MARYLAND STATE FAIR: Bret Michaels 'Talks Dirty' to Timonium

Thousands of people bombarded the Maryland State Fair Race Track infield for a glimpse of Bret Michaels in concert. 

Michaels, along with his band, played songs from Poison, tracks from their new album "Custom Built," as well as covers from bands like Sublime and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He is the second artist to play the 2010 State Fair. 

Maryland-based rock 'n roll unit The Cheaters opened for Michaels and company.

Patch was in the pit taking photos from the show. Take a look at the photos and read the interview we had with Pete Evick, lead guitarist for Bret Michaels Band. 

Few people can say that they've played music alongside their heroes, outside of say, a video game. 

But for Pete Evick, lead guitar player in Bret Michaels's Band, he says it with glowing pride. Evick laughed when I referred to him as "the ultimate backup guy," but it couldn't be closer to the truth.

Evick's résumé is riddled with rock legends over the years. He's currently on tour with Bret Michaels, playing at the Maryland State Fair tonight, Wednesday Sept. 1 at 8 p.m. 

Evick was nice enough to chat with Patch about his career, his relationship with Bret Michaels and even his thoughts on Justin Bieber, who is closing out the State Fair concert series. 

He even goes into a little teaser about his role in Bret Michaels's new TV show, "Life As I Know It," coming in October. 

Nick: After reading your bio, I found that you have kind of a storied history in rock music. Can you take me through that a little bit more?

Pete: My experiences start from the very beginning. My mother thought I should be the next Elvis Presley so she put a guitar in my hand at 5-years-old. I was shown Elvis at the time, then I found KISS. As I kid, KISS had the clown faces and the make-up and it made sense to me so I started off my quest to be the next Ace Frehley. Then I found Eddie Van Halen. All I've ever done is play music or be involved in some way shape or form with the music or recording industry … I've played live music; toured my whole life  and I've opened for every single one of my heroes. I've played all over the country and all over the world. Eventually I got into Bret's band and then onto being on TV shows with Bret … and now here I am.

Nick: Could you take through some of the more memorable bands that you've been involved with throughout your career?

 Pete: You know, being from the Baltimore area, our band is actually from Virginia, but we grew up in the Baltimore area, one of the best experiences I ever had in my life was working with Steve Whiteman. When he left Kix and formed Funny Money, I owned a recording studio in Manassas, Va. At the time, he came came in and tracked one of the early recordings when he first put Funny Money together. That's a local legend to me. He's a big hero from the genre of music that I grew up in. That was one of the most memorable, real moments of my life when I went from working with local and regional talents to what I consider superstars.

Nick: So how'd you hook up with Bret Michaels in the first place?

Pete: Bret is from Pennsylvania. We're from Virginia. Me and my drummer Chuck, who is also the drummer in Bret Michael's band, the first time we ever played together, in a high school talent show 25 years ago, we played "Cry Tough" off of Poison's "Look What the Cat Dragged In" album. Me and Chuck were huge Poison fans … When C.C. [DeVille] left the band in I think it was '92 I was 18 or 19 years old, I auditioned with the band, kept in the touch with the booking people … obviously I didn't make it. Richie Kotzen made it. But when Bret started doing solo tours I reached out and was able to get on all of the East Coast legs of his solo tours. His guitar player at the time, Steve, was a friend of mine. When Steve wasn't able to do the gig anymore I was first in line for the offer … The first show we did together didn't go really well. We didn't rehearse together with Bret. He called it a little radio gig. We showed up and this little "radio gig" was in Detroit in front of 20,000 people. His idea of little and my idea of little are little bit different. And we didn't do really well. I thought I would never speak with him again. I thought all of my years of working to be a part of  that camp had failed. But he called me up the next week and goes 'Well, I know it could've been better but I've watched your band myself a bunch of times, you know, just come back. I've got another gig this weekend. We're playing with Lynyrd Skynyrd on Memorial Day Weekend in Nashville for a sold out crowd of 38,000 people. I was a little more prepared for what I was walking into at that point. We did our thing and Bret looked at me on stage and goes, "that's what I'm talking about."  Here we are six years later.

