Suze DeMarchi

Australian singer songwriter

Suze DeMarchi (born 14 February 1964) is an Australian singer songwriter, best known for fronting the band Baby Animals (1989–1996, 2007–present).

DeMarchi was born in Perth, Western Australia to Walter and Shirley DeMarchi and has three older siblings; her sister Denise is also a singer. DeMarchi began her singing career in the early 1980s when she was 17, playing in local band Photoplay.

In 1985, she moved to London, England where she was signed to EMI and had a fairly successful solo career in pop music, where she released a number of singles: "Young Hearts", "Big Wednesday" and "Dry Your Eyes". Disheartened by the record company's attempt to slide her into a pop career, along with missing working with a band, she returned to Australia in mid 1989, where she and fellow Perth musicians Frank Celenza, Eddie Parise and Dave Leslie formed the band Baby Animals. The band met with success in their native Australia, releasing two albums, touring with Van Halen, and winning various awards before permanently disbanding in 1996. This was mostly due to legal battles with their record label Imago and Suze having nodules in her throat – she even had to stop singing for a short while because of them – in 1993, which forced the band to cut short the tour for their second album. In 1994 DeMarchi collaborated with her husband Nuno Bettencourt on the song "God Took a Picture", which appeared in the film Highlander III: The Sorcerer.

After the demise of Baby Animals in 1996, DeMarchi pursued a solo career. Although living in Boston with her husband and young daughter (apparently temporarily in her mother in law's basement at one point), she signed to Mushroom Records Australia and released 1999's Telelove, produced by Bettencourt, and the single "Satellite". DeMarchi supported the album with a May tour around Australia as the singles "Karma" and eventually "Open Windows" hit the shelves. DeMarchi was also nominated for an ARIA Award for Best Female Artist. In 2001 it was rumoured that DeMarchi would be joining INXS as their new front person to replace Michael Hutchence, who died in 1997, following her performance with them at a concert in December 2000 where she sang "Shine Like It Does", "Never Tear Us Apart", and dueted with Jon Stevens (frequent replacement frontman for INXS, and formerly of the band Noiseworks) for "Good Times" and "Don't Change". In June 2004 DeMarchi was recognised by the West Australian Music Industry Association and inducted as one of the inaugural inductees into the WAM Hall of Fame. In 2007, DeMarchi collaborated again with Bettencourt on several songs for the soundtrack of the motion picture Smart People, on which Bettencourt was credited for the musical score.

In 2007 Baby Animals reunited and released a third studio album. In 2015, DeMarchi released her second studio album Home, which debuted at number 26.

In the late 1980s, DeMarchi dated Gavin Rossdale, lead singer and guitarist for the band Bush. Bush's songs "Comedown" and "Glycerine" from 1994's Sixteen Stone are about their relationship. In 1993, DeMarchi met Nuno Bettencourt, guitarist at that time for hard rock band Extreme. They co wrote and performed the song "Because I Can" for Baby Animals' second record Shaved and Dangerous. On 27 August 1994, the couple married in the Azores, where Bettencourt's family is from. In 1996, they had their first child, a daughter Bebe Bettencourt. In 2002, DeMarchi and Bettencourt had their second child in Los Angeles. The couple separated in 2009 and announced their divorce in 2013.

+ List of charity singles Title Year Peak chart positions Notes AUS "I Touch Myself" (as part of the I Touch Myself Project) 2014 72 The I Touch Myself Project launched in 2014 with a mission to encourage young women to touch themselves regularly to find early signs of cancer.