KID ROCK BIO
(courtesy of Atlantic Records) 

For the millions…and millions…who discovered Kid Rock with his monster hit Devil Without A Cause, Lava/Atlantic—in association with Rock’s Top Dog Records—is pleased to offer the chance to catch up on the Kid’s illustrious career. For starters, the aptly titled The History Of Rock includes remixed and reworked cuts from two of the Detroit Cowboy’s long-unavailable early works—The Polyfuze Method (1993) and Early Mornin’ Stoned Pimp (1996).

"All this sh-t that I’ve been bragging about, talking about ‘I’ve been here for ten years,’" Rock said recently, "everybody knows the story, and here’s the proof of it."

And because Kid Rock is the kind of cat who just keeps on giving, the album also features a fistful of new tunes: "F--k That" (which originally appeared in late 1999 on Atlantic/Warner Sunset’s Any Given Sunday soundtrack), "Abortion," and the storming "American Bad Ass," a brand new track based around a sample extracted from Metallica’s timeless "Sad But True."

"It’s pretty f--king awesome," said Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich of "American Bad Ass." "To my ears, this is as good as it gets."

The album features Kid classics like "Oedipus" and "Prodigal Sun," which Rock re-recorded after finding that the original masters for his second LP, The Polyfuze Method, had gone missing. The History Of Rock also features cleaned-up tracks from Kid’s pre-Devil…release, Early Mornin’ Stoned Pimp, such as the Superfly-flavored "E.M.S.P.," the cool-flowing "Paid," and the gangsta-styled "Ya’ Keep On." After all, it was on these very cuts that the future Pimp Of The Nation mastered his verbal skills as well as honing the genre-busting jams that would soon blow the world’s doors open when brought to bear on Devil Without A Cause. The collection even dips into Rock’s personal collection with the very-early-days demos "Dark And Grey" and "Born To Be A Hick."

"That’s where I was," Rock notes with pride, "and I want the kids to hear that."

The man who would be Kid Rock grew up Bob Ritchie in the small town of Romeo, Mich., a predominantly white Detroit 'burb where he absorbed the rock 'n' roll that sprang forth from the FM radio as well as the bad-ass beats emerging from the urban underground. Inspired by the energy of hip-hop pioneers like Run DMC and Whodini, the Kid began hanging out in the projects of nearby Mt. Clemens. He was a member of a local break-dancing crew, The Furious Funkers (!), and first put the wheels of steel in motion while still in high school. Grabbing thunder across the largely black local talent show scene, Bob earned himself his moniker spinning at subterranean basement parties: Watch that white kid rock!

"I went to every f--king rap show from '84 on," the Kid reminisces. "I still have all my ticket stubs. I've been supporting this s--t from day one. I've been true to this game, given my heart and soul and shining like a diamond getting passed as coal.

"It's total rock ‘n’ roll," he goes on, explaining why hip-hop struck such a chord in a self-proclaimed redneck. "Chicks and limos and money and hanging out and f--k you, I don't want to go to school. That's what kids want to hear. It's what you want to hear when you're 15. It's the attitude."

In 1988, he laid down his first batch of demos, recordings that earned him an opening performance spot with Boogie Down Productions. That gig brought Kid to the attention of Jive Records, which signed him immediately. His debut album, Grits Sandwiches For Breakfast, was released in 1990, produced by Kid Rock with Too $hort and D-Nice and featuring a flat-topped, 40-guzzlin' cartoon Kid on the cover.

The record included what would be the first of many Kid Rock ditties about the joys of oral love, "Yodeling In The Valley." That track led to the largest ever government fine leveled at a college radio station: The FCC decided that the State University of New York at Cortland's WSUC-FM owed them $23,750 for airing "obscene, indecent, or profane language by means of radio communication." Though the base fine would normally be $12,000, the FCC adjusted the figure, stating that "the egregious nature of the material exacerbates the violation." Fortunately, after being on the butt end of mucho bad press (and the losing end of a New Music Seminar debate with Kid himself), the FCC eventually dropped the fine altogether.

"It's not even that foul," Kid points out. "Y'know, 'Watch a girl get frisky and then wash it down with a shot of whisky.' But someone didn't appreciate that."

Further street cred came when he found himself the opener on a 20-city U.S. tour with hip-hop luminaries Ice Cube and Too $hort. Kid Rock eventually moved east to NYC-- Crooklyn, to be exact--and in 1993 laid down his sophomore salvo, The Polyfuze Method, which included yet another dirty anthem, the Howard Stern-samplin' "Balls In Your Mouth." The album nevertheless displayed Kid Rock's growing musicality, with country-inspired raps banging head-on with rock balladry as well as unexpected samples such as the Doors' "Soul Kitchen"--five years before Smash Mouth followed suit on their hit "Walking On The Sun"! In addition, the album even included the surprisingly mature and poignant "My Oedipus Complex," the Kid's straight-faced rap about his estranged dad.  The Village Voice hailed The Polyfuze Method for "joining rap and metal with love for both and reverence for neither," noting that Kid was "a born rapper, effortless and thrilling."

The hot rock-and-heavy metal Fire It Up EP followed, but was barely issued by the Kid's baffled label. He returned to Detroit, where he began to focus his energies on his own Top Dog indie label. In '96, Top Dog gave the world Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp, a hardboiled collection of G-funk filtered through Kid Rock's distinctly Midwestern white- boy worldview, featuring Black Crowes' keyboardist Eddie Harsch and the sultry vocals of Sub Pop soul diva Thornetta Davis. The Kid's entrepreneurial skills have proven to be as deft as his musical gifts as Top Dog has become quite the money maker, along with his red velvet-walled studio, Temple Of The Dog.

Bolstered by the hard rhythms and guitar slam of his Twisted Brown Trucker band, Kid’s Top Dog/Lava/Atlantic debut Devil Without A Cause found Rock kicking his lascivious and loquacious lyrical jams over an innovative blend of classic-styled breakbeats and liquored-up Lynyrd Skynyrd rock ’n’ roll. Released August 18, 1998, the Rock-produced album rose to the No. 1 position on the Billboard "Heatseekers" chart in March 1999, and the following month earned its first certification with a gold sales award from the RIAA.

A Top 5-charting Billboard 200 hit, Devil Without A Cause has since been certified a mega RIAA eight times platinum.

Not bad for a guy who, less than two years ago, made what seemed like a bold lyrical prediction: "I’m goin’ platinum!" Talk about setting obtainable goals! Watch that Kid Rock do it over and over again…