Poison's Bret Michaels in Owensboro [INTERVIEW]

In the late 80s, if you were hair band, chances are you had at least one hit, although, off the top of my head, I can't think of any hair bands that were one-hit wonders.

I certainly hope members of those bands don't regard the term "hair band" as a pejorative one. I loved that music, and those guys (for the most part, they WERE guys) knew how to party and how to provide a SOUNDTRACK for a party.

You might say it was "Nothin' But a Good Time" during those halcyon days.

Bret Michaels would agree. THAT party anthem was one of many hits for his legendary rock band Poison in the 1980s and early 1990s. It's also my favorite Poison song.

Who knew when I was in college that I'd get to chat with the man himself one day? In the first part of our interview, Bret talks about how busy he's been and what a blessing that is. We also discussed his philosophy about music--there are no genres, just good music or bad music, essentially.

Over the years, Bret has ventured into country music and has worked on stage with the likes of Hank Williams Jr., Eric Church, Gretchen Wilson, and Dustin Lynch. That was an opening for me to share with him my thoughts when I first heard Poison's biggest hit "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." I always felt like it was a country song in disguise. He did not disagree. And neither did a certain country music icon, who liked it on its own terms, regardless of genre. That was part of the discussion in part two of our interview.

Bret Michaels nicknames his Stadium Tour a Parti-Gras, and he tells me he picked that up in, where else, New Orleans. It's a topic that comes early in the third and final segment of our interview. Later, you'll hear about one of my favorite moments ever in ANY sitcom. It occurred in the 2000s on the medical comedy Scrubs. In the episode in question, two characters sing--in ballad form, almost operatically--of one of Poison's biggest hits. In this third segment, we talked about how that came about and if the band knew how the song would be used.

Here's the clip from Scrubs to which we were referring. The entire clip sets up the scene, but it begins at the 3:01 mark.

To say it was a pleasure talking to Bret Michaels would be an understatement. And I have no doubt, based on our conversation, that fans--new and old--are going to have a blast.

Bret Michaels will perform at the RiverPark Center in downtown Owensboro on Thursday, September 15th at 7 PM. Tickets are available at riverparkcenter.org and ticketmaster.com.