Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Suzi Quatro: Everything that this business allows me to do to be creative, if I can do it, I’ll do it. I was, I was born to do what I do. That’s the only way I can explain it. And for me not to do what I do, I’d be six feet under. 

Announcer: This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how Masters of Creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Well, I’m thrilled to welcome to StoryBeat for the second time, the world renowned rock and roll singer, songwriter, musician, poet, and author Suzi Quatro. Suzi’s been writing and performing music since she was in her teens and is widely considered to be one of the most influential rock bassists and singers of her generation.

Suzi has sold over 55 million records putting out such hits as 48 Crash, Devil Gate Drive, The Wild One, She’s in Love with You, If You Can’t Give Me Love, and her duet with Chris Norman, Stumbling In. Suzi’s also well known for playing Leather Tuscadero on the TV series Happy Days, as well as for her various other TV appearances.

Suzi turned her bestselling autobiography Unzipped into her one woman show, which premiered at London’s Hippodrome in 2007. A prolific poet and writer, Suzi has published such books of poetry as Through My Eyes, Through My Heart, Through My Words, and Through My Thoughts. Her first novel, The Hurricane, was released in 2017 and she recently published her latest novel Grave Undertakings.

I’ve read Grave Undertakings and can tell you it’s a fantastic dive into the minds of a college psychology class, and what happens when the small group of students and their professor analyzed themselves and one another, revealing their own inner lives and sensibilities. This is the rare work of fiction that I believe should be taught in psychology classes everywhere.

Aside from her wonderful writing, Suzi continues to tour and release new albums. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m deeply honored to welcome back to StoryBeat the exceptionally multi-talented rock icon and writer Suzi Quatro. Suzi! So good to see you again. 

Suzi Quatro: Yeah, it’s good to see you again.

Thank you. And you know, I just wonder if you could make that intro a little bit nicer. 

Steve Cuden: Uh uh, take two. Here we go for the nicer intro. 

Suzi Quatro: No, no, no. Keep it like that. 

Steve Cuden: So obviously you’ve been busy writing both poetry and prose. Do you have new music in the works too, or you working on music? 

Suzi Quatro: Yes. Oh, gotcha. Um, in fact, you know, I’m still working with my son heavily.

He’s so talented. Mm-hmm. I had no idea. We are now on my. Third solo album with him. Wow. And we’ve got 14. Tracks ready to go. Probably all of ’em won’t make it. But you don’t know. Take it in the studio. I have two duets on the album. The rest is just me. I’ve done something with Alice Cooper, very special. I was in Detroit last, I know, last September.

I can’t speak about it yet, but we did a track together. He agreed to peer on my album, so, wow. Um, I’m, I’m really excited and I need one girl too, so I want one of each. Um, we start May the ninth, 10th, and 11th with the bass and the drums. So when I get back to my trip from Germany, we’re in the studio. 

Steve Cuden: So have you known, um, Alice Cooper for a long time?

Suzi Quatro: Since I’ve been 14. 

Steve Cuden: Oh, is that all? 

Suzi Quatro: We are such old friends. One of my dearest friends actually, 

Steve Cuden: he is truly an icon. No question about it. And people know who he is. No matter where you go, you can say Alice Cooper, they know who you mean. So I think that’s great. I can’t wait to hear what you, what it comes up and sounds like.

Suzi Quatro: Oh, and we got video too. Oh, oh, oh wow. Cheese, cheese, cheese. 

Steve Cuden: Indeed. So I noticed, uh, on your website that you have a really busy touring schedule coming up for the rest of this year. We’re in 2025 right now, and I’m just wondering what drives you, what keeps you moving forward and taking on new challenges and continuing to tour?

What drives you? 

Suzi Quatro: I guess I asked myself that, uh, it’s the fire in my belly. I never seem to lose it. I am an artist. Which I am, and everything that this business allows me to do, to be creative. If I can do it, I will do it. Mm-hmm. I love acting. I love talk shows. I love musicals. I love poetry. I love novels.

I love psychology. Um, I love, I love playing my bass. I love doing my gigs. Um. I was, I was born to do what I do. That’s the only way I can explain it. And for me not to do what I do, I’d be six foot under. 

Steve Cuden: Well, well, let’s not get there just yet. 

Suzi Quatro: No, not yet. 

Steve Cuden: No, not yet. So obviously you are a explosively creative person.

You are just always on fire, I guess 

Suzi Quatro: I am. 

Steve Cuden: Does it ever wear you out and how do you deal with it if it does wear you out? 

Suzi Quatro: I have come to terms with it and know that when this hits me, whenever it may be, if it’s a song or a lyric or whatever it is, I have to let it out. I have to get it on paper. I have to pick up on my bass, I have to go to the piano.

I can’t leave it inside. I can’t leave any creation inside, and you don’t know when it’s coming. You have no idea. A lot of times, I’m one of these people that’ll be having dinner with somebody or having a talk, having a laugh or a joke, and I’ll say something. It’ll be so profound. ’cause I, I tend to speak poetically.

I don’t know why, but I do, don’t ask me why I’ll get a, a napkin. A lot of, a lot of my songs and stuff are born on a napkin and I’ll write it down right in the middle of the conversation. So when something hits me, it hits me. And if I don’t let it out, it’s like poisoning me. I have to, I have to get it out my system.

I’m the same when I’m angry about something. If I’m mad at you for something, I have to tell you. Then it’s out. 

Steve Cuden: Well, okay. So I know from reading your work, both your poetry and your novel that you write as poetically as you speak, so that’s just innate in you that that sort of poetic way of, of expressing yourself.

Suzi Quatro: Yeah, and I don’t know where it comes from. I mean, to be quite honest, like let’s say I’ve written a poem and then I put it on the paper and I leave it for the letting it go by the next day. I am really wondering where it came from. I sort of read it and I go, that’s not me, but it was me. So when I’m creating, I sort of go into a different space.

And many times I think other artists will probably tell you this too, you’re not actually aware of what you’re doing and you’re surprised when you read it back or, or hear it back. If you’ve written a tune and you think, oh God, that’s down on tape now. Could not go to bed. You play it back and go. Oh, it’s like a surprise.

Who’s that? That’s, that’s the beauty of creation, of 

Steve Cuden: course. Well, I, I’ve been, you know, interviewed more than 350 people on this show so far, and one of the themes that’s in it, ’cause it’s all about creativity, is how many artists say that it’s coming through them, the artists coming through them, they’re not generating it.

