When I was a kid, I used to watch Happy Days.

I remember coming home from elementary school and watching reruns of the show, which featured several episodes of Suzi Quatro playing a musician named Leather Tuscadero.

There was something cool about Leather and the way she carried herself. I liked the idea of a woman fronting her own band, and in this case, it was Leather and the Suedes.

By the time I was nine, I started fronting my own imaginary band called Lori and The Red Hearts. It was inspired by women rockers like Suzi Quatro and Joan Jett.

While Lori and The Red Hearts never came to fruition, I learned later on that Quatro grew up in Detroit and is proud to be from there.

“It’s just a special city. You’ve got your Black and white completely coming together. Musically, it’s joined somehow. You’ve got your energy level. You’ve got your edge. You’ve got this almost desperation. It’s one of the best music cities, if not the best music city, in the world,” said Quatro in an interview with author-music journalist Katherine Yeske Taylor for the book, She’s a Badass: Women in Rock Shaping Feminism.

While she appreciates her hometown, Quatro also said she’s always been a square peg in a round hole and has forged her own musical path in life.

“From the time I started to play bass in a band, I was aware that I didn’t have my own niche in which to fit. It did not exist, so I created my own,” she said.

Quatro is one of 20 women rockers featured in Yeske Taylor’s book, which takes an in-depth look at the talent, determination, and humor they needed to succeed in their music careers. She’s a Badass also profiles Heart’s Ann Wilson, X’s Exene Cervenka, The Go-Go’s Gina Shock, Suzanne Vega, L7’s Donita Sparks, Indigo Girls’ Amy Ray, Paula Cole, and more.

“As I interviewed the women for this book, many of them proudly proclaimed themselves to be feminists—but several others had various reasons to reject that label. In either case, the way these artists have led their lives has turned them into role models (whether they actually intended to be or not), thereby promoting gender equality in the music business—and, arguably, in society overall,” writes Yeske Taylor in the book’s introduction.

To learn more, I spoke to Yeske Taylor about her background, music journalism career, and latest book.

Q: How did you develop a passion for music journalism at age 16?

A: My family moved around a lot when I was growing up, but then we eventually landed in Atlanta, which is where I went to high school. I started writing for my high school newspaper, but they wanted me to cover incredibly boring things, and I refused. I said, “I want to write about musicians,” and they thought that was kinda strange, but they said, “Well, if you can get anyone to do it, go for it.” I don’t think they actually thought I would pull it off.

Q: Who was the first musician you ever interviewed?

A: I think the very first one was a local musician in Atlanta named Dede Vogt. Actually, [Indigo Girls’] Amy Ray talks about Dede in her chapter as well. She was one of those artists that everybody in Atlanta knew, and I think she was influential to other artists in that scene. But for whatever reason, only people in that area know who she is.

Q: How did that passion lead you to study journalism at the University of Georgia?

A: This was when Indigo Girls, The Black Crowes, and bands like that were having a moment. Atlanta was a popular music scene at that time. So I just called up the management companies for them and some of the local bands that were popular at that time. I explained what I wanted, and people just thought it was hilarious that some kid was asking for this.

But a lot of times, they would say “yes” because most people are kind and they’re going to give a kid a chance. It just became really clear that I should pursue journalism. I went over to the University of Georgia [in Athens], which is a really good journalism school. It’s one of the top journalism schools in the country, and it just happened to be when R.E.M. and The B-52s were also having a moment.

And so, I got over there, and [it was] the same thing. People gave me opportunities to get my foot in the door. And so, between those two towns, I feel like I had a great launch pad for the most part. I talk in the introduction about some people who did not want to let me into the club, but for the most part, people were great. I feel really lucky that I happened to live in two places right in that kind of zeitgeist.

Q: You first started writing for Creative Loafing in Atlanta. How did that help lay the foundation for your music journalism career?

A: I talk in my intro to [She’s a Badass] about how I got my first true professional work for a newspaper in Atlanta called Creative Loafing. It’s like the alternative paper, and I got that because I called the music editor up every week for like six months. He’d say, “Oh my god, you again!” I just became kind of a pest, and he’d say, “No, I’m not going to give you work. It says right in the masthead, ‘Don’t call us. Why are you calling us?’”

And then after a while, he’d get curious, and he’d say,” What’s your deal? Why do you keep calling me?” And then it got to the point where he’d say, “I’m still not going to give you any work, but what classes are you taking?” Because I was in college at the time, I would talk to him. Finally, one day I called, and he said, “What’s going on?” And I said, “Well, I’m about to not be a teenager anymore. My 20th birthday is next week,” and he said, “Oh my god! Well, I’m going to give you a birthday present; I’ll give you an article.”

