Anyone want to read the Rollng Stone article

[Sal]

with Kid Rock?

[steph]

Is he on the cover?

[Sal]

yeah I can cut and paste the article here..

[steph]

Oh....sorry I wasn't sure.

[Sal]

well you figure we would go out to eat til like what 7ish? so we should be fine

[Dee]

im too cheap to buy it so copy/ paste away.LOL

[Sal]

K holdy on.......

[Sal]

As "Rock &Roll Jesus", the first song--and potential title track--of his new album cranks over the speakers in his suburban Detroit studio, Kid Rock, sporting a plain white T-shirt, jeans, flip flops and a Miller High Life baseball cap sitting backward on his head, pulls a stogie from a small desktop humidor, fires it up and listens with a satisfied grin.

Rock's elation is easy to understand. He's been working on the album, he says, for three years, since not long after the release of his last studio set, 2003's platinum "Kid Rock". "Other shit" got in the ways--such as his four-month, multiple-ceremony marriage to Pamela Anderson that made him tabloid fodder last year and "threw a wrench in the program" of making the album.

He took it to the zero hour--writing new lyrics and recording new vocals even after he and co-producer Rob Cavallo mixed the 11 tracks in mid-July--but he's finally done. The album, Rock's sixth under the Atlantic umbrella and ninth overall, is due Oct. 9, with the hard-rocking first single, "So Hot", shipping to radio in early August.

Some decisions are still being made--the title, the cover art, surveying a wealth of media opportunites to promote the album. The Potential of a "Rock' n' Roll Jesus' title makes some around him uneasy, but a typically cavalier Rock simply says, "Good, Rock n' roll's suppose to piss people off." At press time, Atlantic was also considering the title "Amen."

Whatever happens, it's clear that in the coming months the Devil Without a Cause now has one--to let the world know Kid Rock is back, as American badass as ever, and ready to dominate the rock, pop, amd country landscapes the same way he did in the late '90's. Rock, as well as Atlantic, are also out to reverse the declining sales he's experienced since his 1998 breakthrough "Devil Without a Cause," which has sold nearly 9 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and particularly the 29% drop between 2001's "Cocky" (4.9 million, mostly on the strength of the late his "Picture") and "Kid Rock" (1.3 million).

Rock figures the best way to correct that course was to "really deliver...and make just a great album" and then go out and be, well, Kid Rock: to inhabit the outsized , Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp persona that's long been engaging enought to keep a high profile regardless of record sales or chart positions.

"I don't think I can do anything more powerful that either play live or play the record for people and hopefully create as much hype as the iPhone," says Rock, a Romeo, Mich., native whose real name is Bob Ritchie. "So I want to go out and talk as much shit as I can and hype it up as big as I can, 'cause I think I have a good enough product. It can stand up to it."

And this time he feels he has a label partner that can stand beside him, providing the kind of extensive and intensive push that his last couple of albums were missing. "I really wanted to set this one up," Rock says. "I don't think I've ever really done that yet. Before is was like, 'We'll give you a million dollars, unrecoupable, if you get it to us by this date.' 'Well, OK...' "

Atlantic's campaign for Rock began in June, when label president Julie Greenwald came to Michigan to hear what Rock had. He subsequently made a five-song snippets sampler that she played for a company meeting in Minneapolis in early July, where she says staffers "were losing their minds."

"Everybody had their own favorite--the rock record, the pop record, the AC--depending on where they worked. "Greenwald recalls. "Every department was like, 'Holy shit...He gave us a record!' People were like, 'The music is so good, and there's so many different ways to go with this album.' It was one of the best playbacks I ever did in a marketing meeting."

Atlantic chairman/CEO Craig Kallman notes that in the wake of "Picture", which crossed over to AC and country radio in 2002, Rock remains an artist with potential appeal to mulitple formats. Kallman says, "He's made an album that you listen to and you hear incredible songs for rock radio, great songs for pop radio, you hear records for hot AC and you hear records that can work for country. "Kid Rock's a rarity in today's music marketplace. He kind of defies categorization and boundaries consistently through the records he's made. That's a great kind of artist to work with."

Rock, who started as a DJ/MC in the metro Detroit areas and released his first album, "Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast," in 1990 has been pursuing the "punk rock, hip-hop, Southern rock" blend he sings about on his 2001 hit "Forever" for more than a decade now.

