History repeated itself with a new interview in a recent Decibel Geek podcast called Albums Unleashed: Poison Look What the Cat Dragged In. In the episode, Decibel Geek spoke with Poison drummer Rikki Rockett and reflected on the early days of the  band. The episode goes into full detail about the band’s move from Pennsylvania to Hollywood in the early ’80s and went into the departure of original guitarist Matt Smith. Rockett explained the audition process to replace Smith ended up being a difficult decision between two guitarists: Slash and CC DeVille.

Rockett explained:

“Slash, we had known. He was in Hollywood Rose….We all liked him. He came and worked on some songs with us but we continued to audition people even though he was a frontrunner…We didn’t want, like, a hotshot Yngwie guy. We wanted an East Coast guy. And then CC auditioned and he just made more sense than Slash did. So, it was a tough decision because we all liked Slash. Slash was really pissed off about it. He was pissed. He was like ‘What the fuck you guys?’…So there was that rivalry between Poison and Guns n’ Roses because of that, I think for a long time you know? And that’s long gone. I see Slash and we’re totally cool, you know what I mean? I haven’t seen Axl in fucking fifteen years, but I’ve seen the other guys, and no problem.”

Check out the full podcast below: