November 18, 2021 • 37 mins
Since his time with the rock band Poison, Bret Michaels has come a long way. Armed with dedication to the rock ‘n roll dream, Michaels experienced the highs and lows of rock ‘n roll success with his bandmates. During the constant high of touring and partying, the frontman battled toxicity, fighting, and substance abuse. Reflecting on the key moments of his life, Michaels also learned perseverance through collaborating with his daughter and hosting his own show, Rock of Love. To learn more about Bret Michaels, watch Behind the Music now streaming on Paramount+.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Are you my friend? All right? I'm doing great. How's
everybody doing all good? Thank you for having me back.
Obviously a lot has changed since. Uh, not only poisons,
but when I did mine behind the music, A lot
of stuff coming at us, a lot of personal things,
a lot of professional things. But I love the challenge
(00:22):
and I love being in the game. He came to
l a armed with relentless dedication to a rock and
roll dream. With Poison, Bret Michaels became the front man
of the Ultimate Party Band and everybody was invited, but
their quest for fame led to personal heartbreak. Years of
toxic behavior took its toll and began to tear the
(00:45):
band apart. When Poison stopped, Brett kept going while his
solo career soared. Brett's life took a sudden and very
serious turn. Bret's believe helped him get back on his
feet and back on stage. Now, Bret Michaels is reflecting
(01:06):
on key moments in his life, giving new insights on
his past, and sharing his secrets to rock and roll success.
This is Bret Michael's the story behind the Music. In ten,
(01:32):
Bret Michaels was looking to channel his emotions into a
new song, so he turned to a unique collaborator, his daughter, Georgia.
I think a lot of people, if not all of us,
go through moments in our life that are really tough.
And my daughter was going to a really tough time
in her life, and I was going through a pretty
(01:52):
low moment in my life. And we sat down and
we wrote a song together called Unbroken, and it is
truly about perseverance. The music video rapidly gathered over one
million views online as Brett passed on the power of
positivity to his children. I love my daughters. What I
try to teach him is is how to handle when
(02:13):
adversity comes at you. Brett Michael's Unbroken spirit took root
in the working class town of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Born Brett
Michael sidechack In, he was the oldest of three children.
Growing up in a small town was an awesome experience.
(02:34):
I had a lot of great friends. Everyone knew each other,
a very tight knit community. I always said that if
all the kids you had were like Brett, you might
have six or seven. But his idyllic childhood took a
near tragic turn when he was just six years old,
I felt really all the time like I had the flu,
(02:55):
completely tired. They took me to Harrisburg Hospital um the
emergency room at about three in the morning, and at
that point my blood sugar levels were extremely, extremely high,
and the doctor just said, you're in You're in trouble,
and this is what's wrong. Brett was diagnosed with juvenile
diabetes and remained hospitalized for three weeks. They were giving
(03:16):
me all these injections testing my blood, had me hooked
up to all these i v s. I started out
taking four injections a day and you're testing your blood
all the time. We tried to maintain that he could
do anything, but he had to make sure he kept
tracked how he felt. A look at it as a
blessing because it made me kind of in touch with
(03:36):
you know, how fragile life is, and to really enjoy
it while we got it. I just accepted it and
I just had to work a little harder. Like they said,
I had to go a thousand yards to get a
hundred yards. And I think that may have actually played
a big part in in my career and truly being fearless,
and that came from my family. The diagnosis did little
(03:58):
to slow Bread down. As a teenager, he began playing guitar,
inspired by the hard rock he constantly cranked in his bedroom,
people like Kiss and Bond, Scott from A C d C,
David Lee, Roth van Halen. He had his energy in
(04:19):
this tarisma. When he hit that stage, that was just unbelievable.
I just knew that's what I wanted to do, and
that focus went completely into my music and it was
no holds barred. In ninety nine, Rett joined forces with
drummer Ricky Rockett. I had this band and we needed
(04:41):
a singer, and our bass players said, Hey, I'm working
at this restaurant. This guy just started busting over here
and he's got his own p A and he's a singer.
I'm like, he's got his own p A. It will
figure If you can't sing, we'll figure it out. As
the Specters and later Paris, they paid their dues crank
out cover tunes on the Pennsylvania Bar circuit. Brett, Ricky,
(05:04):
bass player Bobby Doll and guitarist Matt Smith packed their
gear in early and added for Rocks promised lad the
Sunset Strip. I knew the day that we left that
our lives would never be the same. We literally finished
that show This is No Lie, and we drove to
Los Angeles that evening. You have to get outside of
(05:27):
your comfort zone and the only thing you have is
each other, and and you better have tough skin. You've
got to believe in yourself. If anyone else is going
to we bet on ourselves. I never knew if we
were going to make it, but I never thought we
wouldn't make it. For four boys from Pennsylvania, the strip
(05:48):
was a fun house of decadence and debauchery, a combustible
combination of lipstick, leather, and power chords. The Sunset Strip
in the mid eighties was in a magical and wonderful
time when women wore spandex and the men wore spandex,
and the women wore makeup and the men were more makeup.
(06:11):
Paris renamed themselves Poison soon after arriving in Hollywood. They
weren't rock stars, yet they sure looked the part. What
we wore on stage is what we wore on the street.
If we're going to be somebody, would better look like
we're somebody on the Sunset Strip. Brett met Tracy Lewis
(06:32):
one night in April of eighty four, Brett was out
in the in front of the Troubadour and he told
me that, um, I should come to his show. He
would make me a deal. If I came to his
show and didn't have more fun than I had in
my whole life, he would be forced to take me
on a date. When I met Tracy, I thought she
was hot. I was very attracted to her. We were
(06:53):
best friends and we did everything together. She was there
very early on in my career. You know, she was
supportive of it. I felt that I was in a
really great relationship. We were in love, desperately in love.
We you know, we're kids. Britt's passion for Tracy was
matched only by his desire for rock stardom. He and
(07:17):
Poison were on a mission to build their audience, one
flyer at a time. You had to be smart, you
had to be a businessman. You had to go out
and sell yourself to get people to go to their shows.
We're like, we've got to promote. We gotta let people
know we are crazy, so we make up these crazy flyers.
They worked harder than any band I have ever known,
and as scared as I was. I mean, believe me,
(07:37):
I wanted to break down and cry because I'm like, man,
I got nothing. I'm diabetic, I've got no money. We're
out here with what we've got. Poison worked hard on
their music and we're desperately looking for a record deal.
But the boys from Pennsylvania only found abject property. It
was extremely tough looking the way we did trying to survive.
(08:00):
I'm talking about living with cockroaches a sleeping bag behind
a dry cleaner in downtown Los Angeles for three years.
Like that, we lived true communal living. I mean there
was one pot we all piston it. We don't have
any money. I remember one time I ran out an eyeliner.
