Early years (1983–1985)
Poison was formed in 1983, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania and consisted of lead vocalist Bret Michaels, guitarist Matt Smith, bassist Bobby Dall and drummer Rikki Rockett
Bret Michaels began his performing career with a basement band called Laser and, then, in 1979, joined forces with long time childhood friend Rikki Rockett to form a band called the Spectres. In 1983, Michaels and Rockett teamed up with Matt Smith and Bobby 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 6 March 1984 and also changed the name of the group from Paris to Poison. Arriving in Los Angeles, the group struggled to survive away from home with no family and no money, but the band was determined to make it.
Rise to fame (1986–1992)
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 Troubador, would pay for shows.[5] 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-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.[6]
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 2 August 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",[7] 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 Texxas Jam in Dallas. The album ultimately sold 4 million copies worldwide. 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, insuring 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 21 May 1988.
It peaked at No. 2 on the American charts and would ultimately go on to sell 8 million copies worldwide. The album included the band's biggest hit, the No. 1 single "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", along with other hits like: "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. By the time the band toured with David Lee Roth in 1988 on the Skyscraper Tour, it was apparent that Poison had become a major live act and the band moved from support status to headlining their own tour in September 1988. As of 1989, the band had become the seventh-best-selling hard rock band in the US of the 1980s, behind Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses, Aerosmith and Van Halen. 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, slapped a $1.1 million lawsuit on 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's frequent brawling garnered him further lawsuits in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Tallahassee.[9]
Poison continued their adherence to the "work hard, play hard" motto, following up with their third album, Flesh & Blood, which was released 21 June 1990. It also was highly successful, peaking at No. 2 and selling more than 7 million copies worldwide.[10][11] 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. In Screamer magazine Michaels explained how Flesh and Blood signaled a change in the band: "I think that the same way that we shocked people in the beginning with the look, this one might shock them with the music a little bit. This one's the one that's going to show that there's a little bit of another side to the band."
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.[12]
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)". The video of "Flesh & Blood (Sacrifice)" was banned from MTV due to its explicit nature, but did surface later in early 1991 in their second video compilation, Flesh, Blood, & Videotape.
One of the band's few appearances in the UK was on 18 August 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, drug addictions, etc. 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. The band also released their first video concert on VHS from the same tour titled Swallow This Live: Flesh & Blood World Tour.