Poison drummer Rikki Rockett says he getting close to full fitness following his successful battle with tongue cancer.
Rockett developed a tumour on his tongue last summer and underwent nine rounds of chemotherapy followed by 35 radiotherapy sessions. But with no signs of improvement, he chose an experimental immune therapy called immunotherapy – a treatment which stimulates the immune system to fight cancer.
Poison frontman Bret Michaels said earlier this year that he’d wait for Rockett to recover before making any future live commitments. And while he’s keen to get behind the kit again, Rockett says he’s not promising anything just yet.
He tells CRR: “I want to play and I would love to tour. Hopefully that will happen. I’ve stopped telling anybody that Poison is going to tour because every time we say we will something comes along and screws it up.
“I would like to do that – I’m good enough to do it. I’m fine. I train jujitsu two hours a day. I am good to go. I have strength. Am I as strong as I was? Is my timing as good as it was? Not yet, but I am getting there and I will get there soon.”
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The cancer forced Rockett to step back from his other project Devil City Angels shortly after the launch of their 2015 self-titled album. And although out of the picture at the moment, he says he’d like to do something with the band in the future.
Rockett continues: “It really sucked that I had to just let that go when I got cancer. The record was starting to do well and things were happening. I’m really proud of that record.
“Brandon Gibbs and I still work together. We are happy with everything, but I couldn’t hold those guys down. What was I going to do? Tell them, ‘Hey, I’ve got to go beat cancer. You guys wait for me.’ I couldn’t do that.
“We are just inactive at the moment. Tracii Gunns has some things going on right now. There is nothing saying we couldn’t put something together one day and go do some shows.”