(08:22):
I used the magic markert. We knew we were going
to have to work part time jobs, whatever it took
just to survive, to eat. The struggle eventually proved too
much for guitarist Matt Smith, who quit Boison and returned
home in early The band audition dozens of replacements and
(08:43):
nearly selected a young gun named Slash until platinum haired C. C.
De Ville walked into the room. He was the most obnoxious, loud, boisterous,
in your face sell himself, the kind of guy that
you every meeting. He came in late. He didn't learn
(09:04):
any of the songs. Brett comes in, he goes, listen,
I don't care if you've burn back around. You have
to learn our songs. But the second he picked up
and plugged in, he just hit some open chord, you know,
he picked it up and he went on. I went,
oh yeah. The addition of CC helped take Poison to
a new level of popularity. Local Buzz landed Poison a
(09:28):
deal with Enigma Records, which released their debut Looked What
the Cat Dragged In in August of Night six, but
the album was flatlining on the charts until early seven,
when Brett insisted they shoot a video for the single
talk Dirty to Me. Everyone in the nigga everyone was
ready to give up. And I literally said, we need
(09:50):
just to scrounge enough money together and I want to
say five to seven grand, which is unheard of shooting
a video back in that day. Brought all of our
friends and we shot talk Dirty to Me. I just
remember that song got stuck in my head from the
second I heard it. There was just this great sense
of passion. You could see that they were enjoying themselves,
(10:12):
and it just challenged you to have a good time.
They were like, I dare you not to enjoy this.
Between the look, the attitude, and the music, it was
just one big hook to pull you in. Dude, you
can't deny a good hook man. The video blew up
on MTV and the exposure turned Poison into superstars overnight.
(10:36):
We truthfully believed in what we were doing. We were
having a time of our life. Our dream was happening.
In seven Poison had found the right formula to rock
their way into the mainstream. Behind the musical harmony that
fueled the band, it was a very turbulent relationship. At
(10:59):
the same time, there was chemistry. There was a natural
fiction between Brett and I. It was a love hate
relationship of biblical proportions, which would only be healthy because
it would only like try to make us go a
little bit further. That energy, that dichotomy, that is also
what makes for an incredible song, an incredible show. I've
(11:21):
talked to Brett and I've met c C. Very big personalities.
Sometimes big personalities aren't always on the same page, and
the tension will drive you to do something just to
go there you go. It's so patty sometimes being in
a band because they're like, yeah, all right, I'll show
(11:42):
you watch this. I'm not gonna say there wasn't some
truly heated times. We could get in a knockdown, drag out,
true fist fighting, and the next day you shook hands
and you went right back to him. Despite the tension,
Poison's rock and roll fantasy was become a reality. They're
relentless work ethic was finally paying off. When I was
(12:05):
writing the lyrics to Cry Tough, it was exactly what
was going through then, and I keep in my mind
now to this very day, the spirit of Poison songs
has always been looking out on the horizon, and that
comes from breath. There's so much hope and so much dreaming.
One year after its release, Poison's debut, Look What the
(12:26):
Cat Dragged In clawed its way to number three on
the charts, and by the spring of the album had
gone platinum. It went insane. We don't know what happened.
We can't explain it. We once it exploded, it was huge.
It was overnight. I just remember we were touring and
touring it and we did an in store and I
remember it was like a riot. It was like from
(12:47):
like being nobody's to all of a sudden, you know,
ere everywhere everything was just bigger, better now. That really
set up what the eighties was it for a kid
who had nothing but wanted everything. I mean, that was
very appealing. When Poison took their show on the road,
they feasted on their newfound fame for just two rock
(13:10):
and roll dudes. They had a loose party of mood,
oh mayhem, chaos, sure, adrenaline, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
If you can't have a good time at a Poison concert,
they're pretty stuff in the vision. Everybody wants to have
a good time. People w want relationships, they want love.
(13:34):
I think when you go to a concert, the music's primitive,
and that's what this party was meant to be. Then
and now. Poisons NonStop touring meant the party never ended
(13:58):
and the band had no problem inink pace. Probably my
biggest downfall early in my career was I would party
for six and seven months at a time. Everything got
avocans rom explosing, drugs and alcohol go. It was like
a Roman candle blown off at both ends and eventually
it's going to get to the middle and explode. Poisons
(14:20):
toxic lifestyle was taking a toll on the diabetic lead singer.
In March of eight seven, Red collapsed after the band's
biggest gig to date at New York's Madison Square Garden.
I didn't know where I was at, I didn't know
where the audience was. I couldn't think of my name.
He just went down. I was like, wow, I mean
(14:41):
I looked like Tyson ahead or something, and we'll company
emergency room. That's all I remember when that whole thing happened.
You know, the word on the street was, you know,
he's a junkie. And that's when I decided to tell
the world. I said, look, that's not the case. I'm
a diabetic, I'm instla independent. The road would soon claim
(15:01):
another casualty, Brett's relationship with first love Tracy Lewis. The
road is not conducive to a successful relationship. It's really,
really hard. It is very tough being in a committed
relationship when there is so much temptation, all this, as
(15:21):
they say, forbidden fruit floating around out there. I was
having a hard time liking him anymore. He was changing.
It really wasn't anywhere close to the person that he
really was. Britt says their love affair came to a
sudden halt in the summer of nine seven when he
called Tracy late one night from a Dallas laundromat and
(15:43):
heard another man's voice in the background waiting for my
clothes to wash and dry. Used to pay phone and
made a phone call um to my then girlfriend. But
I will tell you this, as a guy who thought
I was in love, to hear her talk and whispering
in to hear another guy's voice in the background was
(16:03):
pretty devastating for me. Now now there was infidelity. There
were two people in the relationship, So you do the map.
I literally hung the phone up and it was an
awful feeling. And so I sat in the laundromat and
wrote every Rose as a Storm. I wrote that song
(16:26):
with no intention of it ever being a hit. That
song was just for me. Every Rose Has Its Thorn
was released as a single in December. The power ballot
became the ultimate eighties anthem of heartbreak and Poison's biggest hit,
But for both Brett and Tracy, the song's success was
(16:48):
bitter sweet. It wasn't until actually I heard it on
the album that I realized, oh my gosh, that's like
a day out of my life. It felt a little
like everybody's peeking in on our heartbreak. When I play
every rose has a storn today. It will always have
(17:09):
that feeling, a bitter sweet in it. That's what the
song is about. Some of the most incredible songs are
born from the most pain, and people can relate. They've
gone through it, they've been there, they've felt it. Obviously,
with Tracy and myself, our lives have moved on in
different directions. She was a wonderful, awesome human being in
(17:33):
a big part of my life. But the truth of
the matter is that song will always be a bittersweet
moment in my life. In Poison released their second album,
(17:54):
Open Up and Say Ah. It's sold over seven million
copies and launched three top end hits, including the party
anthem nothing but a Good Time. The great thing about
that song is that it can appeal to anyone. They
knew the spirit of their fans. They just want to
(18:14):
go and have a good time. It was a message
Brett took to heart each and every night. You're done
with the show. It's twelve o'clock at night in your
heart's pounded and you walked off stage. I shoot down
a couple of shots and I feel great, And in
a couple of shots lead to a few more shots
than you want to stay up, so it leads to
some substance and then you want to go to sleep.
