That time Bret Michaels serenaded Whit Crane on his birthday

“HE’S in there with a beautiful girl, right?”

Ugly Kid Joe guitarist Klaus Eichstadt sets up this story about Poison frontman Bret Michaels with this important detail.

It’s 1994 and the two bands are having a break at a hotel overlooking Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro while playing a festival called Hollywood Rock which also included Aerosmith, Robert Plant, Whitney Houston and Live.

“It was Whit’s birthday, January 19, 1994,” Eichstadt tells the Decibel Geek podcast (listen below) in reference to Ugly Kid Joe frontman Whitfield Crane.

“We finally had a break for a week, five days off between the shows.

“We find (Bret Michaels’) room and I have an acoustic guitar and we’re like ‘let’s go, let’s get him, let’s fuck with him’.

“There’s eight of us. We go and knock on Bret Michaels’ door. He’s already been really sweet, we’d been on the airplane with them.

“It’s late. It’s night. It’s probably two in the morning. And he’s in there with a beautiful girl, right?

“And he opens the door and he’s all kinda disheveled, he’s like wearing boxers, he’s ‘what the fuck?’.

“We’re like ‘it’s Whit’s birthday, you’ve got to sing ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’ for him. Please! Please’.

“Because we were walking around the hotel singing it.

“The guy is like ‘it’s your birthday, Whit?’. He’s ‘alright, I got this’.

“So he lets us all in. This chick’s got the covers up, she’s from Argentina or Peru, she’s like ‘que pasa’ and he’s like ‘it’s cool’.

“I’ve got the guitar, I start playing it. He goes ‘hang on, hang on’. He goes to the closet, gets out the chaps, puts on the chaps, sits down and I’m on guitar, he sings the song.

“He sings the entire song to Whit, face to face for Whit’s birthday,

“Totally serenaded and it’s like, what a rad dude. Thanks so much. And he’s like ‘any time!’ but then ‘nah, nah, nah – not any time’.

“‘This is the only time’.”