Suzi Quatro is een bezige bij. Ze treedt nog steeds op als hoofdact in arena's, brengt boeken en nieuwe muziek uit en lijkt er geen gras over te laten groeien. Ze staat op het punt een persoonlijkere compilatie van haar discografie uit te brengen met de titel Legende. We spraken met de originele rock chick om er meer over te horen.
Waarom heb je ervoor gekozen om een... uit te brengen? Best Of this year?
Mijn hele catalogus is net overgenomen door een nieuw bedrijf, dus we hebben besloten om alles door te nemen en de nummers uit te brengen. Toen zei ik dat deze tour een perfecte kans is om een nieuwe compilatie uit te brengen met een nieuwe visie. Remaster het. Maak er iets speciaals van. Legende tien van de hits plus tien van mijn eigen persoonlijke keuzes uit mijn uitgebreide repertoire van alles wat ik heb geschreven. Dat was trouwens moeilijk om te doen!
Dat kan ik me voorstellen! Hoe heb je gekozen?
Echt moeilijk, want ik heb tien albums. De meeste albums schrijf ik zelf, dus het is een enorme back catalogue. Behalve de track ‘Hollywood’ is elke andere track die ik heb gekozen live op het podium gespeeld. Ik wist niet dat ik dat deed tot ik erop terugkeek. Dus nu als er een Legende 2, zou ik om verschillende redenen andere nummers kiezen. Ik denk dat deze eruit sprongen omdat ik ze live heb uitgevoerd.
Ik weet dat songteksten veel voor je betekenen. Is er hier een waar je het meest trots op bent?
Nou, ik schrijf geen fictie, dus ik ben altijd trots op mijn teksten. Ik ga altijd diep in op de teksten als ik schrijf. Ze betekenen veel voor me, zoals je net zei. 'Cat Size' - die vind ik leuk omdat die over Detroit gaat. 'Suicide' is een interessante. Dat is grappig, want ik zag een krantenkop en die zei 'I'm a prisoner on 72nd Street’. Het was een John Lennon artikel en toen stierf hij op die manier. Het was zo raar dat ik daar een verhaal over schreef, over daar gevangen zitten en toen dat... het was een beetje een rare.
'Free The Butterfly' is erg belangrijk voor mij. Ik was van plan om van mijn man te scheiden… mijn ex-man nu. Het was niet makkelijk om te zeggen, dus schreef ik het nummer om het te zeggen. Het nummer raakt mensen. Het is een afscheid, maar een hoopvol afscheid.
Did your ex husband ever comment?
Oh yeah, I brought it downstairs and I played it to him. I was playing it as my message to him. And bless him, all he said was “nice song Suz”. I did think he got it but I don’t think he wanted to acknowledge it. He’s not insensitive; he would have understood the message. But obviously didn’t want to dwell on it.
You’ve also just released a book on poetry. Do you have any favourite poets?
I like Shakespeare’s stuff. I like a lot of random poets. I don’t tend to go for a certain author or poet, I go for the poem. When I was in Australia during my last, difficult and emotional tour with my ex… and we split up pretty soon after that so life was tough. When you’re nearing the end of it, it’s real and everyone is on edge. I found a book shop in Melbourne. I wandered in there and I found these scented poetry books and they just answered my turmoil. I just used to ride in the car to gigs and read from them. So you could say the written word is extremely important to me. It helps me through.
I hope that my poetry and my songs do the same for other people. I know that I’ve had songs like ‘Free The Butterfly’ that have people in tears over that.
Quatro, Scott and Powell which is myself, Scott the original guitar player from Sweet and the original drummer from Slade- we formed a super group. We had an album out in Australia while we were on tour. It went to number 20 and now it’s coming out everywhere else in September and the album is called QSP. The reason I’m saying this is because I wrote a song with Andy Scott called ‘Pain’. People were coming into the studio while we were recording it and crying- one of these really poignant messages.