(18:36):
So you take this and then you realize you have
a problem. The whole band was dabbling with drugs, but
guitarist C. C. De Ville was hitting the hard stuff
with a vengeance. We were very successful. We all had
money and everything that you can want, and then all
of a suddens like your real life exceeds your dreams.
And then if you still kind of feel empty, well,
(18:57):
then the drugs, like, let me try that. Maybe the
acid you've got, the cocaine you've got, the booze, you've got,
the women, And the next thing you know, you've got
separate tour buses and the only time you're finding yourself
together is when you meet on stage to play. And
I think that sometimes success can be a disaster. During
(19:18):
the highly successful n Flesh and Blood tour, substance abuse
began to tear the band apart. Tension between CC and
Brett was more than evident. Welcome to the ninety nine
video music al at MTV Video Music Awards. Poison very
publicly came unraveled when a wasted CC made a spectacle
(19:41):
of himself. The whole time Cease was walking to the stage,
he kept screaming to some guy. I don't know who
the guy was, and he wanted to do his solo record,
and I'm like, solo record, what are you talking about?
I'll tell straight out. It was no surprise that CC
had a huge drug problem, and CC was a mess.
He was so high and so drunk and had no
clue what he was doing. His guitar chord comes out.
(20:04):
He doesn't know it. I'm singing, talk to her to me,
looking over, I gotta tell you something. It was a
moment in time when I wish I could just stop
it and and just start over. We should have walked
right up there and said, you know what, we are
no shape to do this. We've been on the road
for almost a year. All of us are partying too much.
(20:25):
CC happened to be doing one substance. I happen to
be doing another, and I'm not sure what Ricky and
Bobby were doing. It was the perfect storm, and it
was a disaster coming from north south East and West,
and it just hit We walk off the stage of
me and cecre in a fist fight. When you take
someone that's your friend and you're physically punching each other
(20:48):
in the face, it is a awful feeling. There's nothing
good comes from it. And you know, that was a
That was the last time bretton Cecy spoke for years.
Me and CC knocked some teeth out. He broke my nose.
He's got a good shot, and he did a great shot.
I got two back, though, so I evened it up
(21:09):
a little bit. But just like all the great um
rock and roll bands and great headbutting that goes on
between singer and guitar player, we took it up a notch.
That energy. That dichotomy was for real. After six years together,
(21:29):
CC left the Bad. His departure and decline into drug
addiction served as another major heartbreak in Brett's life. CC
was literally killing himself and it's painful to watch your
friend go through and knowing that you can't help him.
As poison soldiered on without CC, the Bottle became Brett's
(21:49):
new best friend. We were out hitting the bars almost
every night, bringing home, you know, party after party after party,
We're having a little backstage poison parties in his living room.
I had fallen into a period of my life. I
call it a dark period of the most awesome partying,
(22:10):
and I was filling a void of feeling that things
were changing. Brett's hard partying would nearly cost him his
life in May, after a night of drinking on the
Sunset Strip, Brett hopped into his Ferrari and started speeding home.
(22:31):
He lost control of his car and crashed head on
into a telephone pole. I still look at the photos
sometimes and I look at that car bent back over itself,
or my head went through the windshield. I think man
is amazing him alive. For me, no doubt, the defining
moment in my life, and I realized that my partying
(22:51):
and my lifestyle at that point was completely out of control.
Brett wasn't the only one going down a dangerous path.
After his break with poison. CC de Ville hold up
in his Hollywood Hills mansion, indulging all his worst habits.
He found himself addicted to alcohol and cocaine. It became
(23:12):
the House of horrors because I just like there was
almost like a psychosis, said in It's dark, dark, dark, dark,
dyn very dark. When you're proverbially in the gutta, morally
in the gutta, death is almost welcome. There's been many
times and I'd be like, boy, you know, would be
(23:32):
to die here. It would be a lot easier than
just having to go on. Poison replaced CEC with guitarist
Richie Cotson, but as they toured for their fourth album,
Native Tongue, Brett couldn't help but notice that the on
stage magic was missing. I was looking over at Richie
(23:53):
and saying, man, I just wish Ceci was there. It
always felt awkward. It feels awkward with anyone but Cecy, Poisonous, Bobby,
Ricky Brett and CC. That is poison, that will always
be poison. We had ourselves a hell of Iran. We're
also falling apart in every way that you could imagine.
(24:14):
As the band struggled to bounce back from the loss
of CC, changing trends in the music industry move Poison
out of the mainstream, the media and a lot of
the video programs turned her back. They told us, don't
send us another video. As the exact words they like,
you don't need to send us to us, we're not
going to play it. A year later, Capitol Records rejected
(24:36):
the band's Crack a Smile album. It was just a
bad omen for Poison that they had a whole album
of material. It never came out as a musician. When
you hear people talking about you like you're a product,
like you're a can of soda, and yeah, they're not
worth this much, or they're great, and these are the
same people that loved you. But all of a sudden,
(24:56):
the media changed and the trends changed, and now you
weren't hip Ricord anymore. With Poison on hold, Brett became
the Nashville songwriter, actor, and independent filmmaker. While Brett shifted
his career, ex band member CC Deville was waging a
(25:17):
private battle against his old enemy, cocaine. The tricky thing is,
as you do drugs, the quality of your life goes
Daniel to the point where living and dying it's almost level.
And that's what's scary, because it knocks you down like that.
(25:38):
At the age of thirty four, he finally decided to
get clean by going cold turkey. There's no great ending
to the story. I mean, I just got sick of
being sick, and I just said to myself that said,
you gotta get better. And I waited long enough that
when I said it was time to get better, I
meant it. The fact of the matter is that Ceci's alive.
(26:03):
Ceci is alive today to tell about it. Maybe the
man upstairs has a grand scheme. I don't know. Lately,
I'm trying to make the most of while I'm here.
I'm scared to die, only because I'm scared to not
be to be not depart of tomorrow by Poison was
ready to get back together again. Now that Cec was
(26:26):
clean and sober. The band decided to tour America. We
started talking about going back out in the road and
making music again. And for me, there's an incredible feeling.
It just was a time of my life where I
was just ready to go back out for the first
time in eight years. Bread and Cecy were reigniting their chemistry.
