I want to start this off by thanking Rikki Rockett for being funny, entertaining, and most of all, patient with me and my nevousness with conducting my VERY FIRST interview. I only hope that all future interviews conducted for this site go as well as this one and I look forward to speaking with Rikki Rockett again should time and schedules and fate allow. Now on to the interview:
RR: Hello Cynthia.
CI: Hello.
RR: How are you doing?
CI: I'm doing perfect. How are you doing?
RR: Good. Good. Just sitting up here on the 43rd floor of the hotel overlooking Times Square.
CI: Oh Wow. I had some friends in New York Last Weekend and they said it is beautiful up there.
RR: Yeah. It's one of the nicer days since we've been here. It's nice and sunny, so uh, I'm definitely gonna get a chance to run around a little bit today.
CI: Well that's good. Before we start, I was told to give you a couple of messages.
RR: OK.
CI: First off, I was told by the webmistress of Frehley.Net to tell you that you are a God
RR: OH HA HA. Well tell her thank you very much
CI: And another of the webmistresses said to tell you she thinks you're wonderful and she can't wait to see you. She is driving from Georgia to Birmingham to see you on May 29th.
RR: Oh Awesome. Awesome. Well I'll tell you. We were just talking about this a few days ago, how Birmingham is the best kept secret in the United States for beautiful women. I mean it really is. You always hear about "Oh well, South Beach, FL or CA." No. Birmingham. And I mean that. And I don't say that you know. Get me a witness, but I'm telling ya I don't say that.
CI: Well there are definitely beautiful people here.
RR: MMM HMM.
CI: And Birmingham has a tendency to get a bad rap.
RR: Well, you know what, so what. We know the truth. HA HA HA.
CI: Exactly. I agree. Also, If there is a possibility when you are here on May 29th, is there a way possibly, if it's not, that's fine, to get a photo to go along with this interview?
RR: Um, Yeah. We could do something.
CI: Okay. Great, because we will be there.
RR: Oh, Now as far as the whole band, I can't. That you're gonna frustrate yourself trying to make that happen. But as far as me, I'm sure, you know I can do it. I can speak for myself but not for the band. You know what I'm saying?
CI: I definitely understand and I appreciate it. They will be tickled. Do you know how many people are gonna try to break my neck to get back there to take the photo?
RR: (Laughs) I don't know. Well get security for you.
CI: Wonderful. Thank you.
CI: Well now I have broken these questions up into several different categories. And if there are any you don't want to answer, please be perfectly okay not to answer
RR: OK.
CI: What was it like coming to L.A. from Pennsylvania? Did you or the other members suffer from culture shock?
RR: Um, well first of all, um God, what was it like? You know what, some of this is answered actually believe it or not, in the new record, Hollyweird, which is the first time we've really reflected back on some of our experiences when we moved to L.A. You know. And you know you meet good people and you meet bad people and unfortunately when you're struggling, and you are from a small town like we are in Central Pennsylvania, you know sometimes you're not so street wise. There's street wise in a different way. Every city has its little pitfalls. I don't care where you are. And so Hollyweird is actually a kind of state of mind you know what I mean, because it could be any city. But in our personal experience, you know, the culture shock of moving to a place like that was just, was immense, but we were a hard working band that took it upon ourselves to build all our own stuff and promote ourselves and everything like that and you know what, no matter where you are, I think that gets recognized. You know what I'm saying? It doesnt matter if you're in New York or L.A. or Chicago or Detroit or wherever. You know, if you work hard and you're doing what you do and you keep that bulls eye in focus all the time, you wont fall to the way side trying, you know, getting there as long as you keep your eye on the prize. You know what I mean?
CI: I do.
CI: What will people see on the Hollyweird Tour? What is going to be different on this tour vs. all of the others in the past?