And my poems, I get loads of people saying, is that about me? Which means, I’m touching them. Which means it strikes a chord. I’m an artist- that’s what you want your creations to do- to touch people. That’s the whole reason you do it.
Just to go back to the scented poetry. What scent would Legende have out of interest?
I would say, Lavender. I don’t know where that came from…
Well, I heard you’re a bit psychic aren’t you?
Yeah, I like to put it that way. Being an artist, all my channels are wide open. I don’t want to close the channels. It makes you easily hurt, sensitive and everything’s open. As an artist you don’t really have any other choice.
Do you think that’s influenced your decision when picking these songs?
Yeah, everything I do comes from a deep emotional place. It’s who I am. I hurt very easily and I feel everything to a meticulous degree. It makes me an artist. It just goes with the turf.
Does that make you more decisive too?
It depends on what the situation is. I have instincts that I trust unfathomably. So if I feel something, that’s what I act on. I don’t have the ability to bullshit or to lie. If you ask me a question, I’ll give you the answer. You might not always like it but I’m straightforward that way. I trust my instincts. I believe in what I’m doing and I trust that.
And I also wanted to ask you something about that’s very prevalent in today’s media. You’ve said you don’t associate yourself with any gender?
No I never have and I still don’t now. I’ve never had a time in my life where I thought to myself, oh I can’t do that because I’m a woman. I just never have. Maybe besides going into a urinal….
Hahaha! Well they do want to make more bathrooms gender neutral…
I think it should be an individual choice. I’m not the one that’s preaching anything to anybody. For me it was important that I felt that way. I was the first successful female rock ‘n’ roll musician because I didn’t do gender. That’s why it happened. I think everybody needs to make their own choices. I don’t think you should take away femininity and masculinity. I still believe that people are different. I just think whatever sex you are shouldn’t prevent you from realising your dream. There’s a difference there. I do love men and I do love women. I think the two are wonderful separate entities. It just shouldn’t hinder you.
Do you listen to any new music?
Yes, because I have a 16 year old granddaughter and she keeps me up to speed. I think my favourite one at the moment is Ed Sheeran. It’s so strange because I don’t know his entire catalogue but every time I’m riding in the car with her, she’ll be switching from radio station to radio station. Then she’ll stop on a song and I’ll go, who’s that? And she’ll say, grandma.. it’s Ed Sheeran. Everytime! So I guess I have to say I like him. She gets fed up with telling me.
Would you consider a duet?
I would love to do one with him! Actually, I am doing a duet with KT Tunstall. We’re writing a few songs together at the moment. We’re both fans of each other, which makes it really nice.
Are you still an Elvis fan?
Huge. In fact I just completed a gig last weekend near Frankfurt, where he was stationed during the army. And there was a big Elvis festival there. I did five songs. One was my tribute to Elvis called ‘Singing With Angels’ which is very important. And that was recorded in Nashville. I’ve always had this tradition every album to record an Elvis track. I’ve loved him since I was six years old.
I noticed that you didn’t include a cover in Legende?
No, I chose songs I wrote myself. That’s what I wanted to do for this one. It’s a more personal thing.
Before I let you go… I have one thing I’m dying to hear more about. I read that you did a séance to bring back Janis Joplin?
Oh my god, where did you get that from? We were sitting around bored in a hotel room and we decided to bring somebody back. You’re just sitting there with a bunch of people, you know? I didn’t like it! You know when you’re just playing around with stuff and you’re just having fun. Oh I didn’t like it at all.
Did anything happen?
There was a few sorts of things swishing about and I didn’t like it. I thought this is not something to play with. It got to that stage and I was like ah ok! Turn the lights on, get me out of here. It started as something fun, but ended as something serious and I wouldn’t do it again. None of us knows that area. You shouldn’t mess with it. I would not recommend anyone doing that for fun or otherwise.
Suzi Quatro’s new album Legende is out on the 22nd September. More details here.
Geen commentaar