When Suzi Quatro began playing with Don Powell and Andy Scott retirement was baloney

SUZI Quatro had retired until her husband got her playing with The Sweet’s Andy Scott and Slade’s Don Powell. The trio are Australia bound.

Suzi Quatro in a white shirt is a rare thing for a fan to see. Picture: Supplied

SUZI Quatro told everyone it was the last time. That was it. After dozens of tours of Australia over five decades, she was done.

So she spent a month in early 2015 on a victory lap of a country that had embraced her since Can the Can became her first No. 1 hit here in 1973.

The 66-year-old rocker loved every minute of it and went home to the UK very happy. But not necessarily satisfied.

“I’m an artist, I’ve been an artist my whole life, so I am never, ever satisfied,” she says.

“I came back from that tour and everyone was saying it was the perfect show, my whole life on the stage and screens, everyone’s memories brought back to life, all the smiles and tears.

“I came home satisfied and I never thought I would say that.”

Suzi Quatro has been rocking Australian stages for five decades. Picture: Ross Marsden

And then the months passed and friends and fans would ask when she was going to play again.

They teased her that she wasn’t really done, surely she would come back.

That was enough to put Quatro on an emotional rollercoaster and she began to doubt her decision to call it quits.

So she decided if it was good enough for John Farnham, it was good enough for her to announce that the last time wasn’t in fact, the last time.

“I know, I know, I get it, I’m doing a John Farnham,” she says, laughing. “Bless him, I love that guy.

“That tour was a great swan song. But after that, I started a supergroup and that’s when I started wondering ‘Oh God, what have I done?’”

Quatro is quick to point out the “supergroup” was in fact the idea of her promoter husband Rainer Haas who had previously worked with ‘70s glam rockers The Sweet and Slade.

It started as a conversation about the different playing styles of musicians and how Quatro’s power bass action suited certain guitarists and drummers.

“Rainer has very good ears and he said we should all play together, me with Andy Scott from The Sweet and Don Powell from Slade. It took a little bit of time to get us in a room and there was no blueprint, we didn’t know if it was going to work,” she says.

Each member brought a couple of covers suggestions to try out and the trio clicked as they jammed on Bob Dylan’s Just Like a Woman.

Quatro, pictured at The Rocks, Sydney, helped ‘a lot of men through puberty’. Picture: John Fotiadis

“There was something happening in there that inspired me so I started writing. I didn’t finish it but I ran it past them to see what the boys thought, if it was us. It’s called A Long Way Home and made the final cut,” she says, proudly.

“That opened up the floodgates of creativity for us.”

Scott and Quatro would call each other in the early morning hours and play song ideas down the phone. Soon they were recording their covers picks and original songs.

It was inevitable someone would raise the prospect of a tour.

But even the lure of three seasoned players with plenty of fans wasn’t enough. So Haas came up with another suggestion. QSP, as they have named the trio, should open for Suzi Quatro.

“I’ll be my own support act,” she says. “Only a Gemini could do that.

“The truth is I am one of those people who come to life on stage, it’s in my blood.”

Quatro wanted to launch QSP in Australia where she enjoys a unique and enduring relationship with fans.

Simply, she says, “we get each other” but the almost reverential fandom she enjoys here has its roots in more than the fact she still looks exceptionally rocking in those leathers.

Quatro’s brand of infectious rock’n’roll arrived at the same time as Australia was enjoying its own music revolution, propelled by a raft of bands not content to replicate the sounds coming out of the US and UK.

Her Detroit garage style, dripping in pop melody, had much in common with the Australian pub rock sound and Quatro posters adorned the bedroom walls of a generation of teenagers, the girls who wanted to be her and the boys who dreamt of dating a woman like her.

Those fans who turned out to see the sold out shows in 2015 screamed like they were those teenagers and preserving their precious memories had to be considered before the Devil Gate Drive legend decided to get back on the stage here.

“I helped a lot of men through puberty,” she says.

“You have to be careful with people’s memories, they are precious.

“And I like this person, who I am now, you can go out there at 66 and shake her arse and still get a response or go to the piano and play a love song and get a response.”

QSP is reportedly close to signing a major record deal with the album likely to be released in time with next year’s tour.

Andy Scott (third from left) in a 2014 shot with Andy Scott’s Sweet (from left) Bruce Bisland, Pete Lincoln, Scott and Tony O’Hora. Picture: Supplied

Quatro says the major labels are wise to court heritage artists with loyal followings — they are the only audience still buying records.

“They are investing in stayers and they are smart to do it,” she says.

“We’ve all still got something to give. I just sent Barry Gibb an email congratulating him on his new song because I think it’s very brave, I admire him for doing it. We’re not done yet.”

SEE: Suzi Quatro will open the tour at Twin Towns on February 3 and 4, with concerts at the QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane on February 7, Adelaide Entertainment Centre on February 9, Perth’s crown Theatre on February 11, Sydney Opera House on February 14, Melbourne’s Hamer Hall on February 18 and Hope Estate Winery, Hunter Valley on February 25. For all dates suziquatro.com.au

Originally published as When Suzi Quatro began playing with Don Powell and Andy Scott retirement was baloney