They’re sort of a conduit from wherever 

Suzi Quatro: you have been allowed. All these other artists that say with maybe agree. I’ve been allowed to take down dictation, so I’ve been given the antenna and it just flies. 

Steve Cuden: Do you get into what people think of as the zone or where you’re working and time flies by and it’s three hours later and you don’t know where it went?

Suzi Quatro: Oh god, yeah. You just, when creation hits you, you’ve gotta divorce yourself from this body and this personality and just divorce yourself. Just go with the flow. I’m sure other artists will tell you, they say you could be sitting at the piano doing a song and you’re lost for a line. Okay. Sometimes you, you stop and you go, what’s in it?

And it just goes and you close your eyes. Shoot. Thank you. 

Steve Cuden: That’s for sure, 

Suzi Quatro: whoever you are. Thank you. Yeah, it’s just, it’s called being an artist. Like I said, the only way I can explain it is. You have very, very sensitive antenna. Your feelers are always out and you are very sensitive and everything affects you.

That, unfortunately, that’s the downside, you know? Well, that is the downside. You very, oh, Jesus Christ, I, I’m so sensitive and I get hurt so easy. But if I didn’t have that. I wouldn’t have the artistry. 

Steve Cuden: You’re never turned off. You’re always on. Always on. Always on. So you know, you’ve been touring and playing in front of audiences for a very long time now.

Does that ever happen to you while you’re in the middle of a performance where you get an inspiration for something? 

Suzi Quatro: Oh, sometimes you can do that. Uh, I’m 61 years in the business now. There have been times when I’ve been on the stage and done a song and there’s the applause and then. Before you can do the next song, the applause is going someplace else and you just have to wait.

The most amazing thing happened to me recently, I think it was last year in Hamburg. I did a big, big gig here, and I walked on stage and they, you know, applause. Applause loud. Yeah, Susie better. And I got to the mic, ready to speak, to start the first song. It was right, and they just went to this level higher.

Higher, higher. And me, as a long, in the tooth performer, I thought to myself, I cannot start this song until they are ready to let me start this song. And I just waited. And finally I felt them just slightly coming and I went, oh my life. I wanted to be somebody. So, but, but it was funny because without that experience and that instinct, I might have dumbed the song and to have done the song too quickly.

Would actually have been rude because you were stopping them from giving me the own, which they wanted to give me. If that makes sense. 

Steve Cuden: That makes a lot of sense. Well, you, you are at this point. You know how to read an audience and when they’re, 

Suzi Quatro: and I read it, right, and I thought, just shut up, Susie, shut up.

Steve Cuden: I think that’s one of the hallmarks of new performers or young performers, is they don’t know when to get in or when to stop, when to pause. 

Suzi Quatro: I gotta, I gotta tell you though, to be honest, I don’t think. I have certain rules in my life that I’ve stuck by certain truths. I don’t think you can teach two things.

You can’t teach anybody instinct for an audience. You can’t teach them. They either have that inbuilt or they don’t. You can hone it. You can get it to the high skill, but you can’t teach it. The same thing is you can’t teach feeling, that’s for sure. I’ve had many guitar players in my band, and when I’m auditioning for a new guitar player.

I make them play Sweet Little Rock and Roller. Okay. Because you can play all the right notes in that song and it’s completely wrong. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I know it. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah. 

Suzi Quatro: And it, they can play it wonderful, but it’s wrong. So, and you could never tell that guitar player. It’s wrong. He’d say, wow, you couldn’t explain.

It’s just, it feels wrong. 

Steve Cuden: There’s no passion. They just don’t feel what it’s supposed to feel like. 

Suzi Quatro: Exactly. Right. And you know it, it hits you. You know yourself. When you hear something musically, it either hits you in the gut or it doesn’t. You have some marvelous, marvelous singers who are beyond talented.

Some of them do not touch me. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Suzi Quatro: For 

Steve Cuden: sure. 

Suzi Quatro: This happens to all of us. You know, big artists, you kind of go, I don’t get it. 

Steve Cuden: They’re technically perfect, but they may not have that thing that touches the audience. 

Suzi Quatro: It’s, it’s gotta be from the heart. 

Steve Cuden: And you know what, the audiences are very smart and they know it too.

They can feel it. 

Suzi Quatro: They know it as well. If you’re going through the motions, they can feel it. And, and boy, you’re, you’re gonna know it. I’ve never done that in my life. In fact, I, I tell you a funny story ’cause I’ve had. Three phases of this when I was, um, 35. Mm-hmm. Having hit since 23 in the business since 14.

And a journalist as during a big interview and a journalist said to me, um, when you gonna retire? So I gave him, what’s that? The, the glib answer that he deserved, you know? And I said, when I turned my back on the audience and I shake my ass. The silence. It’s funny. Then I got into my seventies and I that, that, that quote followed me my entire career.

Sure. People are always quoting me back on that into my seventies. I, I’m gonna be 75 in June. Slightly changed it to when I turned my back on the audience and my ass shakes by itself, which is actually very funny. And now here on, on to what we’re talking about. Here’s my serious one. This only happened to me about a year and a half ago.

I now have a serious one. Okay? 

Steve Cuden: Okay. 

Suzi Quatro: If I ever go on the stage, even one time, one time is too many, one time, and I do not reach my personal standard that I know I have. I’m done. 

Steve Cuden: And you still have not come close to reaching that. I’m sure 

Suzi Quatro: I’m getting the best reviews of my entire career calling me the entertainer.

This it is, it’s so much that it, my husband called me, he read me a review from Germany. He read it to me over the phone and he said. Did you write this?

No. Thank you. No, I am getting the best. So, and, and for some reason I, is there wood here? Wood. Wood. Wood, wood. My, my voice. You know, voices go down as you get older. Yes. And mine’s gone up and I can’t figure it out. 

Steve Cuden: Is it also mellowing or is it getting RAs beer? 

Suzi Quatro: No, it’s just, I’m singing better than I’ve ever sung.

And I know this is true because. I have sound mixers who have mixed me for the past 50 years, so they know my voice. 

Steve Cuden: Sure. 

Suzi Quatro: And they have said to me, you’re singing better than ever. And I think, how does that happen? Don’t, don’t question it. Just say thank you. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah. No kidding. Don’t question it. If it’s happening and you’re not trying to get there.

And it’s just doing it. Yeah. Don’t question it. It’s just 

Suzi Quatro: doing it. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: That’s like finding the art. You don’t go trying to find the art. Yes. It finds you, 

Suzi Quatro: you’re honing it. I think, to be honest, to be very honest. I’m 74. I feel that I’m at the peak of my creative abilities right this moment in time. 

