Poisoning Europe The Columbus-In-Reverse Chronicles

Poisoning Europe The Columbus-In-Reverse Chronicles

FEATURES

Judy Wieder

Even though it took them nearly four years to get their first album, Look What The Cat Dragged In, out and onto the streets of America, once it happened, Poison quickly attained the all-time record for rock ’n’ roll overnight sensations. No band has seen their career blow straight through the ceiling this fast, this high and this massively. It was only a year ago that spent the day hanging out with Bret, Rikki, C.C. and Bobby, amidst the clutter of their shared Hollywood Hills shack, trying to figure out why their album was being bombed by one critic after another. Little did any of us know that while the critics were dumping, the fans were buying... and buying and buying! Today, Poison is celebrating double platinum, with over two million copies sold in America alone.

Which brings us to Europe—or should we say brings Poison to Europe. If you think this feisty glam band stormed America with spectacular speed, wait 'til you hear about the havoc one promotion tour has unleashed on zillions of French, English, Spanish, Italian and German fans. Singing, playing and blabbing their way through hundreds of magazine, television, radio and newspaper interviews, Poison not only won over a new contingent of enthusiastic supporters, they’ve returned to America as changed men. While they were confident their deliriously effervescent energy would make its usual good impression on those they came to conquer, Poison was completely unprepared for the impact Europe would have on them.

“Ohhhh, Europe was such an eyeopener!” C.C. DeVille says, swooping in with his Brooklyn sounds and ditzy blond locks. “It really wiped out all of us. When you’re an American band, you kinda think that there’s nothing outside of the United States, it’s just some vast wasteland or something. You know, you’re brought up in school hearing about communism and that Italy is shaped like a boot or something. Then, all of a sudden, you find out that there’s all this rich culture there. The United States is only 200 years old. Everything in Europe is so old, it’s fascinating. Am I talking too loud?"

"The thing about Europe," Bobby Dali carries on, “is all the different cultures. I love America and America is my favorite place to be, but it’s a relatively new country. So it’s really interesting to go over there and see all this stuff that is still standing. Like in France, all the old buildings are still there, the Coliseum (Strictly speaking, in Italy—Ed.) and stuff like that. It’s really interesting to see.”

“And you’re treated differently in Europe,” Bret Michaels, Poison’s most celebrated socializer, explains cheerfully. “When you do the Joan Rivers show or something in America, they put in a lot of money and a lot of time to make sure it’s done perfectly. When you play in Europe, they take all that away from you. They just want to see the raw energy. When you perform on TV or something, you have absolutely no props. You don’t even use a mike. You don’t use anything because it’s all playback and you’re just singing along. They want to see if the band is entertaining just as it is. It’s like ‘Prove to us that you’re worth us buying your record.’ They almost strip you of everything to see if you can show any entertaining ability. Fortunately, our band can!

“They’re no different than Americans in that they want to know all about your musical ability,” Bret races on. When you’re an image-conscious band like we are, they want to knock your musical ability. But we proved them wrong. We proved our band does have a lot of talent. We’d go on and play and really make people smile—which a lot of other bands were not doing. Other bands would show this serious, over-cocky sort of attitude. Not us. So after being skeptical at first, they really turned around and liked us.”

“Yeah, but you wanna know something?” C.C. interrupts with a sudden flight into newfound maturity. “I can’t really blame them. There are a million bands coming out. And a lot of them are very image-conscious like us. But let’s face it: a lot of them aren’t very good. And in the beginning, all you have is your eyes to decide what’s good and what’s bad. If you look at our band and our album cover, we might seem like we’re all image. So you can’t really blame them. However, once they heard us play and saw the personality of the band, hey. ..! The band is in a class by itself, right?! Our songs, our performing, our overall happiness really puts us over. We don’t have that negative, droning, everything-is-bad, l-just-wannadie attitude that a lot of rock bands have. The reason I got into rock ’n’ roll is so that I can have an alternative to the other problems we all have in life. We want to make everything bigger, happier, brighter. And with us it’s not just some happygo-lucky fantasy, fairy tale thing. We’re very, very optimistic. We’re four guys, one from Brooklyn, three from Pennsylvania, who live in a country where people say you can’t do anything—and we went out and said ‘bullshit’ and did it. If you really want to find happiness, the sky is the limit and we’re a testimony (The correct word is “testament, ” readers.—Ed.) to that. It’s up to you. I think that’s what our band represents more than anything else.”

