Poison’s Rikki Rockett explained why he’d said Bret Michaels had demanded six times his colleagues’ payment for a reunion tour.
Early discussions had begun for a road trip marking the 40th anniversary of Look What The Cat Dragged In, but no deal was ever sealed, as Michaels recently expained.
In a new interview with Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM, drummer Rockett said the band were planning to regroup in 2027, and that he’d been in touch with Michaels after saying the singer had requested $6 for ever $1 made by his bandmates.
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“By the way, none of this just came from me,” Rockett said. “It’s just I happened to be doing the interview. … All the information I had was the truth, from my standpoint.”
He suggested he felt pressured to redirect attention from himself, guitarist C.C. DeVille and bassist Bobby Dall: “[A] lot of people start assuming things. I was seeing stuff on social media – ‘Oh, Rikki has cancer again,’ or ‘C.C.’s off the wagon again,’ or all these different things. ‘Those guys don’t really wanna work and Bret wants to work.’ And none of those things are true. We do wanna work; all of us do wanna work. C.C.’s sober. I don’t have cancer.”
Confirming that Michaels was right to say 2026 plans hadn’t reached the point of discussing fees, Rockett went on: “Bret’s right … It never did get that far. It got kiboshed at the very beginning. But I just wanted to put a sensible reason to it so that everybody understands that it wasn’t Bobby, C.C. or me, any of those rumors you heard – that’s not why we weren’t touring. And so I have to answer it with something.”
However, he emphasized: “I was told what Bret wanted, and when you did the math, that’s how the math worked out. And I’m not trying to quarrel with Bret.”
Rikki Rockett’s Positive Call With Bret Michaels
Rockett said he’d talked with Michaels that morning, and the conversation had been “absolutely positive.” He added: “We had a good laugh. Of course we talked a little bit. I told him why that information went out, as I just told you…there’s no second shoe to drop.”
He confirmed Poison were aiming to “do something in ’27,” explaining: “That’s one of the things, main things, that Bret and I talked about. … We wanna celebrate 40-plus years with the four of us with fans. … It’s not gonna happen in ’26… but it is gonna happen.
“And there’s no more of a headline to stick out there… I said what I said, Bret said what he said, but today we’re talking about doing something in ’27, and I know Bobby wants to do it; I talk to C.C. all the time. We’re all on board.”
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