Shooting hogs and talking trash with America’s wildest red-state rocker.
Ten miles outside town on a two-lane county road, just past the trailer park and across the street from Hank Williams Jr.’s place, there’s a driveway with a poster that says “Re-Elect Sheriff Russell Thomas.” Beyond a gate, a dirt road winds around a small lake, past a “Don’t Feed the Hippies” sign, leading to a brown double-wide trailer (WiFi password: Troublewide). Kid Rock stands outside puffing a cigar, his ponytail spilling out of an orange hunter’s hat. “Welcome to L.A.!” he says, meaning Lower Alabama. “I thought you were coming yesterday. We got our days screwed up. We cooked fuckin’ chitlins!”
It’s noon on a sunny Thursday in Troy, seat of Pike County. Rock introduces his buddy Gabe, a portly local salesman who sold Rock a dog. They’ve been hunting on Rock’s 500-acre property since 5:30 a.m. He started e-mailing me at dawn, urging me to come early, promising “a badass surprise.” “I wanna tell you what it is so bad,” he says. He steps into the trailer; a photo of Hank Jr. hangs on the wall near two mounted deer heads. “I guarantee you ain’t seen this before.”
As Gabe makes turkey sandwiches and Rock makes small talk, his girlfriend, Audrey, arrives in a pickup truck, just back from Walmart. Rock spotted Audrey, a no-nonsense brunette, five years ago at a Michigan restaurant and asked her out on the spot. The next day, when she asked where they were eating, he said Chicago. They had a blast, and have been going strong ever since. Audrey spends much of her time here now; she loves to hunt, though she had to take a break a few months ago when she broke her leg in a nighttime ATV crash.
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