On a hot Los Angeles afternoon a few months ago, Poison drummer Rikki Rockett called in to talk about his early days in rock & roll. Although Poison has been given much flak over the years for their pop-metal type of music, it cannot be denied they are good at what they do. Beloved by thousands of fans world-wide, their records sales are in the millions and they sell out concerts wherever they play.
Rikki, I want to start off by asking you where you grew up?
I was born and raised in central Pennsylvania; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Your closest biggest city is Philadelphia and Harrisburg is the capitol. And that’s where I grew up, all the way up till I moved to Los Angeles. So twenty-two years.
What were you like growing up?
I think I was a pretty good kid, you know. I was always interested in something. There was always some kind of a project I was interested in so my mom used to say it always drove her crazy cause I was always in the basement making noise and all that kind of stuff. At least it was nice because I was home a lot, you know. I went through phases where I got into trouble but I was never this horrible kid.
I read where you built a rocket awhile back. Were you like a science nerd kid in school or did you just like blowing up stuff?
You know, honestly, I did like blowing up stuff. But it was weird cause I liked model rocketry when I was a kid but I didn’t get involved in that again until many years later when I lived out here on the west coast and then that wasn’t bottle rocketry anymore, that was like the next level like amateur rocketry. Not for kids (laughs). I launched a three hundred pound rocket five thousand feet on a motor that would lift a Volkswagen up in the air probably a good hundred feet. But after 9-11 and stuff like that it became very hard to do that stuff. Just to own those motors is just a whole problem now.
Were you good in school?
Honestly, I didn’t like school. I certainly wasn’t dumb. I was a fairly smart kid and I was really good in like the sciences and stuff like that but I didn’t like the structure of school. I knew what I wanted to do at an early age. I knew I wanted to play in a rock band and there’s no way to major in that (laughs) so I felt like I was just doing time pretty much. So I just didn’t care for it that much. I didn’t love school. I pretty much couldn’t wait to graduate and I did graduate.
You are a longtime animal rights advocate so you must have this deep love for animals that probably goes way back. So tell me about an early special pet and then tell us more about your Last Chance For Animals organization that you’re involved with.
I had a dog growing up and his name was Tony and he lived to be pretty old, I think he was sixteen or something. I don’t know at what age we got him but I want to say I was probably eight or ten years old. So most of the time I was growing up we had that dog.
As far as my animal rights stuff, the main motivation for that is I don’t like bullies, never liked bullies, and most of the time the animal rights stuff that I’ve selected to be involved with are topics where I feel like the animals are being bullied, like pit pull fighting and animal experimentation and all that kind of stuff. And to me, that’s just another form of bullying and I just decided early on that I wanted to do something about that. I’ve been a celebrity spokesperson for them for years and I’ve done a lot of work for them. In fact, I was just in Austin, Texas, and we did Puppy Mill Awareness Day there. I started doing that in Pennsylvania in Lancaster County because I felt like it was my backyard sort of and that’s where a big density of those puppy mills are. So I figured that would be a great place to start. But we did it in Austin the last couple of years because it’s a very dog-friendly city and a lot of people are willing to listen so it was a good place to host that.
But you know, animals get to me from two different aspects. Sometimes people are involved in animal welfare and animal rescue because they really love animals and like to be around them. Then a lot of people are involved in animal rights cause it comes from a moral and ethical place, but I’m kind of like both. I really love animals, I like being around them and I’m kind of from the ethical and moral standpoint. I feel strongly about it from that angle as well. So they got me on their side from both angles (laughs).
We need more people out there who have hearts. We need to raise our children that way to where they care about other people and animals and the environment.
Absolutely and you can’t do one without the other. A lot of people will come to me and say, “Well, don’t you care about battered women?” or “Don’t you care about children that are starving or children that are dying from diseases?” And the answer to that is absolutely I do. I can’t remember in recent memory where somebody didn’t ask me, “Hey, can you donate something from your drum company or sign something or do something” for this or that or whatever it might be and I always do. I just have chosen to work with the animals. There are some awesome people for the other stuff but we need to help each other out and not draw lines in the sand and go, “I’ll do this but you should really do that”. Everybody just works together and raises a collective conscience.
Well, let’s talk about music. When did you start playing drums?
I was twelve when I first started playing drums
When did you get your first drum kit?
Well, I banged on stuff till I was twelve and then my parents bought me a drum kit for $50 from my brother-in-law who wasn’t my brother-in-law at the time but later my sister married him (laughs). So I always say I started playing drums when I got an actual drum kit cause before that I was just banging on stuff.
I bet your mom loved that.
You know what? My parents were pretty supportive about stuff. My dad played trumpet and a big thing that we would play along to was Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. We had this set of Bongo drums and I would pound on those and my dad would play trumpet. Then my mom would put on a musical or put on Elvis or my sister would put on the Beatles. Everybody had their music so I was exposed to all that stuff. They were all pretty tolerant of it, you know.
