Bret Michaels: The Resilient Rocker Opens His Personal Scrapbook
By Allison Kugel
While our essential workers on the front lines keeping the nuts and bolts of society running and keeping us informed; elements like nature, family, friends, and the arts lift our spirits. Music has the power to inspire, heal, help us process our anger or heartbreak, prompt reflection, or make us grow nostalgic. Therefore, it should continue to be celebrated, even in the tensest of times. Some of my favorite interview subjects have been musicians, because of the philosophical and poetic nature many of them share.
I enjoyed Michael's company then, and thirteen years later I still do. We resumed our conversation as it pertains to his now four-decade multi-platinum-selling music career, how some much-publicized health challenges have strengthened his spirit and resolve, his love of touring and his inexhaustible energy for new projects.
On Monday, June 1st, Bret Michael's band Poison, in a joint statement with Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, announced that their much anticipated 2020 tour would be postponed until 2021. In light of the challenges our nation is facing on several fronts, their official statement reads:
Allison Kugel: This is the first interview I am releasing since the start of this pandemic. I have been reticent about putting anything entertainment-related out there. But if I am getting back into it, you are a good person to start back up with.
Allison Kugel: I agree
with you about injecting positivity into challenging situations. My son has been
complaining that he hasn't seen his friends, and he jokes that our lives have
become like the movie Groundhog Day. He'll say, "We take the same
walk everyday mom!" I say to him, "Look how blue the sky is. Look at that beautiful tree. Try and find the
simple things that you may have overlooked under more normal circumstances."
Bret Michaels: One thousand percent! I went
out and took pictures with my kids. And recently I got a bucket of paint out
because our sports court has needed painting for ten years, and I'd been avoiding
it. I’ve put myself into every project I could find. It keeps you positive and it
keeps your hands busy. If you are taking
a walk and looking at a tree, it keeps your mind on positive stuff. It works.
Allison Kugel: Would you say that some of the things you previously
took for granted or overlooked, you are now noticing or rediscovering?
Bret Michaels: Completely. I have a ranch in
Arizona, and I went through everything that I have hoarded. I de-hoarded it (laugh).
Then I went and started painting stuff. I’m a motor sports, outdoor kind of guy,
so I ripped apart engines, like Go Kart engines. I also began noticing some
furniture in need of a little love and TLC. I watch all these shows where they
do it, and I finally decided to jump in and start restoring some furniture. And
music, of course. I love listening to Bob Marley through these times. I listen
to Three Little Birds and it just puts me right.
Allison Kugel: I can't speak for other journalists, but for me this
work has been a giant case study in the human experience. I've learned that
everybody's life has a master theme. Your Type 1 Diabetes has been well
documented, as was your brain hemorrhage some years back. You also had some big
accidents that required rehabilitation. I feel that your master theme in this
life is overcoming limitations of the physical body.
Bret Michaels: That makes sense. When people
ask me, "How do you overcome?"
I say this is the card I was dealt and rather then become a victim to it
and have self-pity, I chose to take the path of being spiritually and mentally
positive. I want to go on record and thank my parents for that. My dad was active and a have fun, get it done
kind of guy. My mom is the same. She opened the first youth diabetic camp in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania because I was the only kid in my entire class growing
up who had diabetes. I send so many kids to diabetic camp so they can see what
I experienced. It literally saved and changed my life. I saw other kids with diabetes,
and we all learned together, brick by brick, how to find a way to enjoy sports
and make it all work. That experience has been used in every application of my
life, and in some ways prepared me for the entertainment business.
Allison Kugel: And that is the power of a mom's love. Your mom
said, "I'm going to create a camp for my kid so he can have this positive
experience." I always say that where other people see problems, I see
opportunities. It sounds like your mom is the same way.
