Being a multiplatinum rock star can turn everything larger than life.
Turning Over Kid Rock
Just ask Robert Ritchie, who in five years has transformed from unknown redneck songwriter from the Detroit suburbs into the outrageous and charismatic Kid Rock.
Kid Rock digs big-brimmed hats, full-length fur coats, stretch limos, private planes, and big-breasted women. He likes huge-sounding rap-rock with giant southern-rock hooks and massive scream-along choruses. He likes oversized American flags draped across his shoulders and amps and the huge firework displays that cap off his bombastic performances. He also likes to keep big company.
For example, there’s his new buddy Ahmet Ertegun, the dapper and cultured 78-year-old Turkish-born founder of Atlantic Records, and the man responsible for crafting superstar careers for the likes of Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton. Now, this isn’t the type of gentleman you’d normally associate with the foul-mouthed, Budweiser-guzzling Rock, but the music mogul has recently taken an active interest in the Kid. And it’s not just a business relationship. Maybe the 31-year-old rocker makes the old man feel young again. Whatever the reason, he hooks up and parties with Rock whenever time permits.
In fact Ertegun recently flew from New York to Mexico to join Kid Rock and his superbabe girlfriend Pamela Anderson during her and Rock’s vacation. Between bottles of expensive white wine, Ertegun regaled the couple with the kinds of colorful music-industry stories Kid Rock regards as history lessons.
Comfortably seated in a beige leather chair and outfitted in a tight black T-shirt, gray denim jacket, and unwashed blue jeans, Rock is the antithesis of his flashy, rambunctious stage persona. He looks more like a hungover trailer-park tenant as he clenches his eyes shut and rubs his temples with his forefingers. He sighs, cracks open a bottled water, lifts it toward his unshaved face, and chugs. Then he places the bottle on the floor and tells one of his favorite Ertegun anecdotes. It involves a young Mick Jagger, who with his father had just attended the Olympics, where he’d been recognized everywhere he went.
“He was like, ‘Fuck it, I just want to go somewhere that nobody knows me,’” Rock recounts. “So he goes to Ahmet’s house in Turkey, and the first day he’s there he’s all in disguise and nobody notices him. Second day, he takes his hat off, walks around town, nobody notices him. The third day, he’s fuckin’ Mick, head to toe. He’s got the Capezios on and fuckin’ makeup, walkin’ down the street, and nobody recognizes him. So he goes back to Ahmet and says, ‘Are all these people fuckin’ stupid!’”
Rock laughs loudly, then coughs and gasps for air. He’s especially amused by the tale because he’s always craved the spotlight and has learned a thing or two about being recognized. His 1998 major-label debut, Devil Without a Cause, sold ten million copies; his follow-up EP, The History of Rock, which combined a few new tunes with a bunch of pre-Devil material, sold an impressive two million-plus. Such success guaranteed continued recognition from the MTV crowd, but when the public found out last summer that Rock was dating Anderson, he instantly became a household name and an open target for the tabloids and paparazzi.
Unlike the many rock stars who bemoan their celebrity, Kid Rock eats it up. He’s willing to put up with a few inconveniences if it means being a star. “Isn’t that what we all wanted when we got into this? Fame, girls, money, parties?” he asks rhetorically. “Obviously, I love music very much — I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. But for all the so-called musician rock stars going, ‘Oh, my life’s so hard. I got millions of dollars and people recognize me and everything’s so hard’ … get those people a Pabst Boo-Hoo Ribbon, a Whineken, a Budwhiner, and waahburgers and french cries. And then have them go out and work at a gas station for a few days and then see how they feel. I mean, shit, if it’s all about the music, then go back to your fuckin’ basement and make songs for yourself and listen to them all day long.”
While Kid Rock’s attitude and antics may titillate the public, there are signs that his music career may have hit a bump. His latest record, Cocky, will probably sell close to two million copies, but that pales in comparison to the ten million units shifted by Devil Without a Cause. A major hit single or sold-out tour could turn things around in no time, but just in case that doesn’t happen, Rock is ensuring that he makes headlines in other ways. A few months ago he joined some other artists for a special trip to Ramstein Air Base in Germany to entertain U.S. troops. And recently Anderson announced that she would like to go on tour with her beau and strip onstage during his set. She even bragged about having a stripping pole in her bedroom.
