The clash of metals

This, then, would be two bald men fighting over a comb, were it not for one of the men being Bret Michaels: A spat has broken out between Posion and Def Leppard over which band is realer or something.

Joe Elliott started it by suggesting that Def Leppard had more "substance" to their music, and that Poison just coasted by on their image.

We've heard Pour Some Sugar On Me and seen pictures of Poison. Neither the substance of one nor the style of the other would detain people writing cultural histories of mankind for very long, we'd suggest, but Michaels wasn't taking such a slight on the chin. Pausing only to wash his hair, he embarked on an interview with a radio programme, and talked at some length. Some great length. The first he heard of the scurrilous claims were at a backstage press conference at Sweden Rocks:

All of a sudden, one guy goes, 'We have a video of Joe Elliott last night saying that MÖTLEY CRÜE and POISON and all these bands have no talent, they can't play.' Now, let me just put this on the record: I'm a DEF LEPPARD fan. Not 'kind of a fan' — like, I own the CDs; I own the albums. We used to do the song 'Wasted', if that gives you any indication. I used to play 'On Through The Night' with like… The song 'Wasted' was one of our favorite songs…. I'm a DEF LEPPARD fan. Old-school, new-school — it doesn't matter. Gone to see their shows, liked the guys. Joe Elliott, I don't really know, but he seems like a decent guy, whatever. I get in there and the guy says it to me. I say, 'You're lying. I don't think Joe would say that.' He's like, 'No, I've got it on video.' Which they had on video — him [Joe] stating this.

Goodness. First Kate Moss, then Max Moseley, now Joe Elliott. Is nobody safe from the secret videoing?

Bret started out by trying to be conciliatory, but then he changed his mind (and, yes, he is giving a stream-of-consciousness interview about a press conference he once gave, like a footballer talking through a goal):

And then it hits me that, listen, I've been nothing but cool. And I go, 'Well, this is coming from a guy who lip-synched on 'Dancing With The Stars'.' I go, 'This guy lip-synched…' Mutt Lange writes their… you know, does their albums… I'm not dissing them, I'm just saying…

Remember, snorting 'they mime on mainstream dancing programmes and someone else writes their songs' is not, in any way, to be considered a 'dissing'.

In other words, I was like, 'Look, give me and Joe a guitar each and a pen and a piece of paper, stick us in a room for an hour [and see who'll come out] with a couple of songs. But I don't wanna fight Joe.

I suspect that they'd probably both come out with a couple of songs, as everything these bands have done for the last decade or so has the taint of having been knocked up in thirty minutes as some sort of dare.

Bret, though, isn't dissing anybody. Oh no:

Isn't he secure enough in his success or where he's at… If someone said, 'Hey, what do you think about MÖTLEY?' Even though we've had words — MÖTLEY and us, or supposedly, whatever — I'm like, 'Hey, I like MÖTLEY's music. I'm a fan. They have good rock songs.' I just feel uncomfortable in my skin.'"

I love that he can't quite remember if he has had a falling-out with the Crue or not, or if people just said he has, or, indeed, "whatever".

The radio programme asked a direct question: did Rikki Rocket challenge Joe Elliott to a fight? Bret gave an equally direct response:

"That I didn't see. What I thought was going on was that they were like… What the joke was from a lot of fans was, like, 'Don't trip over a water backstage at a DEF LEPPARD concert, you might unplug the stereo.' And I said, 'With our band, we don't ever use…' There's nothing. That's what blows everyone's minds. You go to a lot of 'concerts,' and you can trip over anything we've got, we play everything. In other words, the keyboard player… We have one guy extra to sing some of the parts, but that's it. There's no… You can put us in a club… Like we did it in New York. We went and played for, I believe it was WPLJ, and they stuck us in this club and played, and it was one of the best nights we'd had, 'cause you can put us there or in the stadium or an arena, and it's gonna sound the same; there's no fear. And that's what some of the joke… I think Rikki's challenge was the same as mine. If this is gonna become a songwriting duel, Rikki goes, 'Do you bring Mutt Lange, or do you bring the band?'"

- Did he say he'd fight him?
- We might have had someone sing some extra vocals live once
That's that cleared up, then.

I imagine this falling-out will continue for the next ten years, by which time it will be a full three decades since anyone outside the bands gave a toss about what either thought.