To listen to the interview on NOLA radio, click here.
Riding high on the timely hit "All Summer Long, " Kid Rock launches the "Rock 'n ' Rebels" tour on Friday, Aug. 8 at the New Orleans Arena with co-headliner Lynyrd Skynyrd, special guest Joseph "Rev Run" Simmons of Run-DMC and young blues-rock triple Back Door Slam.
Before heading to New Orleans for rehearsals, Rock called from the punt porch of his spreadhead outside Detroit. Early in our conversation, he hoped to not "say anything too unintelligent." That's up to you, I replied.
He laughed: "That's the problem."
With that, Rock held forth on the origins of his song "New Orleans, " the fame of his "trash king" buddy Sidney Torres and why you won't see Radiohead in strip clubs.
You were on vacation last week. Where does Kid Rock go on vacation?
A friend of mine gets a racing yacht in the south of France every year, so we went to Italy. I was going to stay dwelling house, then I was talking to Rev Run around how well "All Summer Long" has done in Europe. It's my first No. 1 single in Europe. He's like, "What are you doing? Go celebrate in Europe where your record is No. 1." So I took my brother and we had a good time.
People may think, "Why does Kid Rock need a vacation? He sings close to 'taking strippers out for breakfast' " Your normal life seems vacation-like.
(laughs) It's that old locution, "I motivation a vacation from my vacation."
There's a synergy 'tween you and Lynyrd Skynyrd. You share a direction company and you sample distribution "Sweet Home Alabama" in "All Summer Long." And for a Detroit boy, you sure have a fondness for the Rebel flag.
I feature a warmheartedness for non being politically correct. That's what it boils down to. Anything PC, number me out. I'm so tired of it. I think most people are tired of the far left and the far right. Our country has been distorted, and we don't get anything done, because there's too many extremists.
Take me and Rev Run. We're best friends, our kids are cousins. I've voted Republican most of my life, he's voted Democrat. You canful count the differences. But our friendly relationship and wHO we ar as people is more important than any of that.
That's what makes up the good of America. It doesn't matter which side of the fence you're on. Are you too extreme, or are you inactive into the basic foundations of this country and its people? We're distorted by all these freaks. So anything I can buoy do unpolitically correct, I'm down. It doesn't take me a bad person. I know exactly world Health Organization I am and I won't be defined by any symbolic representation. I'll do everything to break downward those barriers. And it's kind of fun.
You limit yourself on your albums. Your current "Rock 'n ' Roll Jesus" is evenly rent between your nobler instincts -- "Roll On, " "Amen" -- and your more primal instincts, e.g. "So Hott" and "Sugar." Is that an apt description of your deuce competing sides?
Absolutely. That's how I alive my life. People connect with the music what I connected with music when I was danton True Young. Bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd or Run-DMC or Bob Seger . . . when I heard those songs, I really believed it was them. They were writing some the things they knew and wHO they were. When I saw it live it touched me. That's missing from so much music nowadays. There's four songwriters, two producers, a stylist . . .so often smoke and mirrors tortuous before you get to the heart and soul of an artist. That's why a lot of people get in touch with what I'm doing.
Mashing up "Sweet Home Alabama" and Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" into a summer hymn seems obvious, but no one else thought of it.
I'm sure people aren't thinking about it as deep or as wily as I'd like them to think I am. Mash-ups are huge; rappers have been rapping over them for years. For that matter, people from the Rolling Stones on down have been adoption riffs, whether it be Motown or anything else. What I did was blatantly come out and take this, put some original beats to it, and wrote an original melody and lyric on top of it. We (Rock, Skynyrd, Zevon's estate) split the song's publication. Everyone agreed that it's something old and something new.
Did you audition the girls for the "All Summer Long" video?
No. I've never gotten into that. People think I'm kayoed getting hos for the videos, that I'm matchless of those guys wHO hangs about like, "Hey, you want to be in my video?" I don't think I've of all time said that in my life. I've never been to an audition, I've never watched the tapes. It's a big misconception. (But) if I've had a admirer ask to be it in, sure.
"All Summer Long" may get introduced many Europeans to "Sweet Home Alabama."
I mentation that. But years agone, I was getting quick to act "Cowboy" at this vast festival in Germany. I started riffing off "Sweet Home Alabama, " people started clapping and they wouldn't stop. So I played it. There was 80,000 Germans singing along; you could hear the accents.
Pop medicine has become watered-down rap music. To hear something that's blues-based is a breath of fresh air, especially in Europe. You step foot anywhere over there, the only thing you hear is, "Oof-oof-oof" (Rock impersonates a techno beat). It's enough to drive you batty.
When you came up with the title "Rock 'n ' Roll Jesus, " you probably weren't thinking about Sebastian Bach in "Jesus Christ Superstar."
(Laughs) No, sir.
Is "New Orleans" your Hurricane Katrina tune?
