Ipsis, et omnibus in Christo quiescentibus, locum refrigeril, lucis et pacis, ut indulgeas, deprecamur. Per enumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. AMEN
Poison is an American glam metal band that achieved commercial success in the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s and has sold 15 million records in the United States and over 50 million albums worldwide. The band is perhaps best known for the Billboard Hot 100 number one hit single "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," and other top 40 hit singles in the 1980s and 1990s, including, " Talk Dirty to Me," "I Won't Forget You," "Nothin' but a Good Time," "Fallen Angel," "Your Mama Don't Dance," "Unskinny Bop," "Something to Believe In," "Ride the Wind," and "Life Goes On." The band's breakthrough debut album, the multi-platinum Look What the Cat Dragged In, was released in 1986, followed by Open Up and Say... Ahh!, which was certified 5× platinum in the US. Their third consecutive multi-platinum and the best-selling album was Flesh & Blood. The most successful incarnation of the band consists of founding members lead singer and rhythm guitarist Bret Michaels, drummer Rikki Rockett, bassist and pianist Bobby Dall, and longtime lead guitarist and backing vocalist C.C. DeVille. In the 1990s following the release of the band's first live album, Swallow This Live, the band experienced some line-up changes and the fall of glam metal with the grunge movement. But the band's fourth studio album, Native Tongue, still achieved Gold status, and the band's first compilation album, Poison's Greatest Hits: 1986–1996, went double platinum.
I SAW THEM IN CONCERT DURING THE LATTER '80 s, HAD A BLAST. MY THEN-FIRST-HUSBAND TONY COLVER AND I ALONG WITH HIS FRIEND, RON YETT, AND HIS THEN-GIRLFRIEND DIANE WHO WAS FROM OREGON, WENT BY LIMO (AGAIN - because we owned a limo) AND SAW THEM PERFORM. WE HAD SUCH A GREAT TIME, SOME REALLY EXCELLENT SONGS COME FROM THIS BAND, SOME OF HEAVY METAL ROCK'S BEST. WE SAW THEM PLAY IN LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.
ABOVE PHOTO: Poison live at Holmdel, New Jersey in 2006. Left to right: C.C. DeVille, Rikki Rockett, Bret Michaels, and Bobby Dall.
ABOVE PHOTO: Poison live at the Sweden Rock Festival in 2008.
Members
Current
Bret Michaels – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, harmonica (1983–present)
Rikki Rockett – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1983–present)
Bobby Dall – bass, piano, backing vocals (1983–present)
C.C. DeVille – lead guitar, vocals (1985–1991, 1996–present)[21]
Former
Matt Smith – lead guitar, backing vocals (1983–1985)
Richie Kotzen – lead guitar, keyboards, piano, mandolin, dobro, vocals (1991–1993)
Blues Saraceno – lead guitar, keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1993–1996)[21]
Touring musicians
Will Doughty – keyboards, piano, backing vocals (2007–present)
Studio albums
Look What the Cat Dragged In (1986)
Open Up and Say... Ahh! (1988)
Flesh & Blood (1990)
Native Tongue (1993)
Crack a Smile... and More! (2000)
Hollyweird (2002)
Poison'd! (2007)
Tours
Look What the Cat Dragged In Tour (1986–1987)
Open Up and Say Ahh! Tour (1988–1989)
Flesh & Blood World Tour (1990–1991)
Native Tongue World Tour (1993–1994)
Greatest Hits Reunion Tour (1999)
Power to the People Tour (2000)
Glam, Slam, Metal, Jam Tour (2001)
Hollyweird World Tour (2002)
Harder, Louder, Faster Tour (2003)
Rock the Nation World Tour (2004)
20 Years of Rock World Tour (2006)
POISON'D Summer Tour (2007)
Live, Raw & Uncut Summer Tour (2008)
42-city Summer Tour (2009)
Glam-A-Geddon 25/30/40 Tour (2011)
Rock of Ages Tour (2012)
30th Anniversary North American Comeback Tour (2017)
Nothing But a Good Time Tour (2018)
The Stadium Tour (2022)
Early years (1983–1985)
Poison - initially named Paris, was formed in 1983, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and consisted of lead vocalist Bret Michaels, guitarist Matt Smith, bassist Bobby Dall, and drummer Rikki Rockett.
Michaels began his performing career with a basement band called Laser and, then, in 1979, joined longtime childhood friend Rockett to form a band called the Spectres. In 1980, Michaels and Rockett teamed up with Smith and Dall to form the band Paris and the group started playing the club circuit, performing mostly rock cover songs in local bars. The group formed a strong local following but in order to further their career, the band made the decision to move to Los Angeles on March 6, 1983, and also changed the name of the group from Paris to Poison, after the song of the same name by glam metal band Kix.
