Chords for Poison Interview, 1993

Next up as promised last week we've a chat with Richie Cotsen and Brett Michaels from Poison
with a chance to win a [Db] signed copy of their [N] brand new album Native [Eb] Tongue.
[Db] [Ab] I feel completely happy with it.
I think it's musically the best record
[N] that we've made and it's just a great feeling to be back and have a record out considering the
turmoil and the controversy and everything that this band has gone through and now with having
Richie in the band it just feels absolutely fantastic for me.
_ Yeah I feel like you know I've put a lot of myself into this record and I think it's a
situation where we really focused on writing what we thought were great songs and not really
concerning ourselves with anything else so it's a very true record for us at this time.
You did instrumental albums before and everything what made you decide to be within Poison?
Well you know for me the instrumental records were a chance for me to leave and get out of
Pennsylvania.
When all my friends were going on to college I was just barely out of school and
I had my first record deal at 17 and it was a situation where I was able to do a record even
though it was an instrumental record I would have preferred doing vocal records but that was the
chance I was given.
Those records are guitar oriented albums because the label I was signed
to was that kind of label whereas in Poison I'm able to be more true to my own feelings as far
as music and writing and singing and everything else.
The guys were looking for someone that had
their own distinct identity as a writer and as a guitar player and a vocalist and so for me
I kind of found my home within Poison at [Bbm] this point.
Was it [Abm] more difficult [Eb] than you thought it
would be to find [Ab] someone like Richie?
You know what [Db] it was?
It was that [Gm] being tossed sort of
into as fate would have it into the fire you know at the end of the Flesh and Blood tour and the
success we had with it it was just weird to all [Ab] of a sudden be tossed into this situation with
Bobby being in a rehab center, Cece was gone and just trying to deal with all that stuff left me in
very sort of lost or depressed state and you know what?
Richie, me and Bobby just got together and
started talking putting ideas together and I got to tell you something it was [Dbm] just one of those
things where at first it was like who where do you start you know what I mean and then all of a sudden
I said to myself I said I know where I start I go to a guitar magazine I start looking for guys
that I think are great players and great writers and then you start there and then you start to
figure out the one the most important thing is that chemistry so you know actually it just it
was by fate the same fate that all of a sudden Richie was the very first person I met with of
all the thousands of packages we got we actually approached Richie about it in his management
company [Fm] and he came to my house and we talked and must have talked for three or four hours just
spitting out a million ideas where he wanted to go where we were looking for and it actually
it actually came together very quickly much to our surprise and it was great the chemistry [Ab] just
clicked right after we started writing songs [Fm] together it was just sort [G] of [Gm] cemented we never
even really looked any further this worked.
Sorry to sort of talk about you whilst you're sitting
there but _
[Ab] [E] did Richie sort of give you all a [Ab] boost the rest of the band a boost as well to sort of
with this album?
It was you know what it was [Db] it was [N] and even more than a boost it was it was the
final piece put back into the puzzle again it was that you know all of a sudden Bobby and Ricky
and myself had been starting to write songs and do stuff but it doesn't we didn't [Ab] feel complete
as a band yet we didn't have that that fourth piece was missing [N] and we didn't know who that
was going to be so it was a confusing time once Richie came back in that energy just started
clicking boom ideas bounced off we [Ab] had all four walls there to bounce all the ideas off of
Richie which is it's [Fm] obvious is a much more complex and a much better [N] player than CeCe was
and what it did it was it opened a lot more doors of things that you we we weren't even aware that
were not there before meaning to us with CeCe that was that was then we we worked we did as best as
we could with all the things that we had and we did the best with each record we wrote the songs
we felt came from the heart and felt right but when Richie stepped in and showed us things that
you know the soulfulness and the bluesiness and and and especially with a guy like Richie
who can really really shred on a guitar and rip he actually laid back a bit into this record and
and was like well listen I can do this and here's some of my riffs that are more soulful and bluesy
and and it really opened up a lot more doors of stuff that we can do and it it excited me like
like it was like