Steve Cuden: Well, don’t tell people you’re 74, Suzie.

’cause you don’t look at or act. 

Suzi Quatro: Thank 

Steve Cuden: you. 

Suzi Quatro: But I do. I tell ’em on stage because I don’t believe in lying about it. I’m, I’m proud to be 74 and doing what I do. 

Steve Cuden: And how many of your contemporaries are still out there kicking it? Not many. 

Suzi Quatro: How many can, 

Steve Cuden: yeah. Well that’s exactly my point. 

Suzi Quatro: Everybody says, how do you keep going?

How do you keep going? First of all, fire in my belly. Mm-hmm. I have the passion. I truly, truly, truly love what I do. Mm-hmm. That’s no bullshit. I love what I do. If I’m not rehearsing my show in my living room to the live cd, and I don’t mean rehearsing it. I do the show. I even put the towel on my neck for the interval.

My son finds that hilarious. If I’m not doing that, I’m in the gym. So I know. He said, you don’t do that, mom. I said, I do, but I went to a dark area one time. I was rehearsing just the other day, you know, going for it, really singing, fall out, running around the living room, blah, blah, blah. And I actually went, Hey, you over there?

Get off your ass. I went, Susie, stop it. Stop it. That’s sad. But he was sitting down. 

Steve Cuden: Do you do that to keep in shape? 

Suzi Quatro: Yes. Let’s say you have a week or two off. Okay? You’ll lose your chops, the dexterity a little bit. Even in that short space of time, you lose your long power, your big power. So you put that bass on and you run and you sing and you sweat.

And then when you go to do your gig, you’re there. 

Steve Cuden: You’re still playing a bass that’s almost as big as you. Yeah. 

Suzi Quatro: That’s always gonna be the way, and I’ve actually lost an inch. Don’t tell anybody. 

Steve Cuden: Get in line. 

Suzi Quatro: Yeah, 

Steve Cuden: me. Me too. I hope you’re talking 

Suzi Quatro: about your height. 

Steve Cuden: My height, yeah. Well, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.

My height. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Uh, that’s, that’s perfectly fine. I, I got it. 

Suzi Quatro: Look, I, I, and I’m the one blushing. That’s funny. 

Steve Cuden: But you play this huge bass, the biggest bass you can play. Right? 

Suzi Quatro: Only because I went to my dad when I was 14 when we started the band. And, um, everybody shouted out, I want this, you know, everybody, I guitar drums, and I didn’t speak.

And that’s just not like me. And I said, excuse me, what am I gonna play? ’cause I already played percussion and piano. I read and write both instruments and uh, my sister Patty, she said, you’re playing bass. I went, okay, I didn’t mind. And I went to my dad, who’s a musician. All, all of us in the family, all five kids.

We play at least, at least three instruments each. We all read and write. It’s a musical family. And I said to dad, we’re starting to band Dad. Do you have a bass? And he said, sure. He went and got me the 1957 fender precision. Now, I’m not gonna pretend I didn’t know there was a choice of bases. I didn’t know there was a lighter one with a lighter neck or a smaller, I just know he gave me this base and this is what I had to learn how to play.

So the reason why I’m such a good bass player is because I learned I’m the hardest, but I didn’t know I was doing it. You know, and then when I did go to the jazz, I was like, Jimi Hendrix, you know, you flying across ’cause you don’t know it. But, um, I, I actually love, still love the precision even though it’s up to here on me and it’s heavy.

I still love that base. It, it plays beautifully. 

Steve Cuden: Do you think that carrying that on stage for all these years has helped you stay strong because it forces you to be, use your legs and your back and so on. 

Suzi Quatro: Absolutely, absolutely. It’s a big, big thing about being strong. In fact, just to slightly verge, but, um, when I was, uh, gonna have my second child and I, I’m small, so I had two re it’s no choice.

It was just too little. You know, I’m only five foot one, and he even told me the first time this is gonna be, and I said, no, no, no, no, no. So he let me go for 16 hours and he finally said, Susie, you can’t do it. So that was emergency. Second one, I stayed awake and I went into labor. And you’re not supposed to.

Quickly got me to the hospital and it was 10 days early and the nurse was trying to give me the epidural. She was poking and prodding and poking. I’m in labor, and finally she’s on top of me going like this, trying to push it, and I said, what’s the matter? She said, I cannot find your lumbar region, which means carrying that bass guitar, actually fused it over.

Mm-hmm. It fused it over. Mm. And she, she finally found it. But that she said it was not easy. So, yes, it’s, and, and when I sit even on a sun chair in the sun, I’m like this 

Steve Cuden: upright. 

Suzi Quatro: Upright. And my back is really strong. I got arms like a wrestler. Oh, 

Steve Cuden: you have to. Yeah, 

Suzi Quatro: I’m clumsy. And I finally figured out why I knock everything over, but not on stage, off stage.

I touch everything. It falls. I break, don’t boom, rip pages, glasses fall. The reason is because I’ve been playing bass for 61 years now. The tips of my fingers are actually calloused over. So when I’ve gone to grab a glass of wine, I don’t feel it. Mm. And I don’t know I’ve grabbed it yet. So consequently, it’s on the ground.

Mm. So, but this is why, this is why I’m clumsy. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. But it’s worth it. Yes, your clumsiness is, has been very much worth it. So, you know, let’s talk about your writing for a while. Like your music, you are very passionate about what you’re doing as a writer and that leaps off the page at, at the reader. So I’m, I’m wondering, did you know early on that you were gonna be that intense and passionate about what you were writing?

Or is that just naturally you and it just comes out that way? 

Suzi Quatro: I think I started very young. I remember. Always painting, always writing, always doing poetry. My mother, my mother kept a poem that I wrote when I was about eight called The Depression of a Rock and Roll Star. Oh wow. Excuse me. Where did that come from?

No kidding. And she kept it and gave it to me. I wanted for trips to England, so I had the Sydney for a long time. I wrote one about my mom sitting in her rocking chair, and yeah, I’ve, I’ve always been that way. Always loved the written word. I love the written word and. I love if I wrote something that touches somebody.

A truth. Un adorned and naked, 

Steve Cuden: your work cannot help but touch people. It’s right in your face. It’s not, uh, it’s not subtle, which is wonderful. I mean, it’s, no, it’s not subtle. I’m not 

Suzi Quatro: subtle. 