RR: Well first of all, we have a slew of new songs and a new way of putting our set with the older songs and the newer songs. Um, we've redone our staging entirely. It looks like a city, you know, and I have a new drum kit out there. Actually, a kit I completely redid. And um, you know it's just a whole different approach. We're taking some new things out. We're doing things differently. Putting things in a different order and you know, new songs and new revitalized, injected stuff that were bringing out there.
CI: Okay. Well, tell me about your drum kit. Describe what it looks like, the model, that type of thing.
RR: Right. Well what I did was, I'm using Innovation Drums out of Detroit and its still the worlds only titanium kit thats running around out there on tour and what we did was etched it and then we started to use transparent auto paint, flames and then did some portraiture of like old Hollywood monster stars, Creature From the Black Lagoon, Dracula, stuff like that and it's all done in the green paint, you know, and then cleared it and put new hardware on it and we're off to the races and it really looks cool. It's on the website actually on my own website, www.rikkirockett.com
CI: Thats great. I saw that and I wasn't sure if that was the one you were carrying.
RR: Yeah that's the one. I wasn't able to use it on Regis the other day cause I had to have another kit out here on the East Coast to do that show, but for everything else, that's what I'm using.
CI: It said that your idea was to use "Squeeze Box" on your album. How do you, and the band in particular, decide which cover tunes to use on your albums?
RR: Well you know what, this is what we did. Each guy picked two songs and we kinda threw it in the kitty and you know we figured them out and played them and this is the one that sounded most like Poison. It just rolled very easy. With that we don't need to go any further. This works. This is fun. And oddly enough, it was my pick, which was cool. So that's what we wound up going with. It presented quite the challenge for me though. Keith Moon is not only an icon, but he's a big hero of mine from the Who. The drummer from the Who, so it was like, How am I gonna do this song any justice? And I just went, You know what, I'm not gonna try to be Keith. I can't be Keith. I just gotta be the best damn Rikki Rockett drummer there is and just do it my way. So that's what we did. Approach it like that. At first I was nervous. I said I was gonna get killed on this, you know, and it's like, you know, we just Poisonized it and that's what we did. And so that's what you get.
CI: Are you at all overcome with the continued and cult-like following of Poison fans that have supported the band from the very beginning?
RR: Yeah. I am. I tell you what I'm overwhelmed with. I'm a little overwhelmed with the whole idea, you know, that on one hand, we do have a cult following and on the other hand, we're a band that never, we didn't, well its weird. It's like we had a cult following because we were on an Indy label and we built our career like that, you know, through touring and then, you know, then suddenly we became MTV babies and you know, we had all these top ten and top forty hits and then suddenly that well kinda got yanked out from underneath us and we're still standing. And it's because of how we approached our career from the beginning, which was, you know, a live rock band that goes out there and tours and entertains people. That's what we do and I think that's what's shown through so you know it's nice to have the extra stuff but it wasn't, we didnt have to have it and I think that's what's given us a longevity you know for a little while there we were the underdogs again you know. And I don't think you ever really stop struggling in music. It's just the struggles become something different. You know you're struggling to put out a new song or redefine yourself or get a new idea across or whatever it is. You know you don't just have a top forty or whatever hit and you've reached your goal. I mean if thats' the case, then you don't go on any further. There's a lot of artists that do that, you know, but this kinda like supplies our touring habit.
CI: What are your thoughts about the resurgence of 80's metal? Do you think it will be as phenomenal now as it was then? Do you think new bands trying to copy that style will look to you as part of their greatest influence?
RR: Well people are already starting looking to us as an influence, everybody from Lit to Drowning Pool, even though they're not doing exactly what we did. So I don't think it's gonna look or sound exactly like what we did in '86 for example or '88 did, but at the same time, I think, you know, our influences were some of the bands from the 70's, but I don't think we look like a 70s band, maybe a little bit you know what I mean. So, you know, I don't as far as a resurgence, I think it will give the opportunity for a lot of the bands that came out in the 80's to go out and do this again, but you really need new blood out there to really continue it on. At the moment, were kinda the torchbearers, you know.