Whatever was happening with Poison trying to make a band work,
(26:49):
there's gonna be drama, But when it's time to go
on stage changes completely. We all come together for one
moment and you go, this is everything that we've been through,
This is everything that we are, and this is everything
that we're going to be, So let's go and give
(27:11):
it to that audience. There is a bond with Poison
and it's unbreakable. As much as we've beating the hell
out of each other, still a love and a bond
in Your true fans. Don't go away what they play
on the radio, whether it moves up or down the sideways.
Your true fans are there with you. And they showed
up and I love them for it. But it felt
(27:33):
amazing to be on stage with my buddies again. And
I look at these clips and I go, this is
awesome and same exact party, you know, for buddies who
grew up together. It was incredible. Their music is real.
We work hard at it and without Bobby Ricky CC,
I would not be sitting here having this conversation with you.
(28:09):
After Poison's triumphant reunion, Brett Michael spent the next few
years splitting his time between the band and his solo career. Creatively,
he was firing on all cylinders, and in two thousand seven,
Brett got a phone call that would bring him continued success.
H One asked him to headline a dating show called
(28:31):
Rock of Love. Rock of Love tapped into the perfectly
symbiotic relationship between rock stars and the women who loved them,
and when the cameras began to roll, Brett was ready
to rock. Being one of the first people to step
into reality TV, especially as a musician, you have to
see the big picture. The show ripped up the rockers
(28:53):
music career, turning him into a pop culture icon for
a second time. All of a sudden, that knew realm
that new world of reality TV and and being an
artist or musician. It just collided. But I was about
to go through a pretty low moment in my life.
In two thousand, Brett found a new experience that blocked
(29:16):
his world. Fatherhood. Daughter Rain Elizabeth was born to Bread
and girlfriend Christie Lynn Gibson. They welcomed the second daughter,
Georgia Blue, five years later. The love that I have
for my two daughters, Rain and Georgia is it's truly
unconditional love. There's no words to quite describe the emotion
(29:38):
of what you feel when you have a child. I
truly understand what it means too when you say I
will die for you, no words spoken, don't need to
say anything. I would die for my kids my family,
Christie and Rain and Georgia. It's a big part of
who I am. Christie and I we are extremely close.
(29:59):
She is any incredible, incredible human being, not just as
a mom, but as a great person, and so we
just everyday make it work. Brett strive to balance family
life with his time on the road, but one night
before a show in Texas, things began to go horribly wrong.
(30:20):
I'm in San Antonio and I had this unbelievable pain
in my lower stomach and I thought for sure that
it was just a flu. I'm like, I can get
through this. Next thing, I know. I ended up an
emergency room at Emergency AU condected me. After successful surgery
to repair his burst appendix, Brett was forced off the
(30:43):
road and sent home to recuperate. I get home, sit
down on my couch, and I'm flipping channels and it
was instant. There's a been to my brain. I had
a so annoying brain hemorrhage. The appendectomy like clot floated
(31:04):
up shot through up into my brain. It exploded. Literally,
it explodes in your brain and there is no pain
like that pain, and there's no way to get rid
of it. I end up in I see you on
verge of living or dying. You're not sure, and I'm thinking,
(31:25):
this isn't just gonna kill me From the pain, you
sort of go into your own form of a coma
and I woke up three days later. After undergoing brain surgery,
Brett was confined to a hospital bed for weeks while
(31:45):
recuperating it lost his ability to walk and talk. I
was driven to walk and talk again. I crow hold
onto that hallway up and down, driving everyone crazy. Because
middle of the night, I just kept going, started to
(32:07):
feel strong, went home, and the first thing I do
when I got back is I picked up my youngest daughter,
j J. And I have a t i A, which
is a stroke. The left side of my body completely
went numb. Back the emergency room and I'm like, this
(32:28):
can't be happening. While running tests, Brett's doctors discovered another
very serious issue. They said, something else is wrong. I'm like,
oh no, please don't what's wrong? Now? They come back
in with a specialist and it ends up I have
a hole in my heart. Talk about a low moment
(32:49):
in your life. That's a low moment. Talk about trying
to dig in and find that inter faith, inner strength,
whatever you want to call it. That that's when you
got to dig in deep, when you're laying there and
it's going to take you and the help of the
great people around you too to survive. I can't let
(33:15):
fear creep in. It's there, it's always knocking at the door.
But I don't want to spend in that direction. I said,
if I get a chance, I've always been grateful, but
you're gonna see a mega level of grate fulness gear
I never even knew was in the car. I got
(33:36):
that chance again and I just let it rock from there.
After surgery to repair his hard Brett was back on
his feet. I am grateful to be here. You talk
about adding onto behind the music. I am grateful to
(33:58):
be here on many different levels. Just months after leaving
the hospital, Brett was ready to take the stage once
again with Poison and his solo bad. I still have
the pain in my brain, I still got the body
not quite working right. But I know one thing about me.
(34:19):
I have to go out and try. And it was
the most incredible show. I couldn't move like I like
to move, I couldn't quite talk like I like to talk,
but it was an incredible unbelievable moment in my life.
You know, when some people say I'm grateful for fans,
(34:41):
I am beyond grateful because they were life saving to me.
Their good will and good spirit was was a big
part of why I'm setting here today. My love of
the fans, it's always the same. I will be in
that parking lot throwing football party and with people having
a great time, and it's about the fans. Brett his
ever stopped writing and producing new music, evolving into one
(35:03):
of rock's most consistent forces. The cool thing about Brett
he does stuff that's a little outside of what he
would do with Poison. It's about being able to share
music with your fans and challenge the way they hear you.
Nobody does it better than him in a lot of ways.
Brett has worked with Loretta Lynn and Miley Cyrus, and
(35:26):
he had a profound musical connection with Stevie Nicks. To
be able to work with someone like Stevie Nicks, everything
I dreamed about what music would be like if I
went to Los Angeles came true. We went to studio
and we sat there and it was one of the
most magical nights in my life. But Brett's most impactful
(35:48):
collaboration was with his daughter, Georgia, who was following in
her dad's footsteps as an aspiring singer and songwriter. I
was having a tough time with my diabetes and I
was having some severe highs and lows and trying to
get it into control. So I was fighting with that.
I was getting a little down, and my daughter was
(36:10):
going through what what everybody is going through with social media,
and I could tell that Georgia was really down, and
we just started writing lyrics and together we wrote Unbroken,
and it is truly about perseverance. I love my daughters,
and you hope that you set an example and lead
(36:31):
by that example. I have a fighting spirit. I don't
want to think that every day you wake up and it's,
oh man, everything's going great. What I try to teach
him is how to handle when adversity comes at you.
All those ups in downas that he had, He's still
just reread michaels Man giving everything he's got that so infectious.