Steve Cuden: No, no. And, and it’s rich and full and it just, it’s right there in front of you. So if, I think if you’re reading what you’ve written, whether it’s your poetry or, or your novels, if you’re not.

Being impacted by, I think that says more about you than it does you, the reader rather than you, Susie. 

Suzi Quatro: Well, I, like I said, I, I hope, I do hope to touch people. That’s same as when I’m on stage, I wanna reach every person in that audience so they go out with a good feeling. Mm-hmm. And you know, and in my books, I want to reach ’em with the truth, make them think.

Because I’m, I’m one of those, I’m one of those that likes to, I, I read people very well. 

Steve Cuden: Let’s, let’s talk about grave undertakings, talking about truth. I mean, the book is just filled with truths. So tell the listeners, I, I gave the little tiny synopsis at the beginning about it just being in a college class, but tell the audience of listeners what the book is actually about.

What was your point in writing it? 

Suzi Quatro: It started off. To be quite honest, as a collection of tombstones and I came up with this great title, grave undertaking, what a great title. And I thought how, what a good idea to get all my, all my famous people I know to give me quotes and, and so I started doing it like 35 years ago.

I have all these quotes from lots of famous people, A lot of them are gone now, a lot of big names, da, da, da, da. And I finally thought, you know what? About maybe a year and a half ago, it’s about time to put this book out called Grave Undertakings. I even had idea to make it a cartoon thing and dah. And then as I’m assembling the book something magic like It does with Creation, something magical happened and I thought to myself, this is just.

Not just a collection of tombstones. It’s too easy. There’s a story leading up to this. I want the readers to know why you care about what you leave on your tombstone. Mm-hmm. Then I started to invent. Then I thought, now what can we, Melanie, let me see. Let me see ’em. Ah, six psychology students meeting at a college course with an Austrian professor.

Then we take them through their lives. Oh, what tangled webs we weave when we practice to deceit. So I went to eat, then I started to create, and I was having fun. I wasn’t sure where it was going, but I got to know each character as I was writing them. And then I thought, okay, you know, as you’re writing, I think, okay, now he should be with her and she should be with him, and this should be her.

I was in, in a, in a quandary. I don’t wanna give it all away. What, what would happen to the professor? I finally came up with the, with the perfect ending, but. Everybody that’s read it has said what you said, and I have a friend who, uh, two, two neighbors actually. They’re a gay couple and they’re my son’s next door neighbors and he’s a psychologist and he read it and he said, I’m going to use this in my class, this book.

It should be. What, so did you, did you relate to a particular character? I’m curious. 

Steve Cuden: No, I related to all of them because they, you have six characters and a professor who encompass a huge range of human emotion and Yes. So I related to all of them in different ways because I think of myself as being a relatively complex person, psychologically, and so, well, we all are.

Suzi Quatro: We all are. Yeah. Right. 

Steve Cuden: I was feeling what you were expressing with, or what they, the characters are expressing in the book. So did Grave Undertakings come from the Tombstone collection at first? Is that where it came from? 

Suzi Quatro: Yeah, that’s, I had that title and it was gonna be tombstones and then I. It’s just so much more.

I just thought I was throwing away the, the tombstones in, in a, in a book by itself. Almost like a, a novelty. And it’s more than that. It’s so much more than that. And I do like mine. I don’t mind telling people that I do like mine. You know, I’m a Gemini, so I get two sides 

Steve Cuden: and what are they? 

Suzi Quatro: One side says, now I get it.

And the other side says, too many dreams. Too little time. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah. Yeah. 

Suzi Quatro: That’s pretty good. That’s both sides of me. That’s both sides of me. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: And so here’s what I’m fascinated about. Am I correct? You didn’t go to college anywhere, correct? 

Suzi Quatro: I didn’t even graduate high school. 

Steve Cuden: Alright. So now you come along and all these years later you’ve been on the road and you’ve recorded all this music and you’re well known throughout the world.

And where in the world did your understanding your education on all of this? Very intense psychology. Where’d all that come from? 

Suzi Quatro: I am a very well read person. Mm-hmm. I’ll say that I don’t read books, I eat them. Um, I’ve always had a quest for knowledge that’s always been in me. I’m very much motivated and always have been by what makes a person tick.

You know, if we’re having a drink together or a dinner, whatever. I’m, I’m, I’m looking at your eyes and I am dissecting you. So that’s my character. I could have gone into that as a subject, but I am a good people reader. I’m a very astute people reader. I guess because me being the very sensitive Gemini that I am was so ridiculously sensitive.

Stupid. Because we’re so sensitive. We try to understand how to deal with that sensitivity and to deal with it. We have to try to understand other people’s sensitivities. So, but they’re thereby applying everything. You know, I’m a very, very honest person. I can’t lie. I don’t know how to lie. My mother told me that she did me a big favor.

I was about 10. And she said, did you do such and such? And I said, no. And she said, Susie, don’t lie. And I said, what do you mean don’t lie? How do you know I’m lying? She said, because you can’t, you can’t. She said, your whole face just changed. Mm-hmm. So she gave me a very honest path in life. I can’t lie. I do.

I go red in the face. So anyway, I’ve always had an interest in this subject. 

Steve Cuden: Alright, so where did these six characters come from then? Because I think they each represent different facets of humans and I think they do. You thought that through quite clearly? I did. And you spent some time thinking that out.

And the professor is sort of, I think in a weird way, an amalgam of a bunch of them. 

Suzi Quatro: Yeah, he’s, I feel, I feel sorry for the professor. 

Steve Cuden: I do too. He’s kind of lonely, 

Suzi Quatro: very lonely. Mm-hmm. But, but because he’s a professor, he bullshits his way out of it with his psychology until it comes up and bites him on the ass e.

Steve Cuden: Exactly right. Did you spend a lot of time thinking about how it would plot through? Did you, uh, do an outline on the book? How did you get there? 

Suzi Quatro: I had, yeah, I did. I did. I had basic notes. I had a little book, gu notes, and I went through it and I thought, okay, now what do I wanna accomplish here? I want to take it through, through the people’s lives, they all meet up and so you want to go through all the entanglements that happen and you know, friendships that form and lover that form and this and that.

And I found six. Separate types of characters. 

Steve Cuden: Okay. 

Suzi Quatro: So Penelope Perfect. You got her. I used a lot of my own character in that. She’s you? Yeah. Yeah. I, I, not all of me, but I used a lot of me in it. Sure. Uh, I used my husband poor thing as Max Morose, and he’s German and English is not his first language. And he said to me, what does morose mean?

