Kid Rock happily embraces a variety of musical styles

Steve Morse

Tuesday, Nov. 30, 1999 | 9:18 a.m.

Welcome to the brave new world of hick-hop, where hip-hop, classic rock, and country meet in ways that neither Grandmaster Flash nor Hank Williams could have imagined.

It's the creation of a 27-year-old bundle of contradictions known as Kid Rock -- a free-spirited showman whose career has been a meteor ride this year, fueled by Woodstock '99 and MTV, and now coming to a town near you, including Wednesday's sold-out show at The Joint.

Kid Rock -- born Bob Ritchie, son of a middle-class car dealer outside of Detroit -- has bear-hugged the charts with the clever, wise-guy hits "Cowboy" ("I'm a cowboy, baby ... I once was lost, but now I'm just blind") and "Bawitdaba," where he advises crackheads, critics, cynics, crooked cops, and IRS agents to "get in the pit and try to love someone!"

The album carrying these hits, "Devil Without a Cause," has sold 4 million copies and spurred a Kid Rock tour. Hick-hop, so named by the Kid, is now arena-bound.

"It's a big production show," says Kid Rock, who toiled in obscurity for 10 years before he became an MTV fave. "I've got elevators and lights galore and girls dancing. And tons and tons of surprises. And a lot of pyro. We keep people there right through the last encore."

Kid Rock also juggles his career with the demands of fathering a 6-year-old boy (over whom he has sole custody), showing a discipline that counters the sex-drugs-and-hick-hop hedonism of his songs. "I'm a contradiction, I'm a twist of fate," he rap-sings in the tune "Roving Gangster (Rollin')."

Musically, he's a hotshot and he knows it. He beat all comers during DJ competitions as a youth and boasts that he can do "all the tricks" on turntables. "I can cut with my chin and do 360s on the turntables," he says. "But some DJs are like guitar players -- all flash and no substance. That's not me. I can write songs."

He's written them on albums dating back to his debut on rap label Jive Records, "Grit Sandwiches for Breakfast," in 1990. His music pays a debt to everyone from the Beastie Boys ("I loved them, but they kind of lost me when they got all political") to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Hank Williams Jr.

Nevertheless, Kid Rock languished for years as an unappreciated novelty.

"I just kept banging away and then, lo and behold, people were finally ready for it," he says during a recent break in rehearsals in Kalamazoo, Mich., with his band, Twisted Brown Trucker. "Radio started to change format a little bit and MTV definitely embraced the record before it sold 10 copies, which is pretty amazing to me. I didn't expect them to do that, but they listened to it and loved it, and, of course, that helped tremendously. And then it was just a matter of going out and proving it.

"I just got the right opportunity, I guess, and I snatched it up."

Today, Kid Rock is a teen-ager's household name, muttered in the same breath as fellow irreverent acts Limp Bizkit and Korn. But Kid Rock is more fun. He does personalized covers of classic rock tunes such as Grand Funk's "We're an American Band" and John Fogerty's "Fortunate Son." He's covered Hank Williams Jr.'s "Country Boy Can Survive"

And, well, you never know what else he might do. He even employs a little-person sidekick Joe C., to exhort the crowd.

"Everything just leads to the next thing," Kid Rock explains. "People say, 'OK, we saw you at Woodstock, we saw you at the MTV Video awards, we've heard a lot of good things.' And when it comes to the live show, they ask, 'Is it really that good?' I mean, what else do you want me to do - ride out on a bicycle juggling? And play my guitar and yodel?"

Yodel?

"Yeah, I've got an old classic called 'Yodeling in the Valley' that I might have to pull out," he says.

His parents gave him his first turntable at age 12 and he went from there. "I taught myself everything - turntables, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums. I was never much of a learner, or at least when other people would teach me. I'd teach myself."

He always had a work ethic. He grew up in the tiny town of Romeo, Mich., on a five-acre spread on which he mowed the lawn, moved rockpiles and woodpiles, and cut down trees. Although the song "Cowboy" has the phrase "I'm not straight out of Compton, I'm straight out the trailer," he's definitely not out of the trailer. "I was just saying it for fun. I was just showing my whiteness," he notes. "But 95 percent of my songs are autobiographical."

As a youth, he bucked authority. "Yeah, definitely, but I never hurt somebody to get my point across," he adds.

He made no apology then and he makes none now. He has a party image -- he even dated a porn queen named Midori for a while -- and he's besieged by fans who try to party with him. But he's learned to draw the line. "I like to get wild ... But you can't party with everybody who shows up with a joint," he says.

His refuge is his son, Bobby, whom he gets up for school every day at 8 a.m., when he's not on the road. Otherwise, his older sister, who lives with him in suburban Detroit, is his nanny.

And though commercially the nation's pop audience has finally caught up to his offbeat fusion of hip-hop, rock, and country twang, Kid Rock remains as eclectic as ever. It's a pattern he developed early.

"I always hung out with a wide variety of people, and listened to a wide variety of music, and liked a lot of different sports and a lot of different TV shows," he says. "If something is good, I like it. I don't let anything else get in the way of it."