Of course there are better ways to stand by your man than getting naked, as Anderson learned with her ex-husband, Tommy Lee (of Motley Crue). Regardless, it’s clear that the scraggly Rock is mighty proud about having bagged the seductive VIP temptress, whom he met in April 2001 at an aftershow party for VH1 Divas. As he sings on Cocky, “I got the baddest bitch in the world!” But bragging on disc and in interviews are two different matters, and he declines to answer any questions about his relationship with Anderson, no matter how vague. Asked whether he thinks the public is as interested in his bedroom exploits with Anderson as they are in his music, Rock snorts and says, “I honestly think people don’t give a shit.” He glares with contempt for a moment, then continues: “Look, Tom Cruise and what’s-her-name get a divorce and it’s all over fuckin’ everywhere. I’ll read about it because it kills five hours between New York and L.A. if I’m on a plane. It’s something to do, it’s something to read. But at the end of the day, it’s just something that passes time. People love to gossip, but in the big scheme of things it don’t mean shit. America’s great because Americans are just so quick to forget.”
Or to move on. Since Devil Without a Cause exploded, other rap-rock acts, including Crazy Town, Papa Roach, and Linkin Park, have clambered to the top of the charts. It’s nothing new. Just a few years after being at the top of the rock hierarchy, former multiplatinum stars like Hootie & the Blowfish, Green Day, even Alanis Morissette have been shoved aside by a new wave of talent. Many musicians agonize over their inevitable dethroning, but Rock seems unconcerned. He’s enjoying himself too much to stress out about tomorrow.
“This is my reality. This is how bad it can get,” he reasons. “I could go out on tour right now and it could flop. My record could flop. It’s already sold a million records, but compared to my last record that’s nothing. So in a worst case, I make a couple million bucks off that, and then if the tour flops I could make $200,000 as opposed to about $5 million. So if things go really shitty, I make a couple hundred thousand dollars in six months. That’s not bad at all. It’s more than most people make in a year.”
A half-hour before Rock is due on camera, he’s escorted to the hair-and-make-up room. As he takes a seat, he jokes to a beautician, “I’m pretty fuckin’ good-looking, aren’t I?” When Rock leaves five minutes later, it looks as if the stylist has waved a brush above his head for 30 seconds then sent him on his way. He heads back to the green room, where he picks up a 1959 Gibson acoustic guitar he brought with him. He starts to strum, then sings “Man of Constant Sorrow” from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? sound track. By the time he is called in to chat with Carson Daly, he’s sung the tune no less than three times.
“I just think that’s the best record,” he’d said between renditions. “Those songs are classic. It’s strong music with no frills. I also like those folk-record anthologies from the Smithsonian which have these songs with slaves banging on train tracks and chanting.” In addition to traditional and spiritual music, Rock’s been listening to a lot of country lately, including Johnny Cash, David Allan Coe, and Willie Nelson. And he can’t stop plugging the new record by Hank Williams Jr., The Almeria Club Recordings. “That ain’t just because he talks about me in one of the songs,” says Rock, who added guitar and harmony vocals to the track “The F Word.”
Cocky features lots of blaring guitars and Run DMC-style banter, but Rock’s passion for country has leaked into several of the tracks. “Drunk in the Morning” and “Picture” are both flavored with Nashville twang, and the latter tune features the unlikely guest vocalist Sheryl Crow, whom Rock is rumored to have dated before meeting Anderson.
“I think of country music as maverick music, just like rock ‘n’ roll is maverick music,” Rock says. “They’re just different ends of the same extreme. Country is basically white man’s blues music, and almost everything stems from the blues — southern rock, classic rock, heavy metal — all that stuff.”
