Description
Poison Native Tongue
Label: Capitol Records 0777 7 98961 2 7
Format: CD, Album
Country: Europe
Released: 1993
Genre: Hard Rock, Glam
Tracklist:
1 Native Tongue 1:01
Timbales, Congas Sheila E.
2 The Scream 3:49
Timbales, Congas Sheila E.
3 Stand 5:15
Choir First Ame Church Choir, Piano Jai Winding, Arranged By [Choir], Conductor Ricky Grundy*
4 Stay Alive 4:23
5 Until You Suffer Some (Fire And Ice) 4:14
Organ Mike Finnegan
6 Body Talk 4:01
7 Bring It Home 3:55
8 7 Days Over You 4:13
Arranged By [Horns] Greg Adams, Piano Billy Powell, Horns “Tower Of Power” Horn Section*
9 Richies Acoustic Thang 0:56
10 Ain’t That The Truth 3:25
11 Theatre Of The Soul 4:41
Piano Jai Winding
12 Strike Up The Band 4:15
13 Ride Child Ride 3:53
14 Blind Faith 3:32
15 Bastard Son Of A Thousand Blues 4:57
Piano Billy Powell
Duration 56:20
Backing Vocals [Additional] Timothy B. Schmit, Tommy Funderburk
Bass, Backing Vocals Bobby Dall
Drums, Backing Vocals, Percussion, Drums [Tribal] Rikki Rockett
Lead Guitar, Rhythm Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals, Mandolin, Guitar [Dobro], Piano Richie Kotzen
Producer Richie Zito
Recorded By [Additional] Jim Albert
Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Harmonica Bret Michaels
Written-By Bobby Dall, Bret Michaels, Richie Kotzen, Rikki Rockett
This album is dedicated to the living legend in his own time, mind and area code, Scotty Ross.
And to C.C. Deville, thanks for eight years together, here’s to your health and happiness.
Printed in Holland
Made in Holland
Barcode: 0 7777 98961 2 7
Other (Rights Societies): BIEM / STEMRA
Other: UK: CDESTU 2190
Other: F: PM 520
Native Tongue = Studio album by Poison
Released: February 8, 1993
Recorded: 1992 at A&M Studios in Hollywood, California and Rumbo Recorders in Canoga Park, California
Genre: Glam metal, hard rock, Blues rock
Length: 56:20
Label: Capitol
Producer: Richie Zito
Native Tongue is the fourth studio album by American hard rock band Poison, released in 1993 through Capitol Records. It peaked at #16 on the Billboard 200, #20 on the UK Albums Chart and was certified Gold by the RIAA on April 21, 1993. It has also been certified by CAN platinum. The album features new lead guitarist Richie Kotzen. Kotzen was hired as the bands guitarist following the firing of C.C. DeVille in late 1991. The album features the singles “Stand” which featured the Los Angeles First A.M.E. Church Choir on backing vocals, “Until You Suffer Some (Fire And Ice)” and “Body Talk”.
Musical style:
While the band is generally associated with the glam metal genre, Native Tongue also features funk and blues elements. Richie Kotzens influence upon the sound of the album is unmistakable. In songs such as “The Scream”, the bands traditional sustaining power chords were jettisoned in favor of complex, funky palm-muted heavy metal riffs.
Production and marketing:
Admitted as a full-fledged member of the band rather than a “hired gun”, Kotzen was given considerable creative freedom. Resultingly, Kotzens writing and performing contributions dominated the album.
Kotzen would later be expelled from the band following the world tour, after it was discovered that he had been romantically involved with the fiance of drummer Rikki Rockett. Recollections of the album, while no doubt soured by these events, nonetheless appear to faithfully reflect the basic clash between Kotzens style and that of the bands founding members. Kotzen would later claim that “being in Poison helped me forget I was a musician”, while Rockett would lament the loss of the bands original “attitude”.
The album was recorded and mixed at A&M Studios in Hollywood, California, and Rumbo Recorders in Canoga Park, California with producer Richie Zito. It was dedicated to Van Halen tour manager Scotty Ross and former Poison guitarist DeVille. The album peaked at #16 on the Billboard chart.
The first two singles “Stand” and “Until You Suffer Some (Fire And Ice)” featured music videos and charted in the US and the UK. “Stand” reached number 15 on the Mainstream rock chart, #35 on the Top 40 Mainstream chart and #50 on the Billboard Hot 100[8]. The song also charted at number 25 on the UK Singles chart and “Until You Suffer Some (Fire And Ice)” peaked at number 32 on the UK Singles chart.
Following the album the band released a video/DVD titled Seven Days Live which featured a concert from the Native Tongue world tour.
Songs:
Lyrically, the band continued on the growing sophistication that began in Flesh and Blood. The albums themes include battles against injustice (“Scream”, “Stand”), heartbreak (“Until You Suffer Some”, “7 Days Over You”, “Theatre of the Soul”), and inner demons (“Stay Alive”).
