I'm not a great flyer. It's ironic, since I'm in showbiz and have to fly at least twice a week. I try to sleep and blot it out.
My own musical ambitions were born when I was five, watching the Ed Sullivan Show on TV. When Elvis Presley burst on to the screen, singing 'Don't Be Cruel,' I felt my first sexual thrill, though I didn't know what it was at the time.
I used to buy scented poetry books on tour and read aloud to the band. Not what you'd expect, huh?
One of my insecurities was my looks. I was short, cute and chubby, and Dad used to call me his 'little fat sausage.' But I always knew I had musical talent.
I don't know what else I would do. I love entertaining people, I love communicating, I love an audience. I'm a real artist, right from the bottom of my toes to the top of my head.
I am flattered to have been the woman to have opened the door for female rockers to be accepted into the mainly male industry.
Ever since I was a child, I've just had this sense that I'm connected to the spiritual world. I thought everyone else felt the same way. I can hear voices - not all the time - but when I'm with certain people, it sometimes comes through.
I always found the road exciting. I liked stinking hotels and freezing dressing rooms.
I joined an all-girl band in Detroit and, although I was a pianist and drummer, I was asked to play bass because no one else wanted to. When I strapped it on, it fit me as good as my leathers. At the first gig we played, I looked out at the audience and thought, 'This is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life.'
'Rolling Stone,' my first single, was only a hit in Portugal, but when we recorded my second single, 'Can The Can,' I got that hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck feeling, and I knew it would be huge. It topped the charts in the U.K. and Australia in 1973, and I got my first gold disc.
The Pleasure Seekers eventually turned into Cradle, when we started writing our own material. My younger sister Nancy was brought in as singer and I kind of stepped aside as main lead singer and concentrated on my instrument.
