


Kiss legend Paul Stanley was originally in the frame to produce Poison’s second album, Open Up And Say… Ahh!, but due to his heavy schedule of commitments, Tom Werman (Ted Nugent Cheap Trick) oversaw the sessions. With help from heavy rotation on MTV, Poison’s reputation spread and the band toured with contemporaneous big-haired metal/hard rock outfits such as Ratt, Cinderella and Quiet Riot, and even appeared at the popular metal festival, the not-quite triple-X The Texxas Jam, in Dallas. Easily Enigma’s best-selling slab of vinyl at that time, it also spawned three US chart hits, ‘Talk Dirty To Me’, ‘I Want Action’ and ‘I Won’t Forget You’, while the album’s anthemic, radio-friendly contents (which frequently drew comparisons to Kiss and Aerosmith) had an immediate, across-the-board appeal. Recorded in just 12 days, the band’s August 1986 debut, Look What The Cat Dragged In, cost just $23,000 (some of which the band funded themselves), but it peaked at a sensational No.3 on America’s Billboard 200, eventually selling 4 million copies worldwide.
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Active between 1980-91, their imprint was nothing if not diverse, as it also released vinyl by artists ranging from Americana pioneers Green On Red through to Van Der Graaf Generator frontman Peter Hammill and notoriously depraved New Hampshire punk GG Allin.Įnigma took a chance on Poison – a leap of faith that paid remarkable dividends. The band continued gigging and eventually attracted the attention of William and Wesley Hein’s small but well-respected LA independent label, Enigma Records. The successful candidate, however, turned out to be New York-born CC DeVille, whose vicious but expressive lead guitar style eventually landed him the job. They got their first major break when they secured a regular gig at famous Hollywood rock club The Troubadour, but trouble was brewing as guitarist Matt Smith (who was then about to become a father) quit and returned to the band’s native Pennsylvania.ĭetermined not to lose the momentum, Poison auditioned three possible replacements, one of whom was future Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash. Struggling to make ends meet, the band changed their name to Poison and made a determined effort to break through, gigging constantly and playing any LA dive that would have them. Initially a hard rock covers band, Paris built up a strong following, but felt trapped within the confines of the local scene and decided on a make-or-break move to Los Angeles, in March 1984. This LA-based quartet have lived and breathed the kind of stratospheric success most bands can only envisage in their wildest dreams, yet they had to fight tooth and nail in their early days, and they suffered plenty of setbacks when they first began playing in lowly Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, around the turn of the 80s.Ĭharismatic frontman Bret Michaels initially learnt his craft in a basement-level band called Laser, before teaming up with his childhood buddy, drummer Rikki Rockett, in another relatively shirt-lived outfit, Spectres, which eventually morphed into Paris in 1983, when the duo joined forces with bassist Bobby Dall and guitarist Matt Smith.
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Certified quintuple platinum, their second album, Open Up And Say… Ahh!, remains the group’s commercial zenith, yet Poison have gone on to enjoy a remarkable second life since the dawn of the 21st Century, with albums such as Crack A Smile… And More! and Power To The People reacquainting the seemingly indestructible outfit with gold-selling albums and sold-out stadium tours. They’ve always adhered to their motto of “work hard, play hard” and they’ve lived through their fair share of hedonistic misadventure, yet American glam metal giants Poison have always managed to come out on top.Īctive for over three decades, they’ve sold over a staggering 45 million records worldwide – over 15 million of which found a home in the band’s native North America.
