You Can Tease A Stone, But You Can't Kid Rock

07/21/2000 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Stephen Peters

If history is destined to repeat itself, then why not sweeten the mix a little bit?

Just ask self-proclaimed American bad-ass Kid Rock, whose recently released disc The History Of Rock provides a revealing, though retouched, primer in all things Kid.

Though the Detroit-based rapper had originally planned to follow up the success of his mega-huge 1998 album Devil Without A Cause with straight re-releases of two out-of-print indie records--1993's The Polyfuze Method and 1996's Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp (his forgettable 1991 Jive debut, Grits Sandwiches For Breakfast, is still available)--he eventually decided to issue a compilation of reworked material, with the new track "American Bad Ass" thrown in for good measure.

"I thought that might be selling kids short a little bit," Rock says of his decision to scrap the original plan. "It'd be too easy just to slap those [reissues] out and make a bunch of money on 'em. I thought, why not put something out that I think's up to the standard of Devil--at least that's leading up to that standard--and combine the best of both records and add some stuff that wasn't on 'em, and recut 'em and remix 'em. Keep 'em the same, you know, the same licks, the same lyrics, but tighten them up and use some of the tools that I have now to make 'em better, so I have one really solid record?

"I think it's important for kids to see," he adds. "I've always talked about the 10 years I've been doing it, the story of being around for so long. And I thought it was important for kids to know that I just didn't pop up as the American Bad-Ass, writing hits like 'Cowboy.' I've laid some corny stuff in my day too, you know? The 'Born 2 B A Hick,' and stuff like that that I threw on there--it's pretty cheesy stuff, but that was all part of coming to where I am. I think it's important for kids to know that, that it's all hard work. You go through different phases, and you should always be proud of where you're at."

Where Rock is at these days is a precarious but enviable position that lies halfway between the octo-platinum-selling Devil and the follow-up record that he hopes will prove he's not just a one-disc pony. And while he's always known that History wasn't going to match the success of his last outing, he's also realistic about whether anything could.

"How do you follow eight million records?" he asks. "Look at the track record. It's nearly impossible. So that's why History Of Rock is good, too. It's not going to do as well as Devil. Maybe that'll be the backlash and take me down a little bit."

The "backlash" he refers to is that inevitable pop phenomenon in which an artist who sells a gazillion records and becomes the success story of the season suddenly finds himself out of favor with the press and/ or public because of that success.

"Oh, it's comin'," Rock laughs. "It should be here any day now! Sure, I'm overexposed. I'm out in everybody's face on TV every f--kin' day. I mean, it's only natural. You know, America loves the underdog and I'm no longer the underdog, so if people are going to start taking shots at me, I'm ready for that. It's all right. It comes with the territory."

As for the Future Of Rock, Kid plans to keep busy on the road this summer and in the studio helping friends with various side-projects later this year, before starting work on his next original opus.

"I have some cool stuff already," he promises. "It's gonna be the same thing people expect, which is to expect something different. You know, there's not gonna be a 'Cowboy' on it, it's not going to be the exact same thing as Devil. It's going to be something I think is better. It's just going to be in terms of where I've been for the last couple of years and what's going on in my head. I've met a lot of really cool musicians that I want to get involved, have 'em come in and play little tidbits. You know, I can't say for sure. I know the few songs that I have for it, though, are really cool. I think kids are really going to dig it."