She is 5ft 2 of undiluted rock’n’roll attitude decanted into a tight leather jumpsuit. Over the years, Suzi Quatro has notched up chart-toppers, turned down Elvis Presley’s advances, and inspired a generation of female stars – without ever losing an ounce of her ingrained Detroit grit. When AC/DC star Angus Young foolishly molested her, Suzi was ready to knock him out. “We were on the same show and as I was walking upstairs someone pinched my ass,” she tells me. “I turned around with my fist raised and he went bright red and said, ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.’ He seemed so sincere I said I’d let him off once but if he did it again, he wouldn’t be playing guitar for months.”

Although Suzi, 75, assures me her mouth is her weapon, she admits rewarding persistent pests with a quick knee to the privates. One creep who came too close making a lewd gesture with his tongue, found her bass guitar colliding with his head. In April, she starts a ten-date UK tour including her third year headlining the London Palladium. “I’m never gonna stop – why should I?” she says defiantly. “Compared to Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones, I’m still a baby. Besides, I’m getting reviews to die for, and my energy is still intact – unfortunately for people around me.”

Suzi made her stage debut at 7 playing bongos for her father’s Art Quatro Trio. Art, a jazz keyboardist with a day job at General Motors, was supposed to take her to church but took her to his gig instead. “It became a thing. He gave me 25 cents every time we played.” Aged 14, she formed her first band, the Pleasure Seekers, with two of her sisters after seeing The Beatles on American TV, and ended up playing bass by default. “My father gave me a Fender Precision – the Rolls-Royce of bass guitars. It was also the heaviest, with the thickest neck, and had a perfect sound. As soon as I put it on, I knew it was exactly me.”

Tomboy Suzi was a self-confessed “smart-ass” who enjoyed the company of “tough boys” and hard rockers. On Detroit’s thriving and edgy rock circuit, she befriended Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, and the MC5. At 17, the band went to Vietnam to entertain US troops. “The club in Guam we were booked to play had been destroyed, so we played the officers’ club. Then we were asked to visit the soldiers in hospital – there were people with limbs blown off, people who were blinded. It was a harrowing experience for a young girl.”

That same year, they supported rock legend Chuck Berry in Buffalo. “Our guitarist was very blonde, very pretty and very busty and Chuck jokingly – he was joking – threw her on the couch just as my dad walked in from parking. Dad grabbed him by the shoulder, swung him round and punched him out.”

In 1970, the Pleasure Seekers became Cradle, recruiting Suzi’s youngest sister as chief vocalist. UK producer Mickie Most saw them play in ’71. Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck nudged him and said, “The bass player”; Mickie replied, “I’ve got it already.” Two record companies offered her a deal that week. “Elektra wanted to make me ‘the new Janis Joplin’; Mickie Most said ‘I’m going to make you the first Suzi Quatro’.” Signing to Most’s RAK label, she flew to England three months later and never left. But living between a hotel room and the recording studio made her stir crazy. “I’d gone from gigging with my band, to no gigs, no band, no friends, no family. I told Mickie I needed a band.” She duly formed one, including lead guitarist Len Tuckey – her future first husband. After honing their sound, they opened for Slade, with Thin Lizzy supporting. Most recruited glam rock songwriting wizards Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn to conjure up “the magic three-minute single”.

Can The Can went to No 1 In June 1973, selling over 2.5million copies. “We were playing rock’n’roll boogie with Motown walking bass, glam rock added double-tracked drums and vocals,” says Suzi who went on to sell more than 56 million records. Other smash hits included Devil Gate Drive, 48 Crash, and The Wild One – as her Hungarian-born mother Helen once called her. Her famous admirers included Elvis Presley who invited her to spend a night at his Graceland mansion. She declined. “It wasn’t that I was afraid, I just wasn’t quite ready. I felt give me a couple of years so we could meet as equals. I didn’t know he didn’t have long…”

Suzi’s most streamed song on Spotify is Singing With Angels, her tribute to Elvis, recorded in 2005 with his backing singers, The Jordanaires, and guitar veteran James Burton. Tenor Gordon Stocker left his hospital bed to record it; baritone Ray Walker called it the greatest Elvis tribute he’d ever heard.

Since 1980, Suzi has lived in a Grade 2 listed 16th-century Elizabethan manor house in Essex, with its own recording studio, and her “Ego Room” housing a lifetime of Quatro memorabilia including costumes, posters, and her Happy Days leather jacket – she played Leather Tuscadero, sister of The Fonz’s ex-girlfriend, for seven episodes of the US sitcom over two seasons in the late 70s.

England was a culture shock. “I remember being in the cab the first time coming from the airport thinking how small everything looked. The driver said, ‘This is the river ‘Fames’, I didn’t realise he was taking the piss. British humour can seem offensive but once you’re used to it, it’s the funniest.” She loves Tony Hancock and Sid James, Monty Python and Billy Connolly. “I have a wicked sense of humour. I love jokes. What does the most insecure woman in the world say after sex? ‘How was it for me?’…”

She never dug drugs. When Suzi tried pot, it made her speedy – “And you don’t want me speedy!” she says with a grin. She has always been high on energy and low on patience. As a child, her mother told her, “Suzi why don’t you go chase yourself around the block?” At home, she wakes up at 6am and runs into the garden, throwing her arms wide to welcome the new day. Meditation aside, she rarely switches off. This year she published her third poetry collection, Through My Pain, and her second novel, psychological thriller Grave Expectations. Her 8 books include her memoir, Unzipped. The 2019 documentary, Suzi Q, saw the likes of Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde, Lita Ford and Joan Jett saying she had inspired her careers.

As a teen, Suzi’s tough cookie persona and sharp wit silenced hecklers and would-be Romeos alike. One man who did disarm her was King Charles. After a mid-80s Prince’s Trust show, Charles told Suzi, who’d appeared wearing a Basque, fishnet stockings and heels, “You have the best legs since Tina Turner!” For once in her life, she was left speechless.

Gary Glitter was less endearing. The pop pervert wanted Quatro on his 1992 Christmas tour. His manager gave a newspaper the fake quote that Suzi was doing the tour “so that Gary and I could be together,” she seethes. “I went absolutely berserk; I was just about to marry my second husband” – German concert promoter Rainer Haas. She got a printed retraction and swerved the tour.

Suzi, who has two grown-up children from her first marriage, says her shows are a family affair – “I see people around my age with their kids, and their kids’ kids. And the young ones at the front row singing all my songs.”

The secret of longevity is to believe in yourself, she says, “and always have another goalpost – something else to live for.” Her next ones include turning her novel into a film, a new solo album, and reviving her old ITV talk show. Live performances are still a priority. “I’ve always said, I will retire when I go on stage, shake my ass, and there is silence.”

*Suzi’s ten-date UK tour runs in April 2026. Tickets on sale now at https://www.aegpresents.co.uk/event/suzi-quatro/