Poison News

Rikki Rockett, the 46-year-old drummer of '80s hair-metal purveyor Poison, was taken into custody on a rape warrant as he arrived Monday at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight back from New Zealand.

The musician, whose real name is Richard Ream, was nabbed while going through customs and taken to Los Angeles County Jail, where he was booked on a felony fugitive sexual assault warrant issued from Neshoba County, Miss.

He was released the next afternoon, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department website, and is awaiting an extradition order from Mississippi prosecutors.

Rockett is wanted in connection with an incident that occurred Sept. 23, 2007 at the Silver Star Casino, said Neshoba County sheriff's investigator Ralph Sciple. The musician, who was staying at the Delta resort, allegedly forced himself on an unidentified female guest. Sciple said the accuser filed a police report days later, and Neshoba authorities issued the warrant for his arrest after determining there was probable cause.

Sciple said there were no immediate plans to extradite Rockett, who resides in Los Angles.

There was no comment from the band. Rockett was in New Zealand for a Poison performance at Rock 2 Wellington, a huge metalhead concert in that country's capital.

A former hairdresser from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Rockett cofounded Poison in the mid-'80s with his high school pal, vocalist Bret Michaels.

The band's debut album, Look What the Cat Dragged In, sold more than 2 million copies.

Posion became a superstar act with the release of 1988's blockbuster follow-up, Open Up and Say...Ahh!, which spawned the megahit "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," along with "Nothin' But a Good Time" and "Your Mamma Don't Dance."

The band's third disc, Flesh and Blood, was almost as successful, scoring several top 10 hits, but eventually rising tensions over drug and alcohol abuse led the group to fire guitarist C.C. Deville and signaled the decline of the group.

(Originally published March 28, 2008 at 9:37 a.m. PT.)