Bret Michaels on bringing nothin' but a good time to a 'complex and polarized world'

It’s been two years since Bret Michaels emerged as the crowd-pleasing star of the Stadium Tour at State Farm Stadium, leading the members of Poison through glam-metal hits as essential to an understanding of his legacy as “Nothin But a Good Time,” "Talk Dirty to Me" and his signature song, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

He's played his share of corporate gigs and private parties here since that performance.

But Michaels is thrilled to be returning to the Valley he called home for more than 20 years on Saturday, Sept. 21, to rock the Pool at Talking Stick Resort at the helm of his solo band in his first proper metro Phoenix concert since stealing the show during that stadium gig.

Michaels checked in by phone to talk about the tour and life in general. Here's what he had to say.

Is this concert part of your Parti-Gras Tour?

Parti-Gras Mardi Gras is a lifestyle brand we bring to every show. We have the tiki hut, umbrellas on stage. It's a positive vibe, all killer, no filler. Our whole thing right now, with the crazy world we're living in, is for people to have a chance to go out and have nothin' but a good time.

Are there special guests at the Phoenix show?

At the moment, the answer to that is always yes. Sometimes it's booked. Sometimes they're just friends of mine that jump up. On Parti-Gras this year, it was amazing. Even though I had Dee Snider and Lou Gramm on tour, one night, Chris Janson walked out. Then all the sudden, Don Felder of the Eagles, who I've loved Don since the beginning, good dude, he walked out in the middle of “Mama Don't Dance,” started playing guitar, and people just went nuts.

You and Chris were nominated for Performance of the Year at this year's CMT Awards for 'Nothin' But a Good Time.' That's a long way from the Sunset Strip. How does it feel to have a presence in that world?

I love it. Here's the thing. I'll go back to the best statement ever. A great song is a great song. I've been on every major country music festival. They bring me in. I don't change who I am. I just go up there with the cowboy hat, the bandana and play all the Poison hits. And the fans go crazy. They sing along because they know the songs.

I can see where the music would work in that environment

It does. “Every Rose,” back in '88, was the first song to cross over from my genre of music. And who knew? I just wrote it because I was brokenhearted, and music was both my happy place and my healing place.

Let's talk about your latest song and video, “Back in the Day.” Did something in particular inspire that?

I spend a lot of time in my hometown in Pennsylvania. And it reminded me, of all things, I used to go tubing all the time. This has played a part in my music career, because of learning how to work with moving parts. We would have to have one car go park at the very end and take all of us back to the starting point. So we would plan it out.

And it just reminded me of a warm feeling, growing up, listening to great songs on the radio. Foreigner, AC/DC, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith. Songs that are still relevant today, even with my daughters that are college and high-school age. They're rocking to these songs. And I decided, look, I wrote my first book about it, "Auto-Scrap-Ography." Let's shoot a video and write a good song. It's the feel-good song of the year. And I need some of that right now in this very complex and polarized world. I just needed some good times.

Do you think putting the 'Auto-Scrap-Ography' project together put you in a more reflective mood?

It did because I'm pulling out pictures. And I realized in a lot of the pictures I'm the same guy, just older. I love dirt bikes. I love go-karts. I love taking long drives, listening to good music, playing music, being good to the people around me.

Are there ways you've changed?

I'm gonna tell you this. I'm as excited now as I was then, and maybe even more so, to go on stage. I like having a great time. And I like people around me having a great time. So the answer to that is no. I'm still the same heart, the same soul, the same passion. Just a little ... I'll use this word — a little wiser. Let's say this. I stick my hand on a hot stove less times now.

How did it feel to watch your life play out in that A&E biography?

I don't watch them before they come out because I'd start to be like, 'Fix this, change that.' It's part of my personality. I want to make everything better. I just had to trust the producers were gonna do a great job. I knew their reputation was great. It was the two-hour opening premiere of the season, a two-part premiere, and it felt really good.

Now, with this 'Nothin’ But a Good Time’ (a glam-metal docuseries on Paramount+), it's the producers from 'Jackass.' They're friends of mine. I asked one question. 'Are you celebrating the genre? Even if it's nothing but a wild time. Celebrate the craziness and the fun, the good times and the bad.' I said, 'Celebrate it rather than it becoming a critical ball bust.' And I think they did. I have not seen it, so I'm gonna pray they did a great job.

Why were you concerned?

Well, sometimes when you do these, like the Behind the Musics are great. They have a formula. And we're about to do a third one of Bret Michaels. But some of them I've had to turn down aren't much of a celebration of the genre. Sometimes, they're just looking to stir the pot. This one, I wanted to take part in because I trust them.

Same with the A&E producers and directors. They were great. They went to my hometown. I showed them where I stood in the slush with cigarette butts in the snow and made my decision to go to California to play original music. And they followed the real journey, not what they wanted it to be.

How could you bring yourself to leave that Pennsylvania slush behind for California?

I don't know, but I sure go back and enjoy it. Maybe that's a little bit of my hot stove. But I just went back and took our whole Mechanicsburg Wildcats baseball team out and played softball. Other than the few pulled hammies, I'm not making that up, we did great. I'm back there all the time to see my family and friends.

