# Country Demos (Bret Michaels album)

Country Demos is a six song EP by Bret Michaels, the lead singer of the American glam-rock band Poison. Country Demos the first music Michaels recorded as a solo artist, recorded in 1995 but never commercially released. In 1996 the recordings were leaked which resulted in thousands of unauthorized bootlegs being sold from 1996-1999. In 2000 Michaels published the EP himself via his independent record label Poor Boy Records and sold physical copies of the EP exclusively on his official website.

## Background and recording

In 1993 after continued internal drama within Poison, after having to cancel their Native Tongue world tour when newly recruited guitarist Richie Kotzen was fired from the band for having a romantic relationship with drummer Rikki Rockett's ex-girlfriend, Poison took a short hiatus before searching for a new guitarist to replace Kotzen who had just recently been hired to replace C.C. DeVille.
During the downtime Poison decided not to name a new guitarist to join the band, but decided to hire the youthful Blues Saraceno as lead guitarist just as a touring member. After performing the Rock in Rio festival in 1994 the group officially hired Saraceno to become the full-time guitarist who would begin working on their upcoming fifth studio album "Crack a Smile." Capitol Records eventually opted to shelve the band's new album in favor of releasing a compilation album, "Poison's Greatest Hits: 1986–1996" that caused Michaels great frustration and animosity with Poison's long-time label and resulted in Michaels filing a lawsuit against Capitol Records and began searching for a new record deal as a solo artist.
In May 1994 Michaels career suffered another setback when he was involved in a severe car accident in Burbank, California when he had too much to drink and severely crashed his 1989 Ferrari 328 GTS into a telephone pole traveling at a speed of 80mph after losing control of the car while illegally street racing with friends after leaving the Rainbow Bar & Girll, heading to a after-party with his girlfriend at the time and the actor Chris Penn. Michaels suffered a broken collarbone, multiple broken ribs, broken jaw, broken nose, and four broken teeth. While spending over a year of healing and rehabbing injuries Michaels began writing new solo music, which began taking a new form and straying from Poison's typical glam-rock sound.
Michaels moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1995 to begin directing and filming a movie he had written the script for and would star as the film's lead actor, A Letter From Death Row. Michaels also written and composed the soundtrack for the film, which he would release in 1998 as his debut solo album. While working in the studio recording sessions for the A Letter From Death Row, Michaels took time between filming and studio sessions for the movie, to work on more solo material not affiliated with the upcoming film or Poison. While living in Nashville Michael became inspired by the cities rich history in country music, Michaels experimented with the Nashville sound on these songs, collaborating with producer Buddy Killen in 1995. The two was featured in a TNN country news segment where they spoke of the music they were working on together, however Michaels did not say whether the recordings they made together would be released or not and stated his full focus is devoted to his film projects and their respective soundtracks, leaving his venture into country music and the status of his country demos uncertain.

## Release

After Michaels debut solo album A Letter From Death Row in 1998 was a commercial success and the global dot-com bubble that was taking the world by storm, Michaels unreleased country music demos he had worked on a couple years prior as a six song EP, simply titled "Country Demos" leaked and appeared online where hundreds or thousands of bootlegs were being sold and downloaded, which inadvertently launched Michaels career into the new digital age. In the last two years of the 90s, the demos were leaked and heavily downloaded and shared by fans and critics alike thousands of times. The widespread downloading and sharing amongst online forums and chat-rooms illegal bootleg copies of The Country Demos were being sold online on sites like eBay and social media-like music forums where fans were allowed to interacted with each other.
In 2000, the continued widespread of illegal bootlegs of the EP being sold prompted Michaels to publish Country Demos himself independently with his own record label Poor Boy Records and sell physical copies of the EP on his official website as limited edition, meaning once the initial copies pressed were sold there would not be anymore copies made in the future. Due to the EP being out of print, no new copies will ever be produced, and because it is no longer for sale on Michaels official website, the CD has become rare and collectable upon Bret Michaels and Poison fans, some copies are selling on eBay at auction from around fifty dollars up to hundreds of dollars.
Some of the tracks were later officially released, "The Other Side of Me" featured on the 2001 album Ballads, Blues & Stories while "Future Ex Wife" and "The One You Get" were both released in 2005 on the album Freedom of Sound. The other tracks that remains unreleased has been posted to YouTube.

## Track listing

All lyrics are written by Bret Michaels except where noted; all music is composed by Bret Michaels