Post by Sugarmama on Aug 8, 2008 17:33:36 GMT -5
Listen to it here
www.nola.com/new_nolaradio/index.ssf?content.ssf/2008/08/kidrock.xml
let me know if its works :Sugarmama
conversation with Kid Rock
Posted by Keith Spera, Music writer, The Times-Picayune August 08, 2008 5:01AM
Categories: Interviews, Top News
Photo by Clay Patrick McBrideKid Rock pulls into the New Orleans Arena on Aug. 8.
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 trio Back Door Slam.
Before heading to New Orleans for rehearsals, Rock called from the back porch of his spread outside Detroit. Early in our conversation, he hoped to not "say anything too stupid." 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 hear Radiohead in strip clubs.
You were on vacation last week. Where does Kid Rock go on vacation?
A friend of mine gets a yacht in the south of France every year, so we went to Italy. I was going to stay home, then I was talking to Rev Run about 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 about 'taking strippers out for breakfast' " Your normal life seems vacation-like.
(laughs) It's that old saying, "I need a vacation from my vacation."
There's a synergy between you and Lynyrd Skynyrd. You share a management company and you sample "Sweet Home Alabama" in "All Summer Long." And for a Detroit boy, you sure have a fondness for the Rebel flag.
I have a fondness for not being politically correct. That's what it boils down to. Anything PC, count 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 misrepresented, 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 can count the differences. But our friendship and who we are as people is more important than any of that.
That's what makes up the goodness of America. It doesn't matter which side of the fence you're on. Are you too extreme, or are you still into the basic foundations of this country and its people? We're misrepresented by all these freaks. So anything I can do unpolitically correct, I'm down. It doesn't make me a bad person. I know exactly who I am and I won't be defined by any symbol. I'll do everything to break down those barriers. And it's kind of fun.
You define yourself on your albums. Your current "Rock 'n ' Roll Jesus" is evenly split 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 two competing sides?
Absolutely. That's how I live my life. People connect with the music what I connected with music when I was 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 about 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 much smoke and mirrors involved before you get to the heart and soul of an artist. That's why a lot of people connect with what I'm doing.
Photo by Clay Patrick McBrideKid Rock's latest album, "Rock 'n' Roll Jesus," showcases both his noble and primal instincts. "That's how I live my life," he says.
Mashing up "Sweet Home Alabama" and Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" into a summer anthem seems obvious, but no one else thought of it.
I'm sure people aren't thinking about it as deep or as crafty 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 borrowing 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 publishing. 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 out getting hos for the videos, that I'm one of those guys who hangs around like, "Hey, you want to be in my video?" I don't think I've ever 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 friend ask to be it in, sure.
"All Summer Long" may have introduced many Europeans to "Sweet Home Alabama."
I thought that. But years ago, I was getting ready to play "Cowboy" at this huge 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 music has become watered-down hip-hop 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 just knew it had that groove, and I could hear the horns in my head. New Orleans is one of my favorite spots in the world, and that's never changed. After Katrina, I kept writing it. (Outlaw country songwriter) 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 get Fats?" I'd been by his house. So I started writing the song kind of about him, in a metaphoric way. God bless his soul. 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 favorite tunes forever. That's always a (tour) bus favorite. When you're going to kick the party into high gear, I don't grab for the Radiohead CD. I grab the Meters' "Hey Pocky Way."
You don't hear a lot 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 not here." Which I thought was kind of funny. I've been poking at him for years, in a fun way. He finally took the bait. (laughs) It's all in fun. I've got nothing against them or anybody.
Photo by Clay Patrick McBride"I have a fondness for not being politically correct," Kid Rock says. "Anything PC, count me out."
Your history with New Orleans includes an unproductive writing session before "Devil Without a Cause."
It was an unproductive session. We actually got sued by me saying that I wrote "Somebody's Gotta Feel This" in New Orleans. Some idiot said it was his song. It got thrown out eventually, but it cost me $70,000 and a lot of red tape to make the case go away. This happens all the time. Nobody ever wins except the scumbag lawyers with agendas.
So you've been to New Orleans since Katrina?
