 Devil
without a cause. Early mornin' stoned pimp of the nation. White trash, trailer park prodigal son. Call him what ya want, but one thing he ain't is a phony.
For more than a decade Detroit native Kid Rock has been rockin' stages,
slangin' rhymes, and kickin' ass with a vengeance. He was a white boy rapper before House of Pain; using a live band and sampling guitars
way before Rage Against the Machine; and was sampling kitschy retro rock before Beck became a Loser. He raps, sings, plays guitar, writes songs, and he can even
scratch with the best of 'em.
So why are the Beastie Boys and Korn selling
millions of records to music-starved teenage dustheads, while Kid Rock remains relatively underground? I'll tell you why-because life sucks and
nothing is ever fair in rock 'n' roll! It's the same reason why the Red Hot Chili Peppers headline arenas and Fishbone
are still playing clubs. It's the same reason why all the Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen albums charted higher than anything from the Diamond
Dave era. It's the same goddamn reason why Puffy goes quindripple platinum, while Kool G Rap is still waiting for his first gold album. Life stinks, brother!
But if you take the time to wallow through the mud, to sift through the garbage, you occasionally stumble upon something different. Occasionally,
you stumble over someone like Kid Rock.
After 10 years rockin' the underground, Kid Rock has triumphantly returned
to the forefront with his best album yet, Devil without a Cause, a no-holds-barred punk/metal-laced rap record that careens and crashes like
a drunk driver and bumps and grinds like a cheap hooker. But there's more to Kid Rock than meets the eye. Behind
his party boy persona is a deep, soulful loner with fractured emotions, a hunger for acceptance and a thirst for success, yet completely on his
own demented terms. Part rebel, part shit-kicker, part maverick, and all ROCK all the time. This Kid is out for blood.
I got turned onto the Kid through my girlfriend and her hot babe friends.
I was at a party in upscale Newport Beach when someone threw on Rock's 1993 album The Polyfuze Method. Suddenly, all of these seemingly
aristocratic, conservative, rich white
girls started singing along to songs like "Balls in Your Mouth,", "Fuck U Blind" and "Blow Me" at top volume! It was really trippy.
"It's called the Luther Vandross syndrome," Kid said. "People can sense
what is real. Luther Vandross sings about loving girls and being the most romantic guy in the world, but he's a goddamn freak! He goes out and sniffs little boys' underwear
and shit like that. But I can understand why Luther Vandross does it. He probably comes from a different world than me.
But all I can speak about is me and the people who like my shit. I understand them and they understand me. When you told the story about what your girlfriend
liked, I understand her, and I know she understands me even though she might think I'm a cocky fucker. I'm not saying, 'I'll fuck you
blind, bitch,' to your girl, and she knows it. I'm saying it to the chick who's walking around the Village with a Public Enemy shirt, fronting
like she's all that.
"Someone that says,
'You can't do that,' that's the best motivation you could ever have if you're true to what you do."
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"There's a deeper message in all those fucking words I say, and people never get it. If this album sells a million, if all those people actually get it,
that'll be the most beautiful thing in this world. Because-you know what I did?-I became part of the problem."
On further inspection of Kid Rock's history I discovered he actually had
several more albums and they were all really good. In addition to hilarious, foul-mouthed sex anthems, he also had some pretty off-the-wall
rock shit, like samples of Ozzy and references to Randy Rhoads, punk/metal moshers like "Back From
the Dead," "Shotgun Blast," and "Prodigal Son," and live band funk jams like
"Detroit Thang" and "The Cramper." To top it off, he's a badass MC, a top notch DJ, and has put out some classic hip hop.
Digging even deeper, I discovered that Kid Rock was in fact Bob Ritchie, a young
trailer park refugee from Romeo, Michigan who was weaned on the Fat Boys, Run DMC, and Bob
Seger. This sprite young hick had a passion for hip hop way before it was socially acceptable for honkies to breakdance with the brothers. So how did a dirty-blonde, white kid from
the Midwest get into rap?
"Michael Jackson came on tv and I could fuckin' moonwalk! I could do all that gay
shit, and I could do it well. My brother smacked me in the head and said, 'What are you doin'? Why aren't you fuckin' Runnin' with
the Devil? Van Halen, motherfucker!' That just pissed me off more, so I went and got a piece of felt and put it on my mom's fuckin' stereo and started trying to scratch records. My brother's friends would come over and be like, 'Hey you little faggot, you gonna be a scratcher when you grow up?'"