(36:56):
You have to perseverance, that determination, that energy that defines
who you are. You have to take that risk if
you want to succeed. You just have to stay in
the game. You have to constantly face the challenges. You
gotta love what you're doing, but the most important thing,
(37:17):
you've gotta bet on yourself. Listen to Behind the Music
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your favorite podcasts. Want more episodes, you can
watch remastered best of the Vault and new episodes of
Behind the Music only on Paramount Plus
Are you my friend? All right? I'm doing great. How's
everybody doing all good? Thank you for having me back.
Obviously a lot has changed since. Uh, not only poisons,
but when I did mine behind the music, A lot
of stuff coming at us, a lot of personal things,
a lot of professional things. But I love the challenge
(00:22):
and I love being in the game. He came to
l a armed with relentless dedication to a rock and
roll dream. With Poison, Bret Michaels became the front man
of the Ultimate Party Band and everybody was invited, but
their quest for fame led to personal heartbreak. Years of
toxic behavior took its toll and began to tear the
(00:45):
band apart. When Poison stopped, Brett kept going while his
solo career soared. Brett's life took a sudden and very
serious turn. Bret's believe helped him get back on his
feet and back on stage. Now, Bret Michaels is reflecting
(01:06):
on key moments in his life, giving new insights on
his past, and sharing his secrets to rock and roll success.
This is Bret Michael's the story behind the Music. In ten,
(01:32):
Bret Michaels was looking to channel his emotions into a
new song, so he turned to a unique collaborator, his daughter, Georgia.
I think a lot of people, if not all of us,
go through moments in our life that are really tough.
And my daughter was going to a really tough time
in her life, and I was going through a pretty
(01:52):
low moment in my life. And we sat down and
we wrote a song together called Unbroken, and it is
truly about perseverance. The music video rapidly gathered over one
million views online as Brett passed on the power of
positivity to his children. I love my daughters. What I
try to teach him is is how to handle when
(02:13):
adversity comes at you. Brett Michael's Unbroken spirit took root
in the working class town of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Born Brett
Michael sidechack In, he was the oldest of three children.
Growing up in a small town was an awesome experience.
(02:34):
I had a lot of great friends. Everyone knew each other,
a very tight knit community. I always said that if
all the kids you had were like Brett, you might
have six or seven. But his idyllic childhood took a
near tragic turn when he was just six years old,
I felt really all the time like I had the flu,
(02:55):
completely tired. They took me to Harrisburg Hospital um the
emergency room at about three in the morning, and at
that point my blood sugar levels were extremely, extremely high,
and the doctor just said, you're in You're in trouble,
and this is what's wrong. Brett was diagnosed with juvenile
diabetes and remained hospitalized for three weeks. They were giving
(03:16):
me all these injections testing my blood, had me hooked
up to all these i v s. I started out
taking four injections a day and you're testing your blood
all the time. We tried to maintain that he could
do anything, but he had to make sure he kept
tracked how he felt. A look at it as a
blessing because it made me kind of in touch with
(03:36):
you know, how fragile life is, and to really enjoy
it while we got it. I just accepted it and
I just had to work a little harder. Like they said,
I had to go a thousand yards to get a
hundred yards. And I think that may have actually played
a big part in in my career and truly being fearless,
and that came from my family. The diagnosis did little
(03:58):
to slow Bread down. As a teenager, he began playing guitar,
inspired by the hard rock he constantly cranked in his bedroom,
people like Kiss and Bond, Scott from A C d C,
David Lee, Roth van Halen. He had his energy in
(04:19):
this tarisma. When he hit that stage, that was just unbelievable.
I just knew that's what I wanted to do, and
that focus went completely into my music and it was
no holds barred. In ninety nine, Rett joined forces with
drummer Ricky Rockett. I had this band and we needed
(04:41):
a singer, and our bass players said, Hey, I'm working
at this restaurant. This guy just started busting over here
and he's got his own p A and he's a singer.
I'm like, he's got his own p A. It will
figure If you can't sing, we'll figure it out. As
the Specters and later Paris, they paid their dues crank
out cover tunes on the Pennsylvania Bar circuit. Brett, Ricky,
(05:04):
bass player Bobby Doll and guitarist Matt Smith packed their
gear in early and added for Rocks promised lad the
Sunset Strip. I knew the day that we left that
our lives would never be the same. We literally finished
that show This is No Lie, and we drove to
Los Angeles that evening. You have to get outside of
(05:27):
your comfort zone and the only thing you have is
each other, and and you better have tough skin. You've
got to believe in yourself. If anyone else is going
to we bet on ourselves. I never knew if we
were going to make it, but I never thought we
wouldn't make it. For four boys from Pennsylvania, the strip
(05:48):
was a fun house of decadence and debauchery, a combustible
combination of lipstick, leather, and power chords. The Sunset Strip
in the mid eighties was in a magical and wonderful
time when women wore spandex and the men wore spandex,
and the women wore makeup and the men were more makeup.
(06:11):
Paris renamed themselves Poison soon after arriving in Hollywood. They
weren't rock stars, yet they sure looked the part. What
we wore on stage is what we wore on the street.
If we're going to be somebody, would better look like
we're somebody on the Sunset Strip. Brett met Tracy Lewis
(06:32):
one night in April of eighty four, Brett was out
in the in front of the Troubadour and he told
me that, um, I should come to his show. He
would make me a deal. If I came to his
show and didn't have more fun than I had in
my whole life, he would be forced to take me
on a date. When I met Tracy, I thought she
was hot. I was very attracted to her. We were
(06:53):
best friends and we did everything together. She was there
very early on in my career. You know, she was
supportive of it. I felt that I was in a
really great relationship. We were in love, desperately in love.
We you know, we're kids. Britt's passion for Tracy was
matched only by his desire for rock stardom. He and
(07:17):
Poison were on a mission to build their audience, one
flyer at a time. You had to be smart, you
had to be a businessman. You had to go out
and sell yourself to get people to go to their shows.
We're like, we've got to promote. We gotta let people
know we are crazy, so we make up these crazy flyers.
They worked harder than any band I have ever known,
and as scared as I was. I mean, believe me,
(07:37):
I wanted to break down and cry because I'm like, man,
I got nothing. I'm diabetic, I've got no money. We're
out here with what we've got. Poison worked hard on
their music and we're desperately looking for a record deal.
But the boys from Pennsylvania only found abject property. It
was extremely tough looking the way we did trying to survive.
(08:00):
I'm talking about living with cockroaches a sleeping bag behind
a dry cleaner in downtown Los Angeles for three years.
Like that, we lived true communal living. I mean there
was one pot we all piston it. We don't have
any money. I remember one time I ran out an eyeliner.
(08:22):
I used the magic markert. We knew we were going
to have to work part time jobs, whatever it took
just to survive, to eat. The struggle eventually proved too
much for guitarist Matt Smith, who quit Boison and returned
home in early The band audition dozens of replacements and
(08:43):
nearly selected a young gun named Slash until platinum haired C. C.