And I went, he went, oh, well thank you. But I said, you’re welcome. I even signed his copy of the book. To Max Love Penelope. Um, and the other ones I kind of used different important people that I had known that seemed to represent these characters, you know, and I kind of, I would think of somebody that, and then I wanted 10 classes, 10 classes to make it a, like, almost like a tutorial.

Mm-hmm. And, and then that made sense to me. Then I had to make the notes of what I wanted each class to entail. Then I surprised myself by one of the characters speaking up about, you know, serial murderers. And I went, okay, here we go. So I sometimes didn’t know what was going myself. ’cause the characters kind of dictate whatever you’re writing, they start to dictate where you’re they going.

They start to 

Steve Cuden: talk to you and, and, yeah, they do. You’re not even doing the work. They’re doing the work for you. 

Suzi Quatro: In fact, when I, to be very blunt, when I got the physical copy of the book, I said, okay, I’m going to now sit down and read this as a reader. So I divorced myself. I’m gonna read this. And so many times I read his passage and I went, somebody played that some, somebody changed it.

I didn’t write, I did write it, but that’s what I mean when something takes over. I thought, did I write that? Yes, you did. So you’re so involved in it that you, you do divorce yourself from it 

Steve Cuden: in a sidebar. Does that ever happen with your songs that you’ve written? 

Suzi Quatro: Many times you hear it back and you, you’re surprised.

In fact, I asked my son that the other day we were talking, ’cause he’s a writer as well, he’s very talented. And I said, Richard, do you ever lose yourself in a song when you play a pack? You’re surprised he went all the time. All the time. Good thing then. You’re an artist. You’re a true artist. Yeah. I can even watch on, on tv.

I can watch and separate myself from who I’m watching, which is me. And just go back. And sometimes I go, I didn’t like that bit there. It’s not that you’re schizophrenic, but there was a public part of you and a private part of you. Now, when I do my poems, that is my private part. Mm-hmm. And I say the novels are a combination of both private and public.

Steve Cuden: You, I’m sure that you’ve gone back in time and looked at earlier writings of yours that you’ve not published and you go, did I really write this? No. I do that all the time. Not all the time, but 

Suzi Quatro: it does happen. You can’t believe it. 

Steve Cuden: You, you, it’s very hard to believe. Did I really write that? That’s a, that happens to artists I think quite frequently.

Um, you have a theme or you have several themes running through the book. One of the themes is optimists. Versus pessimists, and each of the characters are labeled as, and they identify themselves as either an optimist or a pessimist. 

Suzi Quatro: And isn’t that funny? Where it takes you? 

Steve Cuden: What? So what, where, where did that come from?

Why did you set out on that path? 

Suzi Quatro: Because it’s one of my pet peeves when, when people, uh, I’m a, I’m an optimist. Mm-hmm. Maybe ridiculously, so maybe I am. Maybe I am, but I don’t like, well, it’s not that I don’t like pessimists, but I find them fascinating that I tell story about my husband. He’s, he’s a pessimist.

And we were on a trip to do a gig in Italy, and the gig was we had to take another plane and fly down into a valley, okay. In the, in the Italian ELs, okay. To do this gig. Fantastic. So I said, wow, let’s take a walk and look at this scenery. Now I’m the optimist. He’s the pessimist, okay? And I said, Reiner.

This job that I do, you know, look, look who else can say look at? Look at these mountains. Look. And he looked around and then he went, what if you fall down from there?

And I could not stop laughing. So that is what you call pessimist. Yeah. He says it’s realism. And I said, no, no, no. That’s pessimism. He will always find as pessimists do. If there’s something white, they’ll find the black in it. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And optimists see only good. That’s why you don’t want to, you don’t wanna meet me mad.

’cause when I get mad, I blow like a, like a volcano. But the good thing is, is I blow quickly and then it’s done. I don’t even remember being mad. 

Steve Cuden: But you also have found a way to live with a pessimist so that it balances you out, I assume somewhat. 

Suzi Quatro: It does. He, he, I always tell him, if he didn’t have me, you’d disappear up your own backside.

He doesn’t argue. And I need him to sometimes take me back down from, I’m always high. He takes me back down. So I guess that’s a real good match. It’s a good match. 

Steve Cuden: That sounds like that would be, 

Suzi Quatro: yeah. We understand each other, you know, we understand each other and we, we respect each other’s viewpoint. 

Steve Cuden: So, so other themes that are in the book and they’re very strong are life, death, and sexuality.

Those themes are pervasive throughout the whole book, life, death, and Sexuality. 

Suzi Quatro: What else is there? 

Steve Cuden: Well, that, that is life, isn’t it? 

Suzi Quatro: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Was this over years and years and years of your being out in the world, among humanity, is that where these notions of each of these characters came from? From these people that you have sort of based.

The character’s on. Is that where it comes from? 

Suzi Quatro: Yeah, it comes from life experience. Mm-hmm. I’m the best person you could sit next to anybody at a dinner party because I’m a communicator. That’s true. So even if you sit me next to somebody who doesn’t speak and is shy, I will get them talking. Mm-hmm. So that’s my character.

Yeah. And it’s, it’s born from all the travel I’ve done. I’ve been toured the world for years now. You meet all different kinds of people you meet. And I’m the kind also that people will always want to tell their problems to. 

Steve Cuden: Oh yeah. 

Suzi Quatro: I, I, I think it’s because I actually listen. Mm-hmm. And then I actually will give them my honest opinion and my take on it.

So people tend to confide in me. So it comes a lot from that. I’ve heard a lot of stories from a lot of different people. I try not to judge. That’s very important. I try to take everything at face value, and I take it in. When people tell me their stories, I’m, I internalize it and I never talk about something.

I don’t know. I. 

Steve Cuden: Do you ever ask about something you don’t know? Sure. You dig in? Absolutely. So you, you are an optimist, I’m gonna assume you’re also the way you’re describing yourself. Also an extrovert, not an introvert. 

Suzi Quatro: I’m both, I am. You’re an 

Steve Cuden: ambivert. 

Suzi Quatro: Yeah. I am very much an extrovert because I’m a, I’m an entertainer.

Mm-hmm. And that’s, I will, you know, like my sister used to laugh. She’d say, open up the refrigerator door and I’ll do 20 minutes, you know? Okay. Um, just ’cause the light comes up. Um, that, that’s that part of me. But. When you hear my mom speak when I was young, she said, out of all the five kids, I was the sweetest and the shyest.

