Baby Animals

Australian hard rock quartet Baby Animals centered on vocalist Suze DeMarchi, who had earlier cut solo sides for EMI. Dissatisfied with that path, she left England and headed back to her hometown of Perth, where in 1989 she launched Dee Dee and the Rockmen alongside drummer Frank Celenza. The following year the pair expanded the lineup by adding guitarist Dave Leslie and bassist Eddie Parise, thereby establishing Baby Animals. Their self-titled debut album achieved multi-platinum status in Australia, yet overseas figures remained modest, and after the 1993 follow-up Shaved and Dangerous appeared, the group’s U.S. label Imago went under. Throat surgery for DeMarchi then halted the tour midway, prompting the quartet’s quick dissolution. DeMarchi subsequently married Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, moved to the United States, and issued the solo album Telelove in 1999. All four original members reconvened stateside in 2007 and, the next January, released the acoustic collection Il Grande Silenzio that revisited earlier material. Additional Australian tours followed over the ensuing years until Celenza and Parise departed in early 2009; drummer Mick Skelton and bassist Dario Bortolin stepped in, completing the lineup that cut 2013’s This Is Not the End—the band’s first studio album in twenty years. Celenza and Parise returned briefly in 2016 for two concerts marking the 25th anniversary of the debut, which also received a deluxe reissue that May.