POISON's RIKKI ROCKETT Shares His Secret To Keeping A Band Together

During a recent appearance on The Patrick LabyorSheaux With Patrick Labyorteaux, POISON drummer Rikki Rockett spoke about why Slash wasn't chosen to be the guitarist in POISON when he auditioned for the band prior to joining GUNS N' ROSES in 1985. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I don't know why it was obvious to us that C.C. [DeVille, longtime POISON guitarist] made more sense than Slash, but we had known him. We liked him a lot. Our old guitar player thought he was the right choice, and he wouldn't have been wrong. But we get two really cool bands out of it, GUNS N' ROSES and POISON. Where would GUNS be [had Slash joined POISON]? Where would POISON [be]? Maybe we would have dissolved, maybe we would have fought, maybe we would had something really different. Who knows? There's just no way to know that."

Asked about the dynamic between the POISON bandmembers when it comes to the creative aspect of being in the band, Rikki said: "As far as songwriting goes — let's just compartmentalize that for a second — we still, to this day, set up like a garage band, and we write the soundtrack for our live show. That's how we look at it. It absolutely is the truth. And so that's how we write, just like a basement band like we always did. But we're not infallible with each other, that's for sure. There's been many times where — and I won't name names of the members because we've all done it — where it's, like, 'I told you that that was a great idea. Look how well that worked,' or, 'I told you that was a bad idea. Look how badly that worked.' I mean, it's all my fault if it worked out and it's your fault if it didn't. And this is human; I mean, we do this with our spouses. But you try to get better about that, you try to say, 'No, wait a minute We all agreed, we all agreed to do this. So whether it was his idea or not, we decided. We didn't get outvoted.' So you try to keep your head on like that."

When interviewer Patrick Labyorteaux noted that each guy in POISON may fall under a different "label" in terms of his role within the band, Rikki clarified: "There isn't any. The labels would change daily — literally. Now some of us, like Bobby's [Dall, POISON bassist] really good at business stuff, I'm pretty good at the marketing end of things and stuff like that. But we all take different roles at different times.

"I'd done one of these band camps recently — not recently; it's been eight months now — and one of the questions was, 'What's your secret to keeping a band together?'" Rikki added. "And I said, look, if I was starting out today, or to give somebody a piece of advice, play in a couple cover bands, learn all those… You have this vast library of stuff to pull from, and go join a sports team. And people are, like, 'What are you talking about?' You need to rely on somebody. You need to know that that's the quarterback, that's the tight end. Whatever it is. You need to respect each other's positions. And the next day you might be the quarterback and he might be the receiver. Whatever it is, you have to learn to play as a team and give somebody the space to do their thing well. That's the secret right there.

"Musicians grow up and it's all about 'me me me me me', because they play by themselves, they're isolated and then they go into a band situation and it's, like, yeah, 'But I wanna do this,'" Rockett explained. "It's, like, 'Okay, great. That's great that you wanna do that. But that's not what he wants to do or he wants to do. And one guy's going, 'I don't care.' And it's, like, 'Oh, Jeez. Okay. How are we getting out of this rut that we're in?' [Laughs]"

Rikki's memoir, "Ghost Notes", will be released on July 15, 2025 via Rare Bird Books. The book was written with writer duo Leif Eriksson and Martin Svensson.

Rikki is the co-founder and drummer for the band POISON, which exploded into the highly competitive Los Angeles music scene in the 1980s, making a name for themselves in the clubs on the Sunset Strip.

POISON has sold over 50 million records worldwide, releasing eight studio albums, four live albums, and four compilations. The band has charted 10 singles on the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, including six Top 10 singles and one Hot 100 number-one smash hit, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn".

Relentless from the ground up and forged in the hellfires of the Pennsylvania and Los Angeles club scenes, POISON smashed its way up as an independent band who bet on itself. Selling over three million copies of an independent album which included the big hits "Talk Dirty To Me", "I Won't Forget You", "Cry Tough", "I Want Action" and the underground smash "Look What The Cat Dragged In", they were soon picked up by Capitol Records and beat the sophomore jinx by releasing the aforementioned No. 1 smash "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Written out of emotion by singer/songwriter and frontman Bret Michaels, the song blasted into the charts remaining a top the pop, rock and country genres for threee months consecutively. The album "Open Up And Say...Ahh!" sold eight million copies out of the gate and spawned other hit singles "Fallen Angel", "Nothin' But A Good Time" and "Your Mama Don't Dance". Followed up by the multi-platinum album "Flesh & Blood", POISON again lit up the charts with several more smash hit singles, including "Unskinny Bop" and "Something To Believe In".

POISON's reunited original lineup — Rockett, Michaels, bassist Bobby Dall and guitarist C.C. DeVille — completed "The Stadium Tour" with MÖTLEY CRÜE, DEF LEPPARD and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS in 2022. The trek was originally scheduled to take place in the summer of 2020 but ended up being pushed back to 2021, and then to 2022, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Rockett was declared cancer free more in 2016 after undergoing an experimental treatment. He was diagnosed with oral cancer back in 2015.

In October, Rikki announced the launch of a new band called THE ROCKETT MAFIA. Joining him in the group are Brandon Gibbs (DEVIL CITY ANGELS) on vocals and guitar, Mick Sweda (BULLETBOYS) on guitar and backing vocals, and Bryan Kimes on bass and backing vocals.