I'm a dreamer and a realist.
— Bret Michaels
You can't have self-pity. At some point, you have to say, 'These are the cards I've been dealt, and I'm going to play them.'
You're never gonna make everyone love what you do. You just embrace the fans that do.
I didn't hate Nirvana. That was more of a media-constructed this-versus-that thing.
Whether its active rock, pop, country, hip-hop - I love music; it's therapeutic to me.
I believe you must find the things in life that you love, and don't let anybody or anything stop you. There may be lesser successes, but you're never a failure unless you choose not to do something. I don't fail unless I quit. You must believe to receive.
I constantly write, record, and play music for public consumption and because it's therapeutic for me.
I never envisioned being a rock star. I envisioned the stage. I would draw and draw and draw the stage, or the tour bus. It was much simpler.
Obviously, in my past, I had a quite wild relationship with Pamela Anderson.
A brain hemorrhage puts it all in a deeper perspective. I'm one of those guys hit by lightning. I see the big picture. Everything is in perspective now. Let's just say I'm the kind of guy who knows how to enjoy the moment.
Everyone wants to go to the party and the red carpet, but my life is 90% the work.
You want to go to a summer concert and not watch a band staring at its shoes for six hours and complaining.
Any band that is out there chasing it is doing more destruction to music then someone who is out there playing what they truly feel.
I'm addicted to creating and writing.
A lot of bands live and breathe out of hotels. I just happen to be the one that lives on my bus. I have camped and RVed my entire life.
I want to fill my life with as much awesome stuff as I can.
For me, music is therapeutic, so the songs that came to me the easiest came from the most devastating moments of my life.
I tell my daughters, 'If something doesn't feel right, whether that's going to a party, doing a video, shooting something, you're around someone that's creeping you out, use your gut. If you're in a car with a driver and something don't feel right, use your gut.'
One of the things that matters to me, when you're out on the road, I want to make sure people are having a good time.
I'm the son of a Navy veteran, my two sisters are in the Air Force, I have a cousin who's a Navy Seal, and more.
Poison is one of the first, if not the first, truly independent bands to sell 3 million copies of our first record. It was before we were with a big company.
The philosophy of my life is the harder I worked, the luckier I got.
I always think in life passion supersedes everything.
All my life, I've been a type 1 diabetic. I've always taken life day by day.
I don't want to be a reality retro star.
I do meet-and-greets at every show and meet a minimum of 20-35 fans at each.
Thoroughly read all your contracts. I really mean thoroughly.
I've had plenty of big hits and plenty of big misses.
I may have some things tougher than the average person, but there are a lot of people who are going through worse things than me. I can't live in fear.
Every day that I wake up has to be a good day!
With 'I Want Action,' I think people take it in the context of the Sunset Strip and the party scene; it was tongue-in-cheek.
I'm on the phone 24/7 with my kids talking to them about the ups and down of life, schoolwork, bullying, the great times.
The video for 'Ride the Wind,' we shot that in Detroit. We shot it at Joe Louis Arena two nights in a row.
I absolutely love and respect the past, but I'm not a 'glory days' guy. I love where we've been and love where I'm at and going.
With the Internet, you can be easily exposed and disposed. You can create some viral video, the biggest thing ever, and then four weeks later, no one remembers your name.
I don't like high-maintenance. High-maintenance does not work for me at all. And I don't like anybody who talks down to people. I don't speak down to anyone who works around me, and so I won't put up with it in a relationship.
Most bands have a two-year success rate. By the third year, it's sort of over. Here we are in Poison still together 26 years later.
I want to tell the story. Mostly, when you see rock movies, it has to be this over-the-top thing. I want to give people a Bret Michaels movie where they see that my life is a comedy of errors. I also want to show my fans how to get through the kind of troubles that would leave most people flat on the floor.
My life is part humor, part roses, part thorns.
For me as a solo artist, I never want to be a nostalgia act.
I am truly independently owned and operated.