Oh, yeah. A lot of good people are doing so much stuff down there, my buddy Sidney Torres (head honcho of SDT Waste and Debris), and Brad Pitt. The city's come a long way, and God bless it.
I hadn't heard about you taking a disaster tour. You were very low-key about it.
Unless it's going to bring some money in and help people, there's no reason for me to let people know, "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 buddy 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 nice to us. His whole family, his mom, his whole crew. The trash king. New Orleans is so fortunate to have a family like that.
Sidney told me a story about riding around Bourbon Street with Lenny Kravitz. People recognized Torres and not Kravitz.
The same thing with me! We were cruising around in one of those four-wheel Kawasaki mule things, and it's, "Sidney! Sidney!" I'm like, "Hold on a second. Go back and let me get my hat."
You recently pleaded no contest to simple battery after a fight at an Atlanta-area Waffle House. Do you plan 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 get back on their feet. So we flipped it around and turned it into something positive, because it was so dumb. Of course when you're Kid Rock and something dumb like that happens, you catch a lawsuit for $4 million.
Will the "Rock 'n ' Rebels" show be your usual marathon?
It's actually cut down a little bit. That many hours of music 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 just give 'em enough, and all the stuff they want to hear.
Lynyrd Skynyrd precedes Kid Rock onstage at the New Orleans Arena tonight, Aug. 8. Rock's current hit "All Summer Long" borrows from Skynyrd's classic "Sweet Home Alabama."
I interviewed your buddy Hank Williams Jr. last year. He's proud to hold the record for beer sales at various arenas.
I say the same thing, and so does Skynyrd. We're going to have to run the numbers. (laughs)
So does your show feature women in cages again?
No. Next year I'm planning on the whole fiasco -- fireworks, girls, the whole nine. That's my plan right now. (For this tour) with the 11-piece band, I wanted to take it back to the music, which has worked out great. I've gotten the best reviews of my life.
Can we expect to hear "New Orleans" at the New Orleans Arena?
We're going to rehearse 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 make them hang out any longer than they have to, but if they're around and want to play . . . They can play with me on any song they'd like to.
_________________________
www.nola.com/new_nolaradio/index.ssf?content.ssf/2008/08/kidrock.xml
let me know if its works :Sugarmama
conversation with Kid Rock
Posted by Keith Spera, Music writer, The Times-Picayune August 08, 2008 5:01AM
Categories: Interviews, Top News
Photo by Clay Patrick McBrideKid Rock pulls into the New Orleans Arena on Aug. 8.
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 trio Back Door Slam.
Before heading to New Orleans for rehearsals, Rock called from the back porch of his spread outside Detroit. Early in our conversation, he hoped to not "say anything too stupid." 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 hear Radiohead in strip clubs.
You were on vacation last week. Where does Kid Rock go on vacation?
A friend of mine gets a yacht in the south of France every year, so we went to Italy. I was going to stay home, then I was talking to Rev Run about 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 about 'taking strippers out for breakfast' " Your normal life seems vacation-like.
(laughs) It's that old saying, "I need a vacation from my vacation."
There's a synergy between you and Lynyrd Skynyrd. You share a management company and you sample "Sweet Home Alabama" in "All Summer Long." And for a Detroit boy, you sure have a fondness for the Rebel flag.
I have a fondness for not being politically correct. That's what it boils down to. Anything PC, count 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 misrepresented, 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 can count the differences. But our friendship and who we are as people is more important than any of that.
That's what makes up the goodness of America. It doesn't matter which side of the fence you're on. Are you too extreme, or are you still into the basic foundations of this country and its people? We're misrepresented by all these freaks. So anything I can do unpolitically correct, I'm down. It doesn't make me a bad person. I know exactly who I am and I won't be defined by any symbol. I'll do everything to break down those barriers. And it's kind of fun.
You define yourself on your albums. Your current "Rock 'n ' Roll Jesus" is evenly split 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 two competing sides?
Absolutely. That's how I live my life. People connect with the music what I connected with music when I was 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 about 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 much smoke and mirrors involved before you get to the heart and soul of an artist. That's why a lot of people connect with what I'm doing.
