The following is an excerpt from an interview with POISON frontman Bret Michaels conducted by TheCultureShock.com:

CS: What’s the biggest difference for you guys as a touring band, as Poison today, in comparison to 20 years ago, as far as taking the show on the road?

Michaels: "The best thing is we all got our own private tour bus (laughs). It keeps us friendly. Hey, look, last year we still had our own buses and me and Bob still got in a fight onstage (laughs). You know what’s great about? We still are the epitome of the ultimate garage band from Pennsylvania, except for C.C., who’s from New York, and we are the epitome of the ultimate garage band that got to do this for 21 years. That is the best way … we still argue about songs that are going in the set. We’re still fired up, but when that passion works right, that chemistry, it makes for a really great show. And we’re all really good … that’s the one thing, we’re really good friends that just have the occasional disagreement (laughs)."

CS: Do you guys ever sit back and laugh at each other and talk about how one minute, you’re pissed off at each other and the next minute, you’re friends again?

Michaels: "We have many a laugh about our own exciting, yet SPINAL TAP-ish career. You can quote that (laughs). We half laugh at it. Last year, Bobby, when we got in a fight in Atlanta, he hit me in the knee and I said 'You wussie. I thought we were gonna go mano-y-mano, fist-to-fist, good old style.' He took his green, sharp pointy Warlock bass off, winged it around like Peter Townsend and then it hit me that he was actually gonna throw it at me and I’m like ‘Man, I’m gonna die.’ I went into a karate kick stance, he threw it and the fuckin’ bass caught my knee (laughs). This was how I had to act it out. Although I felt like crying, here we are at a sold out show in Atlanta, or a packed show, and I hobble up to the mike, and I know I need stitches, right. I go, ‘This is our last song we’re doing. You may never see us again.’ Not a couple hours later, they stitch me up and we’re at a truck stop laughing about it. I’m like ‘Hey you dick, look at my knee.’ We laughed it off and the next day we played Memphis and I had to play in a knee brace for the next five shows."

CS: Tell me a little bit about the songs you chose for the compilation and how the idea came about.

Michaels: "We were looking for a record we could go in with Capitol/EMI that would be fun to do. Something where it wouldn’t be a battle. We could literally go in and we could all go in and pick a couple of songs that we all liked and rearrange them. We tried stuff that was a little off the beaten rock path. Although if it was up to me, I would be playing ZEPPELIN, THE WHO - well we did do a Who song - so Zeppelin, AEROSMITH, SKYNYRD, KISS, you know what I’m getting at. But, we all went in and said, 'Listen, let’s do some other stuff too.’ Let’s pick out THE CARS. Let’s do the one song THE ROMANTICS had that was a big hit. And let’s do that song. Songs we used to cover in bars when we were younger. We even went deeper. We did the ‘Dead Flowers’ by the ROLLING STONES, which was kind of a deep album cut which nobody expected us to do. That was a really fun song to do. No real rhyme or reason. We just wanted to go in and have fun and pick out some stuff that was really interesting for us to do."

Go to this location for the complete interview.