~Rikki Rockett~ of Poison!

When I tried emailing Rikki to do this interview..
I thought no way am I going to get a response, not only did I ,
It was right away.. so a big thanks goes to Lori for setting this up..
This was for sure one of my most in depth interviews yet..
along with the most fun...
It was done by phone, and lasted about an hour... Rikki was the nicest guy!
I was extremely hung over from the night before, and he gave me some pointers on what to do,
along with some for what to do the night before to be prepared..
Thanks Rikki again for such a great interview!

R-This was a couple of years ago, to tell ya the truth, the short history on this was basically when Blues was in the band..94' I guess.. we were cutting a demo.. for the one song that wound up on Crack a Smile.. at the end of the night.. just Blues and I were there.. and I think "Young Americans" cd was there.. and we were like ..what the hell.. lets pick a song and do it just for the hell of it..we thought "Fame" would be cool. and we thought maybe the guys would dig it.. so we recorded it ..pretty quickly ..and never did anything with it, several years later, I'm going through my stuff and I found a DAT of it.. and I'm like.. this is really cool, so I called up Blues.. and I told him I'm thinking about doing a bunch of these kind of songs.. and he's like.. look I haven't even heard it.. I'm like why don't you just come over.. and I managed to find a reel to reel.. cause I have all my reel to reels stored.. I transferred it to Pro-Tools..and we mixed it ..then I said lets do a record.. I need you, and I need one other person so I got Chuck Garric who I made friends w/in the 99' tour.. the bass player for L.A. Guns, he was like.. I love this stuff.. so we put a little band together.. just to rehearse the songs, and put the basic tracks together.. so then they went away.. and I was left to put the rest of it together.. basically.. Cliff Calabro the co producer.. and I..

R- And ya know.. Jizzy Pearl is the only guy who can sound like Frank Dimino from Angel.. except Frank Dimino.. ya know.. he was perfect for it.. and he wasn't that familiar w/the song, but he liked the vocal style, and once he listened to it.. he was like.. ya I can do this.. and I can do it justice..

as far as some of the other ones. it was like who does what.. I talked to Gina Shock.. and she sings "Bleeds" in her side band.. and she goes.. oh Rikki I love the New York Dolls.. and I said.. well this is a good song I picked you. "Trash" ..and she's like I know that song.. so she was just all over it.. she said she can be real punkie.. so she did that one.. I mean I'm not gonna go track by track here.. but the one I wound up singing "Life's a Gas" ..initially Roland Boland who I talked to several times. Marc Bolen of T-Rex's son.. really wanted to do it..so I told him he could pick anyone of his fathers songs.. just let me know which one he's comfortable with...so he thought that one would be cool...cause he has a band.. and its nothing like this style, its more like Lenny Kravitz.. so I said lets meet and do it.. a few days before hand, his band broke up and he freaked out. wouldn't talk to anybody.. and I was like ya know what.. I have to cut this track... Cliff goes..you sing it.. I'm like are you kidding.. I don't sing!

R- Well it was one of those things.. and I decided to do it..my idea was not to sing on any of the tracks..cause I'm not a singer... I'm a drummer.. I've been singing background forever..but background is a different dynamic. I try not to have an vibrato. and I sing very straight. for me to sing lead was just a completely different experience.. cause I have to have character in my voice..and I don't have that much character when I sing.. I'm very bland..so I had to really work at it..its pretty cool though. I was like whoo.. this is weird..still I don't like how it sounds, but everyone is like nooo..its fine..its not amazing, but its really good....

R-I decided to do "Elected". cause this was recorded right around the time of Bush coming into office..thats how long I've been working on this..hahaha..so that's why. I wanted to to "Billion Dollar Babies" ..cause I love that beginning drum break.. I'm sure everyone as a teenager sat down at a drum kit..and played it..(imitates drum beat) you had to learn that..it was a givin...ya know ..or the beginning of "American Band" ..Grand Funk. .both those songs I almost did.. actually. Poison used to do "American Band"... now I think Krokus did it.

J- It was really good.. in fact that's the only reason I had heard it before..because alot of this music I hadn't grown up during..but luckily some of my favorite bands... remade songs, and I got to hear older stuff..and I get to go backwards and listen to things I normally wouldn't have..

R-well ya know what was interesting about Sweet..is they were basically the original Queen. the way they layered the vocals..they were a very hetero version of Queen. they were kinda a straight ahead rock band..with Queen kinda vocals.. know what I mean?.. they were the first ones to layer the stuff in rock.. at least this type of rock.. I know for a fact Queen was listening to them when they wrote alot of there songs you can hear the similarities.. it's just amazing.. especially when you look back on it.. ya know..the reason I did this was, I remember trying to help out my nephew he's in a band, hes quiet a bit younger then me.. and I'm helping him out, and I was like ya that part was great, and it's a really great song, but you really should just do a straight Marc Bolen thing during the verse.. he just looks at me like I'm insane, and was like what the hell are you talking about.. and I'm like ya know.. T-Rex.. and he just wasn't getting it..so I realized I needed to come from a different language to come up with a similarity he would get.. so I was like ya know.. people really need to hear this.. cause I hear bands now.. that sound like it.. like the Vines, they sound like 70's rock...its important.. like the Strokes.. oh my god..

R- They loved it.. Bret sang on "Tear it Down".. he did a really good job on that.. and they supported it.. ya know.. I kept it away from anything that was going on in Poison.. if there was a tour.. I didn't want to release it.. I just didn't think it was fair to anybody....actually this would have been put out last year.. but we put out a record.. and toured. this has been done for a while..

J- How about a tour..oir any live shows..?

R-I don't think so...because I'm afraid it would be a tribute band.. and I don't want that.. if I could put the right thing together ..ya know ..I'm sure I could have put together some of the original players.. I met up with Rich from Starz this last summer.. and Sylvain from the New York Dolls.. for the 3rd time now.. I've met a lot of these people.. Alice I've never met, but I'm not sure it would do it justice.. I'm sure at some point.. I'm going to do my own thing.. with my own songs.. at that point I would play it live..it would be fun to do a one on show, but it would cost a lot of money to do it the way I would want it done.. I cant do anything half way.. I'd have to have background singers.. and everything..haha...