Bret Michaels looks back on the early days of Poison, 35 years later

Bret Michaels talks to Yahoo Entertainment about his early days as lead vocalist for Poison, 35 years later.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

- It started with the Enigma. I think a lot of artists, because a lot of artists are going independent now and--

- Absolutely.

- [INAUDIBLE] now, could really learn from Poison's success story.

- And when no record label would sign us, I mean flat turned down by everybody, Bill and Wes Hein saw us at the Country Club. We would live in that parking lot sometimes in our van. We had two vans, and when we were done if we had two shows there, we'd just sleep out in a van, get up the next day, go in, and hopefully the kitchen was open.

- What happened?

- They came to see us. And nothing happened at first, so they said, look, you'd have to be your own label distributed through us. And we're going to do this deal together with Enigma Records, and we'd have sign on music. And so we put it together, and the beauty that happened to us is they gave us a great, then unbelievable, superstar royalty rate because they only thought we were going to sell 10,000, 12,000 records. You know what I mean?

So there was not that much money to divide up. It was the thought. In my brain, I'm like, hell no. I'm going for platinum. But the other side of it was the-- and I say this was we kept our publishing and did a great publishing deal with then Zomba, now Universal Music Group, and we did an administration deal. And anyone who knows that and the amount of now, what, 40, 50 million records, digital downloads, DVDs, all that stuff, it's turned out to be an amazing day.

- Yeah, so the band's back then, especially Poison, they worked very hard to do their own kind of grassroots marketing.

- Worked hard. And let me add this. The band's not only worked hard. To this day, we never gave up. No matter how much critical acclaim we didn't get, we never stopped playing.

And here's one of my fondest memories, right? And I will never forget this. Again, one of my fondest is standing out in front of the Rainbow because I had no money to get in, and I wasn't big enough yet or known enough yet to be let in for free. You have to-- to be let into the Rainbow, which was the dream, but I didn't have the money to go in so I'd stay in the parking lot with Axl, and Slash, CC.

And we'd all hand flyers out, but one of my fondest was me and Axl standing almost back to back. Here we are. He's like, come see us. And back then, I think it was Hollywood Rose.

LYNDSEY PARKER: Hollywood Rose, yeah.

BRET MICHAELS: It was Hollywood Rose.

- Tracii Guns would've been there.

BRET MICHAELS: Yeah. Tracii Guns, and he was handing out flyers. I'm like, come see Poison, and we would go back and forth. And then early on in our career when we lost-- our first guitar player went home. His girlfriend was pregnant, and there was no-- we had nothing.

We were living on the floor. He did the right thing. He went home, and he got a job, and took great-- still to this day, great family man. So we interview guitar players, and it came down to CC, Slash, Steve Silva from the Joe Perry Project.

- Oh, wow.

- All of them were amazing, so one of CC and me's biggest arguments is I thought CC was an amazing songwriter and player and so was Slash and Steve. But I said when we sit down as a band, we laugh about this to this day. I said, well, I choose Slash. And then one guy was like, I choose Steve. And then the other guy-- and then Rikki was like, no, no, no, we want CC.

Like, it went on and on, so me and CC to this day, he's like, you didn't choose me. But it was a great time. And Slash, again, everything happens for a reason, everything.

- I mean, if you're going to be chose-- if you're going to be rejected for someone else, like, Slash is a pretty good person to--

BRET MICHAELS: Slash is amazing. And he's a good dude. He's such a--

LYNDSEY PARKER: Very good dude.

- He is just a-- he's a solid guy. But I love-- listen. CC was meant to be Poison and Slash with Guns N' Roses. And Steve then with the Joe Perry. Like, it all worked out to where it was supposed to go, but it was just a-- you know.

- I mean, it wouldn't fit the song. It'd be like, Slash, pick up that guitar.

- You have to, CC, pick up that guitar and talk to me. That's the only way it works.

- Yeah.

- (SINGING) CC, pick up that guitar and talk to me.

- If you weren't gigging, you were flyering. You were working 10 jobs.