All that persistence paid off, but the point is, if this had been an email exchange, he would have just been like, “Delete.” He only started talking because I was this eager kid pathetically hanging on the other end of the line. And so he felt bad for me and had to say something. Then [I made] that personal connection, and that’s what led to some work. I don’t think that’s something that happens now.

Q: How did you get the courage to be that persistent at such a young age?

A: It [was] terrifying. I tell people that now in their 20s and 30s, and they say, “Oh my god! This sounds terrible,” and it was. I remember my hands [were] literally shaking [as I was] dialing whatever manager. It was nerve-wracking; I don’t mean to make it sound like it was easy. I think because it was kind of terrifying, not as many people did it. You had a real advantage if you were willing to put yourself out there and maybe have someone be mean or dismissive. I always took the attitude that if I don’t ask, then I automatically get the worst possible outcome.

Q: How did your professional journey lead you to New York City?

A: I’ve been here for about [13] years. I went out to California for about five years, and then I went back to Georgia for a while. It became clear that if I wanted to take my career to the next level, I needed to move to New York City. Even with the internet, Zoom conferencing, and all that, there’s nothing that can replace being able to get to know editors, publicists, and musicians and be able to run into them on the street or at a club or have dinner with them.

That kind of personal relationship stuff has been infinitely helpful to me. There have been a number of occasions with articles I’ve written, and to a certain degree, the other people that I got for this book—I think I got them because somebody knows who I am. They actually know me; I’m not some semi-anonymous person with an email address. About two-thirds of the interviews for this book were people whom I’ve interviewed before. I try to be wide-ranging.

Q: Why did you decide to become a freelance music journalist instead of writing for a publication?

A: I’ve always been freelance. Briefly, I was a staff member at Spin, but I’m more of a freelancer at heart. I do occasionally contribute to Spin still, but I like the freedom of being able to do the things that I personally find interesting and can turn down the ones that I just don’t wanna do. Because, as you probably know, there are few things more excruciating than having to research and write and transcribe an article that you’re not really that interested in.

Q: While you’ve established yourself as a successful music journalist, did you ever consider becoming a musician?

A: I was always obsessed with music, so there was no question that [music] was the thing I was gonna write about because I’m not a good musician myself. I sang and I played guitar, but I was never gonna be good enough to get up on a stage. I respect people who are. It was really obvious that [music journalism] was the thing that I needed to do.

Q: You didn’t set out to write She’s a Badass. How did that opportunity come your way?

A: And yet, the same thing happened with this book. I didn’t ask to do this book. I had written an article about Donita Sparks of L7, and a literary agent wrote me and said he had read it. And then [he said], “I looked at some of your other work after I looked at that article, and I think you would be a good fit for writing a book.” And he suggested writing a book about women in rock and feminism, and as soon as he said that, I thought, “You know, that is a topic I can run with because I have heard stories over the years from women, and I think there is enough to fill a book. And I can’t believe there isn’t one like that already?”

There are a lot of books about women in rock, and there are a lot of books about feminism, but as far as I could tell, there isn’t one that combines the two until now. As soon as he said that, I agreed we’d give it a shot, and I wrote a proposal, and he shopped it around, and here we are. But again, that was not me knocking on doors and trying to figure this out. It just kind of fell in my lap.

Q: What was your creative process like for writing She’s a Badass?

A: It was about [three] years ago that we started shopping around the proposal, and then I signed the contract. It took me about the next six months to do the interviews, convince people to do it, … and write the chapters. And then I turned in the book about [two years] ago, but people don’t realize how slow this process is compared to articles. And then there were several months of needing to go through various copy editors [and] proofreaders. I’m very glad that they didn’t have any big changes that they wanted, but you need to have various sets of eyes to make sure everything makes sense and there are no typos.

That took a few months, and then it took another couple of months for me to get endorsement blurbs from people. And I got a few good ones: I got Marianne Faithfull, I got Ani DiFranco, I got the drummer [John Sparrow] for Violent Femmes, and I got Jaz Coleman of Killing Joke. I feel like I got some really interesting ones. And again, those are people that I’ve worked with in the past, for the most part, or somebody knew somebody who could help me out.

I think everything was pretty much done—the cover—we signed off on it [in summer 2023]. And then it was a matter of sitting around and waiting for it to go to the printer. Everything was pretty backlogged because of the pandemic. I think it would have come out a few months sooner if it weren’t for that, but I’m happy that it’s [been out]. I’m glad I have a decent number of people who want to read my stuff. On Instagram, I have [2,900] followers, and on Facebook, it’s up to [7,600] followers, which is pretty good for a music writer.