De Ville walked into the room. He was the most obnoxious, loud, boisterous,
in your face sell himself, the kind of guy that
you every meeting. He came in late. He didn't learn
(09:04):
any of the songs. Brett comes in, he goes, listen,
I don't care if you've burn back around. You have
to learn our songs. But the second he picked up
and plugged in, he just hit some open chord, you know,
he picked it up and he went on. I went,
oh yeah. The addition of CC helped take Poison to
a new level of popularity. Local Buzz landed Poison a
(09:28):
deal with Enigma Records, which released their debut Looked What
the Cat Dragged In in August of Night six, but
the album was flatlining on the charts until early seven,
when Brett insisted they shoot a video for the single
talk Dirty to Me. Everyone in the nigga everyone was
ready to give up. And I literally said, we need
(09:50):
just to scrounge enough money together and I want to
say five to seven grand, which is unheard of shooting
a video back in that day. Brought all of our
friends and we shot talk Dirty to Me. I just
remember that song got stuck in my head from the
second I heard it. There was just this great sense
of passion. You could see that they were enjoying themselves,
(10:12):
and it just challenged you to have a good time.
They were like, I dare you not to enjoy this.
Between the look, the attitude, and the music, it was
just one big hook to pull you in. Dude, you
can't deny a good hook man. The video blew up
on MTV and the exposure turned Poison into superstars overnight.
(10:36):
We truthfully believed in what we were doing. We were
having a time of our life. Our dream was happening.
In seven Poison had found the right formula to rock
their way into the mainstream. Behind the musical harmony that
fueled the band, it was a very turbulent relationship. At
(10:59):
the same time, there was chemistry. There was a natural
fiction between Brett and I. It was a love hate
relationship of biblical proportions, which would only be healthy because
it would only like try to make us go a
little bit further. That energy, that dichotomy, that is also
what makes for an incredible song, an incredible show. I've
(11:21):
talked to Brett and I've met c C. Very big personalities.
Sometimes big personalities aren't always on the same page, and
the tension will drive you to do something just to
go there you go. It's so patty sometimes being in
a band because they're like, yeah, all right, I'll show
(11:42):
you watch this. I'm not gonna say there wasn't some
truly heated times. We could get in a knockdown, drag out,
true fist fighting, and the next day you shook hands
and you went right back to him. Despite the tension,
Poison's rock and roll fantasy was become a reality. They're
relentless work ethic was finally paying off. When I was
(12:05):
writing the lyrics to Cry Tough, it was exactly what
was going through then, and I keep in my mind
now to this very day, the spirit of Poison songs
has always been looking out on the horizon, and that
comes from breath. There's so much hope and so much dreaming.
One year after its release, Poison's debut, Look What the
(12:26):
Cat Dragged In clawed its way to number three on
the charts, and by the spring of the album had
gone platinum. It went insane. We don't know what happened.
We can't explain it. We once it exploded, it was huge.
It was overnight. I just remember we were touring and
touring it and we did an in store and I
remember it was like a riot. It was like from
(12:47):
like being nobody's to all of a sudden, you know,
ere everywhere everything was just bigger, better now. That really
set up what the eighties was it for a kid
who had nothing but wanted everything. I mean, that was
very appealing. When Poison took their show on the road,
they feasted on their newfound fame for just two rock
(13:10):
and roll dudes. They had a loose party of mood,
oh mayhem, chaos, sure, adrenaline, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
If you can't have a good time at a Poison concert,
they're pretty stuff in the vision. Everybody wants to have
a good time. People w want relationships, they want love.
(13:34):
I think when you go to a concert, the music's primitive,
and that's what this party was meant to be. Then
and now. Poisons NonStop touring meant the party never ended
(13:58):
and the band had no problem inink pace. Probably my
biggest downfall early in my career was I would party
for six and seven months at a time. Everything got
avocans rom explosing, drugs and alcohol go. It was like
a Roman candle blown off at both ends and eventually
it's going to get to the middle and explode. Poisons
(14:20):
toxic lifestyle was taking a toll on the diabetic lead singer.
In March of eight seven, Red collapsed after the band's
biggest gig to date at New York's Madison Square Garden.
I didn't know where I was at, I didn't know
where the audience was. I couldn't think of my name.
He just went down. I was like, wow, I mean
(14:41):
I looked like Tyson ahead or something, and we'll company
emergency room. That's all I remember when that whole thing happened.
You know, the word on the street was, you know,
he's a junkie. And that's when I decided to tell
the world. I said, look, that's not the case. I'm
a diabetic, I'm instla independent. The road would soon claim
(15:01):
another casualty, Brett's relationship with first love Tracy Lewis. The
road is not conducive to a successful relationship. It's really,
really hard. It is very tough being in a committed
relationship when there is so much temptation, all this, as
(15:21):
they say, forbidden fruit floating around out there. I was
having a hard time liking him anymore. He was changing.
It really wasn't anywhere close to the person that he
really was. Britt says their love affair came to a
sudden halt in the summer of nine seven when he
called Tracy late one night from a Dallas laundromat and
(15:43):
heard another man's voice in the background waiting for my
clothes to wash and dry. Used to pay phone and
made a phone call um to my then girlfriend. But
I will tell you this, as a guy who thought
I was in love, to hear her talk and whispering
in to hear another guy's voice in the background was
(16:03):
pretty devastating for me. Now now there was infidelity. There
were two people in the relationship, So you do the map.
I literally hung the phone up and it was an
awful feeling. And so I sat in the laundromat and
wrote every Rose as a Storm. I wrote that song
(16:26):
with no intention of it ever being a hit. That
song was just for me. Every Rose Has Its Thorn
was released as a single in December. The power ballot
became the ultimate eighties anthem of heartbreak and Poison's biggest hit,
But for both Brett and Tracy, the song's success was
(16:48):
bitter sweet. It wasn't until actually I heard it on
the album that I realized, oh my gosh, that's like
a day out of my life. It felt a little
like everybody's peeking in on our heartbreak. When I play
every rose has a storn today. It will always have
(17:09):
that feeling, a bitter sweet in it. That's what the
song is about. Some of the most incredible songs are
born from the most pain, and people can relate. They've
gone through it, they've been there, they've felt it. Obviously,
with Tracy and myself, our lives have moved on in
different directions. She was a wonderful, awesome human being in
(17:33):
a big part of my life. But the truth of
the matter is that song will always be a bittersweet
moment in my life. In Poison released their second album,
(17:54):
Open Up and Say Ah. It's sold over seven million
copies and launched three top end hits, including the party
anthem nothing but a Good Time. The great thing about
that song is that it can appeal to anyone. They
knew the spirit of their fans. They just want to
(18:14):
go and have a good time. It was a message
Brett took to heart each and every night. You're done
with the show. It's twelve o'clock at night in your
heart's pounded and you walked off stage. I shoot down
a couple of shots and I feel great, And in
a couple of shots lead to a few more shots
than you want to stay up, so it leads to
some substance and then you want to go to sleep.