Recorded at the Clarkston Chophouse studio on his home property, the new album cuts a similarity broad stylistic swath, from metallic headbangers like "So Hot" and "Sugar" (the sets only rap track) to such rootsy, gospel-hued fare as "Amen" ("The best song I've ever written, " Rock says) and "When You Love Someone". The Motown-influenced "Roll On" rolls alongside the power ballad "Miss Understood" and the Crescent City-flavored "New Orleans" (co-written with pal David Allen Coe), while "All Summer Long" entertainingly mashes up elements of Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama"--with the latter group's Billy Powell on piano.

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Other Players on the album include Rock's Twisted Brown Trucker Band--the core of which has been together more than 10 years--as well as members of such Detroit rock outfits as Sponge, Was (Not Was) and Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise, along with Nashville heavyweights like Paul Franklin and Aubrey Haynie, as well as the Fisk Jubilee Singers for choir parts.

The album ends with "Half Your Age," a lsy country kissoff to Anderson. When it reaches the chorus' closing line about finding a younger girlfriend who's "twice as hot," Rock throws his arms up and offers an exultant high five. "I think people expect it," he says with a shrug and a smile, tapping on the cigar. "It'd be stupid to pretend that it didn't happen and not say anything."

Overall, Rock--who'sdedicating the album to his late friend, Atlantic co-founder Ahmet Ertegun--hopes the effect is "like going to church drunk on Saturday night. It defines America; if you just had to play one American rock album for somebody, this would be it." He and his collaborators--including longtime friend Uncle Kracker, current Twisted Brown Trucker hype man Paradime and Detroit guitarist Marlon Young--wrote "tons" of songs for the album, and Rock acknowledges feeling a different kind of creative charge for this outing.

The goal this time, he says, was to refine things by taking more time in crafting the songs (though he proudly notes that many of the recorded performances were first takes) and writing lyrics that ran deeper than partying, pimping, and chest pounding pride--although those are still there, too. Rock recalls that Grammy Award producer of the year and Columbia Records co-chairman Rick Rubin, who was helping with the album for a while in 2006, urged him to write material that was "relevant." "He said to me, 'We know you're fuckin' Kid Rock. You said it 80 million times on every other record. Let's move on.' "

In that regard there's pointed social commentary in such songs as "Amen" and "When You Love Someone," a greater detail in the storytelling in "Miss Understood," a more innocent kind of sentimentality than Rock's presented before in "All Summer Long." He says, "This time I thought that I could strp up and maybe be a major player. I tried to put myself on the level of all these people that I really look up to and love, like the Skynyrds and [Bob] Segers of the world and just really tried to write in that mode but still be me.

"It was a little bit of pressure, but I'm good under pressure. I mean, I have money, I have all the other shit. So that becomes out of play all of a sudden. I really love music, so I wanted to make something that really sounds good." And that, he adds, is one of the reasons rap takes a back seat on the new album.

"I've just really been into melody and lyrics and songwriting," says Rock, who nevertheless is hoping to do a full scale hip-hop collaboration with the Rev. Joseph "Run" Simmons of Run-D.M.C. "Writing a rap, to me, is easy. I could write a rap like that," he says, snapping his fingers. "But writing songs and melodies and shit that's hopefully going to stick around for 30, 40 years is fucking hard."

Cavallo, a hitmaker for Green Day and the Goo Goo Dolls, was introduced to Rock by Kallman. He says he could feel the artist's desire to grow from their first meeting this year in Malibu. "He wanted to make a little bit more of a mature record that's a little more ambitious," says Cavallo, who spent four months flying in for weekday sessions in Clarkston--where Rock returned from California after divorcing Anderson.

You're going to hear some deeper themes running through this record--that was one of the things that got me so excited about it. He's had a lot of things happen in his life. It was time for him to write something that was both important to him and felt important to music fans--especially coming from that stylistic place that's so unique, that combination of country and hip-hop and rock." Cavallo played no small part in polishing the songs and the sound, according to Rock, who had never collaborated with a major producer before.

"He really got how to work with me," Rock says. "He's a very talented guitar player, piano player; he actually sits down, hands-on--'Here's the harmony note'--and stuff like that, which I thought was really good." "He stepped in and did what Kracker usually does, just sit there and talk about music and have fun and talk about what we should be doing." The songs kept coming in--"All Summer Long" arrived less than a month before the album was mastered--and Rock admits that it took some ultimatums to convince him to wrap things up.

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"They kind of start setting dates," he says. "Like, 'Y'know, you're gonna miss this and this. These opportunities are gonna be gone.' I need that--otherwise I would've worked on it for another year." Altlantic professes to be more than satisfied with the album it has, and the label is particularly happy with the setup time Rock has afforded the company to plan a campaign.