For a split second this lively narrative is shattered with silence. All that can be heard is the sound of four eternal boys catching their breath. But as the words begin to settle like dust after an explosion, new exaltations burst forth and rock the room with a ferocious zest.

‘‘Oh, yeah! The thing that struck me,” says Bobby, ‘‘is how different a lot of their questions were. They wanted to know more personal things about us. Like they’d ask if we had brothers or sisters or pets. They wanted to know if we live alone or with our families. Yeah, and like C.C. and Bret were saying, the image thing got them. They really wanted to get to the root of that. They wanted to know if we were just dressing up or could we actually play music!”

‘‘And they wanted to know about our make-up,” C.C. adds, ‘‘They really didn’t understand about that. Was it a poseur thing? Was it false? We’d have to keep explaining that the make-up is in addition to, not instead of. We’re not trying to con anyone. Right now there’s a real resurgence of heavy-trash-speed-metal. So we’re coming from the opposite direction and they were a little thrown.”

‘‘Every country you have to treat in a different way,” Rikki Rockett talks for the first time (And rather Germanically, nein?— Ed.) ‘You jump on a plane and fly for two hours and you’re in a completely different culture. It’s a new language, new buildings, everything. We really wore ourselves out. We did a shitload of work over there. We did this in-store appearance in London and over a thousand people showed up! We were amazed. We just didn’t expect it. We were thinking that being where no one knows us would really put our egos in check, and then this happened and we flipped out!”

“I think that our experiences in Europe really broadened the horizons of this band,” C.C. insists. “One morning at 7:00 a.m., me and Scotty, our tour manager, went to the Sistine Chapel and saw Michelangelo’s ceiling. This may sound corny, but it was really quite amazing! You do feel the history there. We went to High Mass at the Vatican. I’m not really that religious, but I was there and it really felt good. It felt great. I think a lot of kids read the Bible and find it a turn-off because it's not put right. But if these kids could see Michelangelo’s ceiling—’cause he basically was describing the Bible—I really think they would understand it. They would feel it. I mean, talk about a feeling.. .! Wow! Europe is a lot to take in. Visiting, the way we did, is a change of culture without having to endure culture shock. When you go someplace to visit, you never say to yourself: ‘Oh God,

I have to become like these people because this is my new permanent address.’ You can still hang on to your American customs. It’s a nice feeling, and it was beautiful in that respect.”

While joining other pop and rock groups (Duran Duran, The Outfield, Nona Hendrix) for a festival on a little island on the south of Spain, Bret and Rikki caused a minor panic among the press when they decided to escape the festivities and let off a little steam:

“By this time we felt completely overloaded,” Rikki explains. “We were dying ’cause it’s real rough traveling every day. So what Bret and I did was rent some motorbikes and hit the trails where they couldn’t find us. They were flying press people in to do some interviews that day but no one knew what time to expect anybody. We said, ‘Hell, we’re not going to sit around some hotel room with no phone, no TV, only my little Donkey Kong video game!’ So we rented two Kawasaki 175 motorbikes and just raised hell. For a whole day they couldn’t find us. Boy, were they pissed!”

‘‘But we pulled the band through anyway!” Bobby half-jokes. ‘‘I think what really won them over the most was our fun. We always went bubbling into the room and just had a great time with it all. It’s true that throughout Europe a lot of the interviewers came on not wanting to like us. We had to actually win them over.

But by the time they left, they loved us.

I think it was our fun attitude, never letting their negatives get us down. Instead, we brought them up—and people love that. Hell, who doesn’t want to feel good?”

No one who’s around Poison for very long.