Having grown up on Detroit legends like Seger, Nugent,
MC5, and the Stooges, it was no wonder that Rock's rap had a little bit more edge than your average MC.
As Rock once said, "There's a place for hard rock, but it doesn't have to be an anorexic, spandex-wearing,
stupid, poofy-haired jerk hopping around like a bunny on stage. It can be hard, it can be real, and it can be down, without being stupid."
"My parents were goin' to fuckin' barn parties every weekend!" Rock
recalled. "When I'd go to sleep I'd hear, 'I'm a ramblin'
man...' and then they'd wake me up and I'd have to come out and sing
fuckin' Jim Croce and 'Bad, Bad Leroy Brown!'"
"It's fucked up being from Detroit," Rock continued. "All these bands
act like they only heard of MC5 and the Stooges. I can understand-they're
good bands, they're that underground shit-but you can't fuckin' front
like your parents weren't playin' Seger and Nugent your whole fuckin'
life! That's what pisses me off about music, people aren't true to themselves."
After a slew of demo tapes and club appearances, Rock was discovered by Boogie
Down Productions' own D Nice and brought to Jive
Records, where he was quickly signed. In 1990, Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast was released and boasted production credits from Nice and
Too Short, as well as Rock's Casio keyboard. The album was a mix of rock guitar-laced, old school hip hop and
2 Live Crew-style pussy poppers like the outrageous "Yo-Da-Lin in the Valley." A national tour with Ice Cube, Poor Righteous Teachers, and Geto Boys followed, and Rock discovered first hand that black audiences were
not necessarily ready for a shit-talkin', big-ballin', shot-callin', white trash cracker with a chip on his shoulder and a metal guitar.
"One time I got into an argument with these Rastafarian
guys who were throwing quarters at me, so I thought it would be cool if I showed my white ass to everybody. So I dropped the Bugs Bunny boxers that my mom bought me to my ankles and flipped my
fucking balls around from the back for a good 30 seconds, man. And I'll tell you, the whole crowd was laughing their asses off!"
See, you have to remember that this was the early '90s, around the time
that Vanilla
Ice had his brief rise to fame and pretty much gave all white rappers
a bad name for the next half decade. As Ice rose to the top of the charts
with his schlocky, pseudo-MC Hammer garbage, real cracker rappers like Kid
Rock, MC Search, and Everlast
(pre-House of Pain) were wallowing in obscurity.
"I
wrote a little thing on a barf bag on the plane today after I read that
Vanilla Ice was attempting to make a comeback," Rock said. "I got pissed. I've been waitin' for this day for a long
time. I'm here, fuckin' 100% pure fuckin' Rock, and when I come out I will
tell you what I mean. I might be wrong, and I might look stupid for it,
but I tell you what the fuck I mean. Fuck Vanilla Ice. And fuck Hammer,
too. And fuck the Backstreet Boys, and fuck New Kids on the Block and anybody associated with all them fuckers,
man!"
By 1993, Rock had been dropped by Jive and took a variety of day jobs to
support himself. One such job found him face to face with his favorite superhero.
"I didn't get much money from Jive; I got five grand, told my dad to fuck off,
and moved to New York. I was broke in about a month, so I took a job at
Manhattan Ford portering cars. Christopher Reeves would always come in there to get his truck serviced. I'd just
be like, 'Hey, what's up Superman?'
and he'd get pissed about it like, 'I am not Superman, I'm just Chris.'
I'm goin', 'Yeah, right, Superman.... C'mon, you're Superman, dude!
You're the shit! I've seen your movies.' I was probably the biggest
dick he'd ever encountered. I wasn't mean about it, I was just like, 'Hey,
it's Superman.' Finally one day he got mad, like, 'Didn't I tell
you about four times I'm not Superman? I know you saw the movie and all
that, you told me 10 times!' Big ordeal at Manhattan
Ford, had a meeting with the boss, Mr. Vittorelli."