"I think Bob has only needed a record that got played on the radio," Atlantic GM/VP of marketing and creative media Livia Tortella says. "People know who he is, and now more than ever people want to play stars. The industry needs that right now. He's fitting a particular point in time, and more importantly he has a record reflecting that."

There are, of course, some challenges facing this particular Kid Rock album. Chief among those is the four-year gap and the attendant extra-musical publicity since "Kid Rock," which have created a need to remind the world that music is what made Rock famous in the first place when he broke through with "Devil Without a Cause" and the hits "Bawitdaba," "Cowboy" and "Only God Knows Why."

"The icon can overshadow him," Tortella says. Rock agrees. "You never want something to overshadow what your real talent is."
To that end, Tortella says, Atlantic's plan will "be about the music and how good it is. He hasn't had that in a long time."

A few things are already confirmed, including an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" the week of release and a performance on Larry the Cable Guy's Christmas Special for VH1, which will tape Aug. 8 in Las Vegas and air in December. Rock hopes to film a video for "So Hot"--a "pure evil" rocker whose chorus ("I don't wanna be your friend/Iwanna fuck you like I'm never gonna see you again") will be sanitized for commercial outlets--around the same time. ESPN will also use "So Hott" for its "Ultimate Highlights" show during September.

Tortella says the label is talking to the WWE about it's Aug. 22nd Summer Slam event in New York, producers of the MTV Music Video Awards and the American Music Awards, and with the NFL for Rock to perform at halftime of the Detroit Lions' annual Thanksgiving Day game.

[Sal]

Rock's web site is being spruced up for the new album, and a viral campaign for "So Hot"--including a separate video for the Internet--will begin in August around the same time the single is shipped to rock radio. Atlantic plans to ride that song for a while, but Tortella says, "We'll bring other songs to other formats a little later on." The company also plalns to be "really agressive in the mobile space" with ringtones and ringbacks--an area in which Rock is actively involved.

"He has creative ideas about things he wants to do there," Tortella says. "He's coming up with 20 million things, so w're talking to a lot of carriers with different ideas." Rock and Atlantic are also planning to provide customized extra content for retailers. Wal-Mart will sell it's first double-pack that features DVD content from MTV, VH1, and CMT. Atlantic is in talks with Best Buy about a Rhapsody Originals performance from Rock, while Target may be involved in a concert ticket presale. Kmart and Amazon will have extra content, but not iTunes at this point.

Atlantic will also issue a music video interactive edition of the album that will unlock special Web-based content. Warner Music Group initiated the new format with Linkin Park's "Minutes to Midnight" May 15. Since then, the Rush album "Snakes & Arrows," which initially came out May 1, was reissued June 26 in a limited edition MV1 version.

Kid Rock and the Flaming Lips are next in line for the premium-priced format, which comes in DVD with a version of the album playable on computers and an MP3 version that can be downloaded and burned to CD. In Linkin Park's case, it also came with a making-the-video feature, wallpaper, a PDF booklet and the ability to make a ringtone using Urtone software.

To support the album, Rock is planning a promo tour, which will include radio events, prior to the release. There will also be a series of theater and club dates to promote the album, with a full-scale tour planned for 2008.

"Kid Rock has been such a big arena artist for so many years, getting to see him would be the hardest ticket in town," Atlantic's Greenwald says. "Imagine being in a 1,000 seat venue and being that close to Kid Rock again. We can do so much with that as a promotion and just a fan experience. He's so proud of this album, and he wants to work," Greenwald adds. "He's in such a great space, and he's so open. He really wants to be engaged. He's totally, 'Come on, let's go!' For us, the best artists to work with are the ones who want to work as hard as us."

Kallman is confident that despite the sales sag, Rock's profile is still a strong asset for the album. "He's a career artist," Kallman says. "He's a one-of-a-kind, charismatic personality. He's larger than life, and he's built a fiercely loyal following. So it's about attacking the many areas that we can for exposure with a record that I believe can have a life on multiple formats."

Rock, however, feels that what's in the grooves--or bits--will determine the album's ultimate success. "What it comes down to is I'm only going to be as good as the record is," he says. "It'll be as good as I perform it, as good as I go out and work it, all that stuff. I will do whatever it takes to get this heard."


THE END!! ;D

[Sal]

Happy reading I am outta here....later taters

[Dee]

cool..thanks!

[pinky]

Someone posted this I thought at EKR. I know I have already read it somewhere. Thanks though Sal

[PEACHES]

you can go to billboard and order back issues if you want it

don't spread this around keep it on the dl