October 30th, 2007No more kid stuff
We’re guilty of underestimating Kid Rock, I think.
He’s guilty, too, mind you, of putting himself in that position, having spent half a decade enthusiastically rendering himself and his music in ever more cartoonish shades after the breakthrough success of 1998’s 12-million-selling Devil Without a Cause album. Several years of tabloid-ready buffoonery on the arm of his recently "ex’d" wife, Pamela Anderson – including the punching of one of Pam’s other exes, Tommy Lee, at the MTV Music Video Awards last month – didn’t help his case, either.
Amidst such distractions as gossip, pyro and onstage bevies of strippers, though, the Detroit-raised musician born Robert James Ritchie has been trying very diligently to grow up ever since he betrayed a hurtin’ side in "Picture," a surprise-hit country duet with Sheryl Crow from 2002’s rather redundantly titled Cocky.
It’s taken four years to complete the follow-up to 2003’s subsequent Kid Rock, which tentatively recast him as a singer/songwriter, and not all of it was spent "screwin’ around and enjoying the fruits of my labour," as Rock, 36, puts it during a Friday-afternoon interview at an upscale Yorkville hotel. He was actually, y’know, working really hard to prove himself as a serious artist.
"As a performer, I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin. I think that’s starting to come out in my music. I’m really taking the time to craft it and, y’know, be a little more relevant than: `Hey, I’m Kid Rock, I’m a cowboy and let’s get drunk,’" he says, adding it was the urging of friend (and producer’s producer) Rick Rubin that compelled him to step up his game as a songwriter for his latest disc, Rock ‘n’ Roll Jesus.
"He’s been a friend and someone who’s always listened to my music and helped me, and we had a lot of conversations on where I should be musically and how the gap was wide open for the next great American rocker. He thought I was aligned perfectly to step into those shoes, which was a lot of pressure for me coming from someone like him. But I always work good under pressure and that really kicked me in my ass to go write a song like `Amen.’ And when I did that, he was like `That’s what I’ve been talking about.’"
Rock ‘n’ Roll Jesus keeps a foot on the goon-rock party wagon – "Hot like a toti (sic) / Smooth like Mondovi (sic) / Around the way they call me bathroom Bobby," he proclaims on "Sugar" – but there’s only a whiff of rap and the songs take pains to emulate the heartland-everyman style of such blue-collar troubadours as John Mellencamp, Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen.
"All Summer Long," for instance, directly quotes Warren Zevon and Lynyrd Skynyrd while reminiscing mistily about the carefree days of teenage love. Workin’ men and ramblin’ badasses and dudes who spend their rent money getting KISS tattoos people the lyric sheet. "Amen" frets quietly about the war in Iraq and how to bring up a son in a world where "I’m scared to send my children to church."
Could this be the end of Kid Rock as we love, fear and/or loathe him?
"F—, no. It’s too much fun to give up. But there’s always a balance," he says. "I’ll be whatever people want me to be. If they want some crazy, ass-kicking, drunk-hillbilly rocker, it’s there. They can buy into that. But if they wanna see that I’m a single father trying to raise my kid and who’s very sensitive to a lot of issues going on in the world, I can be that guy, too.
"I’m getting older, too. I think my audience has grown with me and it doesn’t make sense for me to be talking about stuff that’ll get 18-year-olds involved. If they get involved, that’s great, but I’m always gonna speak to me and my generation about things goin’ on."
The 14-year-old offspring of Kid Rock – and former stepson of one Pamela Anderson – is turning out frightfully well-adjusted, by the way, according to his proud papa.
He attends an all-boys Catholic school where he’s on the rowing team, and Rock reports that he just had a parent-teacher meeting where he was informed "they’ve never had a more well-mannered kid … I think he’s gonna rebel and become a f—in’ doctor."
So, Kid Rock knows he’s a bit misunderstood. That’s why he’s been intent on scaling back the excesses of his live show – he and his Twisted Brown Trucker band played Kool Haus last night on a small-venue tour to be followed by a proper arena jaunt next year.
"I really want to reestablish the music first," he says.