 Before
long Rock hooked up with Continuum Records, where he released his colossal
sophomore effort Polyfuze Method, a way-ahead-of-its-time, acid-drenched,
funk metal rock rap album fueled by side-splitting lyrics and headbangin'
beats. Rock also had the foresight to sample Howard
Stern-long before Stern became the "King of all Media"-
on the hysterical "Balls in your Mouth," a song that earned one
college radio station a $30,000 fine. Polyfuze also featured "U
Don't Know Me," a cool Doors-sampled
precursor to the now famous DJ
Shadow-style trip hop organ jams. A hard-to-find EP titled Fire it
Up was next. Despite inclusion of an early version of his latest single,
"I am the Bullgod," Rock and Continuum were coming to blows over
lack of promotion and a stifling environment. Once again, Rock took it to
the streets.
Despite his label problems, Rock quickly became an underground legend in Detroit.
He consistently sold out 5,000 seat auditoriums, made bank off merchandise
sales, and lead the burgeoning rap/rock scene that included Insane Clown
Posse, Esham, and Natas. Rock trudged along hustling tapes from the trunk
of his car and bootlegging his own cds to pay rent.
"Kids
wanted to hear it! We were sellin' the records out of our basements, bustin'
our asses," Rock remembered. "That shit is all over the country
now. It's a beautiful feeling."
By this time, Rock had hooked up with a longtime girlfriend and they had a
child. The whole chain of events is documented in the song "Black Chic,
White Guy," but, basically, it goes something like this: Guy meets
girl. Guy splits to go be a rap star. Girl bones another dude and has a
baby. Guy comes back and hooks up with girl. Girl and guy have baby. Guy
raises kid as girl gets even more fucked up. Girl has baby number three
with yet another dude. Guy takes on full responsibility to raise his only
son. Girl withers away into junkie hell.
"It's a little thing called reality," Rock said. "It always sets in,
no matter how much people try to deny it. And it could set in one day with any of us. God forbid you have a kid
who's born retarded. Reality. Deal with it. You'll hear all these people
talkin' about 'Oh, I'm gonna go out and shoot this motherfucker.'
A lot of it's funny and it's cool and it's entertaining until somebody holds
a gun to your head and says, 'Get out of your car.' Then it ain't
so funny anymore.
"I've got full custody of my son now. People don't get to see that. I don't want
to hide that from the kids and make it seem like I'm just out there pimpin',
a fuckin' crazy, dope-smokin', 40-drinkin' G. I'm doing all those things,
don't get me wrong, but they don't get to see me givin' my kid a bath. They
didn't see me at parent-teacher night last night in Detroit. They don't
see me cuttin' my lawn.
That's what I want them to understand. I'm all this that I claim to be,
but I'm also much more. I'm real. I live my records, yeah, but fuckin' I've
got priorities and I take care of them."
While simultaneously raising his son and touring to support himself, Rock hooked
up with Robert Bradley and Andrew Nehra at White Room Studios, home of rockers
Big Chief, soul diva Thornetta Davis, and a slew of other Sub
Pop scenesters. Finally, he had the opportunity to make an album completely on his own terms, with no industry weasels clawing at the door with lame ideas and degrading marketing schemes.
"Bob and Andy were like, 'Dude, you're so fucking talented and nobody
has any idea. Use the studio whenever you want, just take care of us one
day.' I'm like, 'Really?' They said, 'Yeah, we know
you're a good person.' Then I got the deal with Atlantic, came
back and gave them 30 grand. I take care of my people. You gotta keep the
people who made you what you are in sight. That's the most important thing,
and the easiest thing to lose grasp of too. It starts with your parents.
As much as they hated you, as much as they disagreed with you, that's your
family. Even the people who hate you can motivate you. Someone that says,
'You can't do that,' that's the best motivation you could ever
have if you're true to what you do."
Early
Mornin' Stoned Pimp was released in 1996 on his own Top
Dog Records and took the themes and idea of Polyfuze and expanded
on them, creating a diverse musical land mine that it seems only native
Detroiters and a small cadre of others were exposed to. Quite simply, Stoned Pimp
is a motherfucker of an album. Imagine an ferocious, indie Beastie Boys
on a lot heavier drugs, with an arsenal of one liners, and a shit-kicking
band backing them up.
"I sold like 14,000 copies straight out of my basement," Rock said.
"I took an $8,500 loan and flipped it into 120 grand in nine months."
Lava/Atlantic
Records chief Andy Karp and Jason Flom set the stage for phase two
of Kid Rock's now decade-deep career.