Look What the Cat Dragged In and Open Up and Say...Ahh! (1986–1989)
Poison promoted themselves up and made the rounds performing in the famous local clubs. During this period, Poison's manager negotiated a deal under which the West Hollywood club, The Troubadour, would pay for shows. At this time, Smith, who was about to become a father and was concerned about the band's future, left the band to return home to Pennsylvania. The band auditioned for a replacement guitarist, eventually narrowing down the field to three candidates: Slash, who would later join Guns N' Roses; Steve Silva from the Joe Perry Project; and New York City-born guitarist C.C. DeVille. Although Michaels and Dall did not initially get along with him, the band eventually agreed that DeVille's "fire" made him the best choice.
Michaels, Rockett, Dall, and DeVille signed to independent label Enigma Records in 1986 (see 1986 in music) for approximately $30,000. Their debut album, Look What the Cat Dragged In, was released on August 2, 1986. It originally included only one single, "Cry Tough"; however, Look What the Cat Dragged In became a surprise success and subsequently spawned three charting hits: "Talk Dirty to Me", "I Want Action", and "I Won't Forget You", The record became the biggest-selling-album in Enigma's history. With heavy rotation on MTV, their debut earned the band tours with fellow glam rockers Ratt, Cinderella, and Quiet Riot, as well as a coveted slot in the Texas Jam in Dallas. The band began giving intimate and controversial interviews to rock journalist Judy Wieder at the Hollywood home they all shared in June 1986, before the official release of Look What the Cat Dragged In. Wieder, the first to follow the band closely, circulated their many dicey conversations to the popular rock magazines of the day, including Circus, Creem, Rip Magazine, Rock Express, and Hit Parader, ensuring enormous visibility for the album's release. In 1987 the band recorded a cover of the Kiss song "Rock and Roll All Nite" for the soundtrack to Less Than Zero.
Poison's second album, Open Up and Say...Ahh!, was released May 21, 1988. It peaked at No. 2 on the American charts. The album included the band's biggest hit, the No. 1 single "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", along with other hits "Nothin' but a Good Time", "Fallen Angel", and the Loggins and Messina cover "Your Mama Don't Dance". The album's initial cover art was controversial, as it depicted a demonic female figure with an obscenely long tongue. A censored version of the cover followed, focusing on the figure's eyes. In 1989, the band released their first video album titled Sight for Sore Ears which featured all their music videos from the first two albums.
Conflict pursued the band persistently. Bryn Bridenthal, head of publicity at Geffen Records, filed a $1.1 million lawsuit against the band for drenching her with drinks and a bucket of ice at a music industry party. Then, Sanctuary Music, Poison's former management company, filed a $45.5 million breach of contract suit against the band. Poison retaliated with charges of mismanagement of funds. Michaels' frequent brawling garnered him further lawsuits in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Tallahassee.
Flesh & Blood and Swallow This Live (1990–1992)
Poison continued their adherence to the "work hard, play hard" motto, following up with their third album, Flesh & Blood, which was released June 21, 1990. It also was highly successful, being certified 3× Platinum in the U.S. and 4× Platinum in Canada. The album's success prompted the impetus for a further world tour. Shedding their big-haired image as they moved into the 1990s, Poison took a more mature approach to their third album.
Poison received a letter from Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney thanking the band for contributing 20,000 CDs of the album Flesh & Blood to lift the morale of U.S. Troops during Desert Storm, and their continued support of the Armed Forces.
The album also features an alternative cover, as the original featured what appeared to be running ink or possibly blood from a tattoo. (Subsequent versions of this cover removed the "extra" ink.) The record went multi-platinum, spawning three gold singles: "Unskinny Bop", "Ride the Wind", and the ballad "Something To Believe In" which was dedicated to the band's security guard and close friend James Kimo Maano who had died. "Life Goes On" was the fourth single and the last single released was the title cut, "Flesh & Blood (Sacrifice)".
One of the band's few appearances in the UK was on August 18, 1990, at Donington's Monsters of Rock festival in the summer of 1990. Whitesnake and Aerosmith headlined with Poison, Quireboys, and Thunder supporting them. This event was broadcast on BBC Radio 1.
After two consecutive years on the road, band members were at each other's throats with personal differences and drug addictions. Poison recorded several performances during its 1990/1991 Flesh & Blood world tour, which were released in November 1991 as the band's fourth album, Swallow This Live. The double album features live tracks from Poison's first three studio albums and four new studio tracks including the single "So Tell Me Why", which were the last recorded before C.C. DeVille's departure from the band later that year.
