You might think your favorite band is tough and pushes the envelope, but 62-year-old Poison drummer Rikki Rockett thinks that’s not the case at all. In fact, he thinks most of today’s rock (and by extension metal) bands aren’t pulling their weight enough or challenging society.
During a recent interview with Totally ’80s podcast, hosted by Yahoo! Funnily enough, Rockett was asked the rather tired question of whether rock is dead or not. And while you might expect an old rock star to rant and rave about what the kids are like these days… well that’s what you got. Even a little on the lighter side and at least he thinks Taylor Swift takes the rock and roll lifestyle to heart.
“I think every big music event is kind of a social cultural event. Like punk rock is very social. And what we do is a social cultural event. I mean, you have to commit to being in our did. People would get kicked out of school and fight with their parents and ‘we won’t take it’ – all that stuff. It really set America and the world on fire in a lot of ways. And then I think that grunge had a social cultural movement.
“I think Marilyn Manson had a social cultural movement. Now, I don’t think rock has any social cultural movement and that’s the problem. Nobody stands for anything now. In fact, taylor swift has more guts than most rock bands these days, not afraid to open her mouth and fight the man. rock bands are playing now, man. that’s why i think rock is really coming back to the top , there has to be something behind it, like any good art. You can’t do art just for the sake of doing art. If there’s something behind it, that’s what makes it good.
“I always say in all my videos, ‘Take care of each other. Let the rock live.’ I’m trying hard to keep rock alive. I want to see it more than anything else in the world. This is very important. But sometimes, in retrospect, someone would say… I remember the headline, I think it was in The New York Post or something, ‘from the stone age,’ which is out of journalists’ minds. It’s very sad.”
Swift is undeniably the biggest music star on the planet right now. And while he’s been criticized for not using his platform for more important things, he recently got tens of thousands of fans to register to vote, which is a big step. I bet Dave Mustaine isn’t as successful as he was in the 90s.
As for taking risks, he certainly didn’t take the kind of risks that Rockett and his ilk did in the past. Unless he’s sniffing ants or something.
