Some things in life just go well together, you know?
Examples of some unbreakable pairs that first come to mind are eggs and bacon, bread and butter, and Kid Rock and beer. But if you remember back to last spring, the “Redneck Paradise” singer wasn’t jiving with one beer brand in particular. Just by saying that, I bet the viral video of Kid Rock shooting cases of Bud Light with are already playing inside your head.
In case you need a refresher though, here it is:
That was all the result of Bud Light partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on a special can, which led to a “Bud Light Boycott” of epic proportions. The beer brand has had to do a lot of saving face in the past year, most recently signing on to the be the official beer of the UFC and calling in popular comedian Shane Gillis to act as a brand ambassador.
Bud Light is clearly trying to move on, but when Kid Rock joined The Joe Rogan Experience today, Rogan thought the whole fiasco would be a good one to revisit. Right out of the gate, the podcast host asked Kid Rock this question:
“What’s it like being the dude who took out Bud Light?”
Once Kid Rock got done explaining the two types of beer in this world (cold and free), he explained his role in the Bud Light Boycott as follows:
“Man, I was just having fun, to be honest with you. I was pissed, but it wasn’t like it was going to wreck my day, let alone my life. I was just kind of like ‘What the eff are they doing? This is too far.’
I became the face of it, but I’m not the pied piper to sit around and think people follow what Kid Rock does, I just became the face of it.”
Kid Rock must not be on social media that much, because there are plenty of people that follow his lead and do what he does. Rogan made sure to let him know that with his response:
“They kind of do. Listen man, when you got so upset that you were machine gunning cases of Bud Light, that was the end. That was really it. If there’s one moment that they look back on… it’s that moment.”
Rogan and Kid Rock went on to talk about how they’ve both befriended Brendan Whitworth, the CEO of Anheuser-Busch, since the whole boycott went down.
“We’ve become friends, he’s a great guy… after five minutes of talking to him, we had a great conversation… at some point we got to talking about the video and he said he was actually down in Texas hunting when he got it. I’m like ‘Dude, you seem like somebody I’d be friends with. That I’d hang out with.’ And he’s like ‘You would, that’s what I’m saying.'”
Whitworth apparently even visited Kid Rock in Nashville, and as Kid Rock put it, they “broke bread, got hammered up on Bud Light, and went bowling.” If that’s not a peace treaty, I don’t know what is. The musician went on to say that he talked to a team from Bud Light to figure out if there was any way he could help build back up the brand, but they could never come to an agreement on a path forward, even though Kid Rock apparently gave them some ideas that they wanted nothing to do with.
“We had a good meeting before hand trying to think if there’s something I could do with AB but I just didn’t feel comfortable with it. I threw out some ideas that scared the living eff out of them, but at the end of the day I don’t feel right taking their money… I don’t want any corporate deals, there isn’t a penny on Earth that could make me change who am or have people look at me in a different way. Even though it’s probably half the country that likes me and the other half that wants to put a bullet in me.
At the end of the day, they got the message and I’m not someone who holds a grudge. Honest to God, I was having a lot of fun… one of the things I told him, as a friend, somebody who doesn’t want to see this brand destroyed anymore…. ‘You got smacked… a pretty hard spanking, and I don’t want to hold your head underwater, drown this company and put people out of work… you got the message.”
He went on to joke that he should do a Kenny Powers-style K-Swiss commercial, and honestly, that couldn’t be a more hilarious idea. Can you imagine Bud Light teaming up with Kid Rock for a funny commercial where he becomes the new CEO of the company to “fix it” after the boycott? It would be hysterical. Run it during the Super Bowl and I guarantee it would have been the most talked about commercial of the entire year.
If you’re not familiar with the K-Swiss CEO Video featuring Danny McBride and a number of pro athletes, prepare to be amazed:
Either way, it sounds like Kid Rock has moved on, and wasn’t taking the whole thing as seriously as a his fans did. But whether accidental or not, he definitely led the charge…
You can hear more about it all in the interview:
