After Turning 40, Kid Rock Regrets Stage Name
Lately in the world of Kid Rock, reflecting on life’s choices comes with some serious regrets
Growing old usually means growing wiser. And Robert Ritchie, best known to millions of fans as Kid Rock – the bad-ass rap-rock-country star – is now pausing to reflect on a career mistake.
Rock, 40, who is still riding high on the success of his 2010 American roots rock album Born Free, admits to having regrets for choosing his stage name.
“The only person who had a dumber name than me was the Fresh Prince (Will Smith). Hey, it sounded like a cool rap name when I was 16, but it stuck, and now it’s me. I’ll be an 88-year-old man (saying), ‘Call me the Kid!'”
Rock chose his stage name as a teenager and now feels the burden on his shoulders, as a middle-age man, to be realistic about that choice.
Rock is also taking fatherhood serious. His party-hard lifestyle is almost synomonous with his stage name, so Rock opened up to Esquire magazine about his relationship with his teenage son, Junior.
“We were talking about a tour or something. He texted me real early — must have been six in the morning. And I texted him back. And he asked me, ‘Were you up all night?’ I said, ‘No, no, I’m getting up for my son.’ He said, ‘Holy sh–, don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anybody you were up this early, because it’ll ruin your image.’ I go, ‘You can’t ruin my image.’ Make no mistake: Bob Ritchie’s up early in the morning taking pictures of his son on the first day of his senior year. Kid Rock is passed out in a hotel room somewhere with four scantily clad women.”
In the magazine, he opens up about some of the mistakes he’s made as a father.
“When Junior was young, it was Christmastime,” he remembers. “I had a gig the night before, and I was sh–t-faced, just beyond. Drugs and alcohol. I passed out in my bathroom, dead weight. My son comes in, he’s like, ‘Grandma, something’s wrong with Dad!’ So my mom tries to get me to make this big excuse up. ‘Tell him you came home and you were tired and this that and the other.’ I’m sitting there at breakfast and I say, ‘Your dad got trashed last night.’ I’m going to sit here and lie to this kid? He’s like seven. I’m like, ‘Big concert, party afterward, I drank too much and passed out. I’m not proud of it, but that’s what happens when you do that.'”
FURTHER READING >>
Kid Rock Takes Role of Fatherhood Seriously – The Boot
Kid Rock: What I’ve Learned – Esquire
Kid Rock regrets his stage name – MSNBC.com
