Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash dissing Poison led to a violent backstage incident according to a new Variety article.
Less polite is an incident involving members of hit pop-metal outfit Poison and Bryn Bridenthal, who headed publicity departments at DreamWorks, Geffen, Capitol and Elektra and worked closely with both Motley Crue and Guns N’ Roses. After attending a Motley Crue show at the Los Angeles Forum in 1987, a few months after Guns N’ Roses released their debut album, Bridenthal went to an after-party at the venue. There, she chatted with Poison bassist Bobby Dall.
“He was all upset over a feature in Hit Parader that had [GNR guitarist] Slash saying Poison were posers,” she recalls. “I may well have had a smirk on my face, because I thought it was pretty funny that he thought this was all that important. So I said to him, ‘I can’t believe a band that’s sold 2 million albums feels so threatened by a band that hasn’t even sold 200,000 copies [GNR] yet.”
According to Bridenthal, Dall responded by throwing a large drink in her face. Then the bassist “jammed the cup on my head like a dunce cap. I retreated to the restroom to blot up the sticky liquid — mascara and beer really sting when splashed in your eyes,” she says. As Bridenthal and her friend were leaving the party, she was approached by Dall and Poison singer Bret Michaels. “One held my arms back and the other threw a tub of melted ice water over my head. Then a couple of security guys from the venue came up to say I was leaving, grabbed me under my arms and carried me out to the parking lot, locking me out for ‘bothering’ the Poison guys.”
That wasn’t the end of it. “The next day I told [Geffen Records President/ COO] Eddie Rosenblatt and David Geffen what had happened and right away they were outraged and wanted to call an attorney,” Bridenthal says. “I declined, because I thought it went with the territory and I could just forget about it. But when Poison and their management began calling repeatedly to threaten me, I changed my mind and wanted apologies. I got insincere letters typed from their attorneys. Let’s just say I’m not a Poison fan.” She later filed a $1.1 million lawsuit against the band; the two later pleaded guilty to misdemeanors.