Native Tongue, Greatest Hits and Crack a Smile (1993–2000)
DeVille was fired and replaced by guitarist Richie Kotzen. Poison's fourth album, Native Tongue, was released on February 8, 1993. It was strongly influenced by Kotzen's fresh songwriting contributions and guitar performance. It marked a change for the band as they abandoned their anthemic party tunes to focus on more serious subjects, and was far more blues-rock oriented than glam metal. Containing the singles "Stand" which featured the Los Angeles First A.M.E. Church Choir on backing vocals, "Until You Suffer Some (Fire And Ice)" and "Body Talk", the album received generally positive reviews and did go Gold, but following the arrival of grunge, sales were sluggish compared with the first three albums. The band toured in support of the album, but tensions mounted between Kotzen and the rest of the band. Kotzen's future in the band was doomed when it was discovered that he had become romantically involved with Rockett's then-fiancée Deanna Eve. Kotzen was promptly fired, and replaced by Blues Saraceno in November 1993, who completed the world tour with the band including the famous "Hollywood Rock" concerts in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, where they played to over 165,000 people.
Poison began recording its sixth album, Crack a Smile, in early 1994. The recording was brought to an abrupt halt in May 1994, when Michaels was involved in a car accident where he lost control of his Ferrari. Michaels suffered a broken nose, ribs, jaw, and fingers and lost four teeth. After his recovery in 1995, the band continued recording the album. The album became shelved shortly after this, with no release date anywhere in sight. Instead, the label opted for a Greatest Hits compilation, which featured two new tracks with Saraceno on guitar, "Sexual Thing" and "Lay Your Body Down". The first Greatest Hits album was released on November 26, 1996, and sold extremely well, going on to reach double platinum status.
After several years apart, Michaels and DeVille were able to patch up their differences; and Michaels welcomed DeVille back into Poison in 1996 to replace Saraceno.
Michaels was involved with Pamela Anderson. After Poison's and Michaels' longtime attorney, Ed McPherson, obtained a Federal injunction prohibiting the distribution of an explicit sex tape that the couple made, an abridged version of the tape appeared on the internet in 1998.
Michaels and actor friend Charlie Sheen co-founded a production company called Sheen Michaels Entertainment. In 1998, Michaels made his acting debut alongside Charlie and Martin Sheen in the movie A Letter from Death Row, which was also written and directed by Michaels.
The Greatest Hits reunion tour took place in the summer of 1999, with the original lineup. The show at Pine Knob Amphitheater in metro Detroit drew a sell-out crowd of 18,000, and other shows averaged crowds of 12,000. In addition, the band appeared on VH1's Behind the Music. On March 14, 2000, Crack a Smile...and More! was finally released, with the single "Shut Up, Make Love" and the power ballad "Be the One". In addition to the outtakes, live recordings from the 1990 installment of the MTV Unplugged series were included.
Power to the People and Hollyweird (2001–2002)
After the Poison reunion, DeVille soon released his solo album, Samantha 7, and Michaels released the solo/Poison album Show Me Your Hits which featured re-recorded Poison classics. The album featured Michaels performing Poison hits in a new way and also featured other artists with Michaels on selected tracks. Poison also released Power to the People, their first album with DeVille in nine years. The record contained five new studio songs: "Power to the People" which features a music video, "Can't Bring Me Down", "The Last Song", "Strange", and "I Hate Every Bone In Your Body But Mine", the latter with DeVille on lead vocals for the first time.
In May 2001 Poison released the web single "Rockstar" as a preview of the upcoming new album and went on tour with Warrant.
Best of Ballads & Blues and The Best Of Poison (2003–2006)
Following the Hollyweird world, tour Poison released their second compilation album, Best of Ballads & Blues, in 2003. It contains a new acoustic version with new lyrics of "Something to Believe In" and a new acoustic version of "Stand". Michaels also released his second solo album, Songs of Life, which featured singles "Bittersweet" and "Raine" which featured a music video and was dedicated to his daughter. On January 7 that year, after almost 20 years with Poison, Rockett released his first solo album, Glitter 4 Your Soul, which was distributed online.
During the summer of 2004, Poison was invited to serve as the opening band on Kiss's "Rock the Nation" tour. Poison was largely inactive in 2005 which is when Michaels released his third solo album, the country-rock-influenced Freedom Of Sound, which included the single "All I Ever Needed" featuring Jessica Andrews, which also featured a music video and appeared on Billboard's "Hot Country Songs" chart, with its best position being number 45.
Poison'd! and Live, Raw & Uncut (2007–2009)
On January 3, 2007, Poison announced on their official MySpace page that they would like their fans to help pick favorite classic rock songs for the new studio album that they are to record. The fans replied with suggestions like Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird", Sweet's "The Ballroom Blitz", and AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long", along with Alice Cooper's "Poison".
