The Major Role Aussies Have Played In Suzi Quatro’s Career: Hits, A Documentary & A Remix

11 November 2026 12:37 PM

Ahead of her upcoming Australian tour, Suzi Quatro catches up with The Music to share stories about Australia's impact on her incredible career.

Suzi Quatro(Credit: Tina K Photography)

Suzi Quatro Profile

A true American rock’roll legend and iconic bass player, Suzi Quatro has long had a deep connection with Australia. Not only did we embrace her music before her home country, but Australians have also played major roles in her career.

It was an Australian producer/songwriter who launched her chart-topping string of hits; it was an Australian team who made her award-winning, career-defining documentary; and it was an Australian DJ who most recently catapulted her back into the charts.

Since breaking out as a solo star in 1973 (she was originally in the band The Pleasure Seekers with her sister Patti), Detroit-born Quatro has toured Australia regularly across the decades, playing hundreds of shows here.

Her throwback rock’n’roll sound coincided with the rise of glam rock in the early ‘70s and very quickly she was topping the charts alongside T-Rex, David Bowie and The Sweet. In Australia, she landed three number one hits in quick succession: Can The Can, 48 Crash and Devil Gate Drive.

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Those three songs - also massive hits throughout Europe - were co-written and co-produced by Australian hit-maker Mike Chapman and his studio partner Nicky Chinn. The pair also cranked out hits for the ‘70s’ biggest pop acts, including The Sweet, Smokie and Racey. Chapman would also go on to produce Blondie’s influential Parallel Lines, Eat To The Beat and AutoAmerican albums and pen evergreen classics like The Best (Tina Turner) and Love Is A Battlefield (Pat Benatar).

When Quatro dials in from her UK home for a round of Zoom interviews to promote her upcoming return to Australia, the 76-year-old rocker is full of energy and ready to sing the praises of her Australian connections, especially Chapman.

“He was very important,” enthuses Quatro, “because although Mickey [Most - owner of RAK, the label Quatro signed to] discovered me, Mickey could never capture me in the studio… He didn't get my edge, you know.

“And Mike Chapman was hanging around. Mickey had signed [Chinn and Chapman] as writers. And Mickey played him my first single, Rolling Stone, which actually went to number one in Portugal, and that's it.”

Making a quick aside at this point, Quatro notes to herself, “I’ve got a gig in Portugal coming up, so I'm going to have to do that song.”

Quatro slides back into her Chapman story, “So Mickey played him that song, and Mike said, ‘Oh.’ Mickey said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘That's not what I thought she was going to sound like. I thought she was rock and roll, and she's a bass player.’

“And so then we did the Slade tour, and I had my first band. And then everything kind of started to gel, my sound and my look - naturally, when you do a long tour.

“And [Chinn and Chapman] were new writers to RAK Records, and Mickey Most's wife [Christina] said, ‘Why don't you get Mike Chapman to produce Suzi?’ And Mickey, ‘What, what, what, what do you mean, what do you mean?’ And Chris said, ‘Good night,’ and she went to bed, bless her.

“And so Mickey then said to me, he must have taken it on board, he said, ‘I want to send Mike Chapman to come see the set, okay, and maybe he can craft this three-minute hit single for you. Do you mind?’ Because I was signed as a singer, songwriter, musician. I said, ’Not at all, of course I don't mind.’

“So he came and watched the show, and that very night he went away and wrote Can The Can… so, what I'm saying is, he got me. Yeah. He got me. And we came back in the rehearsal room at RAK, and then we took over. He had a little demo with his screaming guitars on it. You don't ever give Mike a guitar. And I love him dearly, but don't give him a guitar.

“So then every musician in that first band, very importantly, we put our bits on, and we made the Can The Can demo into what it became. And it became ‘Suzi Quatro’. Right from the signature [mimics the song’s glam bassline], it's me. So Mike got me. Yeah. He got me.

“There was one time I was doing a track called Mama's Boy [a 1980 single] in the studio. Yeah. And I stopped singing, and Mike said, 'What's the matter?’ I said, ‘Do me a favour. Next time you write me a song, can you give me some breathing space so I can sing?’ He said, ‘Suzi, you wrote this.’ I went, ‘Ahhh.’ That's how close the relationship was. We got confused. He said, ‘Yell at yourself.’ I said, ‘Okay.’”

