Poison

The band's breakthrough debut album, the multi-platinum Look What the Cat Dragged In, was released in 1986, followed by Open Up and Say... Ahh!, which was certified 5× platinum in the US. Their third consecutive multi-platinum and best selling album was Flesh & Blood. The most successful incarnation of the band consists of founding members lead singer and rhythm guitarist Bret Michaels, drummer Rikki Rockett, bassist and pianist Bobby Dall and longtime lead guitarist and backing vocalist C.C. DeVille. In the 1990s following the release of the band's first live album, Swallow This Live, the band experienced some line up changes and the fall of glam metal with the Grunge movement. But the band's fourth studio album, Native Tongue, still achieved Gold status and the band's first compilation album,  Poison's Greatest Hits: 1986-1996, went double platinum.

The original line up reformed for a greatest hits reunion tour in 1999. The band began the 2000s with the release of Crack a Smile... and More!, followed by the Power to the People album. They released the album, Hollyweird, in 2002 and in 2006 the band celebrated their 20-year anniversary with The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock tour and album, which was certified Gold and marked Poison's return to the Billboard top 20 charts for the first time since 1993. Band members have released several solo albums and starred in reality TV shows. After 30 years, the band is still recording music and performing. Since their debut in 1986, they have released seven studio albums, four live albums, five compilation albums, and have issued 28 singles to radio. In 2012 VH1 ranked them at #1 on their list of the "Top 5 Hair Bands of the '80s".

It originally included only one single, "Cry Tough"; however, Look What the Cat Dragged In became a surprise success and subsequently spawned three charting hits: "Talk Dirty to Me", "I Want Action", and "I Won't Forget You", The record became the biggest-selling-album in Enigma's history. With heavy rotation on MTV, their debut earned the band tours with fellow Glam metal rockers Ratt, Cinderella, and Quiet Riot, as well as a coveted slot in the Texxas Jam in Dallas.

The band began giving intimate and controversial interviews to rock journalist Judy Wieder at the Hollywood home they all shared in June 1986, before the official release of Look What the Cat Dragged In. Judy Wieder, the first to follow the band closely, circulated their many dicey conversations to the popular rock magazines of the day, including Circus, Creem, Rip Magazine, Rock Express and Hit Parader, ensuring enormous visibility for the album's release. In 1987 the band recorded a cover of the Kiss song "Rock and Roll All Nite" for the soundtrack, to Less Than Zero.

Poison's second album, Open Up and Say...Ahh!, was released May 21, 1988. It peaked at No. 2 on the American charts. The album included the band's biggest hit, the No. 1 single "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", along with other hits "Nothin' but a Good Time", "Fallen Angel", and the Loggins and Messina cover "Your Mama Don't Dance". The album's initial cover art was controversial, as it depicted a demonic female figure with an obscenely long tongue. A censored version of the cover followed, focusing on the figure's eyes. In 1989, the band released their first video album titled Sight for Sore Ears which featured all their music videos from the first two albums.

Conflict pursued the band persistently. Bryn Bridenthal, head of publicity at Geffen Records, filed a $1.1 million lawsuit against the band for drenching her with drinks and a bucket of ice at a music industry party. Then, Sanctuary Music, Poison's former management company, filed a $45.5 million breach of contract suit against the band. Poison retaliated with charges of mismanagement of funds. Bret Michaels' frequent brawling garnered him further lawsuits in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Tallahassee.

Poison received a letter from Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney thanking the band for contributing 20,000 CDs of the album Flesh & Blood to lift the morale of U.S. Troops during Desert Storm, and their continued support of the Armed Forces.

The album also features an alternative cover, as the original featured what appeared to be running ink or possibly blood from a tattoo. (Subsequent versions of this cover removed the "extra" ink.) The record went multi-platinum, spawning three gold singles: "Unskinny Bop", "Ride the Wind", and the ballad "Something To Believe In" which was dedicated to the band's security guard and close friend James Kimo Maano who had died. "Life Goes On" was the fourth single and the last single released was the title cut, "Flesh & Blood (Sacrifice)".

One of the band's few appearances in the UK was on August 18, 1990 at Donington's Monsters of Rock  festival in the summer of 1990. Whitesnake and Aerosmith headlined with Poison, Quireboys and Thunder supporting them. This event was broadcast on BBC Radio 1.