Photo by Clay Patrick McBrideKid Rock's latest album, "Rock 'n' Roll Jesus," showcases both his noble and primal instincts. "That's how I live my life," he says.
Mashing up "Sweet Home Alabama" and Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" into a summer anthem seems obvious, but no one else thought of it.
I'm sure people aren't thinking about it as deep or as crafty 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 borrowing 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 publishing. 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 out getting hos for the videos, that I'm one of those guys who hangs around like, "Hey, you want to be in my video?" I don't think I've ever 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 friend ask to be it in, sure.
"All Summer Long" may have introduced many Europeans to "Sweet Home Alabama."
I thought that. But years ago, I was getting ready to play "Cowboy" at this huge 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 music has become watered-down hip-hop 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 just knew it had that groove, and I could hear the horns in my head. New Orleans is one of my favorite spots in the world, and that's never changed. After Katrina, I kept writing it. (Outlaw country songwriter) 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 get Fats?" I'd been by his house. So I started writing the song kind of about him, in a metaphoric way. God bless his soul. 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 favorite tunes forever. That's always a (tour) bus favorite. When you're going to kick the party into high gear, I don't grab for the Radiohead CD. I grab the Meters' "Hey Pocky Way."
You don't hear a lot 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 not here." Which I thought was kind of funny. I've been poking at him for years, in a fun way. He finally took the bait. (laughs) It's all in fun. I've got nothing against them or anybody.
Photo by Clay Patrick McBride"I have a fondness for not being politically correct," Kid Rock says. "Anything PC, count me out."
Your history with New Orleans includes an unproductive writing session before "Devil Without a Cause."
It was an unproductive session. We actually got sued by me saying that I wrote "Somebody's Gotta Feel This" in New Orleans. Some idiot said it was his song. It got thrown out eventually, but it cost me $70,000 and a lot of red tape to make the case go away. This happens all the time. Nobody ever wins except the scumbag lawyers with agendas.
So you've been to New Orleans since Katrina?
Oh, yeah. A lot of good people are doing so much stuff down there, my buddy Sidney Torres (head honcho of SDT Waste and Debris), and Brad Pitt. The city's come a long way, and God bless it.
I hadn't heard about you taking a disaster tour. You were very low-key about it.
Unless it's going to bring some money in and help people, there's no reason for me to let people know, "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 buddy 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 nice to us. His whole family, his mom, his whole crew. The trash king. New Orleans is so fortunate to have a family like that.
Sidney told me a story about riding around Bourbon Street with Lenny Kravitz. People recognized Torres and not Kravitz.
The same thing with me! We were cruising around in one of those four-wheel Kawasaki mule things, and it's, "Sidney! Sidney!" I'm like, "Hold on a second. Go back and let me get my hat."
You recently pleaded no contest to simple battery after a fight at an Atlanta-area Waffle House. Do you plan 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 get back on their feet. So we flipped it around and turned it into something positive, because it was so dumb. Of course when you're Kid Rock and something dumb like that happens, you catch a lawsuit for $4 million.
Will the "Rock 'n ' Rebels" show be your usual marathon?
It's actually cut down a little bit. That many hours of music 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 just give 'em enough, and all the stuff they want to hear.
Lynyrd Skynyrd precedes Kid Rock onstage at the New Orleans Arena tonight, Aug. 8. Rock's current hit "All Summer Long" borrows from Skynyrd's classic "Sweet Home Alabama."
I interviewed your buddy Hank Williams Jr. last year. He's proud to hold the record for beer sales at various arenas.
I say the same thing, and so does Skynyrd. We're going to have to run the numbers. (laughs)
So does your show feature women in cages again?
No. Next year I'm planning on the whole fiasco -- fireworks, girls, the whole nine. That's my plan right now. (For this tour) with the 11-piece band, I wanted to take it back to the music, which has worked out great. I've gotten the best reviews of my life.
Can we expect to hear "New Orleans" at the New Orleans Arena?
We're going to rehearse 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 make them hang out any longer than they have to, but if they're around and want to play . . . They can play with me on any song they'd like to.
_________________________
