Why Rikki Rockett Expected a Fight When He Met Lars Ulrich

Poison drummer Rikki Rockett said he’d half expected a fight when he first met Metallica counterpart Lars Ulrich. The pair met at the Rainbow Bar and Grill at an unspecified point in the 80s, when both bands were rising to fame.

In a recent interview on the Beardo & Weirdo podcast, Rockett explained that the tension was created by media attempts to create friction between rock music genres.

“When I lived in Studio City, I used to walk down the street to the newspaper rack… to see if we were in anything,” he said. “And there we are on the cover of Hit Parader. It’s got Poison, and it’s [also] got James Hetfield, and it says, ‘Poison vs. Metallica.’”

READ MORE: How Poison’s ‘Look What the Cat Dragged In’ Helped Define Hair Metal

Although he said he didn’t visit the Rainbow often, Rockett decided to go that evening. “It was completely jammed,” he recalled. “I wanted to go to the bathroom, and somebody’s like, ‘Look, let me just take you to the back.’” That’s when he met Ulrich.

Watch Rikki Rockett’s Interview

“I’m [thinking], ‘Huh – it’s Poison vs. Metallica. Are we gonna go? What’s gonna happen?’ And I said, ‘Hi … Lars, I’ve never met you. I’m Rikki.’ And he goes, ‘Nice to meet you.’ I said, ‘We’re on a cover together right now. We’re supposed to hate each other.’

“And he goes, ‘Well, if we’re gonna hate each other, let’s at least have a drink over it.’ And we wound up talking an hour and a half. He was fricking great.”

Rikki Rockett Believes in Music That Forms Social Movements

After enjoying the encounter, Rockett remembered thinking: “It’s the media that creates this and then it gets the fans going. … Why can’t you like both [bands]? That’s like saying, ‘I’m only gonna like horror movies – I can’t watch anything else.’”

While criticizing music followers who profess to hate a genre but “only do it because you’re carrying a banner,” he argued for the musical forces that generated social movements.

“I think music was [and] has always been really great when there was some kind of a flag that people stood behind … like the punk movement and things like that. The '60s … really created amazing music. And maybe that’s what’s missing right now – we don’t have a social movement that supports rock ’n’ roll.”