Twelve years ago the best rock band in Australia broke-up, choked by a legal stoush with their manager. It was premature and all so sad. The Baby Animals 1991 self-titled debut spent six weeks at #1 and sold more than 400,000 copies in Australia alone, making it one of the biggest Australian albums ever at the time. By 1993 they were rock demi-gods and had even made inroads in the US on the back of support tours with Van Halen and Robert Plant. Lead singer Suze DeMarchi was the greatest female rock singer Australia had seen since the halcyon days of Wendy Saddington and Carol Lloyd (Railroad Gin). With the tightest rhythm section, Eddie Parise and Frank Celenza, in the business, and a genuinely top flight lead guitarist, Dave Leslie, the Animals bounded back and forth across the country playing to ever bigger crowds. When they turned up on a bill with the Dave Gleeson-led Screaming Jets at Fremantle Oval in home state WA it was the best night of pure old-fashioned rock anybody could remember. Gleeson distinguished himself by air-diving from a raised stage and finding nobody in the crowd was willing to catch him. It hurt. Back stage it was like little Italy with mums and dads and aunts and uncles and heaven-knows-what-relative all proudly watching the show and celebrating afterwards.

That debut album slayed ‘em. It was just a bloody great rockin’ monster. The 1994 second album, Shaved And Dangerous, was far less so - although that had more to do with the band’s record company adding a bunch of songs it wanted and subtracting a bunch the band wanted.

In August 1994, Suze married Extreme lead singer Nuno Bettencourt, moved to Boston, Massachusetts, and became a mum. I last saw her when she bought their first-born, BeeBee, home to visit the relies. Dave Leslie and I sat in the garden while she did motherly stuff and swore one day the Baby Animals would be back.

Well, BeeBee is now 11 and little Lorenzo is 5, Nuno (yes, they are still married) is reforming Extreme, and the BA’s are back. The new ‘acoustic’ album, Il Grande Silenzio, literally The Great Silence for the Liberation Blue Acoustic series, finds them revisiting old classics including a stunning take on Working For The Enemy in which Suze and co channel Johnny Cash. It’s all good fun, marked by some fine musicianship and DeMarchi’s unmistakeable vocal - still as strong as ever.

Later in the year, the band will release a rock album of new songs. More importantly, it tours over the next few weeks. Suze, welcome back and what’s going on? It seems like the right time with rock music on a high again. “For me it is,” she says. “The kids are a bit older and I feel I can leave them but being along way away is hard and I can’t bring them with me so we’re doing it a few weeks at a time.

“Actually we’ve all got kids now - 10 between us. Dave and Eddie both have three and Frank has two - they’ve been busy little Animals. We’ve been breeding the future of rock’n'roll.”

DeMarchi has always had a droll sense of humour and a quick tongue and it hasn’t deserted her. She turns 44 on February 14 but the energy and passion seem renewed and as keen as ever. The forthcoming ‘rock’ album - the one the band and the fans want - she describes as “raw, rock, four-on-the-floor, simple, fun. It sounds like the Baby Animals. I don’t think that is ever going to change.”

Similarly, the tour, despite tieing in with the release of the ‘acoustic’ album will be a full-blooded slice of Animal magic. “You know me, I’m a bit of a risk taker but I wanted to make sure we weren’t going to lose any money doing this. We were originally going to do an acoustic tour but really that was never going to happen. I know we’re promoting a record but it would have been horrible tom do that to the fans. I’m a rock chick and we’re a rock band.

“The good thing is we are all still alive, it’s the same people, same band. We all thought we’ve got to do this now and to do as many records as we can. I want to do another 4 or 5 records. We owe ourselves - and our fans - a few.”

Hopefully, the new records will reacquaint Australia - and the US - with the band. The past 12 months have been largely ruled by reunion tours as rock floundered in a puddle of average mid-2000s bands such as The Killers running out of ideas (the great Arcade Fire and their ilk being exceptions to the rule, of course). “I think there’s a place for everybody since the influx of all those reality TV music shows saturated the market, DeMarchi says. “People got pissed of with it all and started looking for other stuff to listen to. Look at what happened with the Led Zeppelin one-off reunion. Millions of people wanted to be a part of that. When they walk on stage the power they have is the real thing - there’s no smoke and mirrors, just really great musicianship. And that’s what people want. Great musicianship, great songs, a great show.
“It’s going to be a stretch with me being based in America and the boys here in Australia but we’ll make it work.’

And you’d better believe her. The Baby Animals are on the prowl …