MORE AUSTRALIAN CONNECTIONS - A DOCO & A REMIX

Australia stepped in again when it came time for Quatro to make a documentary charting her musical legacy. There had been attempts to get a documentary off the ground previously, but it wasn’t until the 2010’s that Quatro got to work on the Suzi Q documentary after meeting with the Australian filmmaking team of producer Tait Brady and director Liam Firmager.

The resulting 2019 film is an eye-opening, deep dive into Quatro’s life that doesn’t shy away from exploring family tensions and the artist’s lack of recognition as a rock icon. It has quite rightly been described as a “candid” and “vulnerable” project.

Quatro recalls the unconventional first meeting with Firmager that eventually led to Suzi Q being made: “He knocked on the door at one of my gigs. He got backstage and said hi, introduced himself. He said, ‘My name is Liam Firmager. I would like to make a documentary on you.’ And I said, ‘Well, come on in.’ Sat down, started to talk.

“And he said, ‘I’ve got to tell you straight away, I'm not a fan.’ I went, ‘Oh, okaaay.’ That's an icebreaker. And he said, ‘No, no, don't get me wrong. I love your music. I'm just not a “fan”.’ [Quatro makes the air quotes gesture with her hands when saying “fan”.] And I went, ‘No, no, that's okay… that's fine. Not a problem. Then why do you want to do a documentary? Can I ask?’ And he said, ‘Because I saw you on a talk show and you absolutely fascinated me.’ So I said, ‘Okay, you're my guy. But I will insist on one thing. That it's total honesty. No bullshit. Honest. I don't care.’

“And there were, when I got the clips back to approve, there were moments when I went, ‘Oh my.’ The cringe, ‘Oh my.’ And I called him a couple of times, and I said, ‘Oh, I'm not…’ He said, ‘Suzi, you said the warts and all.’ And I went, ‘Oh, you're right. You're so right.’ And now the cringe moments are the best moments in the film.

“So, yes, you do need to see the ups and the downs and show the cracks. You have to, to understand somebody's life. So, you know, and I'm glad that I insisted on it. I'm glad he wouldn't let me take anything out. So, yes, it's a really, really good documentary. I'm very proud of it.”

The documentary also helped Quatro acknowledge to herself exactly how influential she had been on the generations of musicians who followed her.

“I didn't know. And this is the truth,” states Quatro, “I didn't know that I had changed the world for women. I didn't know I was doing this. I was just doing what I did, coming from a musical family. You know, I went to my dad at 14, who's a musician, and I said, ‘Dad, we're going to start our girl band, me and Patti.’ Four daughters. He said, ‘It’s okay.’ Not like ‘What?’ And I said, ‘Do you have a bass?’ He said, ‘Sure.’

“So how could I know I was doing anything strange when my own father had no reaction whatsoever? Just fine. And then when I watched my documentary in 2019, I was 69. I went down to the premiere in London, snuck in because I wanted to see it with the audience. They didn't know I was there. I was huddling and watching it. I wanted to feel that documentary with the audience. I wanted to feel their highs and lows and what they were going to react to.

“And as I'm watching, it comes through the film: Debbie Harry, Lita Ford, Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, KT Tunstall, Tina Weymouth, and I know I'm forgetting some. And they all said basically the same thing. You can make it one sentence from everybody: ‘I would not have done what I did had Suzi Quatro not done it first.’ Now, that's when the penny dropped, at the age of 69. And I was sitting there watching the film as the credits rolled. I was in tears. Because all the way through, I'm going, what!?

“You know, when it finally dawns on you. I went, ‘I did that. I did that.’ I was crying. So now I accept it. I accept the accolade. But again, I'm always honest about these kinds of things. It would have happened sooner or later with somebody, sure. But it had to be somebody like me who didn't know they were doing it, who was not manufactured. Otherwise, that would not have worked. And that's why I'm still here, because I'm the real deal.”

Towards the end of 2023, yet another Australian made an unlikely impact on Quatro’s life. A young Darwin-based DJ/producer known as Cyril uploaded his remix of Quatro’s 1978 smash hit Stumblin’ In, a duet with Smokie lead singer Chris Norman. The original version was her only Top 40 single in her US homeland.