Steve Cuden: Hmm. Wonder what that means. It means you’ve overcome that sweetness and shyness, I guess. I guess so. To be the extrovert on stage that you are. I guess 

Suzi Quatro: so, but I’m still that that little girl. I’m still that shy little girl. I still am inside, so it makes it even crazier. But I am a Gemini. Keep that in mind.

I’m a Gemini. We are both sided. 

Steve Cuden: You, you say you’re the person to sit next to at a party. Are you the first person usually to start a conversation with someone? Do you introduce yourself and say, 

Suzi Quatro: usually, usually I will begin. Mm-hmm. And I love it, especially when I see somebody that needs to be drawn out like a moth to a flame.

I need to draw them out and I’m, and I’m good at making, I’m very good at making people talk about things they don’t want to talk about. I feel it from them. You’re 

Steve Cuden: able to draw it out of them. 

Suzi Quatro: Come with me, you’re safe. Do you know how that nice to is to be safe for somebody that you can actually come out to?

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. Because most people are, I think most people that I bump into, they have a tendency to be a little reserved until they get opened up somehow. 

Suzi Quatro: Yes. I’m the opener. 

Steve Cuden: You’re the opener. 

Suzi Quatro: I’m the enabler. I am. In fact, I, I, I know I do this. I have a, I have a habit at, oh, we are having a discussion today.

We went out, uh, to some friends of my husband’s that he went to school with, and, uh, we’re doing one of these talks. You know, we had lunch with him and talked, talk, talk, and we were talking about religion and politics and just all the things that you can debate about. And I, I’m very good at this. I posed a question point in the middle of the conversation.

I said, okay, which is more corrupt? Power or money? 

Steve Cuden: Oh, well there’s a big question. 

Suzi Quatro: It’s, it stumped the table, I think. 

Steve Cuden: I think money is a corruptor, 

Suzi Quatro: but power is, I think power is the more, is the more powerful. Well, 

Steve Cuden: that’s the old phrase, isn’t it? Uh, yeah. Power corrupts absolutely. Power corrupts, absolutely.

So yes, there you go. I mean, it is about power. 

Suzi Quatro: And everybody kind of went, everybody quiet. I have a habit of doing that when we’re at big functions. I, I asked, I was at my birthday party in 1970 here in Hamburg with about, it was during COVID, so I had to wear a mask and everybody, and we, we got into our restaurant and there was about 20 people.

And I posed the question, which was so interesting. I said, okay, it’s my birthday, my rules, I’m gonna go around the table. And the ones of you that come last have it easier because you’ve had time to think. Okay. But the first one, you’ve got no time to assimilate. I wanna know the one thing in your life that completely changed you.

Steve Cuden: Ooh, 

Suzi Quatro: boy. Did I get some interesting stories? 

Steve Cuden: Well, what’s the thing in life that changed you? 

Suzi Quatro: The one that sticks out was, God, there’s so many of them. The one that sticks out is, um. I was uh, nine and my eldest sister, she’s been married seven times. She was getting married for the first time. Seven, don’t even go there.

I know she’s a case all by herself. She was getting married for the first time and I was just running around the house, be having fun and all that. And I overheard a conversation in the kitchen between my mother and father. I wasn’t eavesdropping, I just happened to hear it. You don’t know what nine or 10 to eavesdrop, you’re just being a kid.

And I heard them talking and my dad said, well. Mickey, my only brother, he’s the usher. Patty’s a bridesmaid. Nancy’s the youngest one is the flower girl. What are we gonna do with Susie? And my mother said, at least we need to buy her a new dress. Talk about life changing moments. And what that left me with was a need to be somebody with or without the dress.

And there’s a picture of me at my sister’s wedding that I had framed. I held up her train the entire wedding. I wouldn’t let go because I found a way to be part of this ceremony. She finally had to say to me, Susie, put my train down. But it’s, this is my personal psychology. This has probably got a lot to do with what made me, me, 

Steve Cuden: you, throughout the book.

Uh, you must have done an enormous amount of research over time on this book. Yes, I did. You’ve done a lot of reading clearly. I mean, you quote liberally throughout the book from some very intellectual, high toned philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists. You’ve got Kelly Giran from the Prophet in there.

You’ve got Winston Churchill Nietzche, the 

Suzi Quatro: best book ever, the best book ever. 

Steve Cuden: Wh which one? The prophet. The prophet, the prophet, uh, Oscar Wilde you’ve got in there, Napoleon Bonaparte, TS Elliot, Martin Luther King. You’ve got a huge number. Mark Twain and Socrates. I mean, it’s all over the map. So how long did it take you to acquire all of this knowledge?

Is it a lifetime’s worth of acquisition? 

Suzi Quatro: Yeah, well, I mean, I am a, like I said, I am a reader. I, I have a. Unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Mm-hmm. Gotta write that down. 

Steve Cuden: That’s obvious. I mean, that’s plainly obvious. 

Suzi Quatro: It, it, it’s never enough. I wanna know why, why, why, how, how, how. Win, win, win. And I want to understand, I’m like a big sponge, but I have always read in all different kinds of things.

I love biographies. I love reading poetry books. I love politicians. I love movie stars. Especially biographies. You get what that time was like. Mm-hmm. What the, what the values were in that time, you know, the, the, the society’s feeling and all that. So biographies are very valuable. I read ridiculously heavy books.

Nietzsche, Jesus Christ Almighty. Well, that’s very heavy. Oh, I think, I think in the dictionary it should say heavy description, Nietzsche. Okay. I would’ve loved to have met him. I, I wonder if he was a pessimist or optimist. I think, 

Steve Cuden: oh, he’s a notorious pessimist. 

Suzi Quatro: He, he didn’t even like people. I don’t, I don’t even know if he liked himself.

He’s notorious 

Steve Cuden: pessimist. 

Suzi Quatro: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah. And heavy. But you’ve also balanced that out clearly with some big time optimists. 

Suzi Quatro: Oh god. Sure. Helen Keller for himself. Helen Keller. 

Steve Cuden: I was gonna say, yeah. Martin Luther King. I mean, these are big time optimists. Huge dealing with very difficult circumstances in life, and yet they’re overcoming them.

Not necessarily easily, but with their own form of ease. Yes. And your characters, they have to overcome things within the context of the story as well, correct? Correct, correct. They discover things about themselves. Your book is why it belongs in a psych class is because it’s about internal discovery. 

Suzi Quatro: You got it in one.

