"Alice wants me to get up and do a song with him. I couldn't say no," Suzi Quatro told Classic Rock before joining Alice Cooper and his band on stage Friday night for School's Out at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in their home town of Detroit.
The two actually said yes to each other more than once this week.
Quatro, who resides primarily in the UK, was back in town to record a version of yet another Detroit rock legend, the MC5's seminal Kick Out the Jams, as a duet with Cooper. They worked at the suburban Rust Belt Studios, where Cooper made much of his Breadcrumbs EP and Detroit Stories album, and was ironically the last place he saw the late Wayne Kramer – who played on this release – in person, which he acknowledged "felt weird."
The cover, Quatro said, was the first proper track recorded for her next solo album, the follow-up to 2021's The Devil in Me. It was the idea of her son and producer Richard Tuckey, who's worked with Quatro on her last two studio albums, her Uncovered EP and her 2023 Face To Face duets album with KT Tunstall. "He's been trying to get me to do that song for a long time," says Quatro, "and he said, 'Why don't you do it with Alice...?'"
The two go back a long way, to when the original Alice Cooper band moved from Los Angeles to Detroit during the early 70s and before Quatro left for England in 1971 to start her solo career. Her bands the Pleasure Seekers and Cradle used to rehearse in the barn on the farm property Cooper and company were leasing in suburban Pontiac, Michigan.
Back then the MC5 was the standard to which many Detroit rock acts aspired. "I cut my teeth on them," says Quatro. "They're a little older than me, so I was watching them as I was starting. My brother (Michael Quatro) booked them all the time. So I've known them forever. I knew them all. They were one of the best live acts ever."
Cooper – who covered the MC5's Sister Anne on Breadcrumbs and Detroit Stories – concurred. "That was the epitome of Detroit rock'n'roll, the MC5," he says. "Kick Out the Jams wasn't just a song; it was what you had to do to keep up."
Both Quatro and Cooper were well-pleased with the recording session. "We were able to capture our personalities," Quatro says. "We were able to capture the spirit of Detroit. We were able to capture our youth and the energy, and we played off each other and it was really quite magical." She also predicts that “it’s a very nice tribute, ‘cause they’re all gone now. So now is the time to do that song again.”
"It's a really cool version," adds Cooper, who enjoyed the hang as much as the music. "Y'know, most of talking to Suzi was about the old days, 'cause those really were the golden days of Detroit." He also has fond memories of Quatro opening for him during his mid-70s Welcome To My Nightmare tour. "When you go on tour for two years, you've lived a life together," he says.
Quatro says she has 14 songs ready for the album, which she'll be making in between touring commitments. "I'm really busy, which is great, so we have to find the time," she said. "We're starting it now, so it'll probably be about half a year."
The concert collaboration came about during the session and provided a highlight to the home town stop on Cooper's Freaks On Parade tour with Rob Zombie. Quatro played bass alongside longtime Cooper four-stringer Chuck Garric, and during the band introductions, he told the crowd, "You cannot say Detroit rock without saying Suzi Quatro," drawing a huge ovation, with guitarist Nita Strauss making a “we are not worthy” bow on stage.
Cooper himself is on the road until mid-October, with other projects, including his syndicated radio show Alice's Attic and "a surprise album" that he says "turned out to be very unique" and may possibly be out before the end of the year. During 2025, meanwhile, he plans to devote time to the Hollywood Vampires, his band with Aerosmith's Joe Perry, Johnny Depp and Cooper guitarist Tommy Henriksen.
