Online Exclusive: Tour Talk

Bret Michaels, Poison

Touring with: Cinderella
Tour starts: June 20th in Green Bay, WI

If someone had told you twenty years ago that you'd be going on this tour for your 20th anniversary, would that have shocked you?

The truth is, I would have probably loved it. I'd have been proud to say it, although in each year and with each album, we've kind of lived it in the moment, which is probably while we're still here twenty years later. We get excited; I'm as excited about doing this tour as I was for the Cat Dragged In tour where we were moving pool tables out of the way in the run-down dumpy clubs. Honestly, it was exciting then, and it's exciting to me now. I'm really pumped up for it this year. It's our biggest production, as far as visual, we've ever taken on the road.

Tell me about this tour ? you mentioned the visual aspects, can you tell me more about the whole production?

Each year, I go back to exactly the way I did when I was in junior high and high school -- I sort of plan everything out on a piece of paper. 'Here's what I'm thinking the stage should look like,' and I take it to our production manager and he helps me build this thing out. As a band, we look at it and we build it out into a scenic design. This year, we have a huge screen, and we broke out of our warehouse the old school lasers, so we got some laser effects. Everyone will think it looks like everyone rediscovered the Big Muff Pedal. I remember owning the official Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pedal, thinking, 'Man, it's back, this is awesome.' So it'll be all that ? we'll have the lasers, the pyro, we'll have flamethrowers and all that stuff. I think that really it's our energy, and the rehearsal we do is twofold. The first week of rehearsal is nothing but the music, getting all the music tight in a small rehearsal hall. Then we spend four days at Midwest Wireless Civic Center [in Mankato, MN] in the arena getting the actual show down. Hopefully, come the kickoff, everything will work.

With so many songs in your catalog, how do you choose a set list?

It's a pretty interesting process ? the easy part is just picking all the hits. And then we start the arguments of 'Do we play "Good Love"?', which wasn't a hit. Do we play the 'album tracks'? That's where the arguments start. Me and Rikki [Rockett, drums] have to walk out in the parking lot and discuss it, because we're going to go to blows. We all have an opinion, and in some sense it's probably [argumentative] but in some sense, it's great, because when we finally do it, we take all that pent up frustration and use it as energy on the stage.

There are definitely lots of fans that are dying to hear some rare songs. How do you find a kind of balance?

We're going to do all the hits. If I go see Aerosmith, I want to hear the hits, but I also want to hear "Last Child" or "Mama Kin" or something that wasn't a huge hit, but I still want to hear it. But at the same time, if they don't play "Sweet Emotion" or "Walk This Way," I'm going to be pissed. So I try to use my fan mentality, I say, 'Okay, I go see these shows, I know what I want to see,' and I put that back into what we do. I'm a fan of music, so I think like that when I'm trying to put the set together.

How is touring now? How is it different than, say, 15 years ago?

Here's the biggest difference. I always push to try to keep the band tight, as far as traveling. It's great, because each member has their own tour bus. Back then, we would all try to ride in the same bus, and maybe that was my mistake [laughs]. It produced a few fistfights. We finally found a way to make it more fun, and we're not quite as in each other's faces. We throw great bus parties after all the shows, and I sometimes bring my daughters out with me ? they're huge rock fans. I get a balance of the best of both worlds. After 43-plus years, it's pretty exciting.

So you think that the next Poison tour will be behind a new album?

I hope to God. We did it with Power to the People in 2000, and we did it with Hollyweird [2002] and I think those were exciting tours for me, because we would play a couple of new songs mixed in with all the hits. It was really exciting. I think if we continue, I imagine in 2007, we'll be off, and come back in 2008 and come back strong with a new album. . . . Here's what's cool about this tour with Poison and Cinderella doing it together: we kicked off in '86 with the beginning of our recording career for both of us, and we both opened for a band called Loudness, a Japanese band, in '86. The first time we played together was Santa Monica Civic Center. So it's kind of cool that we're both all the original members of both bands, twenty years later. Who knew?