CI: What was your reaction to your first viewing of the VH1 Behind the Music on Poison?
RR: I didn't know what to expect. The director, this was her first one that she had done. And so we were kind of an experiment for everybody and I thought she did a really great job. I mean we did hours of interviews for that. There's a little bit of a focus on you know the rise and fall, fame and drugs and you know that kind of stuff and there's more to the story than that. But you know what, hey, that'll be for us to tell eventually. You know what I mean? There's a certain format that that fits into, you know, behind the music and you know people want to see the extremes of success and failure and back again or down, whatever it is, you know whatever the case may be with certain artists. But you know, I thought they did a pretty fair job, I really do. I was pretty impressed.
CI: So will we see like an autobiography of Poison, like Gene Simmons' book?
RR: You know what, I don't think Poison is ever gonna do a kiss and tell book. I mean, I've been working on a book for a while called "Confessions of a Fallen Angel" but it's not really a kiss and tell book. There's some of that in there, but if it doesn't have point to it, I'm not just gonna tell some story about me and some girl in Birmingham for example that did the nasty. I mean, you know, what's the point in that? I mean there's plenty of literature out there like that, you know. I'm no more interesting than anybody else. I think what it is, I think what would be important for Poison to do is sort of outline sort of our journey, cause every path in the music business is a little bit different. So no matter how many artists you interview or write a book or anything like that, if they're being honest, their path is gonna look different. It's gonna be different, the people they've run into, the experiences they've had, you know what I mean, but to just do a book about you know banging groupies or something, I'm not interested in doing it and I don't think any of us are. But exploit our fans, it's just not our style. It just isn't. It may sound great for the ratings, but invariably it's the quick fix and somebody gets hurt over that stuff I think personally.
CI: Paul Stanley had to back out of producing "Open Up and Say...Ahh! Due to schedule conflicts. How do you think the album would have turned out had Paul produced it?
RR: Um God you know, who's to say? I can't even postulate really. It may have been a simpler record, who knows. I really can't answer that. I don't know because we never got to that part of the conversations with Paul. His schedule was completely left field of our schedule. So we just couldn't do it, thats all. We never even got into that part of the conversation, like how are we gonna approach this, what would you like, here's the songs. We never got that far.
CI: Now that's interesting because some of the Kiss fans did not know that. I had assumed it had already gone further in.
RR: Well we met with him and we wanted to do it. We went over time schedules and stuff and we just couldn't find a place where we both could all get together in the same room and start working, that's what happened. And its like, but we have to make a record and maybe we can try this another time. You know, it's just never happened, because you know he's busy and we're busy and unfortunately it hasn't happened.
CI: Okay this is going to be an odd question. If you could travel in time, tell me one thing in the past that you would want to alter about Poison that would change things in the present.
RR: Well you know what, when I reflect back on certain things you know because we were so, you know, we were so extreme, you know, when we came out we got a lot of adversity you know and it wound up in actual physical altercations a lot of times and a lot of the stuff we buried. You know we didn't want the press to know about. We didn't think it was worth putting in there and then along came certain other artists later like Guns N Roses where it was always about that sort of stuff and it helped them you know because it was like hey, were fighting for who we are and I think that a lot of people don't think that we fought for who we are and what we've done and if I could go back in time, I would say, you know what, fire the publicist and let them run wild with this stuff because you know what, it says something about our character. We never went out to start fights. That's not what we're about. We just went out to do what we do. We got a lot of adversity at the very beginning, the first couple of tours. To a lot of people we looked like we were from Mars you know. And you know we took a lot of crap for that, but they dished it out, we threw it back, you know and there was never really much talk about that. You know, so I don't think we were perceived as much of a street band as we are, you know. And that's the part of the story that needs to be told, you know. And it's one of those things were it's like you don't want to do the hard sell about that stuff because it looks like you're trying too hard you know. But the people, who know, know.