It’s self discovery. Mm-hmm. Who are you? Take off that face that you put on when you wake up in the morning. Take off the bullshit that you’ve learned through the years. Strip yourself naked and see who you are. ’cause that’s what’s important. 

Steve Cuden: Well, don’t we all put on masks all day long? When you’re at the grocery store, you don’t, you’re not the same person with the clerk as you are with your husband.

So you’re putting on different masks all day long. All the 

Suzi Quatro: time. All the time. I always say I have a little theory right or wrong, that when you wake up in the morning. You know, you’re in that sleep place and somewhere in your brain you’re thinking, do I wanna wake up now or do I wanna stay asleep? You’re, you’re not actually sure if you wanna wake up and that there’s a little space there where you’re half asleep, half awake.

That’s who you are. 

Steve Cuden: That’s the real you. Is that what you’re saying? That’s the 

Suzi Quatro: real you. That’s before you’ve put on your daytime mask. Hmm. You’re not quite outta your nighttime dreams and you’re not quite in your daytime mess. That’s who you are. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah. That’s very good. That’s, uh, and I think that some of that comes through in the book too.

Suzi Quatro: Yes, I think it does. 

Steve Cuden: They’re trying to figure out who they are. They’re in, they are a kind of their own living dreamlike state. Yes. 

Suzi Quatro: That’s why all the, all the classes were important and how I constructed each class and. I had, I had to put a lot of thought about who should get together and who shouldn’t get together and, and it all just kind of fell into place really.

Steve Cuden: Alright, so here’s a big question. I taught screenwriting here in Pittsburgh for 10 years at a school called Point Park University, but you not only didn’t go to school, but I’m assuming you’ve never taught a college level class. Um, would that be correct? But I’d love to. Well, so my question is, how did you know how to write about being in a college level class?

Not only that, but a college level psychology class. How did you know how to write that? I didn’t Well, you did it brilliantly. 

Suzi Quatro: I just, I just did it because it’s how I think, I guess I always say it, you know, people say, what would you do if you hadn’t, uh, do what you do? And I would either have gone into psychology, so I have a big law of that, or won’t believe this one.

I would’ve been a criminal lawyer. 

Steve Cuden: A criminal lawyer. Do you read a lot of, uh, criminal law? 

Suzi Quatro: I do, I would’ve loved to have done it. I don’t know why. I just think I, I think I would be good. ’cause I’m good with words. So I think I would be able to argue my case articulately. 

Steve Cuden: And you’d be a very passionate arguer.

Yes. You would absolutely lay the case out in a courtroom. So that, and you would put on, on that, uh, a performance for the jury. Yes. And that’s really an important part of being a good criminal, I think. Huge, huge. 

Suzi Quatro: When you watch that, 

Steve Cuden: I’m just wondering, you are a huge reader as we’ve already talked about how important to being a reader, a deep reader like you are to being a good writer.

Is that an important facet of being a good writer? 

Suzi Quatro: Maybe, but I’m not sure. I think, I don’t think one necess society connects to the other. I think being a writer is part of being an artist. Mm-hmm. You have to be able to dig deep inside. Not everybody can do that for sure. In fact, one of my favorite things is a lot of people choose to stay asleep in this lifetime.

Oh, 

Steve Cuden: without question. 

Suzi Quatro: So it, it doesn’t always go hand in hand, but. It did with me. 

Steve Cuden: Well, so how did you learn how to write as well as you write? You didn’t go to school for it obviously, so how did you learn to do it just naturally? 

Suzi Quatro: I guess I had it natural and I will say that whatever I do to quote Ron Howard, he said to me, ’cause we’re still in email, contact me and, and Henry and Donnie and Anson, good friends and we always do emails.

And Ronnie one time said to me during happy days, he said, Susie. Don’t ever take acting lessons. And I went, why not? He said, because what you have is natural. And I take that as to kind of whatever I do, it’s a natural ability. It all comes. Communication, artistry, passion, needing to entertain, needing to be somebody, which makes me go the extra mile.

At the end, you’re nobody. 

Steve Cuden: At the end, you’re nobody, but you are way beyond nobody. Your natural proclivity is toward being out there and giving to people from Yes, from inside of you, from the Yes. Your thoughts. And that comes from, as a singer songwriter, as a performer, as a writer, all that’s coming from somewhere in you.

And no one is prompting you to do any of it. You’re just doing it. No. 

Suzi Quatro: If I, if I think about my life, and I want to get very serious about it for a minute, I, I found my path very young. I knew when we did our family shows and all five kids, each one would do something. Mickey would play the piano, somebody would do a dance, whatever.

Whenever I got up to do my bit singularly, whatever it might be, sometimes I did a joke. Sometimes I dance, sometimes I played the piano, sometimes whatever. The room would stop. And that was a clue. I, and I would know, and I couldn’t, I couldn’t have articulated this back then. Mind you, I can articulate it now, but I would know that I had something that held an audience.

As I got older, it became the word charisma and X factor, because other people told me that was what was called. Right. But when I was young, I just thought to myself, oh, I can hold this audience. So it made me find my path and it made me realize that I believe the good Lord put me down here to entertain and communicate and create, and that’s what I will do until my tombstone goes up.

Steve Cuden: Were you fearless like that from the very beginning where you’d get up on stage and you had no fear about being in front of a crowd? 

Suzi Quatro: In fact, the first gig that we did, I mean, we’d done all the the home stuff before that, so playing bongos in my dad’s band, the first gig we did at 14. We knew three songs, all same, three chords.

It’s hilarious. And we got up to at the local dance hall that God let us go on. And I remember standing up there with my bass on, gonna do the first song. And what ran through my mind, honest to God was I’m home. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. How old? 14. 14. And you knew that this was it for you? I’m all so many people. Many people.

In fact, I think most people, I’m being very general here, but I think most people. The one of the great fears in their life is standing in front of a crowd of people. It’s a huge fear factor for you. It’s like comfort level. 

Suzi Quatro: It is comfort. But the other flip side of that is when I walk into a private party, I’m shy.

Steve Cuden: Then you’re shy. Yeah. But yet you’re still able to go and start a conversation with a stranger? 

Suzi Quatro: Yes, I am, but I’m, I’m not as out there as I am when I stride into the stage. That’s a different thing. 

Steve Cuden: Is that character walking on the stage still, Susie, or is there a character on top of Susie that goes on stage?

No, that, 

Suzi Quatro: that’s still Su Susie. That’s still Susie. But there is. Little Susie from Detroit and Susie Quatro, and that’s how I wrote my autobiography in the two characters. Mm-hmm. You know, because I was able to do it that way very easily. As soon as I came up with that two character idea, they’re both me.