(18:36):
So you take this and then you realize you have
a problem. The whole band was dabbling with drugs, but
guitarist C. C. De Ville was hitting the hard stuff
with a vengeance. We were very successful. We all had
money and everything that you can want, and then all
of a suddens like your real life exceeds your dreams.
And then if you still kind of feel empty, well,
(18:57):
then the drugs, like, let me try that. Maybe the
acid you've got, the cocaine you've got, the booze, you've got,
the women, And the next thing you know, you've got
separate tour buses and the only time you're finding yourself
together is when you meet on stage to play. And
I think that sometimes success can be a disaster. During
(19:18):
the highly successful n Flesh and Blood tour, substance abuse
began to tear the band apart. Tension between CC and
Brett was more than evident. Welcome to the ninety nine
video music al at MTV Video Music Awards. Poison very
publicly came unraveled when a wasted CC made a spectacle
(19:41):
of himself. The whole time Cease was walking to the stage,
he kept screaming to some guy. I don't know who
the guy was, and he wanted to do his solo record,
and I'm like, solo record, what are you talking about?
I'll tell straight out. It was no surprise that CC
had a huge drug problem, and CC was a mess.
He was so high and so drunk and had no
clue what he was doing. His guitar chord comes out.
(20:04):
He doesn't know it. I'm singing, talk to her to me,
looking over, I gotta tell you something. It was a
moment in time when I wish I could just stop
it and and just start over. We should have walked
right up there and said, you know what, we are
no shape to do this. We've been on the road
for almost a year. All of us are partying too much.
(20:25):
CC happened to be doing one substance. I happen to
be doing another, and I'm not sure what Ricky and
Bobby were doing. It was the perfect storm, and it
was a disaster coming from north south East and West,
and it just hit We walk off the stage of
me and cecre in a fist fight. When you take
someone that's your friend and you're physically punching each other
(20:48):
in the face, it is a awful feeling. There's nothing
good comes from it. And you know, that was a
That was the last time bretton Cecy spoke for years.
Me and CC knocked some teeth out. He broke my nose.
He's got a good shot, and he did a great shot.
I got two back, though, so I evened it up
(21:09):
a little bit. But just like all the great um
rock and roll bands and great headbutting that goes on
between singer and guitar player, we took it up a notch.
That energy. That dichotomy was for real. After six years together,
(21:29):
CC left the Bad. His departure and decline into drug
addiction served as another major heartbreak in Brett's life. CC
was literally killing himself and it's painful to watch your
friend go through and knowing that you can't help him.
As poison soldiered on without CC, the Bottle became Brett's
(21:49):
new best friend. We were out hitting the bars almost
every night, bringing home, you know, party after party after party,
We're having a little backstage poison parties in his living room.
I had fallen into a period of my life. I
call it a dark period of the most awesome partying,
(22:10):
and I was filling a void of feeling that things
were changing. Brett's hard partying would nearly cost him his
life in May, after a night of drinking on the
Sunset Strip, Brett hopped into his Ferrari and started speeding home.
(22:31):
He lost control of his car and crashed head on
into a telephone pole. I still look at the photos
sometimes and I look at that car bent back over itself,
or my head went through the windshield. I think man
is amazing him alive. For me, no doubt, the defining
moment in my life, and I realized that my partying
(22:51):
and my lifestyle at that point was completely out of control.
Brett wasn't the only one going down a dangerous path.
After his break with poison. CC de Ville hold up
in his Hollywood Hills mansion, indulging all his worst habits.
He found himself addicted to alcohol and cocaine. It became
(23:12):
the House of horrors because I just like there was
almost like a psychosis, said in It's dark, dark, dark, dark,
dyn very dark. When you're proverbially in the gutta, morally
in the gutta, death is almost welcome. There's been many
times and I'd be like, boy, you know, would be
(23:32):
to die here. It would be a lot easier than
just having to go on. Poison replaced CEC with guitarist
Richie Cotson, but as they toured for their fourth album,
Native Tongue, Brett couldn't help but notice that the on
stage magic was missing. I was looking over at Richie
(23:53):
and saying, man, I just wish Ceci was there. It
always felt awkward. It feels awkward with anyone but Cecy, Poisonous, Bobby,
Ricky Brett and CC. That is poison, that will always
be poison. We had ourselves a hell of Iran. We're
also falling apart in every way that you could imagine.
(24:14):
As the band struggled to bounce back from the loss
of CC, changing trends in the music industry move Poison
out of the mainstream, the media and a lot of
the video programs turned her back. They told us, don't
send us another video. As the exact words they like,
you don't need to send us to us, we're not
going to play it. A year later, Capitol Records rejected
(24:36):
the band's Crack a Smile album. It was just a
bad omen for Poison that they had a whole album
of material. It never came out as a musician. When
you hear people talking about you like you're a product,
like you're a can of soda, and yeah, they're not
worth this much, or they're great, and these are the
same people that loved you. But all of a sudden,
(24:56):
the media changed and the trends changed, and now you
weren't hip Ricord anymore. With Poison on hold, Brett became
the Nashville songwriter, actor, and independent filmmaker. While Brett shifted
his career, ex band member CC Deville was waging a
(25:17):
private battle against his old enemy, cocaine. The tricky thing is,
as you do drugs, the quality of your life goes
Daniel to the point where living and dying it's almost level.
And that's what's scary, because it knocks you down like that.
(25:38):
At the age of thirty four, he finally decided to
get clean by going cold turkey. There's no great ending
to the story. I mean, I just got sick of
being sick, and I just said to myself that said,
you gotta get better. And I waited long enough that
when I said it was time to get better, I
meant it. The fact of the matter is that Ceci's alive.
(26:03):
Ceci is alive today to tell about it. Maybe the
man upstairs has a grand scheme. I don't know. Lately,
I'm trying to make the most of while I'm here.
I'm scared to die, only because I'm scared to not
be to be not depart of tomorrow by Poison was
ready to get back together again. Now that Cec was
(26:26):
clean and sober. The band decided to tour America. We
started talking about going back out in the road and
making music again. And for me, there's an incredible feeling.
It just was a time of my life where I
was just ready to go back out for the first
time in eight years. Bread and Cecy were reigniting their chemistry.
Whatever was happening with Poison trying to make a band work,
(26:49):
there's gonna be drama, But when it's time to go
on stage changes completely. We all come together for one
moment and you go, this is everything that we've been through,
This is everything that we are, and this is everything
that we're going to be, So let's go and give
(27:11):
it to that audience. There is a bond with Poison
and it's unbreakable. As much as we've beating the hell
out of each other, still a love and a bond
in Your true fans. Don't go away what they play
on the radio, whether it moves up or down the sideways.