Track listing:
All songs written by Bret Michaels, Richie Kotzen, Bobby Dall and Rikki Rockett
Singles:
“Stand” – #50 Billboard Hot 100
“Until You Suffer Some (Fire And Ice)” – #32 UK Singles chart
“Body Talk”
Band members:
Bret Michaels – Lead Vocals; Rhythm/Acoustic Guitars; Harmonica
Richie Kotzen – Lead/Rhythm/Acoustic Guitars; Piano; Mandolin; Dobro; Backing Vocals
Bobby Dall – Bass Guitars; Backing Vocals
Rikki Rockett – Drums; Percussion; Backing Vocals
With:
Jai Winding – Piano (Tracks 3 & 11)
Billy Powell – Piano (8 & 15)
Mike Finnegan – Organ (5)
‘Tower of Power’ Horn Section (8)
Timothy B. Schmit – Backing Vocals
Tommy Funderburk – Backing Vocals
First AME Church Choir (3)
Shelia E. – Purcussion (1 & 2)
Poison had important changes to address before turning their attention to a fourth album.
They wanted to move away from their party-hard reputation and prove themselves as quality songwriters and take their fans with them. More than anything else, they wanted to move forward without guitarist C.C. DeVille, who’d been fired after a drug-fueled breakdown in relations.
“The exact night that I no longer believed in C.C. was when we did the MTV Awards in 1991,” Bret Michaels told Kerrang! two years later. “It was a gagglefuck, to say the least. We walked onstage, I was really fired up, and he played half of ‘Talk Dirty To Me’ with his guitar unplugged. I walked over to him onstage and said, ‘C.C., your guitar’s unplugged!’
“And I won’t say anything about substances, because we’ve all had ’em. But I was never more depressed than that night, and afterwards I just walked out, and they had limos waiting for us but I didn’t want one,” Michaels added. “I went over to an Italian place called Masseli’s and got shitfaced drunk. It was a realization that we knew what was happening and we knew what was going on. The next week, it was just a mutual parting of the ways. Neither of us believed in each other.”
Michaels, bassist Bobby Dall and drummer Rikki Rockett went through more than 3,000 demo tapes in the hunt for a replacement. The options were boiled down to two, both young guitarists with developing virtuoso reputations: Richie Kotzen and Blues Saraceno. Dall and Rockett initially preferred Saraceno, but Michaels wanted – and got – Kotzen.
“He’s 22 years old, he has a fire up his ass, and wants to prove himself as a player,” Michaels argued. “We looked at him and told him he was over-qualified to play our songs, but that wasn’t the point. I wanted to work as a band from scratch, from the start, and we started working the night he joined.”
Kotzen said he wondered why a band with a style like Poison’s would want a player like him. “I start thinking, ‘Wow, they’re not just looking for like some dude to step in and play, you know, D, C and G chords over and over again,’” he later admitted. “They want a songwriter. They want a legitimate guy to help chart the course of the group stylistically, and still obviously retain what made the band work in the first place.”
His first song offering, “Stand,” saved an audition that Kotzen says he screwed up. “I had problems with my amps,” he admitted. “I had some vintage Marshalls, and smoke started coming out of one of them. And then when I went to play one of their tunes, I was making mistakes because I thought I knew it but didn’t. So they said, ‘Well, what do you got?’ I played ‘Stand,’ and Bret loved it.”
The slow, rootsy “Stand” was a new direction for Poison. After some adjustments by Michaels, the song became a cornerstone of 1993’s Native Tongue, despite its admittedly disappointing level of success. Kotzen also brought “Until You Suffer Some (Fire & Ice),” “Body Talk” and “7 Days Over You” to the table during sessions in which 15 tracks were credited to all four members.
“When I look at Richie, I know that he’s really into what he’s doing, that he believes in the music he’s playing,” Michaels once said of the tour in support of Native Tongue. “When I look over at him onstage, I don’t think I’ll ever look over and think, ‘Jesus Christ, he’s not competent enough to play that.’ Richie likes to have a few drinks and whatnot, but I know he ain’t gonna come onstage at one of our biggest shows so coked out of his brain that he can’t play three chords.”
The honeymoon period, however, would not last. Native Tongue charted at No. 16, supported by the release of “Stand” as the lead single. “Until You Suffer Some (Fire & Ice)” followed and then “Body Talk,” the only one of the three that could be said to carry the rock energy Poison was known for. Michaels noted fan-mail suggestions that Kotzen just didn’t fit in, and that he believed “Stand” was too different to have been launched first.
As the new version of Poison failed to connect, Kotzen reportedly became involved in an affair with Rockett’s girlfriend. It became clear he’d have to go – and some accounts suggest he was summarily fired by having his property thrown off the tour bus and being told to go with it.
“I never really got to know the guy,” Michaels told Kerrang! in late 1993, by which time Poison had jumped to Plan B and hired Saraceno. “The camaraderie was missing, and that’s very important for our band.” He recalled telling Kotzen: “I just spent the last two years of my life picking up the pieces of what happened with C.C., putting it into you and making an effort to make it work – but I never got that effort back.”
Michaels felt “we made a great record, that he was a great guitar player, but he had to admit he never quite put that effort out. I was pissed off because we had exposed our fans to what I wanted to be the band for the rest of our career. With Poison, it’s an attitude – you’ve gotta go onstage and really feel it. … But I’ll never forget something I read Ozzy [Osbourne] say in an interview. He was talking about the fact that you have highs and you have lows, but you just keep on going. And that’s it.”
Saraceno didn’t last either. Crack a Smile, the only LP he recorded with Poison, was shelved for several years. Soon DeVille was back in the ranks, while Kotzen returned to his solo career and did comfortably well. He said he sometimes listens to Native Tongue – and to “Stand” in particular – before adding: “It turned out to be a cool collaboration.”
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