Poison drummer Rikki Rockett was guest on Eddie‘s Sirius/XM show, Trunk Nation with Eddie Trunk, on January 29th, were discussed the confusion regarding the band’s 40th anniversary of tour of Look What The Cat Dragged In.
He said (via blabbermouth.net), “You know what?! Bret and I had texted this morning. And by the way, none of this just came from me. It’s just I happened to be doing the interview because [I was being inducted into] the Metal Hall Of Fame. So I was doing the interview with New York Post, among many other outlets, but they’re the ones that had asked me about the tour. And so the reason I said what I said is because… All the information I had was the truth, from my standpoint. And a lot of people, they start assuming things. I was seeing stuff on social media: ‘Oh, Rikki has cancer again.’ Or ‘C.C.‘s [DeVille, guitarist] off the wagon again’ or all these different things. ‘Those guys don’t really wanna work’ and ‘Bret wants to work’. And none of those things are true. We do wanna work, all of us do wanna work. C.C.‘s sober. I don’t have cancer. None of those things are true.”
But Bret‘s right,” Rikki admitted. “We didn’t sit down at a negotiating table, really. It never did get that far. It got kiboshed at the very beginning. But I just wanted to put a sensible reason to it so that everybody understands that it wasn’t Bobby [Dall, bassist], C.C. or me, any of those rumors you heard, that’s not why we weren’t touring. And so I have to answer it with something.”
Referencing his previous claim that Bret demanded to earn $6 for every dollar his each of his Poison bandmates stood to make from the shows, Rikki added, “I was told what Bret wanted, and when you did the math, that’s how the math worked out. And I’m not trying to quarrel with Bret. And I do think that we’re gonna do something in ’27.”
Elaborating on Poisons‘s tentative plans to regroup next year, Rockett said, “That’s one of the things, main things, that Bret and I talked about. I think what we want is we wanna celebrate — it’ll be 41 years, right? — but we wanna celebrate 40-plus years with the four of us with fans. That’s what we wanna do. And it sounds. like a cheesy slogan or something, but honestly, we do. So it’s gonna happen for sure at some point. It’s not gonna happen in ’26 — we just can’t make it happen that fast — but it is gonna happen. And there’s no more of a headline to stick out there — all the low-hanging-fruit media out there that tries to find a headline — there’s nothing there, really. I said what I said, Bret said what he said, but today we’re talking about doing something in ’27, and I know Bobby wants to do it, I talk to C.C. all the time. We’re all on board. So I think it’s gonna happen. God forbid — we’re all in good health and all that stuff, so I look forward to it.”
Asked by host Eddie Trunk if his latest text exchange with Bret was “contentious” or if it was “positive”, Rikki said: “It was absolutely positive. We had a good laugh. Of course we talked a little bit. I told him why that information went out, and I just told you. But there’s no second shoe to drop. Honestly, we wanna do the tour. It’s gonna be delayed now till ’27, but I think it’s gonna happen in ’27, which is perfect Poison. A 41st anniversary is, like, fricking amazing, right? [Laughs].”