Rock 'em! Sock 'em! Kid Rock - interview with musician Kid Rock - Interview

Interview, July, 1999 by Dimitri Ehrlich

When Kid Rock entered the hip-hop game, he didn't get over by pretending to be black. Instead, he's flaunting where he came from - the cornfields of Michigan

"Yo, watch that white kid rock!" That's a phrase Bob Ritchie heard a lot growing up - very time he went to deejay In the all-black tenements of Detroit. People were surprised by the sight of a skinny white kid working as an entertainer in an area that had been more or less abandoned by Caucasians since the 1967 Hots. The appellation "Kid Rock" stuck, and so did the career - only these days, he performs in front of thousands, laying his crassly sexual raps over a mix of blustery southern rock and obnoxious bass-in-your-face heats.

Kid Rock grew up in the small town of Romeo, Michigan, outside Detroit, in a house with five acres of cornfields behind it. His parents used to blast songs by Bob Seger and Johnny Cash, which explains one side of his musical equation; his other major influence came from the big stomping beats of rap acts like Run-DMC.

Signed to Jive Records in 1989 - and then dropped from the label a year later - Kid Rock went on to release three independent albums heforo securing his current major label deal. It wasn't easy to convince people that a white gay mixing rap and rock could sell a million records, but time - and the sales of bands like Rage Against the Machine and Korn - proved him right. Since its release in August 1998, his latest album, Devil Without a Cause (Atlantic), has nearly gone platinum.

Though there may be nothing particularly eye-raising about a white guy rapping anymore - Eminem and Everlast are household names, and the Beastle Boys are graying around the edges - Kid Rock is nonetheless still striking a chord with adolescents looking to piss off their parents. And his penchant for porn, big cars, and compulsively flipping the bird surely hasn't hurt either.

DIMITRI EHRLICH: Ten years ago you were being positioned as the Great White Hope for Rap. Then Vanilla Ice came along, sold a zillion records, and you got dropped by your label. Now, just as you were about to come out with your current album, Eminem, another white rapper, was suddenly on the cover of Rolling Stone. Were you worried that It was going to be deja vu?

KID ROCK: No. I knew there was nothing that could stop my album. It was ten years in the making; so this was not just a fluke.

DE: The irony is that a couple of months ago, Vanilla Ice tried to make a comeback, and now you're the one who's outselling him. Is that gratifying?

KR: Yeah, totally. Because I said back in '90, "His shit will never last."

DE: People are still tagging you as a white rapper, but in fact that's not exactly what you're about. Your album is number two - not on the rap charts, but on the hard rock chart. The combination of rock and hip-hop Is obviously connecting with kids, whether it's bands like Rage Against the Machine, the Beastles, Kom, or you. Why do you think this Is the music of the moment?

KR: It's rebellion: Loud kick drums and loud guitars. That's what it was in the '70s - how loud could you get your guitars. Then in the late '80s, it was how much bass could you put in your trunk to piss people off? We just put it all together.

DE: In May your album overtook Eminem and Everlast, the other two white guys currently succeeding by blending elements of hip-hop with rock. If you were explaining It to, like, your grandmother, how would you differentiate yourself from them?

KR: I'd say, "Grandma, I'm a much nicer boy than both of them. I don't say anything bad!"

DE: TO me, what distinguishes you is that you're bringing white trash elements into rap.

KR: Yeah. My take on rap is driven by straightforward American southern rock and blues. It's not anything too crazy or wildly influenced. I don't know anything about Cuban music or whatever people are talking about. Like, every time you read an interview with Beck, you're like "What is he talking about? What the hell does he listen to?" So everyone thinks he's real smart because he listens to something no one's ever heard. But my shit is straightforward. I am influenced by MTV and the radio, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Run-DMC, Eric B, and the best of everything that ever was.

DE: You've also got what I assume is a tongue-incheek white trash aesthetic going on. Do you have a special guy on tour who totes around crates of mayonnaise and Wonder Bread?

KR: No, but we put a rider in our contract that there has to be Pabst Blue Ribbon in our dressing rooms, just because we thought it would be funny. We're reacting to the fact that there are so many white kids trying to be black - no other way to say it. That's why I called my record Devil Without a Cause - I'm a white boy who's so sick of hearing that white kids are going to steal rap. I've been into this music since I was eleven years old - purchased it, played it, loved it. If people are going to have a problem with me performing it, I'm like, "Fuck you and your black and white shit."

DE: Just to play devil's advocate, what are you doing that is different from what the Beastle Boys have already done, minus the Irony?