To date, Cyril’s Stumblin’ In reworking has clocked up 78 million streams on YouTube and 871 million plays on Spotify. It charted worldwide - in both Poland and Romania, it was the top song of 2024. It continued charting last year and ended up as Hungary’s number two song of 2025. It has been certified five-times platinum status in Australia and remains on the ARIA chart to this day.

“Well, somebody had played it for me,” recalls Quatro, “I did hear it. And fantastic because it brought a whole new generation of people into that classic song. And it was a huge hit for me. Huge. Million seller around the world.

“And actually Cyril wanted to meet me and flew from Darwin to Perth on my last tour to say hello, which was really sweet of him. And he came backstage, you know, to say hello. And I remember I walked up to him. I said, ‘Hi.’ We shook hands. And I said, ‘Hi, you stole my song.’ [Laughs.] But I brought him out on stage.”

HOW TO UN-RETIRE FROM TOURING

It’s difficult to calculate exactly how many times Quatro has toured Australia, as there’s no definitive account of her travels in the decades before an artist’s every movement was tracked by the internet. Estimates range wildly between 20 and 47. Whatever the number, it’s a lot. It’s no surprise that a decade ago she told Australian audiences that she was retiring from touring. However, she’s toured multiple times since that announcement and no longer talks about quitting.

Quatro laughs as she remembers her premature retirement talk, “I told the audience in 2015 it was, when I said that was going to be my last Australian tour. And in 2017, I went out to the audience on my Leather Forever encore tour. And I said, ‘I will never say the f-word again’ to the audience. [Impersonates crowd gasp] And I said, ‘Final.’

“It was about three months after I got home from that 2015 final tour of Australia. It was 50 years in the business at that point. And I just went, ‘What have I done? I'm nowhere near ready to stop.’ And I will never say that word again. You'll have to retire me. I'm singing better than I've ever sung and getting the best reviews of my life. Packing houses wherever I go. Why should I stop?”

Quatro still remembers what convinced her to tour here for the first time in May 1974. “It is special,” she says. “I remember we had an Australian girl working as secretary to Mickey Most in England. And she had gone home, and she came back, and she said, ‘Suzi,’ she said, ‘you're a national treasure there.’ She said, ‘I think something like 80 per cent of the population in Australia had one of your records. It's crazy. Crazy.’”

She even remembers exactly what she was wearing when she touched down in Australia for the first time - wanting to create the right impression for awaiting media. “Mickey Most said to me, ‘I don't care what you wear on the plane because it's a long journey. But when you get off the plane, you're going to have your leathers on.’ Not my jumpsuit, my street leathers, your trousers and jacket. It's been a love affair with Australia since day one. I love you. You love me.

“I can only think, I'm 76 now, so I think it's because I'm real and you're real. This is what I feel like the connection is. You know, what you see is what you're getting when I meet Australian people. And it's exactly the same. There's a no-nonsense element, isn't there?”

Quatro’s live shows have evolved since that first visit. No longer just a non-stop rock out, Quatro has fallen in love with storytelling and has combined nostalgic tales into her sets since her experience of turning her Unzipped autobiography into a one-woman show back in 2012.

“What changed the whole thing for me was when I had my broken bones,” explains Quatro. “I can't remember what year it was. I fell down in an aeroplane and broke my bones - out of commission for about five months. And then when I was going to do my first thing [post-recovery], they had offered me a one-woman show in the Hippodrome in London. So I wrote a one-woman show with a script. And there was a trio on stage with me.

“So a lot of talking, you know, basically taking it through my life. A lot of talking. It's really, really fun to do. And then at the end, I would run off, change into the jumpsuit and do two songs when I came back. And that particular show illustrated to me what I could put into my normal rock show and make it work. So that taught me something new about what I wanted to do.

“And then when I did the ‘final’ [tour] in Australia, I said, right, now is the time to incorporate what I learned during my Unzipped show. And I put in a talking section where I told you, you know, like highlights of my life and went down a treat. But it was that [Hippodrome] show that taught me because it was a one-woman show. So then I incorporated only certain parts of it that would work without going over the top. But people love it when you come down to talk to them. And I love it. I like getting acquainted. You know, it's a minute without the bass, isn't it? You're just you're out there saying hello. Yeah.”

