JulesPersonally, I am not a fan of Poison due to the Glam stuff and just didn't like the music. I HAVE, however, gained monumental respect for Brett Michaels.
Story:
In 1985, Slash was grinding.
He worked a day job at Centerfold Newsstand on Fairfax, got fired for conducting band business on company time, and spent twelve hours a day practicing guitar.
He and Steven Adler had a band called Road Crew that existed mostly in name only.
He was talented—serious enough to keep up with any of the neoclassical shredders on the Strip—but he had no vehicle.
Then Poison came calling.
Their guitarist Matt Smith was leaving because his wife was pregnant. Smith liked Slash and wanted him for the job. This wasn't some struggling club act. Poison was the biggest band on the Sunset Strip, pushing the glam look to its extreme with towering bleached-blonde hair and full eyesore makeup. They could sell out any venue in LA. They were days away from signing a record deal.
Slash's friend Marc Canter drove him out to Radio City to see them play. Slash went to three gigs to check out the scene. He took their demo tape home and learned four or five songs.
Then he showed up to the rehearsal space in Venice wearing his typical uniform: jeans, T-shirt, and the cool brown leather moccasins with short fringe around the ankle that he'd stolen from the farmer's market.
And the audition?
"I just killed them," Slash said later. He played the st out of their material. Musically, it wasn't even close.
But then the bassist, Bobby Dall, looked him over. The vibe shifted. There was a tangible attention to detail that had nothing to do with the music.
"Dude, like, what do you wear?" Dall asked.
Slash shrugged.
"You don't wear those shoes onstage, do you?"
"I haven't given it much thought, to tell you the truth."
The bassist looked concerned and confused.
Slash already hated their image. He considered the music lame. He'd watched three shows and couldn't stand the Silly String act at the end.
But the thing that made it impossible—the detail he couldn't get past—was the moment in their set when each band member would step forward and introduce themselves to the crowd.
Slash couldn't stomach saying "Hi, my name is Slash."
He showed up to a callback rehearsal and saw another guitarist waiting—platinum-blond hair, sparkly white leather jacket, full makeup with frosted pink lipstick.
That was C.C. DeVille.
Slash walked out.
C.C. got the gig a few days later. Poison signed their deal, and their album Open Up and Say … Ahhh! went on to sell five million copies.
But Slash's heart wanted to be in Guns N' Roses. The official lineup came together on June 6, 1985. And when the dust settled, Slash had an answer for the glam scene that had almost swallowed him.
"We're like the antithesis of what was going on in Hollywood at the time," he said. "We were sick to tears of the glam scene."
Axl put it more directly: "Poison fd it up for all of us. They said everyone in LA was following their trend."
Appetite for Destruction sold thirty million copies.
Poison's five million would pale in comparison.
(Sourced from: Slash by Slash with Anthony Bozza, 2007; Last of the Giants: The True Story of Guns N' Roses by Mick Wall, 2016; Reckless Road by Marc Canter, 2007; Appetite for Destruction by Danny Sugerman, 1991; Guns N' Roses: The World's Most Outrageous Hard Rock Band by Paul Elliott, 1990)