Bret Michaels: One million percent, and I hear
that in your voice. In our case, diabetes was a part of our lives. My sisters also
had it. And even when it comes to work and being on the road, I always say,
"Ok, we've established the problem. The guitars didn't show up for our
show in Lima, Peru (laugh). We can stand here and keep discussing it and
yelling about it, but we have a stadium show in three hours. Let's focus on
what we are going to do to solve this." I think you and me together can
solve a lot of problems.
Allison Kugel: The right perspective makes all the difference in
your life.
Bret Michaels: All the difference! With
coronavirus, we don't know the exact date it was created or where it came from,
so rather than focus on that, why don't we start focusing on the cities that
are doing better, and what places like New York are doing to make it better. We
have already established that it's a horrific virus. Now, what do we do to help
each other get through it? And the amount of anxiety and depression this has
caused, and economic turmoil; we are going to have to keep an eye on each other.
We have to have each other's backs.
Allison Kugel: Let's talk about your new book, Auto-Scrap-Ography.
You are a ball of kinetic energy. How did you manage to sit down and write this
book?
Bret Michaels: Writing a book is one of the
toughest things I've ever done, and it's one of the most fulfilling. I wanted
to do something unique. I grabbed some timestamped photos. I took blank pieces
of paper and I would scotch tape an image to a piece of paper and start writing
the story surrounding that image, kind of like a Chicken Soup for the Soul
vibe. The reason I didn't write a normal biography, and I love to read those,
by the way, is because I could take a picture and write stream of consciousness
about what my thoughts were in that moment, what I was going through and what
happened. Every picture has a story and every story has multiple tentacles.
This book is Volume 1. Over the next volumes I'm going to give you different
tentacles of each story and really deep dive into it, so you are living the
experience with me.
Allison Kugel: That's an interesting approach. When I wrote my
book, I took a different approach. I streamlined passages to focus on one main
aspect of a story for the sake of continuity. I'm curious to read your volumes
to see how you went about this.
Bret Michaels: It's why yours is unique to you
and mine is unique to me. If I tried to write it that way, I would have lost
focus. That's why mine is written as a scrapbook. It's an autobiographical
scrapbook diary. Some of it are pages of inspirational stuff; some are intense
and impactful moments from my life. For example, there are five pages talking
about me almost drowning in Caracas, Venezuela. I share with people what was
going through my mind when I knew I was in a rip current. I had that fight or
flight that happens. I thought that was it. Everyone on the beach thought I was
kidding around, because I wasn't that far off the shore. I’m waving frantically
and everyone on the beach is partying with their band and crew and they're just
waving back at me, and I'm drowning out there.
Allison Kugel: Your life experiences are such double-edged swords.
Everything is the good and the bad, or the fun and the scary at the same time.
Bret Michaels: Yes, my life, ironically, has
been roses and thorns (a reference to Poison's number one hit ballad,
"Every Rose Has Its Thorn"). A rose is this beautiful thing that
looks amazing, it brings people life and it means love. And if you grab it the wrong
way, or slide your hand down it, you have a painful thorn in your hand. My life
has been a perfect balance beam in that way. I remember playing Texas Stadium in
front of 83,000 people. It was
completely sold out and we shot the I Won't Forget You video with Paul
Stanley on stage, and Steven Tyler watching from the side. It was one of those,
"This is the greatest!" moments. Life felt like a surreal dream. Two
hours later we went from mega Texas Stadium rock star status to playing a small
town in either in Texas or New Mexico where there weren't four people in the
whole place who knew or cared who or what we were. At the time, it was exactly
what I needed to happen to realize this will keep me as grounded as the person
that I am today.
Allison Kugel: I so get that. I’m not a public person, but I had
gotten into this amazing groove where I was doing dream interview after dream
interview, and I had just interviewed Gwen Stefani and was feeling pretty high
about everything. Well, shortly thereafter, something happened, nothing
terrible, but I got myself arrested and was thrown into a lockup. It was a
traumatic experience. I remember being hysterical and I asked the woman if I
could use the phone. I was freaking out and I started crying, and she goes,
"Can you go cry over there, you're getting on my nerves (laughs).
