Kid Rock Opens Up On His Treacherous Past In Emotional Interview
on Feb 06, 2017 • Updated Mar 09, 2023
In a moving interview on the groundbreaking series, “The Big Interview With Dan Rather,” Kid Rock opens up about his rocky past. Airing Feb.14, the rebel-rocker gives fans an in depth look inside his drug-riddled past in one of the most honest interviews in the history of the show.
Rock delves back into his early years growing up in Michigan and the ultimate impact those rougher years had on his professional career. In his formative years, the singer spent a lot of nights DJ-ing at parties in rough neighborhoods he says were filled with drug dealing, guns, and violence.
“There was dangerous stuff going on. There was a lot of drug dealing, there was guns, there would be a lot of fights in these parties,” said Rock according to Blabber Mouth. “It still was a hell of an education… everything that I had soaking in taught me how to be a more worldly person in a lot of ways, just to be able to see a lot of different sides of things and be able to judge people, judge cultures, judge things, and be a little more open-minded about it.”
Rock drops the advice to young people, saying, “If you can’t put things down, don’t pick ’em up.” So what made the Michigan-native overcome it all? The power of music.
“Several times in my life when I’ve been very down, very hurt, I’ve always gone back to my first love: music. It’s always worked out pretty well,” said Rock. “And it’s another cliché that I believe wholeheartedly, when you’re in a terrible space or your heart hurts, for whatever reason you write good songs, as terrible as that is… I found this to be true.”
The singer also shared about his writing process, his spiritual beliefs, and the unlikely choice he made to live in a double-wide trailer. Hear Dan Rather talk about how his interview with Kid Rock surprised him in the video below.