After two consecutive years on the road, band members were at each other's throats with personal differences and drug addictions. Poison recorded several performances during its 1990/1991 Flesh & Blood world tour, which were released in November 1991 as the band's fourth album, Swallow This Live. The double album features live tracks from Poison's first three studio albums and four new studio tracks including the single "So Tell Me Why", which were the last recorded before C.C. DeVille's departure from the band later that year.

Richie Kotzen was promptly fired, and replaced by Blues Saraceno in November 1993, who completed the world tour with the band including the famous "Hollywood Rock" concerts in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, where they played to over 165,000 people.

Poison began recording its sixth album, Crack a Smile, in early 1994. Recording was brought to an abrupt halt in May 1994, when Bret Michaels was involved in a car accident where he lost control of his Ferrari. Bret Michaels suffered a broken nose, ribs, jaw, and fingers and lost four teeth. After his recovery in 1995, the band continued recording the album. The album became shelved shortly after this, with no release date anywhere in sight. Instead, the label opted for a Greatest Hits compilation, which featured two new tracks with Blues Saraceno on guitar, "Sexual Thing" and "Lay Your Body Down". The first Greatest Hits album was released on November 26, 1996 and sold extremely well, going on to reach double platinum status.

After several years apart, Bret Michaels and C.C. DeVille were able to patch up their differences; and Bret Michaels welcomed C.C. DeVille back into Poison in 1996 to replace Blues Saraceno.

Bret Michaels was involved with Pamela Anderson. After Poison's and Bret Michaels' longtime attorney, Ed McPherson, obtained a Federal injunction prohibiting the distribution of an explicit sex tape that the couple made, an abridged version of the tape appeared on the internet in 1998.

Bret Michaels and actor friend Charlie Sheen co-founded a production company called Sheen Michaels Entertainment. In 1998, Bret Michaels made his acting debut alongside Charlie and Martin Sheen in the movie A Letter from Death Row, which was also written and directed by Bret Michaels.

The Greatest Hits reunion tour took place in the summer of 1999, with the original lineup. The show at Pine Knob Amphitheater in metro Detroit drew a sell-out crowd of 18,000, and other shows averaged crowds of 12,000. In addition, the band appeared on VH1's Behind the Music. On March 14, 2000, Crack a Smile...and More! was finally released, with the single "Shut Up, Make Love" and power ballad "Be the One". In addition to the outtakes, live recordings from the 1990 installment of the MTV Unplugged series were included.

The album was heavily criticised by both critics and fans, feeling it had poor production quality and an unimpressive new sound. One popular site said "It's muddy, under-produced, badly mixed and features crappy drum and guitar sounds". Other reviewers were more impressed, such as AllMusic, who declared it "one of Poison's best records, if not their best". A cover of The Who song "Squeeze Box" and "Shooting Star" were also released as singles for the album.

featuring Jessica Andrews, which also featured a music video and appeared on Billboard's "Hot Country Songs" chart, with its best position being number 45.

After a year off, Poison returned to the music scene. They celebrated their 20th anniversary with a "20 Years Of Rock" world tour in the summer of 2006, with fellow rockers Cinderella and Endeverafter  opening. The tour swiftly became one of the most successful tours of 2006 in the U.S., averaging about 10,000 people per night. To complement it, the band had released an anniversary compilation album The Best Of Poison: 20 Years Of Rock, in April that year. The album also features a new single, a cover of  Grand Funk Railroad's "We're An American Band", produced by Don Was and also features a music video. The compilation debuted at No. 17 with a first week sales total of 39,721, which marked Poison's return to the top 20 charts for the first time since 1993.

On August 1, 2006, Capitol Records released remastered versions of the first three Poison albums: Look What the Cat Dragged In, Open Up and Say...Ahh! and Flesh and Blood, in honor of Poison's 20th anniversary. All three include bonus tracks.

Missouri was taped for a live concert DVD and for a HDNet Concert special called: Live, Raw & Uncut that aired on October 26, 2007 as part of Heavy Metal Halloween. The band also appeared that night on the channel's Sound Off with Matt Pinfield.