What was the first band that you fell in love with?
Honestly, it was probably like the Banana Splits or something like that (laughs). Like on TV, know what I mean? That was like my first exposure to something playing an instrument (laughs) because it really wasn’t a person, it was a person in an outfit. So that was the first visual I ever had. My family used to watch American Bandstand and my Grandparents used to watch Lawrence Welk, so believe it or not I fell in love with those orchestras and stuff. But I knew that was not what I wanted to do because they’d have these special guests on there and the special guests would always be pop artists. So it was always the pop artists that I waited to see so I’d kind of sit through the champagne orchestra stuff until they would get to those guests.
Do you remember the first album that you bought?
Yes, the first album that I ever bought with my own allowance from cutting grass was Deep Purple Made In Japan and it was Deep Purple that ruined me for life. I had all of these sort of milk and toast kind of musical influences up till then, like Herb Alpert and Lawrence Welk, like I mentioned, and then I got exposed to rock & roll and Deep Purple was the first one. I think Alice Cooper was the next thing that took me down to the next level (laughs). After that, that was the end of it. I think I terrified my parents after that (laughs). I’d run around with eye make-up on and have it drenched down my face looking like Alice.
Well, things haven’t changed much, Rikki, just maybe no heavy black eyeliner.
Oh it’s there (laughs)
Do you remember the first concert that you went to?
The first concert I ever went to was Herb Alpert at the Allentown Fair and the first rock concert I ever went to was Johnny Winter and Brownsville Station opened for him. It was the year “Smokin’ In The Boys Room” was a hit. So I’m totally dating myself (laughs). I don’t remember how old I was but I remember my sister took me and I had to beg her to take me cause she really didn’t like being stuck with her younger brother. But the guy that she went with really liked me and thought I was a neat kid. So he’s like, “Hey, he’s no bother. He likes rock & roll and all that stuff.” So he thought I was cool but to my sister I was just a pain in the ass little brother.
Do you remember the first band you were in?
Yeah, I was in a band called the GTO’s. All of us thought GTO cars were cool so we thought that would be perfect for a band. Then the second band I was in was called Cream Cheese Elevator and it was me, Lee and Scott, all from my neighborhood and on top of a picnic table was our stage. I was young (laughs) I don’t even remember how old I was. I know I have a picture somewhere, packed away.
Did everybody in the neighborhood come to see you play?
Yeah, we got the whole neighborhood to pay fifty cents to come see us and then our neighbor who broke his leg, we donated money to him to get his cast, which probably helped pay for like one percent of it (laughs). Yeah, my first concert was a benefit. And we had this kid down the street and he Xeroxed these pieces of paper with his name scrawled on it and he said he was our manager. So we’d tell everyone they had to call him.
Oh I bet you guys thought you were it.
Yeah, we did. It was pretty cool (laughs)
Were you playing drums in those bands?
You know what? The very first band I was in I actually played guitar because my dad was a taxi driver and a guy couldn’t pay his fare one day so he gave my dad a guitar so my dad wouldn’t call the cops on him. So I was the one with a guitar but I didn’t like playing it. So I said, “Listen, we got to start the band over again and I don’t want to play guitar”. And that’s when we started Cream Cheese Elevator.
How did Poison come about?
Bret and I were in a band prior to Poison and we played for a couple of years in the tri-state area. We had to play under-21 clubs and fire halls and stuff like that because we weren’t of age yet. And we were kind of doing all the work, booking everything, and the other two members just complained about everything. So we just decided to start what would become Poison and Bobby Dall was the first member we recruited. We had another guitarist at the time named Matt Smith and we played for a couple of years a lot of those same places but we kind of took it up a notch so we were able to play better places by the time we put that band together. And we were a little bit older too. Then we finally moved out to Los Angeles together as a band.
What is the one thing you remember most about being out on the LA Strip with all the other bands trying to make it?
Trying to figure out how to not pay to play. That was our biggest thing. We hated that. We didn’t understand how that worked but we figured out how to do it. We just realized a lot of bands just weren’t able to pull it off because they didn’t work as hard as we did at that task. And what we would do is we would play in the outskirts of Los Angeles where we got paid, where we would do our top 40 stuff, and then we’d sell tickets and the only way you could go see us play our originals was to buy the tickets to come see us in Hollywood. That’s how we started to sell tickets. I think once we started to sell tickets, and I think the minimum was forty tickets, once we started to bring fifty or sixty or a hundred people in the door they didn’t make us sell tickets anymore. Then when we started to sell out like twice in one night at the Troubadour, that’s when we got our apartment paid for.
When was THE moment when you realized you were famous?
