BEHIND POISON’S PAINT

Lead singer Bret Michaels and the other members of glam-rock band Poison are into makeup--not simple stage makeup, but lipstick, mascara, eye shadow, the works.

With the band members’ pretty faces aglitter with makeup on the cover of their million-selling album, Poison looks like an all-female band.

“We do all the makeup ourselves,” Michaels said. “It looks great. We can do it as well as any women, as well as any makeup artist. There’s an art to this kind of makeup. We have great techniques.”

Michaels, who talks fast, loudly and aggressively, paused for a breath, apologizing once again for the barrage of machine-gun chatter. Still, he never slowed down.

Sitting on the couch in a drab Hollywood hotel room, Michaels wanted to put his feet on the coffee table, but there wasn’t much room. It was littered with the remains of a junk-food binge. Finally he kicked an empty cheese-puffs bag out of the way.

Then Michaels started laughing, as if a private joke had just popped into his head.

“I remember when our album came out,” he said. “Critics didn’t know what to make of us. They were saying, ‘Are these guys for real with that makeup?’ They probably tossed the album in the trash. But then the album started to happen. They had to listen to us--makeup or not.”

Do people ever think the band members are gay?

“We’re real men,” he said matter-of-factly. “This makeup doesn’t mean we’re like women or we want to be like women. Do I look like a woman to you?”

Despite the long hair and makeup, Michaels did look masculine.

Poison, whose other members, all in their 20s, are drummer Rikki Rockett, bassist Bobby Dall and guitarist C. C. DeVille, is often compared to the New York Dolls, the acclaimed glitter band of the ‘70s. But Michaels insists his group isn’t copying the Dolls.

“You might see some of the influence of that whole scene in what we do, but we’re not copying anybody in particular,” he said.

The flashy, gender-bending style of ‘70s glitter was rooted in some kind of sociocultural rebellion. There was a message in its madness. But the glam-rockers of today who are carrying on that tradition have no lofty goals.

“It’s show biz,” Michaels said. “We want to be outrageous . . . to be different. We want people to remember us. They remember guys in makeup.”

Of course, such tawdry flash, critics charge, is merely a cover-up for feeble musicianship.

“Hah,” scoffed Michaels. “Our music is great. Kids buy it, don’t they? Doesn’t that tell you something?”

Poison’s noisy, mind-numbing hard rock does have a sort of crude charm. Originality, however, is not one of its assets. A simple, superficial examination reveals influences from bands like Aerosmith, Kiss and--Michaels’ favorite--early AC/DC.

He raved about AC/DC’s sinister, high-voltage “Highway to Hell”: “It’s my all-time favorite album. I listen to it every day. The tape is on the tape deck 24 hours a day. I get energy from it.”

On stage, Michaels is a live wire. He’s very effective with a style that’s part David Lee Roth and part Rod Stewart, and only a small part Bret Michaels.

“I’ve got a lot to learn on stage,” he said. “The more I work, the more original my style becomes. But the fans like it now. That’s what’s important at the moment.”

The hype about Poison being a local band that made good isn’t completely true. Poison was formed in Harrisburg, Pa., in 1983, but that town was a dead end musically.

“The places we played wouldn’t let us play original music,” Michaels said. “You had to play other bands’ hits. We got tired of doing that and we got tired of dodging beer bottles.”

So in 1984, they migrated to Los Angeles--the promised land for hard rock bands. Two years later, Poison was the top unsigned band in town. Enigma, a small independent label, signed the group, releasing “Look What the Cat Dragged In” last May.

That album was made in 12 days for just $30,000--small change these days.

“It’s raw and doesn’t show all we can do,” said Michaels, well aware of the album’s woeful lack of polish. “It doesn’t totally capture the energy we have live, but it does capture some of our energy. It captured enough of it to turn on all the fans who bought the record.”

The band went on tour, which helped sell 200,000 copies of the album in the first few months. Then Bon Jovi’s “Slippery When Wet” album became a smash at the end of last year, opening up Top 40 radio for hard-rock bands like Poison.

The provocative video for the second single, “Talk Dirty to Me,” boosted Poison album sales further and Capitol Records picked up Poison from Enigma Records, adding its promotional punch. The album has since gone into the Top 10.

“I can’t believe what’s happening,” Michaels said. “We’re on this roller coaster that’s going up and up and up. I hope it doesn’t stop until we’re at the top. I don’t want to come down to earth--to crash. I’m not sure I could handle it.”