QUATRO & SON

Quatro has not only continued to tour but has regularly recorded and released new material throughout her six-decade career. Initially releasing eight back-to-back studio albums between 1973 and 1982, Quatro threw herself back into regular recording in 2006 with her Back To The Drive set. Since then, she’s released another six albums, including collaborations with KT Tunstall (2023’s Face To Face) plus The Sweet’s Andy Scott and Slade’s Don Powell (2017’s Quatro, Scott & Powell).

Driving Quatro to spend more time in the studio is her son, Richard Tuckey (his father is Quatro’s ex-husband and former guitarist and songwriting partner, Len Tuckey). Together they’ve completed three solo Quatro albums: 2019’s No Control, 2021’s The Devil In Me and this year’s Freedom.

Quatro waxes lyrical about her son’s interest in music and production, “He was in bands since he was 14. He got his first guitar as a very young boy. He also had a saxophone. It took a while to settle in until he finally made the thing that he wanted to play [was] guitar. So then he learned it.

“In 2019, he came to me just out of the blue. And he said, ‘Mom, I want to write songs with you now.’ I went, ‘Okay, what you got?’ So he showed me some things. I said, ‘I can work with that.’ We'd never done it before. We wrote three songs. We went to the studio. We're making a demo. And I looked at the engineer, and I looked at Richard. And I said, ‘You know what? We're making an album.’ And we all three went, ‘We are.’ And it just clicked. And that album was No Control, followed by The Devil In Me, where he really found his feet. No Control was more experimental. We hadn't worked together before. So we were finding our way working together as a team.”

“And then by The Devil In Me, the second one, his confidence level went up. So he's a little bit more vocal. And then by the third album now, he knows who he is, which is great. And he knows me. He pushes me. He pushes me. Whenever I do something, he's in the studio listening like that. He's a headphone vibe. And if something goes wrong, he puts his head up, and he goes, ‘Nope.’ So whatever that is, he's heard it. And he always wants me to be the Suzi Quatro that he grew up with.”

And, laughing, she admits she’s not afraid to play the mum card in the studio, “If he really makes me angry, I just send him to his room. It's not a problem. I have done that.”

Mostly, though, she’s proud of their musical partnership: “You know, I've always released stuff. But with Richard on board, he sort of, he turned me back onto me. I was able to see myself through his eyes, which is like seeing myself fresh. So he took me back organically to the original Suzi Quatro, which is great. And then there's no stopping me.

“Then I'm going, going, going, going, going, going, going… I'm always on ‘go’. I went to have a coffee the other morning with my husband [German concert promoter Rainer Haas], and he said, ‘You don't need that.’ It kind of made me smile. I thought, thank you very much. You don't need that. I am a pretty high energy girl, you know.”

KICK OUT THE COVERS

Tuckey has also encouraged Quatro to continue another musical tradition. Quatro loves to pay tribute to the music that moves and influences her, always including cover songs on her albums since her 1973 self-titled debut (released as Can The Can in Australia). That album featured covers of The Beatles (I Wanna Be Your Man), Elvis Presley (All Shook Up) and Johnny Kidd (Shakin’ All Over). Since then, she’s covered tracks by a wide variety of artists, including The Kinks, Tom Petty and Goldfrapp.

On her latest album, she not only covers southern blues musician Don Nix (Going Down) but also pays tribute to her hometown roots and covers Detroit heroes MC5’s Kick Out The Jams with another Detroit rocker, Alice Cooper. It’s a collaboration that has been a long time coming.

“My son,” explains Quatro, “has been saying to me since 2019, as one of the covers, why don't we do Kick Out The Jams? And I kept avoiding it. I kept avoiding it. And I love the song, and yes, I'm from Detroit. It just didn't feel right to me. And finally, on the album Freedom that's out now, he said, ‘Mom, we need the other cover. Kick Out The Jams, call Alice Cooper.’ And I went, ‘Oh. Why didn't you say that in the first place?’ Because then it made sense.

“Then I saw and heard the song in my mind. Two buddies from Detroit going back to Detroit and honouring a Detroit band. I heard the whole thing. And you see it in the video. You see our friendship. You feel the spirit of Detroit.”

Suzi Quatro returns to Australia this month. Tickets are now available.