I remember in Hollywood on November 12, 1986. Because everybody thought we only had support acts on the bill with us that would help draw people and we decided to bring a bunch of bands in that didn’t have anything to do with us. One was a death rock band and one was like this acoustic thing called Two guys From Van Nuys, just this total fluke. And we brought these bands in and we still sold out and they had to turn people away. We played two shows that night with still enough people to come see us again. We probably could have done it four times that night. And that’s when I realized that we were too big for the circuit anymore.
Do you remember the first real rock star you met?
God, I’m trying to think. Oh yeah, it was Elliot Easton from The Cars. He actually did a guitar signing in Pennsylvania. That was the first rock star I ever met. I didn’t think he was that friendly, honestly. He wasn’t a bad guy but maybe he was just overwhelmed or something, I don’t know. I don’t want to judge him by that one time. I mean he co-wrote all those songs. He’s a brilliant writer.
Do you have a Lemmy story, by the way? Everybody I’ve talked to has a Lemmy story they want to tell.
Lemmy has never been anything but a gentleman to me ever. I was scared to death when I watched The Decline Of Western Civilization and they asked Lemmy about hair bands and bands that wore make-up and I’m sitting there going, “He’s going to kill me right now. He’s going to say something about Poison that’s just going to completely offend me”, and he goes, “I wish I could do it but I can’t pull it off” (laughs). And in another interview he said that we were the best at what we did and I think he’s the best at what he does. So I bought him a drink at the Rainbow one night and told him about that. And he really appreciated it. Every time I see him it’s always been a pleasure.
And you know what I found out? I found that almost every metal star, like real metal star like Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden, Lemmy, Ronnie James Dio, these are people that don’t have this crappy attitude. They’ve always been gentlemen to everybody that I’ve ever heard mention them. They don’t have to prove anything. They don’t have to try to be hard asses or anything like that. They just know what they are, they know what they do, no pretentiousness, and I’ve always found all those guys to be like super cool.
How would you describe yourself?
Myself? I think I’m a pretty nice guy (laughs). I think I’m always nice to fans, I love our fans and I know what they mean. I genuinely like people and I genuinely dislike people, all at once. That’s just being honest, you know. Most people I really like, I like to meet people that have common interests and if it’s usually when we’re playing somewhere, that interest is music. But I don’t always like everybody, you know what I’m saying.
I do want to tell you this one thing, though. I remember Bret and I went to see Van Halen at the Philadelphia Spectrum back in Pennsylvania, and I remember we made a pact that night that if we ever got famous and I ever snubbed a fan in front of him, he got to slap me in front of that fan, and vice-versa. And we’ve always kept that pact. I don’t think we’ve ever done that in front of each other, don’t think either of us has been an asshole to somebody. At least to someone who didn’t have it coming to them, you know what I mean. Once in a while you have someone being just obnoxious and they’re not being nice and what are you going to do? But never anyone who came up and said, “Hey, would love to get a picture” or get an autograph or something and be a jerk to them. I’m not really wired like that in the first place to be a jerk.
What is your all-time favorite album and what makes it so special?
My favorite album? That’s a really easy one for me and it’s Aerosmith’s Toys In The Attic. It’s my youth. I mean, that is literally the songs I got high to and all that stuff (laughs), just all that teenager stuff. I plotted making the big time listening to that record.
Who has been your biggest influence as a musician and why them?
I think the Beatles have been my biggest influence because that’s a band that I’ve liked since I was little and now still. With these new recordings they discover or I’ll go back and rediscover things that they’ve done before and look at it from a different perspective now. So I think that’s probably the stand out for me.
I read a story a long time ago that you were an EMT and you delivered a baby. Is that actually true or is it an old rock & roll tale that’s been passed around all these years?
Yes I was. And I delivered three. None of them were mine, by the way (laughs) I was eighteen years old, eighteen and nineteen, somewhere in there. And I was scared to death, are you kidding me (laughs). The first baby I delivered my hands were shaking so bad I could barely open up the obstetric kit. I was just so freaked out and thank God I had people there that had been through it. Well, one guy had been through it a couple of times.
Were you in the delivery room for the birth of your son?
Of course I was. It was the one and only musical performance I have missed in my entire life, to be with my wife in the delivery room. I mean, I had a choice. Either Fred Coury [of Cinderella] was going to sit in for me or Fred Coury was going to come and be in the delivery room with my wife (laughs) So I thought I’d better do that (laughs) She’d have been more uncomfortable with the Fred idea (laughs)
Last question: What have you got going on in your musical world right now and what have you got planned for 2012?
I have a custom drum company called Rockett Drum Works and I’m involved in that but as far as playing out musically with the band, I don’t have any plans right this minute quite honestly. We just came off this tour and you know I’m just doing Rockett Drum Works and playing Daddy and all that stuff so I’m in no hurry to jump right into something at the moment.
In next week’s installment of MY ROOTS we find out about the great Zakk Wylde, before and after he was discovered by Ozzy Osbourne.
