This week on Infamous, Vanessa dives into the wild and contradictory world of Kid Rock—once a chart-topping, genre-blending superstar, now a provocateur entangled in political stunts. She’s joined by writer David Peisner, who shares behind-the-scenes stories from his iconic Rolling Stone profile. Is Kid Rock a misunderstood rebel or just another troll in America's celebrity circus? Click ‘Subscribe’ at the top of the Infamous show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Read Vanessa’s book, Blurred Lines: Sex, Power and Consent on Campus, and check out Natalie on Instagram at @natrobe To connect with Infamous's creative team, join the community at Campsidemedia.com/join Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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What if your rich friend convinced you to invest in his startup and you woke up in a nightmare? You just scammed your own family. So maybe you decide to do something about it. He gets thrown to the ground. He keeps yelling out, what did I do? What did I do? Well, Ken, I'll tell you exactly what you did.
From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is Catch Me If You Can, coming June 1st to The Binge. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Campsite Media.
Welcome back to Infamous. And yes, that was Kid Rock. You may remember him as one of the biggest stars of the 2000s with that long, dirty blonde hair, the big sunglasses, pimp swagger. He fused all kinds of music together, hip hop, metal and country. He was signed to a label at 17 years old. Just a really talented guy. Very funny. Great stage presence. That was Bob Ritchie then.
And there was definitely an undercurrent of assholery in what he was doing. He called women bitches all the time and stuff like that. But the music was pretty good. In recent years, though, he's become very political, very controversial. Some of what he's up to, I support, like his campaign to try to get Ticketmaster broken up.
If you've been to a concert recently, you know how completely absurd the tickets are and all the ridiculous fees.
Anyone who's bought a concert ticket in the last decade, maybe 20 years, no matter what your politics are, knows that it's a conundrum. You buy a ticket for 100 bucks. By the time you check out, it's 170. You don't know what you're getting charged for. But more importantly, these bots, you know, they come in to get all the good tickets to your favorite shows you want to go to.
And then they're relisted immediately for sometimes a four or five hundred percent markup.
So, yeah, I don't think you can argue with that. But some of the other stuff that Kid Rock has done has been quite performative and very weird, like denouncing Oprah for endorsing John Fetterman for Senate because he wanted Dr. Oz to win, just being really vociferous about that. He's also said that ugly women, particularly liberal women, are the reason that birth rates are so low in our country.
And he got slapped by Dolly Parton's sister for that. Or he shot a bunch of Bud Light cans to protest Bud Light using a transgender woman in an ad. And he shot them with a machine gun. He's just turned into a constant provocateur, almost like a troll. which does make sense for our era of ultra sensibilities, but can also be exhausting.
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