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

Interview, July, 1999 by Dimitri Ehrlich

KR: Good songs. That's all it is at the end of the day. If you have good songs and you're talented, people will eventually come to your shows, people will buy your music. How am I different from the Beastie Boys? Maybe I'm a little more into melody than they are, and I'm way more simple. And I don't give a rat's ass about politics. My shows aren't about trying to save some place, because I don't feel that's the right venue for it. That's my politics right there: Don't bring politics to my shows.

DE: It's seems like you're saying, "This is who I am and too bad if you don't like it."

KR: Right. I think what I've learned out of this lifetime is you should be proud of where you come from. I didn't come from a trailer park. I grew up middle class and my dad had money and my mom made my lunch. I got a car when I was sixteen. I'm proud of that. If somebody says, "Oh, you're not from the ghetto, you're not allowed to make music," I'm like, "Fuck off!" As if I had a choice where I came from. People used to say to me, "What are you doing down here in the ghetto? You've got that nice house out there in the country." And I'd say, "Year, but guess who wants to hear me deejay in the cornfield behind my yard? No one!"

DE: At what point did you actually leave home?

KR: I got kicked out of the house. My brother was in rehab, I didn't want to go support him, and my mom told me to get out. I got out, took my turntables, and the only place I had to go was the ghetto, so I moved in with my friends in Mount Clemens and deejayed at parties, sold crack a little bit - I spent a lot of time there in my teenage years.

DE: And your ex-girlfriend - the mother of your child - she's black, right?

KR: Yeah.

DE: Was R hard to be in an interfacial relationship in such a segregated city?

KR: No, because I was literally the only white kid there and everybody knew me. I was the little white kid who rocked the turntables.

DE: You were signed to Jive Records Just when hip-hop was really breaking In America, then you got dropped. Now you're back on top with a big label behind you. What were the years In between like?

KR: I worked my ass off! I signal with an independent label, Continuum. After that I put out a totally independent record, sold fourteen thousand of them from my basement, bought a house, started raising my kid, made a decent living. Persistence pays. I always believed in myself. I could look in the mirror with my own two eyes and ask, "Are you as good as everybody else?" and I could honestly say, "No, you're better" I didn't want to go out and change anything. I just wanted to make the music that was part of my background, which was rock and blues and hip-hop. Everyone said, "Make a hip-hop record," or "Make a rock record." I just wanted to do it all on one record."

DE: Tell me about your current stage show, specifically the midget rapper and the eightfoot-tall middle finger.

KR: My thing has always been about attitude. And if the midget and middle finger bring them in, good. But I guarantee you, they don't walk out of there going, "You got a midget, a stripper, and a middle finger." They walk out of there going, "Fuck! Those motherfuckers are talented." I sound cocky saying it, but ask some people who have seen our show. They'll tell you. They can't believe it.