't get it.
She put on this tough facade
because Tallulah was a little bit of a wild card.
Before her time, she would swear,
she would smoke, she would drink.
She was bisexual. She was, um,
real larger than life character. My
Boy
fly
With me.
She was more distant from the family. We would see her.
I I went over there a number of times to visit and all that.
Uh, so did mom and dad.
And we knew she was having, you know,
having some issues with her husband.
And they were gonna split up at some point.
But we didn't really get involved in it.
And then all of a sudden it happened.
It was hard. 'cause I'm a, I'm a daddy's girl
and I, I love my dad.
And, um, I actually, I actually gave him my dog
'cause I didn't want him to be on his own.
Took six years for me to go because I'm a Catholic girl.
And I had to make sure I said either the
marriage dies or I die.
And I chose to live.
And so the curtain falls. Go, applause dies away.
Crowds leave the stalls. One bulb lights the stage.
One minute more. I stand broke listening
to the sound beaten and of silence.
Once a war, I feel myself come down.
And Susie scores again.
A nick of time and has only one target left.
Susie created this really wide playing field for herself.
She kept herself interested. She branched out into theater.
She always kept touring.
She hosted a chat show, acted in TV dramas,
had her own radio show appeared on absolutely fabulous
Time from Detroit. And I
don't mess around. Now,
what do you need? Sex, drugs. Rock and roll.
Rock and roll. This woman has so much,
so much energy, so much personality, so much talent.
It's mind boggling. She could have done anything.
She could have done anything.
And if she wanted to write a book of poetry
or a novel, she'd do it.
I'm Suzy Cuatro. This is a new series called Quatro.
Susie Quatro. Tonight, this is your life.
Over the years, you've been a trailblazer for other stars
who followed you into the rock and roll charts.
Susie, as you know, you are a real inspiration to
Me. The pretenders
Chrissy Hy.
I stand on the stage and receive this award.
Your possibilities are endless.
Many dreams have been sold.
Many tales have been told many years down the road,
You reflect.
As you get older, you reflect a little bit and cry.
I have done without everything that I did.
No, but you reflect on the fact that yes, indeed.
I don't know if compromise is the right word,
but there was something that I should have embraced more.
I will always have that bit of a empty space in me
that I wished I had more time in Detroit, more time just
to just to be a kid.
I did always wanna run away. Maybe that's part of it.
Maybe I regret that now that I, I spent
so many years getting away from it
and it was such a perfect time.
You know, I, for some reason, I want to go back into there
and I don't know what that is.
Do you half expect to see that child open the door?
I do. I see, I see little Susie. I feel little Susie.
I could just, I could walk back into that life.
You know, I was looking on the sidewalk in front
of the house for the chalk
because I used to paint chalk down the sidewalk.
So if, uh, little Susie had opened the door, uh,
when you were just staring at your old house
and suddenly the door opened
and there she was standing
there, you know, what would you say?
Oh, I'd say stay there and enjoy this as long as you can.
'cause it won't be forever. That's what I'd say.
Don't be in such a hurry. Don't run so fast.
That's the little girl. Ah, yeah.
That's, maybe, that's, that's the person
I'm trying to address now.
Again, that little girl.
Yeah, I wouldn't tell her not to go.
I said, just stop running so fast.
You know, you got a little bit of a life yet to live.
'cause my mother always said, she let me go too early.
She said to me, you were always going where you were going.
My little Susan.
Well, I'm telling you now, things I promised
I'd never sang
and I've taking my chances I won't fall
flat on my
face one more day with my parents.
You can take it all. Take it all. Just leave me one guitar.
But take the rest one more day of that,
of that unconditional love.
You can't buy that. No success in the
world will ever give you that.
Can I say that? That doesn't.
Oh, I'll always be like that. Okay.
I need big su su It don't work.
Okay. Will I set you be free? Yes.
I told you no strings attached.
I'd like to introduce my backing singers.
Yes, I know that's a bit unusual,
but they're not just any old backing singers.
In fact, the um, the stress is on the word old.
They've been with me for nearly 40 years.
A surprise, isn't it? You know why?
Because they're my sisters. Please welcome Patty, Nancy, and
Arlene's a, uh, a relationship
that you want from your sisters.
And they are reluctant sometimes to fulfill
That. Yeah, they are.
I agree with that.
Doesn't stop me from wanting it
and doesn't stop me from trying.
It was Australia that gave me that big lesson.
The last Australian tour sold out. The audiences are great.
The band is great. I'm at the peak of my performing powers.
I'm going for it.
And I still needed my sister to say
how great she thought I was.
She just came to Brisbane and said, tro. Okay.
And could you elaborate?
This is an Ollie student who knows every, every language
and all these wonderful words.
And all she could think of was tro.
And again, why did I need it? Well, the truth is, I did.
I will never be, um, a fan
of Susie Quatro ever.
It doesn't matter. Be.
And even though I totally admire every, every bit of it,
and I think she's gonna have more success,
but I'll never be her fan because she's my sister.
It all comes down to self love.
You know, no matter what you do in life, you gotta give
that to yourself internally.
