Get ready, Poison, Cheap Trick, and Pop Evil fans! The Poison "Nothin' But a Good Time" tour presented by Live Nation has begun! All three bands are ready to rock your world this summer! The amazing 80s rockers, Poison are known for their greatest hits, "Nothin' But A Good Time" "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," "Talk Dirty To Me," "Something To Believe In," etc. Poison has previously toured with Cheap Trick and Def Leppard. The classic icon rockers Cheap Trick are best known for their songs, "I Want You To Want Me," "Dream Police," "Surrender" "Need Your Love," and more.

Lead vocalist, Robin Zander guest starred in the Broadway musical, "Rocktopia" in the show's finale in April.

For fans that are unfamiliar with Pop Evil—the band formed in North Muskegon, Michigan in 2001 by frontman Leigh Kakaty. Their genre is hard metal, rock, and post-grunge music. The US tour with all three bands kicked off in Los Angeles on May 18 and will continue until November 9 in Greensburg, PA.

Poison frontman Bret Michaels speaks

I recently conducted an interview with Poison frontman Bret Michaels. He spoke directly to me regarding the tour, new music, his foundation, his online store on his website, an upcoming solo tour, and more!

Suzanne Rothberg: You're touring and you have some new music out and you've been rehearsing how is everything going?

Bret Michaels: I started the year off with the "Party Starts Now" Tour with Bret Michaels band—and I ran that up until about two weeks ago. I have been working on the presentation, the production and the look of the show onstage with Bobby our bass player; putting together the look of the Poison show. It's something that we've never done before; it's really exciting and working with the sound company.

The most important thing is that it sounds amazing—in the amphitheaters and arenas and you want to make it an audio-visual experience. This is really where you put your time in. We've been rehearsing for about two weeks. What's exciting for me is that we're doing nothing but Poison songs. All songs that are hits and are Poison material.

We've covered other people's material but this year we're just going to do all the Poison hits. Speaking for myself and the band, I still have the same passion, energy, and purpose as when I started. When I hit that stage—it just feels amazing! One of the most important things is that I like to have is a thrust that goes out into the audience. I'm very fan friendly and the energy still works with the audience participating and having a good time. Poison is still strictly a live music band—it's just real instruments and live music.

Suzanne Rothberg: You have an online store on your website featuring 'soul candles' and other items.

Bret Michaels: The Bret Michaels online store has been on there for a long time.

We've been one of the few that there's a lot of loyal fans that go on there and buy a lot of stuff. Part of why I got into entertainment is I like to think that I have an entrepreneurial free spirit. What turns me on is being creative but then getting it done. And that's my motto for my company and for everything is—"Have fun, but get it done!" The year I won "The Apprentice" I created 'Trop-a-Rocka' with Dr. Pepper-Snapple and it's still one of their popular drinks, and it's the only Apprentice in all their celebrity and non-celebrity seasons that has a product in the market. So I created that—we did the candles, the guitars—it's about creating stuff and finding a way to get it out there and make it a great product and that people buy it they love it and word-of-mouth spreads.

Bret discusses his foundation, hotel suite, new music, etc.

Suzanne Rothberg: There was this article about you where you (and your foundation, Life Rocks) sent this young girl with Type 1 diabetes to camp. You struggled with the disease yourself since you were younger.

Bret Michaels: Yes, it's called 'Life Rocks' and it's been going on for a real long time—even before Apprentice. And what 'Life Rocks' is—is I'm a Type 1 diabetic and I'm a son of a military veteran. Life Rocks started to send diabetic kids to camp and work with people with Type 2 diabetes to send both children and adults to camp. And then, it segued to work with our veterans and wounded warriors and now it's spread into working with children with cancer, we do that a lot.

Every single city I play solo, I go out there and we leave something awesome behind. We pick a charity event for that concert and make a donation to it. I've been Type 1 diabetic and 5 injections a day—from the time I was 6 until now; and as a diabetic, you're testing your blood non-stop throughout the day. I work hard with technology to bring it forward— there are so many great advances in it but the bottom line is; it still comes down to the person with diabetes managing their disease. It's a really tough balancing act, but I tell people it's "mind-over-matter." You really have to stay positive and just find a way to take care of yourself because it's a very debilitating disease if you don't.

Suzanne Rothberg: You have a hotel suite at The Hard Rock that you own in Mexico?

Bret Michaels: Yes it's called, "The Bret Michaels Hospitality Suite." It's a suite at The Hard Rock in Riviera Maya, Mexico. It's The Hard Rock's biggest suite they own. The last two years we won the 'Design Award' and we won the 'World Traveler Award.' It's a 10,000 square foot suite. And when you go there it is an "absolute party!" You walk into it and it opens up two levels to the ocean—it's got a stage in it, it's got guitars, drums, it's got everything! We worked hard on it. It was originally 5,000 square foot and I asked what was above it and they said it was just a terrace—so we turned that into a 10,000 square foot suite, we put a fitness center in it that faces the ocean—it is truly an experience.

Suzanne Rothberg: You have new music being launched this fall called "Songs and Stories" and fans can get a sneak peak on your website. It's also tied into the tour and the links to purchase tickets will be shared by Live Nation and yourself.

Bret Michaels: Yes, that's correct. "Songs and Stories" is I started doing it myself and showing people, "This is what it's about" and it's about pivotal moments in your life. It's about not just the song but what inspired the song—when you hit a wall how did you get around it what did you do and what makes your music YOUR music. In other words, it's really going to be an interesting show.

Suzanne Rothberg: There's a song you wrote (and video) titled, "Jorja Bleu" written and named after your youngest daughter.

(Note: The video received over a million views in just days from its release!)

Bret Michaels: Yes I wrote that. It's very raw and very real and I think that's the reason it hit and people loved it. The greatest thing about the internet, if you're a creative artist—you could actually put yourself out there. It doesn't always mean it's going to be a massive viral success, but at least you have an outlet to let people see what you can do. "Jorja Bleu," I'm very thankful. Her older sister, Raine I wrote a song back in 2003 a couple of years after she was born. With Jorja, she went through the same thing—you know, a couple tough things with that middle school stuff and I just wrote this song from my heart about my youngest daughter.

Suzanne Rothberg: Anything else you want to share with your fans?

Bret Michaels: I just want them to know, I am beyond grateful and thankful for their loyal support throughout all the years and all my endeavors—both Poison, solo and reality TV. I promise them that I will never lose that passion for what I do.
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