It was rap music more than rock, country, or blues that first rocked Rock’s world. He was born in 1971 in Romeo, Michigan, one of four kids of a car dealer and a homemaker. When he was growing up, his parents would play Bob Seger, Johnny Cash, and Chuck Berry records, and he’d bang along on pots and pans. But it wasn’t until Rock discovered the percussive rhymes of hip-hop on Detroit mix radio shows that he realized his calling. His first concert was Run DMC and Felix and Jarvis at age 12. Soon after, he bought a drum machine and some turntables.
“I treat people like I want to be treated, whether it’s a girl on a tour bus who wants to blow me or a girl who wants a hat signed for her little brother.”
In high school he deejayed for a break-dance crew, the Furious Funkers, who performed at weddings and the local Burger King. He acquired his stage name from people in the audience who would say, “Watch that white kid rock.” His first raps were his freestyle introductions for the members of his posse. He soon discovered he had a knack for coming up with clever rhymes. But along with his penchant for rapping, Rock developed a bad rap for drinking, copping a ’tude, and committing petty crimes. When he was 14 his parents threw him out of the house for being surly and disobedient. So Rock moved into the projects with a rapper friend and got a job at the 76 Car Wash.
“When you’re in your teens, you try to figure out who you are,” he says. “I was so good at deejaying and rapping, I just figured I should be black and be in the ghetto. And I thought I should get involved in the stuff other guys who came from the ghetto were doing.”
Rock started hanging with drug dealers, then selling drugs himself. Before long he was peddling crack to support his music habit. Then for a short while he sold it to support his own drug habit. At the same time, Rock was deejaying basement parties and rapping at small clubs. In 1990 he signed a deal with Jive Records, but Vanilla Ice had poisoned the waters for white rappers. Rock’s debut, Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast, flopped. Over the next few years, Rock would release two more discs and an EP on various labels, but they all failed to score with the public.
Lack of success weighed heavily on Rock in 1992 when his then-girlfriend, Kelley South Russell, became pregnant with their son, Robert Ritchie Jr. Russell already had two kids from other relationships, and Rock had cared for them both. But after Robert Jr. was born, Rock split up with her. In 1993 he won custody of his son; over the years Russell has repeatedly tried to get Robert Jr. back.
In 1997, as Rock was on the verge of desperation, someone from Atlantic Records heard about the tempestuous performer and flew to Detroit to catch him in concert. Following the show, Rock was signed and he and his bandmates celebrated: They partied hard, got into a bar brawl, and spent the night in jail. That night he started writing the hit ballad “Only God Knows Why.”
A year later Devil Without a Cause was released, and at first it didn’t look like it would do any better than his other albums. But MTV supported the release by regularly airing the first video, “I Am the Bullgod.” When the second single, “Bawitdaba,” came out a few months later, MTV began playing it on Total Request Live. Soon the video’s images of motorcycles vaulting houses were burned into the minds of millions, who hungrily snatched up the album.
There are two sides to Kid Rock. On one hand he’s the cocky, hedonistic, selfish, womanizing prick reflected in his trashy, foul-mouthed lyrics. But Rock can also be polite, considerate, and compassionate. He’s nurtured the solo career of his pal and his band’s deejay, Uncle Kracker, and served as a mentor to growth-stunted cohort rapper Joe C., who died in November 2000 of a lifelong intestinal disease. The day after his passing, Rock and his bandmates tattooed “C” on their bodies in tribute to their fallen comrade.
“Our band is like a family,” Rock says with a sigh. “We got ‘D’ tattoos for Detroit when we got signed. And losing a member of your family is always hard for anyone. You just wake up one morning and somebody’s dead. It’s the worst thing in the world, absolutely. And my situation is no better or worse than anyone else’s. I feel devastated, but I don’t like to dwell on it, because why should people think I had such a terrible loss? I mean, what about his parents and his brother-in-law and his sister and his nephew who will never know him? I’m happy that I got to spend time with him and know him and show him a lot of things and have some great times with him.”
Kid Rock, American badass, has existed for years with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. This duality could be a source of conflict, but for the man who sings, “You wanna fuck with me, don’t test the odds / Cuz your arms are too short to box with God” on “Forever,” it’s just another minor obstacle that’s easily conquered by a solid moral code and a grin that says, “Aww, fuck it.”