During 2007, Poison went on a summer tour with Ratt. They released their covers album, now named Poison'd!, on June 5, 2007, through Capitol Records. The album entered the Billboard 200 chart at No. 32 and charted at No. 12 on the Top Rock Albums, selling 21,000 copies in its first week. The first single, "What I Like About You", featured a music video from the band. White Lion was removed from the tour due to legal issues, and Vains of Jenna took their place. The August 2 sold-out show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre St. Louis, Missouri was taped for a live concert DVD and for an HDNet Concert special called: Poison: Live, Raw & Uncut aired on October 26, 2007, as part of Heavy Metal Halloween. The band also appeared that night on the channel's Sound Off with Matt Pinfield.
The band played at the Rock2Wgtn rock festival in Wellington, New Zealand, on the weekend of March 22–23, 2008. The festival also included fellow legendary rockers Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Whitesnake, and Finnish hard rock act Lordi. Poison live at the Sweden Rock Festival in 2008.
Poison played at the Sweden rock festival 2008. The band then went on tour in the summer of 2008 with Sebastian Bach and Dokken.
Nothin' But A Good Time, Michael's health and touring (2010–present)
In November 2010, a double CD package titled Nothin' But A Good Time: The Poison Collection was released which includes one compilation album (The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock) and one live album (Swallow This Live – single-disc edition). Also in 2010 a singles compilation Poison: 10 Great Songs The Millennium Collection was released featuring all the singles from the band's first two studio albums. The album charted at #14 on the Top Hard Rock Albums, #40 on the Top Rock Albums, and #145 on the Billboard 200.
On March 1, Poison announced a 2011 Summer tour with Mötley Crüe and New York Dolls to celebrate Poison's 25th anniversary and Mötley Crüe's 30th anniversary named the Glam-A-Geddon. Also for Poison's 25th anniversary, 35 of the multi-platinum band's top hits and fan favorites have been gathered for Double Dose: Ultimate Hits, a new career-spanning 2-CD and digital collection, which was released May 3, 2011, by Capitol/EMI. The compilation charted at #23 on the Billboard Top Hard Rock Albums chart and #17 in Canada.
In May 2020, Bret Michaels finally released his long-awaited autobiography, Bret Michaels: Auto-Scrap-ography Volume 1: My Life in Pictures & Stories, which features select photos and stories collected over his 35+ year career including as the lead singer of Poison and as a solo artist. The book is the first in a series of trilogies.[49] The book was initially set to be titled Roses & Thorns when Michaels first started working on the project and was set to be released in 2010 but kept being pushed back to include more chapters.[50] In 2019 Michaels announced the book would be released in 2020 and would be titled Unbroken: My Life in Pictures & Stories to coincide with his latest single release "Unbroken".[51] Bret Michaels: Auto-Scrap-ography Volume 1: My Life in Pictures & Stories has sold well and is headed into its 5th printing.
COOL - Poison is set to tour as an opening act for Mötley Crüe (GLAD TO HEAR THEY WILL BE PERFORMING BACK ON STAGE) and Def Leppard with Joan Jett for The Stadium Tour in 2022. The tour was originally scheduled for the summer of 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I PULLED MOST OF THIS FROM THE - WIKIPEDIA - SITE. GOOD TO LOOK THINGS UP ON.
I LIKE MOST - DESPITE DOCTOR-INDUCED AMNESIA IN 1974 & HEAD TRAUMA INJURY AMNESIA IN 1992 DUE TO "NERCARDO", - DO GOOD TO REMEMBER WHAT I CAN OF THE RELEVANT FACTS OF LIFE, BECAUSE "FACE IT" MOST DAYS ARE JUST DULL BORING DAYS, WITH NO REAL PIZZAZZ TO EVERYDAY LIFE, EXCEPT FOR THOSE PERSONAL MOMENTS, MOST OF LIFE IS A ROUTINE, FOR THE MOST PART. FOR MANY/MOST - LIFE IS JUST HARDCORE LABOR OF LOVE FOR THE GOOD TIMES, THE GOOD MOMENTS.
THANKS TO WIKIPEDIA FOR THE FACTUAL BIOGRAPHICAL INFO
& MY PERSONAL HISTORY OF LISTENING TO THIS BAND.
ALWAYS WANTED TO BE ABLE TO GO SEE THEM AGAIN,
MAYBE I STILL WILL GET TO.
WITH FOREVER LOVE,
BY:
DEBORAH "DEBBIE" KIM (G-G-) B-KENNEDY
10/22/2021
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