Q: Younger readers may not be familiar with some of the women artists featured in this book. What do you hope they learn after reading about artists like Heart’s Ann Wilson and Paula Cole?

A: That story [about Heart’s “Barracuda”] is familiar to a lot of people. I remember hearing that story about 25 years ago, but the thing is, I think there’s going to be a lot of younger women [who don’t know it]. It’s hard to remember sometimes that not everyone knows what you know. I did a podcast interview in [2023] where it was a couple of young women in their 20s somewhere, and they admitted that they hadn’t heard of most of the women in this book. They were interested in the subject, and then they would get curious after reading the chapter and go on Spotify or YouTube to look these women up.

And that’s exactly what I want to happen; I want people to be inspired to check out something that maybe they hadn’t heard of before and maybe find some things to like. One of the women realized she absolutely loved Paula Cole’s work, and she had never heard of her before. I thought that was so interesting because there was no escaping that song, [“Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?”], in the ‘90s.

It was interesting to hear from someone who had no idea what it was. And even this young woman was laughing because she said, “Yeah, I was playing it at my job, and one of my co-workers, he’s older, walked by and he said, ‘I haven’t heard that song in a long time.’” And she said, “I just heard about it now and I love it,” and they had this really interesting conversation about how that song was inescapable for a while, and it was brand new to her. I think it’s important to remember that people aren’t all automatically given and know the same things that you [know].

Q: How have some younger women readers responded to the story behind Heart’s Ann Wilson and the song “Barracuda” and the challenges Suzi Quatro faced?

A: And these women seem to pick up on this, and I hope others will, too. They have no idea some of the things that women before them have gone through in order to win the kind of rights that we have now. One of these women said, “After reading the ‘Barracuda’ story, she was so angry, she had to put the book down and do something else for a while and come back to it.”

It was interesting to hear that they genuinely had never thought about all these things women like Ann Wilson and Suzi Quatro had done to make their lives easier. I hope that will make an impression on people that some worked hard to get things to where they are now, and it’s still not perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than what it was. And I hope it also gets across the point that people can’t be complacent either. Just because we have rights, it doesn’t mean that you’re gonna keep them.

Q: What obstacles have you had to overcome as a woman music journalist?

A: In the intro, I do touch on it a little bit. When I was coming up through the ranks in Atlanta, there were some older male journalists who absolutely did not want to let me into the club. They were very condescending, and a couple of times, just breathtakingly rude about it. I had to restrain myself from naming them. Because at this point, it’s like a he said/she-said thing. I can’t prove that some guy cornered me at a club and said this, but I will never forget it.

The ones I talk about in the intro, there were a couple of times when I had heard that some people didn’t believe I had written my own articles. [That] was infuriating because Cameron Crowe was a teenager [when he started]. Everybody applauds him, and I just had this feeling that if I were a young man, no one would be saying that.

The editor … the one I was so persistent with, he was pretty high-profile in that scene. He had a lot of power in that scene, being the music editor of the main [publication]. And one time, one of the other writers for that publication came up to me and cornered me at a rock club and said, “Are you only getting these assignments because you’ve slept with [the editor]?”

Just the audacity of someone to say that to my face, and I just wanted to hit him. I said, “You have no idea. I had to call [the editor] for six months and convince him to give me a chance.” And it was just so demeaning to have somebody have that attitude when I had worked so hard to get by.

Q: Do you think a lot of progress has been made for women to overcome obstacles in the music industry?

A: I hope this book will make that clear, too. I think a lot of progress has been made, but there are certain things that seem stubbornly ingrained.

The one thing that seems to come up still is when women are on tour and they go into the club. The guys who work at the club, or the sound man, will say, “Do you need help with that amp, little lady? Do you even know how that works?” [They’re] expecting them to not understand how their own equipment works, and the women I talk to are so indignant. They’re saying, “This is my job. I know how to do my job. How do you think I got this gig if I don’t know what I’m doing?”

That’s maddening that that still persists. These same women would then say, “And then we played this killer show ….” And those same [guys] would be amazed and [look] like, “We can’t believe you could do that. Let me buy you a shot—that’s so cool.” But the point is, they shouldn’t have to prove [anything] because I don’t think they have that same attitude with bands of men coming in the door. I think they just assume they got the show because they must be pretty good.

Q: In your opinion, what role do music journalists play in the streaming age?

