Poison drummer Rikki Rockett recently opened up about the strict rules David Lee Roth had for his opening bands while on tour.
Rockett explained that Poison spent months touring with Roth without ever meeting him face to face, describing the rules the bands had to follow before recounting the memorable first encounter that eventually took place.
When asked, “You also mentioned you toured with David Lee Roth. How do you have any crazy stories that you left out of the book or you know, you really didn’t put many, you only put one little small one in there, but you guys must have had some crazy times with David Lee Roth out on tour,” Rockett described how the two acts kept their distance for a long stretch of the tour.
“I’ll tell you what. So, we were touring with him for a period of time. I would say we were out like two months and we had never met David Lee Roth. We didn’t meet him,” Rockett said. “Well, we were, you know, we were told to do our show and when he and the band were coming through the hallway, we would clear the hallway. Give them their space, you know, and all that kind of stuff. They just had rules and we agreed to it and we did it right.”
Rockett then described the night everything changed, when Roth finally invited the band to meet him — right as an unexpected mishap occurred backstage.
“But then all of a sudden one night uh we got word David would like to see you. He would like the whole band to come in his dressing room and sit down and have a bite to eat and get to know you guys a little bit. And we said great,” Rockett continued. “So, we had been in the green room hanging out with some fans and there was this I had this shirt on that was open and this girl decided to be sexy and I said, ‘We’re going to go see David Lee Roth, but we’ll be back in a bit.’ And she goes, ‘Will you come back, sexy?’ And she took her gum and stuck it on my chest. And at the time, I had hair there and it stuck and I couldn’t get it out, right?”
The drummer went on to detail his frantic attempt to remove the gum before finally meeting Roth, including an unsuccessful trick suggested by someone nearby.
“I could not get this freaking I’m like, ‘This is not sexy. There’s nothing sexy about this.’ I’m trying to get this freaking gum out and they’re like, ‘Would you hurry up? David Lee Roth wants to meet you guys.’ This is after 2 and 1/2 months of being on the road. Somebody said, ‘Use peanut butter.’ So, I’m sticking peanut butter. I go to meet David Lee Roth. It didn’t work, by the way,” Rockett said.
Rockett capped off the story by recalling Roth’s amused reaction to the whole situation.
“I go to meet David Lee Roth and I have gum and peanut butter stuck on my chest and I’m like, ‘It’s an honor to meet you. Pay no attention. Oh, that’s a great a girl did this to me.’ He goes, ‘If a girl will do that to you, you should maybe pick a different girl.’ You know, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know that. I probably will,'” Rockett said.
That tour turned out to be a defining stretch for Poison. It lasted far longer than the two months Rockett described before the band finally sat down with Roth.
The full run lasted roughly six and a half months in 1988, making it one of the longest supporting slots Poison played during their early years. Poison opened for Roth at major venues including Oakland’s Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, the Forum in Los Angeles, Irvine Meadows in Laguna Hills, and stops in Sacramento and Fresno, among others.
The pairing became one of the more talked-about hard rock bills of the late 1980s. The tour is often remembered as a can’t-miss package show. Rockett has recalled fans reacting to the lineup as a major event, joking that concertgoers were turning out in part just “to see the women” drawn to both bands’ shows.
By the time the tour wrapped, Poison had built enough of a following to headline on their own. Rockett has said the band went straight from supporting Roth into headlining their own shows. That jump marked a turning point in Poison’s rise through the hard rock scene of the era.