But I remember that day in January outside RadioShack. I'm not making that up. I had to go to work because I was a maintenance man. But I remember standing in the slush that morning, waiting for RadioShack to open to buy a mic stand. The old five-prong mic stand. I thought that was very cool-looking. That was the first one I'd ever seen like it, and they had it for sale, so I was going down to get it. I was determined.

God knows, I should have framed that thing for the amount of hard work I put into buying it. I'm like, "Five prongs?! I've never seen anything like that!"

How much time elapsed between that day at RadioShack and you actually leaving?

Two months. I sold everything I owned. I had dirt bikes. I said, ‘If I'm gonna do this, I have no Plan B.’ It's the only way I could do it. Most of my friends in bands would travel a couple hours away to New York. The minute it got tough, they came home. I said, ‘I need no Plan B. We don't know what we're doing, but let's load up this van, the windowless Chevette, and our green Ford pickup truck. Let's load it up, and let's go.’ And it really helped us, believe it or not.

It really made me focus quickly.

How did your parents react when you said, 'Yeah, I'm gonna go to California to be a rock star?'

This is as true as it gets. My parents are in the middle of a divorce, right? They're like, 'Look, you're diabetic. We both work week to week.' And they were very nervous. They weren't sure where I was gonna get money for insulin, syringes, medical care. I had no insurance. But they supported me the best they could.

Did things start moving pretty quickly?

Hell, no. Our first thing was trying to find a place to live. You shoulda saw that disaster. There's, like, 10 of us. A couple of our high school friends, the band, and we're trying to find a place. So, we ended up in the back half of a dry cleaner in downtown Los Angeles. But we could set up our rehearsal gear. We had to work 9 to 5, selling grosses of pencils and pens. I can't make that up. You'd go and find any job you could to survive.

And then for years, we’d go outside of town and play cover shows because in Los Angeles, you had to pay to play. So we knew that the best thing to do was promote ourselves. And then when they come to your show, you'd better be the best audio-visual experience those fans have had so they come back. And it worked. They were coming back.

So some of the clubs were like, "Look, we'll pay you money upfront if you'll make us your only booking twice a month here." And they would have sold out shows on what we called the bad nights. We didn't get Fridays and Saturdays. We sold out a Wednesday or Tuesday. And they loved that. If there was a tree available, we flyer it. If you ever need a professional flyer for anything you're doing, I can run a staple gun and a piece of paper better than anybody.

You shared a message on social media today, saying you plan to scale back on performing next year to focus on your health

I'm just focusing on straightening out my diabetes, just getting it really in tune. That's number one. And also just a little r & r and good personal family time because I tour so much. Some bands say, ‘We're going to go out for 30 days.' A month later, they're done. I'm out Thursday, Friday, Saturday, even Sundays every week.

And it's great. I want you to know I'm grateful, but I think if you thoroughly read it, I had a funny quote that I'm a lot like a, you know, classic muscle car. I thought that was funny because it kind of sums it up. I'm still fast and fun to drive, but I said I just need a little more maintenance at this point. But also, like the stadium date, I'm 1,000%, and I want every show I play in '25 and '26 to be absolutely great.

You've said you're looking at maybe doing a Poison 40th anniversary tour in 2026?

Yeah, that would be incredible. We've just got to work out all the moving parts. But all original members. There's so much planning goes behind that. When I'm out as Bret Michaels, it's simpler because I'm making all the end decisions. When you're in a band like Poison, it's a committee. You go in there, and you figure it out together. You make sure everyone's good. And hopefully, we can make that work in '26.

Were things good between you guys on the Stadium Tour?

Absolutely. I want to be very clear. Other than an occasional throw down fistfight — I'm not making this up — we're like best friends. But there's no gray area. All of a sudden, we'll get in a fistfight. But the next day, we'll go out and play. We'll work it out like a band of brothers. The Stadium Tour was amazing. We were having fun.

We didn't get too many soundchecks. We just dealt with what we were given and were grateful to be there. Def Leppard and Motley, they were amazing. They played great. But we just came out, and we knew we had one hour at 6 o'clock to go out there and give it everything we had. And it was one of the only stadium tours that from Live Nation's lips to everyone's ears, it was 98 to 100% filled when Poison went on.

If we could backtrack just a second, you said fistfights. There weren't fistfights on that 2022 tour, were there?

No. This is early on. There would be an occasional fistfight. Then we'd work it out. And our fist fights, I want to be very clear, they're never over diva items. It's never over Evian water or which dressing room. It's always about what songs are we putting in the set? What would we like to take out? And then it gets tense over trying to make it better, which is actually, in the end, pretty admirable.

Well, it was great to talk to you again

You too. Tell everybody I'm excited. I can't wait to see everybody. It'll be like a barbecue and a concert broke out.

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Ed has covered pop music for The Republic since 2007, reviewing festivals and concerts, interviewing legends, covering the local scene and more. He did the same in Pittsburgh for more than a decade. Follow him on X and Instagram @edmasley and on Facebook as Ed Masley. Email him at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Bret Michaels of Poison says this 'crazy world' could use a good time