May 23, 2011 / 1363 reads
Kidz Bop, the wildly popular music brand for kids ages 5-12, just released the latest album in its best-selling audio series, Â'Kidz Bop Sings Monster Ballads.Â' The compilation features hair metal classics by everyone from Skid Row and White Lion to Firehouse being performed by kids for kids. The albumÂ's standout track is undoubtedly Bret Michaels and his daughters Raine and Jorja MichaelsÂ' new version of PoisonÂ's Â'Every Rose Has Its Thorn.Â' A portion of the proceeds from the album will go to benefit BretÂ's Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, which will help to send several deserving kids to camp this summer.
"Jorja is five years old and my absolute payback. Do you know how things come back as karma? Well thatÂ's Jorja for me," said Michaels during a conversation with Noisecreep last week. "SheÂ's got an abundance of energy and creativity and doesnÂ't follow any kind of formal rules. But one [thing] that is really cool bout her is that sheÂ's extremely witty."
Jorja also seems to have inherited some of her dadÂ's rock Â'nÂ' roll mojo. "I have a studio in my house and we were recording a new song for my upcoming album, Â'Get Your Rocks On,Â' and Jorja – at five years old – starts singing along to the instrumental tracks. My guitarist Pete and I just looked at each other like, Â'Wow!Â' It just went to another level of surreal.
"She grabbed the microphone and started singing with all of this emotion and an intense look on her face. She made up her own lyrics and IÂ'm like, Â'What is she singing about at five years old?Â' But the stuff she comes up with is so catchy. SheÂ's also got the stage moves down. ItÂ's just so much fun."
Noisecreep asked Michaels if Jorja reminded him of himself around that age.
"Absolutely. From what my mom tells me, Jorja is a lot like I was when I was a kid. She came out kicking and screaming. Where Raine is more of an old soul and laid back like her mom, Kristi."
During PoisonÂ's Â'80s run, the band was partly responsible for some of the most over-the-top videos seen on MTV. Some say that Michaels and his bandmates should have gotten a percentage of all Aqua Net
hairspray sales from 1986-1990. Noisecreep wanted to know what MichaelÂ's daughters thought of glammed-out Poison videos like Â'Talk Dirty to MeÂ' and Â'NothinÂ' But a Good Time.Â'
"TheyÂ've both have been watching those videos since they were really young. They have fun with it for the most part. They sometimes even act out some of the videos and jump around like I do in them. But there have been times when either Jorja or Raine will stop the video and say, "Dad, why?" You know, asking me about my hair or why I was wearing a certain type of spandex [laughs]."
"We take the girls to Poison shows and IÂ've even brought them out on stage with me," Michaels says. "They know not to get close to the pyro and all of that stuff. They even do the big jump with me at the end of the set during Â'NothinÂ' But a Good Time.Â' For me, that closeness with my kids is an amazing and incredible bond that I cherish. The hard part is when I have to lay the rules down, since IÂ'm a no-holds barred kind of guy. I sometimes have to remind myself to be a good parent as well as a rocker [laughs]."
http://www.noisecreep.com