The band played at the Rock2Wgtn rock festival in Wellington, New Zealand, on the weekend of March 22–23, 2008. The festival also included fellow legendary rockers Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Whitesnake, and Finnish hard rock act Lordi.

Poison played at the Sweden rock festival 2008. The band then went on tour in the summer of 2008 with Sebastian Bach and Dokken.

Poison live in concert DVD titled Live, Raw & Uncut was released on July 15, 2008, which was filmed in St. Louis, Missouri during the Poison'd tour in 2007. This DVD/CD set was initially exclusive to Best Buy stores and includes behind-the-scenes footage as a bonus feature as well as a live audio CD with selections from the concert. It sold around 2,400 copies in its first week of release to debut at position No. 8 on Billboard's Top Music Videos chart. Also in 2008 a live CD version of the Poison DVD Seven Days Live was released.

On June 7, 2009, Poison made a special appearance at the 63rd Tony Awards, performing "Nothin' But a Good Time" with the cast of Rock of Ages, which features "Nothin' But a Good Time" as a song in the show. As Bret Michaels was exiting the stage, he was struck in the head by a descending set piece and knocked to the ground. He suffered a fractured nose and a split lip requiring three stitches.

"He's just one of those lucky people" and that "he'll make a complete recovery".

In November 2010, a double CD package titled "Nothin' But A Good Time: The Poison Collection" was released which includes one compilation album The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock and one live album Swallow This Live  (single disc edition). Also in 2010 a singles compilation "Poison: 10 Great Songs The Millennium Collection" was released featuring all the singles from the band's first two studio albums. The album charted at #14 on the Top Hard Rock Albums, #40 on the Top Rock Albums and #145 on the Billboard 200.

On March 1, Poison announced a 2011 Summer tour with Mötley Crüe and New York Dolls to celebrate Poison's 25th anniversary and Mötley Crüe's 30th anniversary named the Glam-A-Geddon. Also for Poison's 25th anniversary, 35 of the multi-platinum band's top hits and fan favorites have been gathered for Double Dose: Ultimate Hits, a new career-spanning 2-CD and digital collection, which was released May 3, 2011 by Capitol/EMI. The compilation charted at #23 on the Billboard Top Hard Rock Albums chart and #17 in Canada.

In 2012, Poison and Lita Ford toured with Def Leppard for the Rock of Ages tour. Bret Michaels also resumed his "Get Your Rock On" solo tour (named after his latest single) to promote his then upcoming solo album. Jammin' with Friends featuring re-recorded alternate versions of Poison and Bret Michaels solo tracks was released June 25, 2013 and charted at #13 on the Top Hard Rock Albums, #23 on the Top Independent Albums, #29 on the Top Rock Albums and #80 on the Billboard 200.

In 2017, Poison went on a co-headlining a tour with Def Leppard and special guest Tesla throughout the spring and summer. This was the first major tour in five years for the band and coincided with limited headline acts throughout the US and Canada celebrating their recent 30-year anniversary. In 2018, Poison headlined the "Nothing But A Good Time Tour" with special guests Cheap Trick and Pop Evil. The tour started May 18 and ended July 1.

In May 2020, Bret Michaels finally released his long awaited autobiography, "Bret Michaels: Auto-Scrap-ography Volume 1: My Life in Pictures & Stories", which features select photos and stories collected over his 35+ year career including as the lead singer of Poison and as a solo artist. The book is the first in a series of trilogies.

The book was initially set to be titled Roses & Thorns when Bret Michaels first started working on the project and was set to be released in 2010 but kept being pushed back to include more chapters.

In 2019 Bret Michaels announced his autobiography to be released in 2020 titled Unbroken: My life in Pictures & Stories to coincide with his single release "Unbroken". It was initially set to be titled Roses & Thorns when Bret Michaels first started working on the project and was set to be released in 2010, but kept being pushed back to include more content. In May 2020 Bret Michaels: Auto-Scrap-ography Volume 1: My Life in Pictures & Stories has been released as the first in a series of trilogies.

Poison toured North America as an opening act for Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard with Joan Jett for The Stadium Tour from June 16 to September 9, 2022. The tour was originally scheduled for the summer of 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the tour, Bret Michaels expressed doubt that the band would record another album, but hoped that they would write and record another song that evoked their hits from their heyday.