Nick: So now tell me more about Evick, your band.

Pete: Evick is what became of an old band of mine that was called Some Odd Reason. We were signed and we sold a few records in the what I call, Matchbox-20-post-grunge-era, when rock 'n roll was coming out again. We were playing a lot of music … and as the music started shift and we were all getting a little bit older it kind of fell apart. I was having my first child. I had been married and all that stuff. All I was thinking was, I can't get a day job. All I had ever done was music. So I had to form another band. At the time I was just a guitar player. I formed Evick, which I became the center of. I initially did it out of necessity … and we started as a 3-piece. It was a working band. It was a cover band. We worked all over the country, sending the money home to be honest with you. Over the years I kind of went through this phase where I really got back to my roots in rock 'n roll. I'm a huge Bon Jovi fan. I'm a huge Van Halen fan. I am a huge Poison fan. And instead of trying to really write contemporary or keep up with people who were younger than me I just one day started writing music that let my influences come through. I thought that there was a niche for that … I found that after all my years of working and maybe trying to be trendy in music I found my best success was when I didn't lie to myself or lie to anybody … All of a sudden the band took off and we were touring the country and selling records. I kept it all independent. I only signed record deals with the two small record companies that kept me in complete control and were just rolling along selling records and then Bret Michaels came along … The only other band I'd want to play in is Van Halen, but not I'm going to get that gig… probably.

Nick: So let's flash forward to the State Fair. You guys are playing Wednesday night. How are we feeling about that?

Pete: I consider Baltimore, Virginia and D.C. all my home area. My kids are coming up. A bunch of people are coming. All of our families are coming. Bret's family is comes because it's in the middle between Pennsylvania and Virginia. Anytime we play in that area it's very exciting.

Nick: Kind of the big thing this year at the State Fair is the presence of Justin Bieber. He is the capstone of the concert series…

Pete: Bieber has the Disney machine behind him. Our first single from the new record has Miley Cyrus on it. Bret is really tight with the Cyrus family. We see inside the Disney machine. We have our own support behind the Disney machine … Parents can't say no to their kids. So if the kid wants to go to the show, you know only sell one ticket you sell three tickets because mom and dad are bringing the kid. You can't stop that machine till Disney pulls the plug and brings new artists in. My kids love Justin Bieber. Bret's kids love Justin Bieber. It's a phenomena. Does it ever last? The answer to that is no.

Nick: So what does the future hold for Evick?

Pete: The BMB Tour goes all the way until Jan. 1. We're kicking off Bret's new TV show, which starts Oct. 18. Otherwise, Evick is kind of on hold right now. What I want to do is release a cover record of all the sounds that really influence me. I know everybody does that a lot. But some of the covers I want to do aren't your standard covers. If people pick a KISS song they do "Rock 'n Roll All Night," where I would do "Fire House." If people were to pick a Van Halen song they would want to cover "Ain't Talking About Love,"  and I would want to cover "Right Now." I would like release these cover but to be honest the Bret Michaels business is huge. We're a sellout crowd wherever we go … Almost everything on this run has been a complete smash sellout. It's strike while the iron is hot and keep it out there. Evick is just something that I'll do when this is done.

Nick: You mentioned Bret's new show. Can you give me a little teaser of what to expect?

Pete: It's called "Life As I Know It." It picks up where "Rock of Love" stopped. It's a show about his family and deciding to make it work with the mother of his children and them living with him at his ranch in Arizona. It's kind of like "Rock of Love" meets "The Osbournes." It shows a lot of cool things about Bret's life. Obviously now we have his health issues to deal with that's going to make for great TV. It's called "Life As I Know It" and that's what it is. You're going to get a real inside look at Bret's life