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17 июл 2025
POISON Drummer RIKKI ROCKETT's 'Ghost Notes' Memoir Pushed Back To October
Asked how it felt to take a look back at his life for a book, Rikki said: "Scary. And a lot of people go, do you have any regrets? Of course I do. There's lots of things I regret. But not regret to the point where, yeah, did I learn from them. Yeah, sure. You can say all those things, but there's certain things I look back on, like, eh, why'd I do it that way? But I did and here I am, and I adjusted and moved on. It's kind of interesting to see that. The painful stuff isn't fun to look at, obviously the cancer battle and all that sort of stuff isn't fun. [Being] falsely accused of rape, that sucked. There were certain things that are not fun to live through again, but it's my story and people need to know about it. Sometimes people just brush the headlines or there's a lot of news and a lot of things that are out there all at once, and sometimes we're not paying attention. I read the Joey Kramer book, for example, from AEROSMITH, and I'm a huge, huge AEROSMITH fan, but there's been times in my life where there's other things going on and I'm not paying attention to what Joey Kramer was doing right then. Now it's nice to look back and go, wow, I missed all these things or I heard a little something about it, and now I'm seeing it and reading it and kind of digesting it again and understanding more from his perspective what really happened, that kind of stuff."
During an October 2024 appearance on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", the 63-year-old Rikki, whose real name is Richard Allan Ream, said about why he decided to name his book "Ghost Notes": "The first chunk of our career, like [early POISON albums] 'Look What The Cat Dragged In' [1986], 'Open Up And Say... Ahh!' [1988], all those records, even most of 'Flesh & Blood' [1990], the way they were producing records at that time, they did not want drummers playing ghost notes, if you know what ghost notes are… It's kind of like a lighter tap on the snare drum, for example, the kind of the notes in between the notes that are not fully pronounced, I guess would be the best way to explain it in layman's terms. And so a lot of times it gives it that little bit of swing groove to it. And producers did not want that in the early 80s — they just wanted straight drums, almost machine-like and heavy and loud and detuned snare drums and all that kind of stuff. And it wasn't really until 'Flesh & Blood', but even more 'Native Tongue' [1993] where I was able to really play the way I wanted to play. I think a lot of other drummers dealt with that. I know I talked to various drummers about their frustration back then. So I decided to name it. I finally was able to play however I wanted. And all those little notes between the notes are my kind of what I'm talking about in my life. Instead of just the highlights that you always hear about, you know, 'POISON did this' or 'Rikki Rockett did this' or 'Rikki got arrested for this' or whatever, these are like all the stuff in between. So those are the ghost notes between all the big things that you've heard about. So I kind of made a little connection there, and that's why I named it that."
Asked if "Ghost Notes" is "kind of like a semi-autobiography, but more focused on things that people wouldn't know" about him, Rikki said: "Yes. Or more in depth. A lot of the things are more in depth. You've heard some of these stories about POISON, but you never really dig that much deeper or maybe they just haven't been reported much more than what you've heard on the surface, for example. And so I talk about a lot of those kinds of things."
He continued: "Everything [that you hear about the 1980s glam rock scene is] always focused on the Sunset Strip. And that was only a couple years of our life, honestly. What's more interesting is our years in the tri-state area and Pennsylvania and all the crap we went through trying to play gigs and trying to find our space, and that stuff, to me, is more cinematic, if you will, than, 'Oh, yeah, they played the Troubadour and the Strip and they hung up flyers. I mean, we've all heard those stories. But it's the other stuff, like trying to hold jobs down and renting VFW halls and renting vans and trying to scrape enough money to get to the next gig and all that stuff. That was really the meat of our struggle, I think. Not that being on the Strip wasn't interesting, but I feel like when you talk about the Strip, you're just lumping every band together that was our contemporaries. But, really, we kind of came, fought, got our deal and got out even sort of before that. I mean, the Strip continued to explode after we were off the Strip."
Rikki is the co-founder and drummer for the band POISON, which exploded into the highly competitive Los Angeles music scene in the 1980s, making a name for themselves in the clubs on the Sunset Strip.
POISON has sold over 50 million records worldwide, releasing eight studio albums, four live albums, and four compilations. The band has charted 10 singles on the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, including six Top 10 singles and one Hot 100 number-one smash hit, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn".
Relentless from the ground up and forged in the hellfires of the Pennsylvania and Los Angeles club scenes, POISON smashed its way up as an independent band who bet on itself. Selling over three million copies of an independent album which included the big hits "Talk Dirty To Me", "I Won't Forget You", "Cry Tough", "I Want Action" and the underground smash "Look What The Cat Dragged In", they were soon picked up by Capitol Records and beat the sophomore jinx by releasing the aforementioned No. 1 smash "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Written out of emotion by singer/songwriter and frontman Bret Michaels, the song blasted into the charts remaining a top the pop, rock and country genres for threee months consecutively. The album "Open Up And Say...Ahh!" sold eight million copies out of the gate and spawned other hit singles "Fallen Angel", "Nothin' But A Good Time" and "Your Mama Don't Dance". Followed up by the multi-platinum album "Flesh & Blood", POISON again lit up the charts with several more smash hit singles, including "Unskinny Bop" and "Something To Believe In".
POISON's reunited original lineup — Rockett, Michaels, bassist Bobby Dall and guitarist C.C. DeVille — completed "The Stadium Tour" with MÖTLEY CRÜE, DEF LEPPARD and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS in 2022. The trek was originally scheduled to take place in the summer of 2020 but ended up being pushed back to 2021, and then to 2022, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Rockett was declared cancer free more in 2016 after undergoing an experimental treatment. He was diagnosed with oral cancer back in 2015.
In April 2022, Rockett married his longtime girlfriend TC Smith at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, California.
Rikki was previously married to singer/songwriter Melanie Martel. They share joint custody of their two kids — son Jude Aaron Rockett and daughter Lucy Sky Rockett.
Last October, Rikki announced the launch of a new band called THE ROCKETT MAFIA. Joining him in the group are Brandon Gibbs (DEVIL CITY ANGELS) on vocals and guitar, Mick Sweda (BULLETBOYS) on guitar and backing vocals, and Bryan Kimes on bass and backing vocals.
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