I started writing that before Katrina. That's an old song that I'd been working on. I didn't know what it was about; I only knew it had that groove, and I could hear the horns in my head. New Orleans is one of my favorite muscae volitantes in the world, and that's never changed. After Katrina, I kept penning it. (Outlaw country songster) David Allan Coe helped me out with the lyrics. He gave me "le bons temps rouler" and a lot of the New Orleans stuff that I wasn't educated on.
After Katrina, I thought, "I wonder if Fats Domino is OK? Did somebody pay back Fats?" I'd been by his house. So I started writing the strain kind of about him, in a metaphoric agency. God bless his person. He's one of my favorites ever.
The lyrics of "New Orleans" contain some obvious images, like "jambalaya" and "crawfish pie, " which refer to Hank Williams' "Jambalaya." Who came up with the more insider "hey pocky way" line?
That was me. The Meters . . . that's been one of my favourite tunes eternally. That's always a (tour) bus pet. When you're going to kick the party into high geartrain, I don't grab for the Radiohead CD. I grab the Meters' "Hey Pocky Way."
You don't hear a destiny of Radiohead at strip clubs.
None. (Radiohead singer) Thom Yorke said the other night onstage in Indianapolis, "If you're looking for Kid Rock, he's non here." Which I thought was kind of suspicious. I've been poking at him for years, in a fun way. He finally took the twit. (laughs) It's all in fun. I've got naught against them or anybody.
Your history with New Orleans includes an ctive piece of writing session ahead "Devil Without a Cause."
It was an unproductive school term. We really got sued by me saying that I wrote "Somebody's Gotta Feel This" in New Orleans. Some idiot aforesaid it was his sung. It got thrown out eventually, merely it cost me $70,000 and a band of red tape to make the case go away. This happens all the time. Nobody of all time wins demur the scumbag lawyers with agendas.
So you've been to New Orleans since Katrina?
Oh, yeah. A lot of good citizenry are doing so practically stuff grim there, my buddy Sidney Torres (head honcho of SDT Waste and Debris), and Brad Pitt. The city's come a long way, and God hallow it.
I hadn't heard around you taking a cataclysm tour. You were very low-key around it.
Unless it's going to bring some money in and help people, there's no reason for me to let people recognise, "Look, I'm concerned." I don't take those opportunities for press.
Do you know Sidney Torres through Lenny Kravitz?
I know him through a crony of mine, Rande Gerber (founder of Los Angeles' famed Sky Bar and Whiskey Blue in the W Hotel on Poydras Street). Sidney's always been so gracious to us. His whole family, his mom, his whole crew. The scrap king. New Orleans is so fortunate to consume a family like that.
Sidney told me a story about horseback riding around Bourbon Street with Lenny Kravitz. People accepted Torres and not Kravitz.
The same thing with me! We were cruising around in unmatchable of those four-wheel Kawasaki mule things, and it's, "Sidney! Sidney!" I'm like, "Hold on a second base. Go back and let me get my hat."
You recently pleaded no contest to simple battery later a fight at an Atlanta-area Waffle House. Do you design to steer clear of Waffle Houses during your New Orleans adventures?
(laughs) I embrace the Waffle House. In Atlanta, I went back and signed autographs at the Waffle House and we raised about $15,000 for a shelter that helps homeless families make back on their feet. So we flipped it around and turned it into something positive, because it was so slow. Of grade when you're Kid Rock and something dumb like that happens, you get a suit for $4 million.
Will the "Rock 'n ' Rebels" show be your common marathon?
It's really cut down a little bit. That many hours of medicine is a lot for people. Especially when you get a Skynyrd and Kid Rock crowd. They like to drink. There will be some alcohol consumed, and some tailgating. We want to make sure everyone has a good time. We precisely give 'em enough, and all the stuff they want to hear.
I interviewed your sidekick Hank Williams Jr. last year. He's proud to hold the record for beer gross revenue at several arenas.
I say the same thing, and so does Skynyrd. We're going to have to run the numbers. (laughs)
So does your show lineament women in cages again?
No. Next year I'm planning on the whole fiasco -- fireworks, girls, the whole nine-spot. That's my plan correct now. (For this hitch) with the 11-piece band, I wanted to take away it back to the music, which has worked out great. I've gotten the best reviews of my life.
Can we require to try "New Orleans" at the New Orleans Arena?
We're going to practice it all week. So I would say yes.
Will the Skynyrd guys join you for "All Summer Long"?
We won't know until (tonight). I don't want to create them hang out whatever longer than they consume to, merely if they're around and want to play . . . They can play with me on whatever song they'd like to.
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ROCK 'N ' REBELS TOUR
Featuring: Kid Rock and Lynyrd Skynyrd plus Rev Run and Back Door Slam
When: Tonight, Aug. 8, 6:30.
Where: New Orleans Arena, 1501 Girod St.
Tickets: $30 to $195 plus service charges
More info
