Forty miles northwest of Detroit, far from the electronic traffic signs that advertise your distance from the now-famous 8 Mile Road, beyond the Silverdome, past the Ford and GM factories, sits a sprawling suburban estate. From outside its fences, all one sees is a towering flagpole flying a bedsheet-size American flag and two houses: one at ground level, modest and welcoming; the other elevated on a hill, imposing and solitary. And despite what any FM-radio DJ might have told you previously, this is the place where Rock lives.
If you ring the buzzer in front of the iron gate, the lord of the manor himself, Robert James Ritchie, may roll up in a golf cart and give you a grand tour of the grounds, its pools, its BMX bike tracks, its impromptu shooting ranges. "This is my Waco," says Kid Rock, one giant grin packed into a pair of blue jeans. In a few hours, the compound will be teeming with his minions, but right now, on this infinitely clear September day, with the place to himself, he's perfectly happy being a cult leader without a cult.
The morning's first destination is the smaller, single-story structure, dubbed "the Roadhouse." It's precisely the abode you might build for yourself if you were a self-styled trailer-park kid who grew up to sell 18 million records. The walls are adorned with the multiplatinum certificates for Rock's 1998 head-banging hip-hop hybrid, Devil Without a Cause; framed pictures of him beside his idols Hank Williams Jr. and Steven Tyler; and old magazine covers portraying him in his middle-finger-waving ascendance. A garage contains his shrine to The Dukes of Hazzard, including his very own General Lee (signed inside the trunk by John Schneider), as well as his Harley and an arcade novelty called the Hot Babes Photo Booth. Down nearly every hallway are guest quarters for, well, whomever, and almost every path ends at the kitchen, where the refrigerator is packed with cans of Coors Light. "You know what it tastes like to me?" Rock asks rhetorically. "A million bucks."
Follow a different sequence of rooms and you end up in Rock's studio. It was here that he recorded 2001's Cocky, a sort of Devil redux that sold four million copies, largely due to one song: the country duet "Picture" with Sheryl Crow, a sad and uncharacteristically humble ballad about a couple who just can't get their act together. "I knew it was a hit," says Rock. "When I got done writing it, I laminated the lyrics." Released as a single in November 2002 (with Allison Moorer assuming the vocal duties of the woman done wrong), the song eventually went to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, though many radio stations preferred to play the album version with Crow. But Rock claims his label, Atlantic Records, didn't initially share his enthusiasm: "They told me it would kill my career," he says.
His feeling of redemption after the song's success hasn't made it any easier for Rock to finish his forthcoming self-titled album. He's certainly got the material for it?more than 40 songs, most of them recorded during an insanely fertile streak in August. "It's like you've got 42 kids," he explains, "and you can only keep 13 of them. The rest of you little fuckers gotta go."
Spin: Your album is due out soon, yet you're still working on it. When does it have to be done?
Kid Rock: Soon. But I'm not going to rush it, because I've really got something good here. I'm not going to polish it, overedit it, all that shit. I want it to sound raw, but I don't want to sacrifice anything for the sake of getting Christmas sales. You can pay me now or pay me later. Doesn't matter -- just pay me.
So there's no chance of a double or triple album?
I wanted to put out a triple disc, and it would say Kid Motherfucking Rock when you open it up. "Kid" would be the country shit, "Motherfucking" would be my hip-hop, and "Rock" would be the rock shit. There'd be ten songs on each one. But there's so many logistics, with publishing, money, and bullshit. I'd like to sit here and say, "Yeah, I don't give a shit about any of that stuff." But I do.
Do you think fans are ready for a triple record?
It's like this: Take the Zeppelin box set?one of the greatest box sets ever. I've never sat down and listened to the whole thing in one sitting! I think a ton of shit would get overlooked. Maybe people will hate me, because it's kind of like me calling the public dumb, like they won't get it. Or maybe I'm the one who's dumb for not doing it.
Well, OutKast are doing it.
They can't do it like I could do it. ?I don't want to sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but beep-beep.
If it's that easy, why not make another rap record of your own?
I didn't really know where else to go with hip-hop. That's where I started out, and that'll always be my first love. But hip-hop's everywhere nowadays, no matter what station you hear it on -- it's right there in your face. It's not always good -- a lot of times it's watered down and crappy.
It's the only thing that's selling.
[Grins] Country. Country's up 12 percent this year.
As the Kid kicks up his Ozzy Osbourne slippers at a Macintosh aND begins to preview his new tracks, it becomes apparent that the ?quantity of country material in his own music seems to have increased by a much greater percentage. Sure, there's one song that's flat-out called "Rock and Roll" ("Break out the whiskey and a bottle of wine / Take your shirt off, bitch, and chop me out a line") and a blissed-out cover of Bad Company's "Feel Like Makin' Love." But otherwise, it's an array of straightforward, almost boilerplate country songs about faceless, hard-workin', hard-drinkin' men, isolated and unlucky in love, constantly on the move and ill at ease when they're anywhere that isn't home.
"Cold and Empty," cowritten with country star Kenny Chesney, has Rock remarking to an unnamed ex, "I guess loving a music man wasn't really in your plans." "Do It for You" opens with him contemplating "another lonely night, another empty glass." Even the chorus of "I Am," in which he defines himself as "everything that Hollywood wants to be," finds him asserting, "You'll never put your finger on me." If one "Picture" was worth a thousand words and millions of record sales, he seems to be asking, what can he get for a whole album of them?
Whatever happened to the man who once flipped the bird to the world and declared, "I am the bullgod"?
"He got old," Rock answers quietly.