CI: I read that you work as spokesman for Last Chance for Animals. What else do you do for this organization and has your celebrity status increased the awareness of this group?
RR: Well you know what, just last night I was in the Village having dinner at a vegetarian restaurant and a couple of people came up that I ran into at the March for Animals in '96 and they're showing us a film, a documentary, and invited me and stuff and it's weird. Anywhere I go there's this little bit of a community somewhere in just about every city, where people go, you know he's an animal guy. He's trying to help out with this stuff, you know. You know I do a lot of Spokesmanship for the organization. It depends what's going on. I kinda go where I'm needed when I can do it, you know, and I've been involved in a lot of the investigations and stuff with Last Chance for Animals. A lot of animal abuse investigations. That's the sort of stuff I like to do. Unfortunately I don't have as much time to do it as I would like to cause a lot of this stuff takes, it's a lot of times very boring work, you know, with little episodes of excitement, you now. It's just like on police dramas. You know they always condense it so it looks like these guys are constantly on the run but there's weeks and sometimes months of observation, collecting information before you can actually bust somebody properly. But I really like that kind of work a lot. I think I'm secretly like a detective at heart or something.
CI: Now here in Alabama we have organizations that are called TEARS and Friends of Animals. I believe they may be in other states. They offer low-cost vouchers for spaying and neutering animals.
RR: Thats great.
CI: Would you as a public person encourage people to donate funds to these causes and others?
RR: Oh absolutely. You know I think the thing to do, you know that's one of the best things you can do is the spay and neuter stuff because every single day there's you know thousands of dogs and cats and strays that are put to sleep and the only thing they ever did was they were born without a home, you know what I mean? Its the only thing they did wrong. So theres just too damn many animals out there with no homes. You know people breed puppies. There's a lot of back yard breeders and stuff like that. I would love to see that stuff eradicated, as much as possible. There's just too many animals out there that don't have homes. There's just not enough places for them. So you know, I think the spay and neuter thing is great. I also urge people to, you know, adopt from shelters. There's incredible animals out there. Sometimes mutts are the just best dogs that there is. And there's some great quality dogs out there and cats that are put to sleep every single day and it's a shame. It really is. I think the thing for people to do is besides that, you know, pick issues that are close to their hearts, something that they can really get behind themselves and really feel good about donating to. If your thing's cats, there's organizations for cats. Whatever it is, you know, get involved a little bit, but make sure it is something you can stand behind. You know you can't just throw money and go yeah there's my donation, that's good. I mean that's fine too I suppose, but to really feel something for what you're donating to is really good. You need to know what it's going for.
CI: Is there a possibility that we can link your Animal Rights site to the www.Frehley.net site?
RR: Absolutely. Go for it.
CI: Okay great. That website, it got 2000 hits last weekend, so that would be sort of a tool that people can read about it.
RR: Yeah. I think it would be great. I really do need to update some of my stuff and get it you know, but I will do that over the course of the tour.
CI: In your opinion, aside from yourself, who are your top 5 drum Gods and why?
RR: Oh Jeez. Um, you know, definitely gotta you know since I mentioned and this isn't necessarily in order okay? But since we were talking about the Who earlier, you know Keith Moon. Um Benny Carlos from Cheap Trick, Clem Burke from Blondie, This is just me, okay? Tommy Price thats with Joan Jett, I think that guy's great. Um Neal Pert from Rush of course, and um, let me see I'm not going to include myself. You know there's so many great guys out there. Who else? God, uh damn I mean the list goes on and on. I'm drawing a blank here. I mean there's just so many of them. I'm overwhelmed. You know what I'm saying?
CI: Yeah. I definitely understand.