You can't always get it externally. You just can't.
And if you base it on that, the fans
and all that, they're not gonna
be with you on your deathbed.
They're not gonna be there.
It's important to be validated
by the ones you love the most there.
There's the reason. Boom, I just said it.
You want to be validated by the ones you love the most.
Maybe this is their payback.
Maybe because I did go off and didn't take them all with me.
Maybe they just refuse to give me what I want
because I didn't give them what they wanted.
And I think this is the piece I've found now.
I now realize that it doesn't matter.
I can go for the rest of my life waiting
for it and it ain't gonna happen.
So I just have to be happy with that.
I realize now that I made it in spite of them.
But more important, I made it because of them.
And I know this is a dichotomy,
but it is both things together.
You can always look back with regret.
If only I'd have done this.
But when you look at what you have, you realize none
of it was a mistake.
And Susie did not make any mistakes.
The mistake is that people have overlooked her.
That's their mistake.
I think that Susie Trow has been an essential player
in music.
I think that she was an omnipresent force of talent.
She's still out there and she's still holding it together.
You know, that's something there. That is something.
She really should be one of those people
that are much more discussed, much more in the lexicon
of musicians.
Certainly her position, you know, being so early
and being like the first woman leading a
band, having hits like that,
That Susie had a dream in Detroit.
And all these years later, she is still living that dream.
That is amazing.
I think that the good part
of it far outweighs the bad part.
The bad part is you're gonna at some point pay serious dues.
You're gonna at some point be very lonely.
You're gonna at some point look at all the temptations
and think, oh gosh, I wish I could do that.
'cause you're in a relationship, which you can't.
You're gonna, at some point, in fact, at many points,
you're gonna be talking to people
and thinking to yourself, are you talking to me?
'cause I'm Susie Quatro, would you like me?
These are all the costs of fame.
You're gonna sometimes go out your door looking like a piece
of st and somebody's gonna come up
and say, Hey, arch, you, Susie Quatro.
And you're gonna think, oh God, You're gonna be having a wi
and a cubicle and somebody's gonna put a piece
of paper under the door with a pen
and ask you to sign that actually happened.
So there are intrusive bits.
I'm obligated to everybody who has ever bought my records.
Everybody who has ever been at a show, I'm obligated to be
the best I can be.
If they come and see me at a show
and they want an autograph, I am obligated.
How dare I be in a bad mood for my own personal reasons
and snub one of these people.
And that's my attitude I take to my performing as well.
Doesn't matter what's going on in my life.
If I'm doing a show, I'm doing a show
and you're gonna get all of me,
every single bit I have to give.
As far as her music goes,
it's all she can do to keep her heart going.
You know, it's, it's her, her one.
True love, love a
Bit. Richard,
my son, for 25 years has wanted
to write some songs with me.
And he's mentioned it periodically. Just never felt right.
And finally, about six months ago, he came to me
and he said, mom, I really need to write some songs
with you about
Just then before you start, you hit a ice.
Yeah.
All right. Lemme just play with this a couple times.
He said, I wanna remind you who you are.
And I went, but does he mean?
And he just gave me these riffs things I don't normally
and areas I don't normally do.
And he somehow pushed my Susie Curo button.
He pushed this part of me that just, I just went, who
You wanted to make it me.
But now
You,
you can't.
I see the world in all its glory.
The story has now been told.
And through my eyes, I greet this life
and allow my truth to unfold.
I remember those summer nights, driving in cars,
getting in fights far after by night after night
Around In a purple.
Dreaming about being a star, driving a big car.
Money To earn, to standing in
The shadow.
Let be who I am, whatever it may be.
I'm Girl City. Built up like
A,
I think that I accomplished
what I was put on this earth to do.
God, I've got two kids, two beautiful kids
after me, beautiful granddaughter, a good second marriage.
And even now, you know, women coming up saying, oh,
you're my hero all the time with guys.
Oh, I had you on my wall. Okay, you can't take it serious.
I always say it, your Weiner Weiner always witnesses it.
And I say, you know, Weiner, okay, maybe I was a pinup,
but the pinup with Quatro
Suzy tro.
So after the film crew came from
Australia, they came to my house.
I did an interview, which I was so thrilled to do,
honored to do.
Um, Liam, who's the director, turned around, he goes,
you should write a song for this.
And I was like,
wait a minute.
Now this is something I would really like to do
because there's so much to say.
Let's go
The city.
She's one of a kind
Living In.
You are ahead of your time. You sling
That act so low, Sing as if it keeps you alive.
Don't you take me to camp. Camp down Devil King. Drive
What?
Good on me. Red hot,
Rocky, weight,
The wild,
Little bit wild.
She left
Her home for London Hotel for
year. Stomp in the streets
To the Feet of a
Hot
million by
Rocky Queen.
You,
oh, there ain't no doubt about it because you
That struck the match.
Because I was there and I saw your 48 crash.
The Guys say it's a man's world
as they smirk it at their
Stash, but you yell
and you
this, I'm a wild one.
The rock roll.
I'm a wild one.
I'm the wild one.
I'm.