And I remember I was finishing the book, um, I’m talking about unzipped and I went for a walk with my husband. We were in Spain at the time. I went for a walk. I said, I’m nearly done. I’m nearly done. I got the ending and I said, I’m gonna make little Susie and Susie Quatro become one person. Mm. And he said.

He said to me that would be fiction,

and that’s why I’m married to him. He doesn’t pull any punches with me. 

Steve Cuden: He’s fearless in front of you as an audience. 

Suzi Quatro: He is. 

Steve Cuden: I, I, I think that grave undertakings would make a very interesting, if not a movie, it would make an interesting, um, short series. A limited series. Yes. I 

Suzi Quatro: thought about a, a 10 part TV series, and I’ve got fielders out there now.

Make a great TV series. Mm-hmm. Ooh. And me as an actress, I’d have to have a part, but I don’t know what part I’d play. 

Steve Cuden: See, here’s the thing, which you’ve gotta be aware of. If somebody’s going to adapt that into a series, they’re gonna do with it what they need to do with it to make it a show and not be true to your exact.

Yes, I know. 

Suzi Quatro: I know. And I would be okay with that 

Steve Cuden: and Well, that’s good. So maybe you would play the professor. 

Suzi Quatro: Ooh, I’d love to do that. 

Steve Cuden: See and just change the character’s name and then there you go. 

Suzi Quatro: Or Max’s mother. That’s a real or max. 

Steve Cuden: There you go. That’s 

Suzi Quatro: a sad 

Steve Cuden: case. There you go. Yeah. So I, I hope that you get that, you know, to go, because I think we don’t see much like this on tv.

There’s a little No, you don’t. This would be a very interesting and compelling series, 

Suzi Quatro: but I’m doing lots of publicity for it now, so I want, I wanna get it made into, into something else. Yeah. Good stuff. 

Steve Cuden: I think you should, I. I have been having just one of the most marvelous conversations I’ve had. We had 

Suzi Quatro: a good conversation 

Steve Cuden: with Susie Quatro, and we’re gonna wind the show down and I’m wondering, can you share with us, you’ve always shared with us all these wonderful stories, but can you give us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat strange, or maybe just plain funny from your life and career?

Suzi Quatro: Oh, everything okay? Everything okay. I, I used to go to, um, I was a Catholic school and my mother came to the parent teacher meeting and the nun came out, sister Ines, to talk with my mother and I, she made me nervous. This nun and the nurse said to my mother, your daughter drives me crazy. She’s got too much, uh, energy and da da da da.

And as she was talking, my hand wrapped around her beads and we both tumbled over. So my mother took me out of Catholic school, but it goes further and put me across the street at normal school in the next year. So I decided one day that I wanted to buy all my friends ice cream, where the good humor man came every day to the school after school.

And so I went into the church, which was across the street. I am waiting for the lightning bolt, and I went to regulate the candles, 

Steve Cuden: right? 

Suzi Quatro: And I took all the coins out. Oh, oh, and I went to everybody at the school waiting outside the gates, ice cream’s on me. Big spender. But wait a minute, here’s the punchline.

I did that just that one time, felt really bad. Finally went to confession. Me father for I have sinned. I said, you know that box that you put the money in to light the candles? I heard him get up. He was coming to get me. That’s not fair. I was in confession. He should have just said, you’re forgiven. I ran.

I ran all the way home and I did pay them money back quarter by quarter out of my allowance. Oh 

Steve Cuden: wow. 

Suzi Quatro: But they did put locks on it then. 

Steve Cuden: That is funny. That is. Oh, it’s fine. That’s hilarious. And last question for you today, Suzy, you’ve shared with us this gigantic amount of advice throughout this whole show, and I’m just wondering, do you have a single solid piece of advice that you like to give to those who are starting out in the business?

Or maybe they’re just in a little bit and trying to get to the next level? 

Suzi Quatro: Yeah. Yeah. I would say, first of all, if you’re gonna play an instrument, first of all, play it. Don’t play at it. Play it. Learn it. Okay? And the other thing is, is if you’re gonna be in this business, you have to give up a lot. It has to be your focus, your whole focus don’t, it’s my 11th commandment.

It’s my own 11th commandment. Thou shalt not bullshit thyself. Okay? Be sure you got the talent and if you got the talent, you know you have it. And if you’re doubting it, this business is not for you. It’s a business of rejection. Your talent pulls you through, but if you haven’t got the talent you’re gonna go down under and you don’t want that.

You don’t want that. So be honest, make sure you got the talent. Make sure you want to go through all the pitfalls, the ups and downs, the ups and downs, you know, it’s not an easy ride. And if you’re gonna play, play, and don’t ever give anything less than 100% on that stage or don’t get on it. 

Steve Cuden: I think that’s really spectacular advice, and I’ve told people forever, this business is not for the faint of heart or the weakest stomach.

And if you can’t hack it, you might want to think twice about doing something else with your life. And what you’re saying is absolutely true That, that you’ve gotta go for it and you do. You’re gonna do it. You gotta do it and do it and do it. It doesn’t just come naturally forever. You have to keep adding.

No. 

Suzi Quatro: No, and it’s, it’s a shame, like I think, you know, just to finish it quickly, I think reality shows have a lot to answer for because I think they gave a lot of people who weren’t. Fit to be in this business, the wrong idea. Mm-hmm. And then they lose. Mm-hmm. One minute he’s flicking hamburgers. Next minute he’s on a TV show.

Having a production that even established artists don’t get the next minute he’s back flicking the hamburgers. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. You’re right. 

Suzi Quatro: I’m not sure that’s the right way. That’s just my personal take. 

Steve Cuden: You’re right. 

Suzi Quatro: Not that I don’t watch him, don’t put me wrong, I watch the trolls ’cause they’re good entertainment.

Mm-hmm. But I just don’t know how healthy it is. 

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s very challenging for people who don’t succeed from it, and sometimes it’s very damaging to them. So I think you’re you’re right to point that out. 

Suzi Quatro: That’s what I mean. 

Steve Cuden: Susie Quatro, what a lot of fun this was to talk to you today, and I’m so grateful for you coming on the show, and I’m truly grateful for your time, your, your wisdom and everything that you’ve given to the world in music.

And my pleasure. Thank you, Susie. 

Suzi Quatro: Until the next time. Thank you. 

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you are listening to. Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you.

StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, tune in and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden. And may all your stories be unforgettable.