Your true fans are there with you. And they showed
up and I love them for it. But it felt
(27:33):
amazing to be on stage with my buddies again. And
I look at these clips and I go, this is
awesome and same exact party, you know, for buddies who
grew up together. It was incredible. Their music is real.
We work hard at it and without Bobby Ricky CC,
I would not be sitting here having this conversation with you.
(28:09):
After Poison's triumphant reunion, Brett Michael spent the next few
years splitting his time between the band and his solo career. Creatively,
he was firing on all cylinders, and in two thousand seven,
Brett got a phone call that would bring him continued success.
H One asked him to headline a dating show called
(28:31):
Rock of Love. Rock of Love tapped into the perfectly
symbiotic relationship between rock stars and the women who loved them,
and when the cameras began to roll, Brett was ready
to rock. Being one of the first people to step
into reality TV, especially as a musician, you have to
see the big picture. The show ripped up the rockers
(28:53):
music career, turning him into a pop culture icon for
a second time. All of a sudden, that knew realm
that new world of reality TV and and being an
artist or musician. It just collided. But I was about
to go through a pretty low moment in my life.
In two thousand, Brett found a new experience that blocked
(29:16):
his world. Fatherhood. Daughter Rain Elizabeth was born to Bread
and girlfriend Christie Lynn Gibson. They welcomed the second daughter,
Georgia Blue, five years later. The love that I have
for my two daughters, Rain and Georgia is it's truly
unconditional love. There's no words to quite describe the emotion
(29:38):
of what you feel when you have a child. I
truly understand what it means too when you say I
will die for you, no words spoken, don't need to
say anything. I would die for my kids my family,
Christie and Rain and Georgia. It's a big part of
who I am. Christie and I we are extremely close.
(29:59):
She is any incredible, incredible human being, not just as
a mom, but as a great person, and so we
just everyday make it work. Brett strive to balance family
life with his time on the road, but one night
before a show in Texas, things began to go horribly wrong.
(30:20):
I'm in San Antonio and I had this unbelievable pain
in my lower stomach and I thought for sure that
it was just a flu. I'm like, I can get
through this. Next thing, I know. I ended up an
emergency room at Emergency AU condected me. After successful surgery
to repair his burst appendix, Brett was forced off the
(30:43):
road and sent home to recuperate. I get home, sit
down on my couch, and I'm flipping channels and it
was instant. There's a been to my brain. I had
a so annoying brain hemorrhage. The appendectomy like clot floated
(31:04):
up shot through up into my brain. It exploded. Literally,
it explodes in your brain and there is no pain
like that pain, and there's no way to get rid
of it. I end up in I see you on
verge of living or dying. You're not sure, and I'm thinking,
(31:25):
this isn't just gonna kill me From the pain, you
sort of go into your own form of a coma
and I woke up three days later. After undergoing brain surgery,
Brett was confined to a hospital bed for weeks while
(31:45):
recuperating it lost his ability to walk and talk. I
was driven to walk and talk again. I crow hold
onto that hallway up and down, driving everyone crazy. Because
middle of the night, I just kept going, started to
(32:07):
feel strong, went home, and the first thing I do
when I got back is I picked up my youngest daughter,
j J. And I have a t i A, which
is a stroke. The left side of my body completely
went numb. Back the emergency room and I'm like, this
(32:28):
can't be happening. While running tests, Brett's doctors discovered another
very serious issue. They said, something else is wrong. I'm like,
oh no, please don't what's wrong? Now? They come back
in with a specialist and it ends up I have
a hole in my heart. Talk about a low moment
(32:49):
in your life. That's a low moment. Talk about trying
to dig in and find that inter faith, inner strength,
whatever you want to call it. That that's when you
got to dig in deep, when you're laying there and
it's going to take you and the help of the
great people around you too to survive. I can't let
(33:15):
fear creep in. It's there, it's always knocking at the door.
But I don't want to spend in that direction. I said,
if I get a chance, I've always been grateful, but
you're gonna see a mega level of grate fulness gear
I never even knew was in the car. I got
(33:36):
that chance again and I just let it rock from there.
After surgery to repair his hard Brett was back on
his feet. I am grateful to be here. You talk
about adding onto behind the music. I am grateful to
(33:58):
be here on many different levels. Just months after leaving
the hospital, Brett was ready to take the stage once
again with Poison and his solo bad. I still have
the pain in my brain, I still got the body
not quite working right. But I know one thing about me.
(34:19):
I have to go out and try. And it was
the most incredible show. I couldn't move like I like
to move, I couldn't quite talk like I like to talk,
but it was an incredible unbelievable moment in my life.
You know, when some people say I'm grateful for fans,
(34:41):
I am beyond grateful because they were life saving to me.
Their good will and good spirit was was a big
part of why I'm setting here today. My love of
the fans, it's always the same. I will be in
that parking lot throwing football party and with people having
a great time, and it's about the fans. Brett his
ever stopped writing and producing new music, evolving into one
(35:03):
of rock's most consistent forces. The cool thing about Brett
he does stuff that's a little outside of what he
would do with Poison. It's about being able to share
music with your fans and challenge the way they hear you.
Nobody does it better than him in a lot of ways.
Brett has worked with Loretta Lynn and Miley Cyrus, and
(35:26):
he had a profound musical connection with Stevie Nicks. To
be able to work with someone like Stevie Nicks, everything
I dreamed about what music would be like if I
went to Los Angeles came true. We went to studio
and we sat there and it was one of the
most magical nights in my life. But Brett's most impactful
(35:48):
collaboration was with his daughter, Georgia, who was following in
her dad's footsteps as an aspiring singer and songwriter. I
was having a tough time with my diabetes and I
was having some severe highs and lows and trying to
get it into control. So I was fighting with that.
I was getting a little down, and my daughter was
(36:10):
going through what what everybody is going through with social media,
and I could tell that Georgia was really down, and
we just started writing lyrics and together we wrote Unbroken,
and it is truly about perseverance. I love my daughters,
and you hope that you set an example and lead
(36:31):
by that example. I have a fighting spirit. I don't
want to think that every day you wake up and it's,
oh man, everything's going great. What I try to teach
him is how to handle when adversity comes at you.
All those ups in downas that he had, He's still
just reread michaels Man giving everything he's got that so infectious.
(36:56):
You have to perseverance, that determination, that energy that defines
who you are. You have to take that risk if
you want to succeed. You just have to stay in
the game. You have to constantly face the challenges. You
gotta love what you're doing, but the most important thing,
(37:17):
you've gotta bet on yourself. Listen to Behind the Music
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your favorite podcasts. Want more episodes, you can
watch remastered best of the Vault and new episodes of
Behind the Music only on Paramount Plus
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