Poison News

Poison frontman Bret Michaels promises to tell all when he publishes his autobiography, "Roses and Thorns: The Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy to My Reality,"

"It will give people the untold story," Michaels tells Billboard.com of the Simon & Schuster book, which hits shelves in June.

"It gives you the sex, the drugs, the rock 'n' roll, but it also gives you the diabetes. It gives you every aspect of my life and what I'm going through. I think it's pretty frank. It's honest. It's at times self-deprecating. It's about what happens when you try to live out your dream and the reality of it all sets in and it's the hardest and the strangest thing you will ever do. I think when you read it you'll really get the understanding of what it's all about."

Michaels wants to separate "Roses and Thorns" from rock 'n' roll tell-alls such as Motley Crue's "The Dirt" and Aerosmith's "Walk This Way." "Those books stood on their own. This one has its own identity," he says. But he does promise revelations about Poison, and particularly his well-known conflicts with guitarist CeCe DeVille.

"One of the most therapeutic things to write was (about) the constant battle between CeCe and myself and the reality of why it is constantly there and why it exists," Michaels says. "Getting into a fist fight wtih someone who is your friend is one of the harder things to live with, much less write about."

"Roses and Thorns" is just one project in a busy year for Michaels, who turns 46 on Sunday (March 15). He's working on a new solo album that he hopes to release this summer and which he describes as "a mix of some of my stuff with rock, with Americana, country ... I don't know where you put that other than being kind of a rock sound." He's also priming Poison for a summer tour with Def Leppard and Cheap Trick that kicks off June 23 in Camden, N.J.

And he's in the midst of his third VH1 dating show, "Rock of Love Bus with Bret Michaels," which ends April 5. Michaels has not found lasting love in the first two versions of the show, but he's holding out hope that the third time will be the charm.

"I'm having a blast," Michaels says. "I think if you see the show, it's as real as can be. I'm not trying to play this holier-than-thou rock star. I'm just trying to play, and (am) having a good time dating. And it's allowed me to have that much TV exposure, which definitely hasn't hurt. I'm certainly not complaining."

(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)