- Absolutely.

- You were living in an apartment on Yucca.

BRET MICHAELS: Yeah, if you were lucky, but we weren't that lucky. We were way downtown.

- You weren't even on Yucca?

- We were not-- we loved Yucca. That was our goal. That was the dream if you got to Yucca, so you know where we were at. Poison was at the-- look, I got chills. Poison was way down-- way, way, down downtown, and we were living behind a dry cleaner.

And then, eventually, we got our Orange Drive/Yucca apartment, where there was, like, 92 of us lived in a one bedroom apartment. It was unbelievable. And let me say this. The one thing all the members of Poison and our crew what we did is we lived behind a dry cleaner way-- when I say this, I'm not kidding you. They only used half of it.

And they said, you guys can sleep in the back of this dry-- this is no lie-- in the back of the dry cleaner. The greatest thing about us is we had all of our gear around us. All of us had each other's back, and what was amazing about it is that we bet-- the most important thing to tell people is bet on yourself. You got to bet on yourself. That was all we knew.

And I say this talking about flyers, the flyer wars-- me and Axl would stand out there, and Slash, at the Rainbow parking lot. Come see us. No. Come see us. So one day, I looked around. This is no lie.

Here's another blessing. It's now a merchandise color called Poison green. This is a true story. We went to Sir Speedy. We had very little money.

They said we can't give you white. All these bands come in and pay top dollar for white. They pay top dollar for yellow. And I'm like, oh, man. And they said, we have a whole lot of this ugly green, fluorescent green back here.

And we looked at it. We're like, yes, this is our-- the actual Poison greens we would post up, everyone would notice them because they stuck out of every single other flyer. So by pure accident, we ended up with Poison green, and then it became our shirts, our merchandise, everything.

- I know what color you're talking about now.

- And that's a lighter version.

- This Poison green?

- Yeah, that's a little lighter version. Ours is a little more fluorescent, but, yes, you're close to the Poison green.

- I can envision it. Well, the story you tell me is interesting because I remember that era of LA metal when LA was the epicenter of everything--

BRET MICHAELS: Absolutely.

- --I don't know if it was a media created thing, but I was always under the impression at that time that Guns N' Roses and Poison were enemies or at least frenemies, rivals.

- I'd say we were frenemies. Never enemies. Like, to this day, you know what happens is, just like everything, it made-- controversy sold magazines. And so here we'd be-- you know, I'd be down at the record plant hanging with the Axl talking about life and being on the road. We'd be here with Slash.

You'd see each other, but there is no doubt we were both mega competitive. So Motley broke out of the scene. Then Poison broke out of the scene. Then GNR was right behind us. I think, without a doubt, there is a competitiveness in all of us. All of us want to sell the records and stuff, but then you realize with music, music is for the ears of the beholder.

And I was one of those guys. I'm not-- you know me in this sense. Not a bitter guy. I don't put people down. It's not my thing.

And if people like you, they're going to like you, and I realized quickly they can also like GNR, Metallica, Nirvana. You know what I'm saying? It all fits. It all works.

- One thing is I've always said that whether you like that music or not, that's up to anyone's taste. No one could say that these bands didn't work fricking hard.

- Me being diabetic, you know, this was already a challenge, and living out there, no money, no food. And you know the club scene is in LA. Back then, you paid to play, so we would go down to Orange County. We'd go to all these bars, and we would play every place that would let us play Tuesday through, like, Friday. And we would just play a couple of sets of cover stuff, and then the last set of the night was originals.

And that's what we did. We survived any way we could find to go work any kind of job here, grab this there, whatever. And a lot of fans-- I go back to this. A lot of fans, they'd come down. Even if they brought us a pizza, we would make that pizza last for literally close to a week.

You know, we'd ration out pieces, and I'd lower my insulin so I wouldn't get-- you know. It was-- when I say it, but to me, it was some of the best times in my life. I didn't know any better. It was like going to college to me, and so I loved it.

(SINGING) Don't need nothing but a good time. How can I resist?