Rikki Rockett walked to a newspaper rack in Studio City and found his band set against Metallica on the front of a magazine. That evening he went to a bar he rarely visited and found Lars Ulrich standing in the back of it.
The Poison drummer told the story on the “Beardo & Weirdo” podcast, hosted by Five Finger Death Punch bassist Chris Kael and comedian Craig Gass.
“I remember when I lived in Studio City [California], I used to walk down the street to the newspaper rack. And I’d look at all the new magazines to see if we were in anything. And there we are on the cover of [long-defunct rock magazine] Hit Parader, and it’s got Poison, and it’s got, like, [Metallica frontman] James Hetfield, and it says, ‘Poison versus Metallica.’ So I remember that night, I happened to go out, and I went to the [legendary rock club] Rainbow [Bar & Grill in West Hollywood]. And I didn’t go to Rainbow a lot, but I went that one night, that particular night, that very day that I saw that magazine. And I used to just go get a table and hang out, and that particular night it was completely jammed. I wanted to go to the bathroom, and somebody’s, like, ‘Look, let me just take you to the back.’ So I start going back through the restaurant, and there’s [Metallica drummer] Lars Ulrich. And I’m, ‘Huh. It’s Poison versus Metallica… Are we gonna go [at it]? What’s gonna happen?’ And I look and I said, ‘Hi.’ I said, ‘Lars, I’ve never met you. I’m Rikki.’ And he goes, ‘Nice to meet you.’ I said, ‘We’re on a cover together right now. We’re supposed to hate each other.’ And he goes, ‘Well, if we’re gonna hate each other, let’s at least have a drink over it.’ And we wound up talking an hour and a half. He was fricking great. I was, like, ‘It’s the media that creates this and then it gets the fans going.’ And, really, why can’t you like [both Poison and Metallica]?’ That’s like saying, ‘I’m only gonna like horror movies. I can’t watch anything else,'” Rockett recalled (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
His argument against picking a side went well past metal.
“I think that we snack on lots of different things,” Rockett continued. “There’s lots of different buffets out there to choose from. And so I love all sorts of music, and I think most people do. And I think it sucks when somebody goes, ‘Yeah, well, I have to admit that I kind of like that Madonna song.’ So what if you like it? Madonna was great. What’s the big deal? I like The Carpenters. I mean, there’s some really great music out there, and it’s a shame if you cut yourself off where you only do it because you’re carrying a banner. But on the flip side of all that, I think music was, has always been really great when there was some kind of a flag that people stood behind, in the sense that there would was a social movement, like the punk movement and things like that. The ’60s and some of these social movements really created amazing music, and maybe that’s what’s missing right now, is we don’t have a social movement that supports rock and roll.”
Hit Parader ran from 1942 until it folded in 2008, and spent the eighties setting one wing of hard rock against the other on its covers because it sold.
Rockett has a book of his own coming. “Ghost Notes: My Life In Poison“, written with Leif Eriksson and Martin Svensson, arrives on September 15 through Rare Bird Books, distributed by Simon & Schuster, a 312-page hardcover, with an audiobook pressed to vinyl. It was originally set for July 28. He signs copies at Book Soup in West Hollywood on September 19, and holds a drum clinic at the Octopus Music School in Red Bank, New Jersey on September 13, capped at 55 people.
He is on the road with The Rockett Mafia, the band he launched in October 2024. Poison, Rockett, Bret Michaels, Bobby Dall and C.C. DeVille, have eight studio albums and more than 45 million sales behind them, one Hot 100 number one in “Every Rose Has Its Thorn“, and last toured together on the 2022 stadium run with Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts.
Rockett was diagnosed with oral cancer in 2015 and declared cancer-free the following year after an experimental treatment.