Bret Michaels:
Oh, my goodness (laughs).
Allison Kugel: Yup! I was like, "No, you don't understand I
don't belong here. You don't know what I
do and who I am." Well, that just made it one hundred times worse!
Bret Michaels: I'm so sorry that happened to
you, but truth is stranger than fiction. As I say in my book, I did not need to
make stories up for shock value. Some stories I needed to pare down because you
would think I'm making it up. I was arrested and went to Walton County
Prison (Walton Correctional Institution in Walton County, Florida), with
the real inmates. It wasn't the nice holding cell.
Allison Kugel: (Laughs)
Bret Michaels: I had just got done playing what
at the time was called Omni Basketball Arena. A guy claimed I ruined his car,
that I jumped on his car and smashed his windows. All of it was false. But they didn't ask questions. They just took
me in. I had just come off stage and was in a state of shock. I spent two days in
there and finally it came out that the guy made the story up. For two days I sat in the corner of that jail
cell with about twenty other inmates all packed into a place that only should
have held about four people. I sat in a corner with my head down and I didn't
say a word. Some people said, "Hey, are you who I think you are?" I
was like, "Yeah, no big thing, man, thanks."
Allison Kugel: A humbling experience…
Bret Michaels: A lot of the stories in Auto-Scrap-Ography
are stories of how I overcame challenges, and true stories of inspiration. But
a large part of my book is, of course, what I like to call a Rock 'n' Roll Thrill
Ride. I'd like to think the overriding theme of the book is inspiration; it's
telling people that if I can do this you can do it, regardless of what your
dream is.
Allison Kugel: Since touring
is off the table right now, what other projects are you working on?
Bret Michaels: I am going to be the face of
college radio. Each year they pick someone to be the face of it and this year it's
me. I also got the Humanitarian of The Year Award last year at the 2019
Hollywood Christmas Parade (Michaels ongoing philanthropic efforts have
included delivering needed supplies to the people of the Bahamas and Puerto
Rico). Way back when, when no one would touch our records, college radio
spun our album. I wanted to do something to show my appreciation. I've also contributed
to a lot of school programs, donating to their music, art and athletic programs.
Allison Kugel: One passage
that really struck me in your book was when you wrote, "I went from barely
being able to afford to feed myself and buy my insulin to touring stadiums." What did you learn from poverty and what have
you learned from wealth?
Bret Michaels: From the beginning I was always
a guy who thinks positive. I find a way to get it done. When I would run out of
insulin and my parents would have to help, or they couldn't send it out in time,
I would literally go down to the clinics in Hollywood and they'd give me insulin.
It all made me resilient and determined, and most importantly, grateful when
the second half came along. Poison and I, we are one of the few bands who
were an independent band. My big signing day and signing party for Look What
the Cat Dragged (Poison's debut studio album, released August 2, 1986) was
sitting on a floor in El Segundo, California shrink wrapping my own albums. You
know those stories about private jets and limos? I'd love to tell you that
happened, but none of that happened.
Allison Kugel: I think people just assume that any band that goes
multiplatinum was signed to a major label. The fact that Poison was
independent makes it all the more impressive.
Bret Michaels: I couldn't have been prouder of
what I was doing back then. And I didn't know any better. I didn't come from
money. I was excited just shrink wrapping those albums I was grateful to have a
record. The next thing was college radio played it. Nobody else wanted our
music at the time. No one wanted Every Rose Has Its Thorn. No one was
fighting to get Talk Dirty to Me or Something to Believe In; songs
that eventually became number one songs. No one originally wanted our
publishing at first, so we kept our own publishing with a ten percent
administration deal with what's now Universal Music Group. It ended up being a
humungous blessing.
Allison Kugel: Why do you think you survived your 2010 brain hemorrhage
and stroke? I'm sure you've thought about this a lot.