RR: Um, you know, Carmine Appice, you know. Um he's a guy that's been around forever, you know. I mean, you know, a lot of times these guys were influences to me. And you know it's not all about technique or anything like that. It's about being able to convey the music the best way, you know. And guys like Neil Smith who was with the Alice Cooper Band. You know this was a guy that had a lot to do with how I play. So I'm not a music critic. I'm a drummer in a rock band and you know a lot of this stuff is what influenced me.
CI: As you grow older, do you look back on the debauchery and excess of the 80's metal scene and wonder if you would change things or leave them as they were? And did this really define metal bands of that era?
RR: Well you know what, I think the debauchery was there, you know, definitely in the 70's as well but probably worse. During the punk movement there was some real skeety stuff and that's probably more interesting I think than probably even what we did. Um the thing is by the middle 80's, you had MTV and information was starting to be shared easier. You know what I'm saying? And so, you know music in general, rock in general, had a more available way to be sold, so record sales were bigger than they ever were in history, across the board. You know what I mean? So I think the press increased and I think just the awareness of all of this stuff. We just did it without shame. A lot of people covered that stuff, you know. I mean some of these guys back in the day like Ray and all of these 50's guys and all that stuff. I mean these guys were pretty bad cats too. But you know you just didn't hear about that stuff, you know. You covered it up. It's like my dad told me and he was born in 1930. He said, "Look. There's nothing new going on. You just hear about it now." And the more, you know, I just think that rock stars in the 80's were more celebrated in more ways than one if you wanna use the word celebrated, crucified a lot of times too. But, you know, there's not more excess going on than there was before. It's just you heard about it a lot, you know.
CI: What is your favorite motorcycle? Are you an avid collector of museum quality bikes or do you just collect your favorites for personal use?
RR: I'm a personal use guy. If I can't ride it you know it doesn't mean much to me. At least it's part of my life. Um now my current favorite is my Triumph Bonneville. I love V-twins. You know Harley Davidsons. I love scooters, old scooters. You know, 70's, 60's, 50's. You know, I like to restore stuff. I like to build stuff, to work on stuff. I like to customize it, you know. So as far as like museum stuff, Nah, I gotta ride it. To just sit it there is like a waste to me, you know. That's for somebody else.
CI: Your clothing line, is it geared towards a younger scene or the older, more mature scene?
RR: For anybody. I dont pick a demographic. We've just done what we've done and let the masses eat it up or not.
CI: Now I've read that you do comic books.
RR: I did. I do not do that any more. My partner passed away and I closed down the company. We co-wrote everything and um you now so when he passed away from cancer a few years ago, and Poison got really busy, I just didn't have the desire to keep going. One day, I'll get back to it, but at this point in time, I'm just too busy with Poison.
CI: How hard is it to be vegan and maintain such a strict diet while touring for long stretches at a time?
RR: Oh, it's not. It depends on where were at. When we're on tour in the United States, we have good catering. You know the caterers treat us really well. They do the best to get us whatever we need, and so it's not hard. When it gets hard is when you're like travelling to Europe and places like that when you're only there a day or you're just doing tracks or something like that or in South America, somewhere where you can't communicate as well, you know what I mean. But generally speaking it's not that bad. It really isn't, you know. There's always something, you know. I don't feel like I'm unhealthy or anything like that. I feel very healthy and I've gotten, knock on wood, through the last three tours without being sick the whole time. I usually get sick when I come off the road. You know, I come off the road, I get home and then I get sick.
CI: I have a friend who is a vegetarian and a musician and he says the same thing, and he wanted to know how you were able to do it.
RR: Well you know what, you start hoarding things. It's like, "wow, I got really good food today. I'm gonna put it in my cooler and keep it for those days where it's not so great", you know.
CI: What one person in your life influenced your choice of profession? Who offered the best advice for dealing with the headache that is the music business?