“I don’t bicker with the devil or the angel, I just try to divide my time evenly between both of them,” he says. “I got nothin’ inside of me that every red-blooded American male ain’t got inside him. I just get to live the life. Any other red-blooded American male with the opportunity would probably be wild and take advantage of the same things I have. But I’ve never gone out of my way to hurt anybody. I treat people like I want to be treated, whether it’s a girl on a tour bus who wants to fuckin’ blow me or it’s a girl who wants a hat signed for her little brother. I treat them both with the same fuckin’ respect. Nothin’ different.”
Rock stands behind his words and expects his loved ones to do the same. There’s no cursing around the kids, and if Junior wants to listen to a record with a parental-advisory label, Rock has to be there with him to explain what he’s hearing. It may sound strange, but the guy who claims he “gets more ass than Mark McGrath” on Cocky, and boasts on “You Never Met a Motherfucker Quite Like Me” about getting high before meeting President Clinton, is raising his son to be polite, generous, humble.
“You gotta teach kids respect,” says Rock. “[Junior] had a Halloween party last year and it was a very nice party, so this year he started telling kids at school, ‘Well, you’re not coming to my Halloween party.’ He came home from school and I went, ‘So, you’re running your mouth about your party at school and certain people can’t come? Guess what? There’s no party this year if you’re gonna be mean to people. Now go tell them all that there is no party.’”
It’s something of a shock to discover that Rock’s favorite topic of discussion is not himself. He’d much rather talk about his son, and says he gets as much pleasure from playing ball with Junior as he does from drinking in a strip club. “The thing you gotta remember if you have kids is you have to be a parent. You can’t be best friends with your kid,” he says. “You gotta be the one that says, ‘Do your homework or you’re grounded.’ But you also have to spend the time with them for them to be able to respect you. Go out and have fun, pull them around the yard on the sled. Let’s throw the football around. Let’s ride bikes. It’s not the quantity of time, it’s the quality [that’s important] for kids to respect you.”
Back in his suburban neighborhood in northern Michigan, Kid Rock is known as just another working father. Sure, at first folks were pretty freaked out that the devil without a pause had moved into a home on 13 acres just miles from their impressionable families, and begun attending PTA meetings. But as time passed, his neighbors learned to accept him as just another loving parent.
“Obviously, I have to walk the line of knowing when to let loose and when to be responsible,” Rock says back in the green room after his interview with Daly, during which he’d sung snippets of “Freebird,” “Old Time Rock and Roll,” and, of course, “Man of Constant Sorrow.” “You know, I can’t take my kid to school as fuckin’ Kid Rock with my hat on and my middle finger in the air wrapped up in an American flag drinking a Budweiser. That’s not realistic.”
He picks up the Gibson again and absentmindedly picks at the strings. Then he returns the instrument to its case and says, “You know what? I don’t miss it at all when I’m not partying. Just being with my family excites me. I love being around the kids [his and Pamela’s], tossing them around or telling them they gotta brush their teeth and do their homework. It doesn’t matter how much money I make in life. Just making a difference in a child’s life — that’s the most important thing you’ll ever have.”
As Rock continues to gush about the virtues of family, his publicist announces that Rock’s limo is waiting, ready to cart him off to the airport where his $2,400-per-hour private plane awaits. Heading out to the car, he cracks a broad smile. Maybe Kid Rock enjoys being a star all the more because he knows it won’t last forever.
“I know that people have short attention spans, and when it’s time for me to move over, I’ll move over,” he says. “I would love to stay home and be there for my son 24/7. Or be able to have dinner at an old friend’s house. Or spend more time with my girl. I’d be just as happy doing that.”
These day, of course, Kid Rock mostly makes the news for having the audacity to have different political views than famous people are apparently supposed to have. Without getting anywhere near that controversy, we will say that you can still find out what’s up with Kid Rock via his website, which may or may not be a thing that interests you. We can also say — this with 100% certainty — that being famous does not make one smarter than non-famous people. It just makes it a lot easier to call a press conference.
