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Bret Michaels loves the open road.
As a world-famous rock star, he’s spent a lot of time seeing the country.
“I love traveling,” he told Fox News Digital. “I’ve said, ‘In my other life, if I had not continued to succeed in music, I would have still been in a cover band. I’m not making that up. Like I always play music. It’s therapeutic to me, but also, I could be either a DJ or a long-haul trucker.”
“I love driving,” he added. “I like the open road.”
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Bret Michaels loves “the open road.” ( Scott Dudelson/Getty Images for Stagecoach)
Michaels, who founded the band Poison in 1983, said that “being on the road so much, it was never a down moment in the sense of having a bad day.”
But he admitted balancing work and family time could be difficult.
“What was tough is I became a father,” he explained, “which is sometimes when your kids are having a special event, right? And you’re not going to be able to be back, because you’re in South America or something. Those are the tough, bittersweet moments, you know, as a dad.”
He added, “But being on the road, I know everyone wants it. I’m grateful. Like it’s in the words of the movie ‘The Godfather,’ ‘This is the life we’ve chosen.’”
Michaels shares daughters Raine, 24, and Jorja, 19, with partnerKristi Gibson.
A new biography of the legendary rocker, coming out later this month, has given the 61-year-old time to reflect on his successful career.
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A&E’s “Biography: Bret Michaels” will premiere on June 16 – Father’s Day – which Michaels thought was fitting because “I love being a dad.”
Michaels said it was the “first time my daughters really jumped in and did some great live” interviews despite being “nervous.”
“I like to think that I’m a really good father, and we have fun,” he said. “And I say, ‘Girls, if you want to do this, [the producers] would love it. They went in, and [the producers] said they did really good stuff.”
Poison performing at Madison Square Garden in 1987. (Ebet Roberts/Redferns)
Michaels said he wanted to do a “deep-dive biography. The producers and A&E were incredible. We went everywhere.”
The rocker is also planning a podcast with his daughter Raine and Fox Sports producer Jay Glazer called “The Rock, The Jock & The Talk”
“We’re going to get on there and talk [about] the funniest topics. It’s evergreen funny topics, and we’ll just kind of wing it,” he said of the show.
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Jorja is in school, he said, “and she wants to open up incredible hair salons and [make] cosmetology … products. That’s what she wants to do. She’s amazing … She’s an entrepreneur.”
The proud dad added, “And hopefully they both, again, live out the lives that they want to live. And I’m going to support it.”
Bret Michaels being filmed for his new A&E special “Biography: Bret Michaels.” (2022, A&E Television Networks, LLC Photo: Devin Yalkin)
Giving a hint of some of what might be in the biography special, Michaels remembers while working as a busboy in Pennsylvania he heard that a guy named Rikki (fellow founding Poison member Rikki Rockett) had a house with a basement that could be used to start a band.
“I’m like, ‘That’s all I need,’” he explained.”So I took a loan out, and got my first PA system, right, and carried it down in his basement in the middle of the winter. I’m not making this up. It was snowing, you know, and I got the work boots on and bellbottoms for some reason, and carried this stuff down the basement. And we just as friends hit it off. We started playing music. And then, eventually, we met Bobby [Dall], who was as driven as we are.“
He added, “We had each other’s back, and continue to have each other’s back, through so many great things, but such amazing times of us just coming out and playing small venues – you have to move the pool table to the side to fit the drum kit in at the Paradise Bar and Grill – and just never lose that. Yeah, and ‘never give up’ spirit.”
Michaels said one time he realized they had really “hit” as a band was when they were opening for Aerosmith and Boston and Kiss’ Paul Stanley started rocking with them on stage at a Texas stadium in front of 83,000 fans.
Bret Michaels in a recording session. (2022, A&E Television Networks, LLC Photo: Devin Yalkin)
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“When you say you get chill bumps on your arm, it was an insanely awesome day in my life,” Michaels said, adding that he was also humbled a few hours later when they all went out to a truck stop diner for food and “there wasn’t a person in there that knew who we were or cared. It was the best leveling lesson of my life to say, ‘Make it about the music, make it about your friends, and don’t chase it.’ That’s it. It was the best bittersweet day in my life.”
Despite his many successes, Michaels has dealt with his share of adversity, starting in his childhood.
The “Every Rose Has its Thorn” singer said he credits his parents with giving him the right attitude to deal with his diabetes and, later, other health struggles, including a brain hemorrhage, surgery to repair a hole in his heart and kidney surgery.
Bret Michaels said he always tries to stay humble. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
“I knew I was going to face a wall of adversity, but I want to thank my parents for teaching me ‘victory over victim,’” he said. “They’re like, ‘Look, it’s the cards you’ve dealt. You’re going to have to work a lot harder at things, but if you do that, you’re going to be able to do the stuff that you want to do.’”
Michaels has had Type 1 diabetes since childhood, and in 2010 he suffered a brain hemorrhage and “warning stroke” that left him in intensive care for nearly two weeks.
“I knew I was slurring my words, and I was like ‘OK, this isn’t a headache. There’s something really bad happening,'” he told People magazine after it happened.
At the time, he had been recovering from an emergency appendectomy. He made a full recovery, but a year later he underwent surgery for a hole in his heart that he had had since childhood that had been discovered following his brain hemorrhage.
In 2014, after being hospitalized six times in two weeks, Michaels underwent kidney surgery, which his guitarist Pete Evick said at the time stemmed from several medical issues.
Amid it all, he said he’s grateful for the “great medical [care he’s received], for me, grace of God, and truthfully, great family, friends and fans.”
He also tries to stay in great shape.
“I live for endorphins,” Michaels told Fox News Digital. “They make me feel good. They put me in a good mood. They don’t allow me to get bummed out or depressed.”
He said when he first wakes up he checks his blood sugar, takes insulin, has a little bite to eat, then he works out.
Michaels in front of his piano. (2022, A&E Television Networks, LLC Photo: Devin Yalkin)
“And when I say workout, there’s no exact routine,” he explained. “Because when I’m on the road, my workout might be one of those rubberband workout things wrapped around a – I’m not making this up – a desk leg or a door doing back exercises, using it for like whatever method it takes.”
He said he also likes to mountain bike and run around the lake near his home.
“So, exercise is huge for me.”
He joked that he’s so focused on fitness that he’s done an interview while mountain biking.
“Like I’m pedaling along, doing the interview while I’m talking,” he laughed. “There’s one mental thing I can say: Be grateful for the awesome things you’re dealt in life, and you don’t get to do this over. Like, I don’t get to go back and go, ‘Man, I wish I would’ Okay, so I just go do stuff, and I get comfortable with being uncomfortable sometimes.”
Bottom line: Michaels wants to put “good vibes” out into the world.
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“I love making people around me feel good,” he said. “It makes me feel good … I get nothing from putting somebody down. It’s not my style, I gain nothing. I’ve been asked to do roasts. I know they’re funny. I just don’t get anything out of it. So, I think having good friends around me and good family and trying to find a good time, meaning putting good vibes out there [has helped] me to overcome all the adversity.”
“Biography: Bret Michaels” will premiere on A&E on June 16 at 9 p.m.