"I did a show and invited every label in the book and nobody showed up but
Atlantic. All of a sudden Flom puts in a bid and three or four other labels
came in with bids too. The bottom line is they got it 'cause they
were the first."
So it's 1997 and Rock begins work on what is to become his strongest album yet, Devil
Without a Cause. He assembles a backing band out of Detroit bar band
Twisted Brown Trucker and teams up with a disgruntled midget rapper named
Joe C. Rumor has it that Joe has that Gary Coleman/Webster disease that
makes him look far younger than he is. No one is quite sure exactly how
old he really is. I've heard speculations ranging from age six to
25. In fact, a photo of him engulfed by naked, buxom babes was reported
to the FBI as child pornography by the photo lab that developed it. So,
with an angry dwarf by his side, Kid Rock storms the rock 'n'
roll compound with his latest A-team of heavy hitters.
The results? Magnificent.
Devil
Without a Cause is a firestorm of an album. It features a couple of
smokin' remakes from Stoned Pimp, like the pounding metal rap
"Where U at Rock" and the disarmingly vulnerable "Black Chic,
White Guy," and a slew of brand new compositions. This album is everything
you like about Kid Rock with better production, a better band, and blown
way the fuck outta proportion. The rock tracks, like "Bawitdaba"
and "Fist of Rage," are heavier than ever, while funk tunes like
"Wasting Time" and "I Got One for Ya" groove even more
and have even catchier hooks. But the real surprise on the album is the
inclusion of a power ballad, "Only God Knows Why," a song Rock
recorded just to throw a curve ball at even his hardest core fans, who never
dreamed he'd ever do something so Elton.
One other surprise is that an early version of the metal rap epic "Somebody's
Gotta Fell This" (also featured on the Road Rash soundtrack)
contained a sample of fellow Motor City madmen MC5's
classic proto-punk anthem "Kick out the Jams," a testament to
Rock's great taste and ballsy diversity.
So with a devastating new album, an ongoing nationwide tour (beginning with
last summer's WARPED
Tour), songs on several popular soundtracks, a single ("Bullgod") in
major rotation at MTV and alternative radio, and a wad of cash to flaunt
from his latest big-money record deal, you'd think Kid Rock's
got nothing to worry about. Ha! The music industry ain't so kind anymore,
kids. You get about one album on a major label, and if it doesn't sell,
you're fucked. Still, Rock isn't worried about his future on a
major label.
"If all this doesn't work, I ain't going to complain," Rock said. "I'll
just go back to Detroit, and be like, 'Cool, I'm still making music.'
And as long as I can do that, I'll do this shit 'til I'm dead. So if this
record don't sell, I'll just turn to the label and say, 'Thanks
man, you guys tried. I made a good record, and you guys fucking tried
to promote it as hard as you could. It's all good.'"
That's
the
ironic twist of the Kid Rock/Bob Ritchie saga: Kid Rock lives the
life of the ultimate indie rock star, touring the country, smokin'
dope and snortin'
lines, headlining big rock shows, and even getting laid as a direct
result of his fame (though probably not as much as he'd like). Meanwhile,
Bob Ritchie has rent to pay, a kid to support, a broken heart from a twice-jilted
lover, an outrageous reputation to live up to, a crew of record company
execs who've put their jobs and money on the line for him, and about
15,000 kids who live and die by his every word. A lot of pressure for
a 27 year old kid outta Romeo, Michigan.
But Rock feels little pressure from his loyal following. He respects his fans as much as they respect him. He knows who his audience is, and they know
he's representing them.
You can slap him on the wrist for his nasty language, and condemn him for his pro-drug politics. You can even say he ain't true hip hop (though I'd say you're dead wrong and I wouldn't be alone), but you can't say Kid Rock ain't REAL.
"You can't fake it, you gotta live it," Rock stressed. "That's why I can't write a song about the sun, I've never been there; I can't write a song about how pretty everybody is, 'cause I don't see that. That's all that my
songs are, shit that I've seen. Yeah, lickin' pussy underwater shootin'
bubbles up your ass-I've done that, that's real. You know, 'Black
Chic, White Guy,' that's real. Every fucking word of it. I had a baby
in the front seat of my car on the Fourth of July. Baby's there sitting
on the front seat. Easiest song I ever wrote. Make all the words rhyme and
tell your tale. People ask me, 'What was it like back then?' And
I'm like, 'All you got to do is listen.'"
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