Bret Michaels: First of all, I'm grateful that
I lived. Second, I say praise God! It wasn't my time yet. I have more to do and
this is where being a diabetic and my fighting spirit came in. Dr. Joseph Zabramski, one
of my doctors, said, “I've never seen anybody work as hard in physical therapy
to get better.” I hope the reason I survived is so I could show people what it
means to fight and not give up. I've always been a grateful guy but that took
my gratitude to an unbelievable level, and it also really upped my philanthropic
work with my Life Rocks Foundation.
Allison Kugel: You also say in your book that you do have a few
regrets. How do you determine a regret versus a lesson, versus something you're
proud of, in retrospect?
Bret Michaels: One regret is that I couldn't
be there for some of the events my children had at school. I've been to everything
I could physically get to, but if it's when you have to play a show and it's
also the night my kids are doing a recital, those are the things that I regret.
I've never missed a birthday or a Christmas, but some of the other things you
do miss. Another regret is a huge fist fight I had with C.C. [DeVille], my
guitar player, and he's one of my best friends. It was a lot of time on the
road, a lot of heated discussions about what songs we wanted in the set, and
little things that fester and turned into a knockdown, drag out, nose breaking,
teeth missing fist fight. We are like brothers, and I regret the physical end
of it. It didn't need to go there, and it's one of my biggest regrets,
especially because it happened twice in the same week, once in New Orleans and
once backstage at the MTV Awards.
Allison Kugel: You have an ageless look about you. How do you feel
about aging? Are you okay with the aging process?
Bret Michaels: I'm either an aging rocker or a
dead rocker (laugh). We are aging from the moment we're born. Aging
gracefully, I'll take that any day of the week because it's better than the
alternative. I've been aging since we put out Look What the Cat Dragged In.
By the time we did Open Up and Say… Ahh! I’d already aged from the first
record. As you go along things happen to you, medically. You will not find me
being one of those guys saying, "This sucks." I'm just glad I got the
chance to age, because a lot of my buddies didn't.
Allison Kugel: Here are the
questions I ask everyone and my favorite part of the interview. What do you
think you came into this life as Bret Michaels to learn? And what do you think
you came here to teach?
Bret Michaels: To learn, I'm going to say
something very bold here. I came here to learn as much as I can about everything.
One of the things I teach my kids is, "Take it all in, and learn from
everybody." I've done that. I go
out on my mountain bike and drive around while the road crew is setting stuff
up, and I talk to them and find out what they are doing and learn from that. Whether
or not I can apply that knowledge right then and there is one thing, but I
learn a lot and I enjoy people. As far as teaching, I think if I was to have
one other career, and I hope I can segue from what I'm doing now into this, I
do these inspirational seminars where I talk about everything under the sun. I
talk about what I've gone through and what I go through. With everything I have
been through, that is the one thing I can give back and what I want to be able to
do. It's what I would have done had this music thing not worked out the way it
has. If my life had gone another way and I was just playing music on the
weekends, I would have been a teacher of some kind… or a truck driver. I know
that sounds crazy, but I love the open road.
Allison Kugel: What do you think your spiritual mission is in this
lifetime?
Bret Michaels: I think it's to bring to people
as much realistic positivity to people as possible. If you came to a party I'm hosting,
as you have been, when you come to my house to a party, I don't want to be the
life of the party. I want you to have the time of your life at my party.
I think one of the reasons I'm a singer or frontman of a band is I'm a good
host to people. I like when people feel good.
It makes me feel good.
Photos courtesy of Michaels Entertainment Group
Bret Michael's
memoir, Bret
Michaels: Auto-Scrap-Ography,
is out now and available exclusively at ShopBretMichaels.com. Follow
on Instagram @bretmichaelsofficial. Information on Poison's postponed tour dates.
Allison
Kugel is a syndicated entertainment columnist and author of the memoir, Journaling Fame: A
memoir of a life unhinged and on the record. Follow on Instagram @theallisonkugel and at AllisonKugel.com.
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