A: It used to be the problem that bands had a hard time getting attention at all. Before the internet, how did you even do that? It was so hard, and now it’s almost kind of the opposite problem, where everyone has the opportunity to get attention. But now it’s way too many people in the field trying to all compete. I feel like what I do is sort through a lot of stuff and tell people some things that seem like a cut above, and try to save people some time hunting.

Because I think it can seem overwhelming when someone says, “Well, I like this kind of music, but I don’t really know what else is out there that’s like this.” I know there are things on Spotify and Pandora that recommend [music], but still, I think you can’t always trust that either. You don’t know if someone has paid to have that placement. I feel like there’s still a role for music writers trying to point the way to music that’s worthy of people’s attention.

Q: Do you think there’s still a career path for people who want to pursue music journalism?

A: It depends on how much you’re willing to hustle. [With] articles, as you mentioned a bit ago, you get paid by the article. But there are all kinds of opportunities behind the scenes. Again, and this is why I moved to New York, where it’s not something people necessarily see. It’s still music journalism, but it’s not audience-facing. And what I mean by that is you can get hired and it’s decent pay to write artist bios, press releases, and things like that. Your name isn’t necessarily on it; no one knows that you’re the one who wrote it except for the publicist and the artists. And sometimes I think even the artists don’t know.

If you’re willing to build those relationships and can hook into [something and say], “OK, this company comes to me fairly often.” If you get a decent number of articles and three or four bios a month, you’re fine. But it’s just a matter of working up that relationship and proving that you are reliable and that you have a knack for that kind of work.

It’s a very particular kind of work that’s different than the articles people read. It’s a totally different slant to it. Instead of being objective, suddenly you’re asked to be more like a publicist and say what they want you to say. You have to figure out the vibe and then the angle that they want to present to the world, so it’s just a different thing—but it is possible. I think if you’re willing to be an editor, there are more opportunities. I just don’t have any interest in doing that myself.

Q: You’ve contributed to books like Rolling Stone’s Alt-Rock-A-Rama and The Trouser Press Guide to ‘90s Rock. Was it a professional goal of yours to become an author?

A: In a pipe-dream kind of way, I [had] thought about it, but it seemed really daunting. It’s always in the back of your mind that the ultimate thing for a journalist is to have a book, but how [do you] actually go about that? All those books, those two books, and [She’s a Badass], they all kind of fell into my lap by accident. Like the Rolling Stone Alt-Rock-A-Rama one and The Trouser Press Guide to ‘90s Rock, those both came about because of friends I had who were friends with the people editing those books.

At the time, I was specializing a lot in goth music because I knew it well, and that was something not a lot of people covered. It was a good angle to take, and people recommended me for those. And then the editors, in each case, we had dinner, and they talked to me about what I could do, and then they brought me on to write the chapter or the entries or whatever it was for each of those books.

But I didn’t seek them out; it was just a through-the-grapevine-kind-of-thing. And at that time, I was living in New York then, and I had lived in New York for about a year in the ‘90s also. Again, it was really important for me to be here, and when I got that call saying, “Let’s meet at this restaurant,” [I got to] sit down and be face-to-face with someone.

Q: Are there any plans for a follow-up book to She’s a Badass?

A: As I was doing this [book], I had to turn some people down because at a certain point, I had the 20 interviews. Books are a little different than online articles. You have to stop at some point because books can only be so long unless you’re Stephen King, [and] because there are printing costs involved. I couldn’t go much over the 80,000-word count. I think in the end it came in at 84,000 [words], but I really couldn’t go beyond that.

There was some talk of me doing a follow-up version, but I don’t know that’s gonna happen, because as the publisher pointed out, sequels don’t tend to do as well. And also, I feel like the women in this book expressed such a wide range of viewpoints that I’m not sure that I would really capture anything different. I know there’s no way to express absolutely every opinion under the sun, but I think that the viewpoints expressed in this book are so varied that it does a pretty good job.

Q: You’re now working on a memoir with Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hütz. How is that project coming along?

A: When I was wrapping up this book, and I was casting about what I was gonna do next, [I thought], “I’d really like to do another book, but not like this one.” I want to do something quite different. Instead of 20 women, it seemed like a really fun idea to focus on one [guy]. And [Eugene Hütz] is such an interesting character. He’s from Ukraine, and he came to the United States as a refugee in his late teens with no money and not knowing English at all.

And somehow, he built his way up to being an internationally known rock star and film star. I just personally wanted to know how the hell he did that. I’ve read interviews with him, and he never really went in-depth about it. And now that we’re about halfway through this project, I see why, because it’s pretty bleak hearing about being a refugee. He just didn’t want to talk about it in-depth, but he is now, and it’s really fascinating. I have such respect for him, and this story is quite incredible.