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by Michael LelloWeekender Editor
To bassist Bobby Dall, going to see his band Poison in concert isn’t all that different from going to a football game.
“Both shows, you go at noon and start getting plastered,” the Mechanicsburg, Pa., native said in a recent interview with the Weekender. “Somewhere on that stage or on that field, you’re gonna see a fight. It’s pretty much one in the same. We’re common folk, for lack of a better term. We’re four white trash gutter boys that came out of poverty, picked ourselves up by our bootstraps and put on the Maybeline.”
A rite of the season for the veteran glam band’s fans, the Poison summer tour is also a popular one in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Since Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain debuted in 2002, the band has played five shows there. On Sunday, Poison will play its sixth, with headliner Def Leppard and opener Cheap Trick.
“Poison is one of rock’s most iconic and enduring bands,” said Toyota Pavilion General Manager Jason Resetar. “We always look forward to having them play Toyota Pavilion. They continually attract very enthusiastic crowds, and their shows are always certain to be incredibly entertaining. It is always a highlight of our summer when Poison comes to town.”
“It’s like when you put on Alice Cooper’s ‘School’s Out for Summer,’” said Dall. “You know school’s over and it’s time to party. We have one of the greatest fanbases in the world. And one of their greatest assets is they really like to drink beer.”
Poison— Bret Michaels (vocals), C.C. DeVille (guitar), Rikki Rockett (drums) and Dall — has never attempted to cross over or be something it is not. You know exactly what you’re going to get at a Poison show.
“We’re a greatest hits show,” Dall said. “I go to see the Rolling Stones, and I want to see ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Start Me Up’ and ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ You gotta, because you do what you wanna do, but at the same point you gotta please the fans.”
Playing new material is not even an option for Poison, because there is none. The band hasn’t released an album of original songs since 2002’s “Hollyweird.” Dall paused when asked about the possibility of a new Poison record anytime soon.
“Ya know, nothing that I want to discuss,” he said. “I’ll leave it go at that. The one thing that I am is I’m black and white. I’m not going to tell you something unless it’s going to happen. If you ask other members of the band, they might tell you there’s going to be a new album, but I happen to be the boss, and I know there is no possibility of it.”
Just getting the members of the band together is enough of a challenge. In fact, Poison prepared for this summer’s tour the way it always does: by not really preparing at all.
“We rent a room and spend a lot of money and argue a lot,” Dall said, “and everybody turns their amps louder than the other guy, and Rikki bangs his drums louder, and we accomplish nothing. And Bret doesn’t come. It’s not broken, so we’re not going to fix it. It’s been like that since ’83 or ’84, since we’ve been with C.C.”
Drama, on stage and off, has been a constant component of the Poison story. In 1991, Michaels and DeVille got into a fistfight backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards after the guitarist screwed up the band’s performance of “Unskinny Bop” and then launched into “Talk Dirty to Me” by himself. DeVille, who was battling cocaine and alcohol problems, was fired. He returned in 2000.
“We get along the same as we always did,” Dall said of the Poison dynamic. “I think we get along fantastically. Other times. … We’ve spent 25 years together as partners and brothers. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s hilarious, sometimes it’s angry, sometimes it’s violent, like any family situation. It can go from C.C. telling a joke and us all rolling on our bellies to Bret chucking a microphone at my head and me whipping a bass at his leg.”
The latter happened onstage in Atlanta in 2006, when Dall and Michaels had to be separated.
Most recently, Michaels broke his nose when a stage set fell on him during Poison’s performance at the Tony Awards. The injury has not forced the band to reschedule any dates, although Michaels did reschedule some solo shows.
All of this comes after Def Leppard lead singer Joe Elliott called Poison “a shite band” in an interview. There is no bad blood between the two groups, Dall assured.
“It was a press thing,” said the bassist. “Joe made a comment, and I don’t believe that his intent was to be derogatory directly toward Poison. I think Joe was trying to establish that he is not trying to be from that genre. They’re a ’70s band that was most successful in the ’80s. Are they the Scorpions or Motley Crue? They’re struggling with their own identity. My own band battles with those issues.”
With Michaels’ “Rock of Love” reality show franchise breaking ratings records for VH1 and Poison’s “Live, Raw & Uncut” DVD/CD package released last year, the band has remained in the public eye despite the lack of new songs. Even during the height of the grunge movement in 1993, which killed off most hair bands, Poison sold 1 million copies of the “Native Tongue” album, which was recorded without fan favorite DeVille.
Dall offered a theory for the band’s staying power.
“First of all, we made it to larger venues than most of the bands,” he said. “I put our band in the same league with Motley Crue, Guns N’ Roses and Def Leppard. I think those are the four bands from the ’80s that went all the way. The music business is a cyclical business. If you go back to the disco business, the Bee Gees were one of the greats, and they still are one of the greats. There’s also a hundred bands I can’t remember. We were one of the five that lasted.”
Not bad for a band formed in Pennsylvania in 1982, a state the band still holds close to its heart. In fact, when the band performs at Montage, it’s a bit of a family reunion.
“We always love to come to (Montage),” said Dall. “We always get treated really great there. Give my kudos to the catering department, that’s one of the shows where we always have 100 family members plus 100 employees, and it’s one of the best catering tents. I like Scranton, always have, always will, and the show ‘The Office’ has made me love it that much more. So we can’t wait to see everybody this summer.”
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Def Leppard, Poison, Cheap Trick, Sunday, June 28, 7 p.m., Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain (Montage Mountain Road, Scranton). Tickets: $29.50-$85 at LiveNation.com and box office.