RR: Great. Let me answer the first one. Um, you know what, I wish I could say it was one single person. It really wasn't one single person. You know I'm a team player and you know, I think to be in a rock band, you kinda have to be if you want any kind of longevity. And I looked at rock bands you know, and I said you know, this is what I wanna do. I wanna get in with a group of guys and go rock the world, you know. This sounds like fun. I like music. I like playing drums, you know. And you know I would always look at the different personalities of the band and say you know I like the way the singer dresses, but I like the way the drummer plays. You know, whatever it is. So for me it never was one single person quite honestly. My parents were instrumental in the sense that they were always very supportive of what I did. I was very, very lucky in that way. A lot of parents are not supportive, you know. And I feel bad for people that have parents that aren't or friends that aren't. I had a lot of friends that weren't, but my parents always were and that was the important thing. So in some ways my parents were influential you know and that's not like the obvious answer, but it's the truth.
CI: At one time, you did an advice column for Metal Sludge. What was that like and would you consider doing another column should time permit?
RR: I would definitely consider doing the column again. I just took to doing the record and everything this year. I just was busy. You know I just turned my attention to other things. It was really cool actually. Not that I have any background in psychology or anything like that. All that is, the way I was trying to do it was on the Internet where more than just me. You know when I did the live show on KNAC it was like people could call in. People could write on the chat board. People could email. I had other guests in the studio. It was like the entire Internet community was like connected to try to solve somebody's problem and I was just the ringleader, you know what I mean, and that is really cool I think. So you know it wasn't like "Hey, I'm Rikki and I"ve got all the answers, you know." It wasn't like that but it's like, you know, I've seen a lot of stuff, so you know suppose I could answer some stuff the best way I know how. It may not be the right answer, but at least you're sharing it with somebody like talking to a friend, you know so it was kinda cool.
CI: You once listed Peter Criss as an influence. What was it about his technique that influenced you and basically stood out?
RR: Well first of all I was a big Kiss fan and he was the drummer and I was a drummer. So you know there was an automatic influence there. It wasn't that I was singling out his technique or anything like that. Um, it's just that you know you sit there and you go, "Wow this guy is larger than life. I wanna be that too, you know." And it turned out that years later, I got to know Peter a little bit and even went to his house for Thanksgiving once. And you know, just a really humble, great guy and just tries to do his job you know the best way he knows how and that's what I do. And that's what's important. There's a lot of drummers out there who are fantastic technicians, but they have trouble working as a unit with people. They can work as an independent for somebody for a short time, but most of them I think if they could be in a group and be out there doing it, I think they would. And you know, so the special place for me is to be able to work with a group of guys and go through all that struggle together, not just come in, do a job and get paid and get out. You know to me that leaves me cold. You have to understand that drumming to me is a cultural thing. I dont mean to sound like some hippie on pot here, but you know it is. Being a drummer in a band, it takes a different mind set than simply playing drums. We can all learn to play instruments, but being able to take in the whole aspect of having a career in music is a whole other level. It doesn't make me better or whatever. It's just, I'm just saying the people that influenced me are the people that work as a team and make the band happen. That's what I look at. That's why you know I'm not siting some studio guy as an influence. That's not what influences me quite honestly. I may appreciate their technique or whatever, but it's guys like Ian Pace maybe from Deep Purple thats been in a band for 20 or 25 years, that's commitment.
CI: Okay, this is the last question. It's a weird one, but if your home was on fire and you could only save three items, aside from family and animals, they do not count, they would automatically be rescued, what would those three items be?
RR: Me, myself and I.
CI: You and the animals are safe.
RR: Yeah. Oh, Okay. I gotcha. Um, probably my OJ Simpson game, my laptop, and um, and um, my Hummel figure collection.
CI: Wow.
RR: No, I dont have a Hummel collection.
CI: I was about to say.
RR: You know I would definitely grab my PowerBook on the way out the door. Um, a couple of pieces of artwork that I have there, and my box of pictures.
CI: Well thats great. Thank you so much.
RR: You're welcome, Cynthia. I will talk to you soon and I look forward to it. Bye Bye.
