Alrighty @electric--love and anyone else who’s interested, brace yourself for the infodump of all the knowledge I have acquired over time, whoo. For the very beginners, this is Poison:
Let’s gooo. Here’s all the members:
Singer and rhythm guitar. Some might know him from the show Celebrity Apprentice. Famous for dating Pamela Anderson, their sex tape was leaked and went viral on the black market. He also has his own group (Bret Michaels Band), his bassist in this group is Eric Brittingham of Cinderella. Bonus fact: he’s type 1 diabetic.
Guitarist. Not going to lie, I don’t actually know a ton about CC personally. He was kicked out of Poison in the 90s but is back now. “CC” is short for Cadillac Coupe, by the way. His real name is Bruce. I get it. He’s from New York City, the only non-Pennsylvania boy.
Bassist. The “business man” of the group. He’s also the youngest. Decided he hated both Pennsylvania and Los Angeles and moved to Florida instead. Hobbies include shrimp fishing and it’s something I make fun of regularly (affectionate). Has the honors of being the only brunet in the band, the only one who apparently doesn’t use social media at all, and the only one that wasn’t thoroughly dragged by the Metal Sludge chart.
Drummer. Eldest child. He’s pretty cool, he has a YouTube channel and does urban exploring and ghost investigations and BMX stuff.
Before they were Poison, they were called Paris, and they started in Pennsylvania. When they were Paris, they had a different guitarist, named Matt Smith (not that matt smith) who left the band not long after they moved from Pennsylvania to L.A. and changed their name to Poison.
This is Paris, Matt on the right. Babies 🥺 They’re all *maybe* 20 years old here, if that. Back then, they were involved with Bob Welch (like, Fleetwood Mac Bob Welch) who helped them get started, but also made them change their name since he already owned a side project named Paris. ‘Poison’ may have been Rikki’s idea but that’s unconfirmed.
Once they moved to L.A. and Matt left, they auditioned several guitarists to replace him, including Slash (who refused to change his look), and CC came on board. They were signed to Enigma records, their first album, Look What the Cat Dragged In, was released in 1986. Poison has always had a reputation from critics of being “disorganized noise”, and I’m guessing them titling themselves “the Glam Slam Kings of Noise” has something to do with clapping back. They released Open Up and Say… Ahh! in 1988.
In the 90s, they started moving away from their party glam rock sound to a more bluesy, almost borderline-country-at-times sound. Flesh and Blood, released in 1990, was kind of a mix between those sounds— this one is their best-selling album. In 1991 their “disastrous” MTV performance occurred, where CC, so wigged on cocaine it was surprising he could play at all, messed up the set and it ended up in him and Bret getting in a fistfight backstage. CC was fired and replaced with Richie Kotzen, who played guitar on their next album, Native Tongue, which was released in 1995. Richie had an affair with Rikki’s fiancée and subsequently got his butt thrown out of the band. CC reconciled with the group and came back, and work that was previously shelved was released as Crack A Smile.. and More in 2000, though it was featuring Blues Saraceno, as it was recorded after CC and Richie’s firings.
They’ve released two more albums since, Hollyweird in 2002 and Poison’d! in 2007, the latter is a cover album. The band has had a lot of contention through the years (like the time where Bret threw his mic at Bobby during a show and Bobby responded by whacking him with his bass) but they’re still at it. Their most popular song Every Rose Has It’s Thorn was their only #1, but their first three albums are multi-platinum and they’ve more than earned their spot in the list of most influential bands of the 80s.
tangentwithtanner
yousharknotpass
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