It would seem odd, even a little delusional, for Kid Rock ?to compare himself to Big Boi and Andre 3000, artists whose music has become increasingly experimental, while the Kid's seems to have grown ever more traditional. But just as OutKast continue to play with their own duality, Rock seems to be similarly torn between cartoon playa and suburban cowboy. He wants his music and persona to reflect his identity as a humble but hard-partying man of the people (he wouldn't even buy a home in the upscale suburb of Bloomfield because he felt the houses were "too gaudy"). Yet he knows this is impossible if he stays in the rap-rock genre he helped invent, a fading format he's just not into anymore. "I haven't heard anything that influences me," he says.
Nashville, however, would be happy to welcome a would-be outlaw trying to grow up. "The thing about country listeners is, if it's real, they'll accept it, and if it's not, they'll detect it pretty quick," says Rock's close pal Chesney, with just a tinge of envy. "When they heard Kid Rock, it was fresh -- their ears were hearing something different than the same 15 artists on the radio all the time. If I tried to do a duet with Eminem, people would say I'm trying to abandon country music."
As the afternoon progresses and more people arrive -- Rock's manager, Punch; his right-hand man, Shakes; various band members and their friends, their children, and children's friends -- Rock looks like he could use an escape route, and he retreats deeper into his estate. Traveling by golf cart, he pauses briefly at the future home of the horses he plans to purchase someday, a cavernous barn that smells of fresh-cut timber. "I call this my don't-fuckin'-bother-me room."
The same could be said of his private residence, a pristine, contemporary two-story home with practically more porches and decks than bathrooms and a simple, tasteful decor. There are no stripper poles (aboveground, anyway). Other than the portrait of George Washington hanging over the fireplace, the only pictures on display are photographs of Rock's son, Robert Jr., a beaming ten-year-old with cocoa skin and kinky hair.
By design, none of the trophies from Rock's musical exploits are kept in this house. Nor are there any relics of his relationship with Pamela Anderson, except for a Barb Wire pinball machine in the laundry room and an idle tanning bed in the gym. "She said she wasn't getting enough sun out here," says Rock, who bought the device at her request. "I was like, 'Here's your fuckin' sun.'" It's the only time his on-again-off-again fiancee is directly invoked during our conversation -- whenever he can sense that a line of questioning is headed in her direction, he humorously but unambiguously changes the subject.
And you certainly don't want to upset a man whose prominently displayed firearms collection -- with its .22-caliber rifles and Eliot Ness-era tommy guns -- isn't just for show, any more than the bald eagle tattooed on his back, encircled by the legend american bad ass, is meant to promote conservation efforts in the Pacific Northwest. It did not please Rock when, after performing Crow's "You're an Original" with her at February's Grammy Awards, he learned that his collaborator was silently protesting the impending invasion of Iraq with a guitar strap that read no war (though he now concedes that "whatever you feel about it, this is America -- have your views").
Since 2001, the man who sang "Balls in Your Mouth" has been sort of unofficial successor to Bob Hope, playing USO shows for troops stationed in Europe and the Middle East. Last summer, he joined a group of entertainers (including Wayne Newton and Alyssa Milano) that visited Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq; it was during this tour that rumors of his breakup with Anderson began to surface. The revelation hardly could've made him feel more comfortable about his stay in Baghdad, a city he describes as "just a pile of shit. Hot as fuckin' piss. Sand blowin' at you from everywhere, and you're just miserable."
I take it your accommodations weren't in the barracks?
No -- we were in the fuckin' Hilton.
What was your impression of our troops in Iraq?
They're kids, man -- you can't imagine how young they are. I still think I'm young sometimes, and I'm 32. But these kids are 18, 20, 22. They don't understand that even people in Hollywood are saying, "We're not for the war, but we still support the troops." They think, "Man, they're just fuckin' down on us." What a godforsaken place to be without thinking people support you.
Were they looking for reassurance from you?
They were just curious about what was going on back home, what people thought of them. But a lot of them really thought that they were doing a good thing, and they were.
Did you attract a lot of attention from the press corps?
Entertainment Tonight's running around there with their cameras, shoving them in your face all the time, getting in the way of the stage. Troops couldn't see. You're there for those kids. I told Entertainment Tonight to get the fuck out of my face.
Do you feel like your privacy's been compromised in the last couple of years?
Not really. If you want privacy, you can have it -- it's that simple. It's not a mistake that Jennifer Lopez is on the cover of every magazine. There's people that calculate that shit, that figure out how to do it. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are in love? Who gives a fuck?
Has the national obsession with celebrity couples gotten out of hand?
It's gay. It's completely gay. It's been gay since it started, whenever it was. It's definitely at a point where it's become too much.
Are you surprised that you've lasted in the music industry this long?
No. I think everybody else is, though. I'd like to think that I'll go away when my time's up. I'll go peacefully.
But how will you know when it's your time?
I won't. That's gonna be the hard part.
There's no guestbook for the Roadhouse, but the list of musicians who have crossed its threshold in recent months is an unlikely assortment of guitar heroes, teen heartthrobs, and total degenerates: Metallica, ZZ Top, Aerosmith? Sure. Hank Jr., Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw? Check. Outlaw-country pioneer (and genuine ex-con) David Allan Coe parked his tour bus on the premises not long ago, though he preferred to remain inside the vehicle, coming out only for peanut butter sandwiches. Hell, even Justin Timberlake stopped by. Rock wasn't around that day, but his man Shakes cooked a meal for J.T. and his crew. And he's hopeful that the White Stripes will pay him a visit. "Tell 'em that I got a little spot out here," he says, "that they're welcome to come out any time they want."
Kid Rock has this saying about his home state: "It's a nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit here." As he stands on one of his second-story decks, surveying his acreage, you can see what he means, that it's always better to stand on the inside looking out. "If there was a contest for the thickest, nicest lawn in Michigan," he says with pride, expertly flipping a cigarette butt onto the immaculate greenery below, "I'd win it."
