Kid Rock is hot again, riding high on a wave of popularity generated by his new disc, Rock N Roll Jesus, his appearance on the cover or Rolling Stone and his celebrated dust-up with Tommy Lee. (ALEX UROSEVIC/SUN MEDIA)

It's official: Kid Rock is hot again.

Not only is he on the cover of Rolling Stone's 2007 "Hot Issue" surrounded by four-scantily clad babes, but the media -- even Larry King for gawd's sake -- are scrambling to talk with the 36-year-old Detroit rocker.

"More lucky than hot," he said demurely as the RS cover is shown to him yesterday during a chat with Sun Media.

Rock, whose real name is Bob Ritchie, is smart enough to know it's not just because he's got a new genre-hopping album of rock, soul, blues, country, and hip-hop, Rock N Roll Jesus, but because he recently punched out Tommy Lee, the ex-husband of his ex-wife, Canadian Pamela Anderson, at the MTV Awards last month.

"There's no doubt the whole controversy sparked interest in a lot of other things that, at the end of the day, hopefully brings the music to the forefront. But yeah, I'm not complaining," said Rock, relaxing on a couch in a Toronto hotel, leading up to his club show tonight at Kool Haus with his 12-piece band, before an arena tour begins in January.

"What happened, happened," he continued on giving Lee a right-handed punch. "And there was really, in my eyes, no avoiding it. It's just something that had to be done. I think any man would have done the same thing. But if I had known it was going to get so much freakin' attention, I would have followed with a left," he joked.

Needless to say, Rock's four-month marriage to Anderson, which ended in a bitter divorce last year and much mudslinging in the media, provided some fodder for Rock N Roll Jesus.

"There are definitely some self-explanatory songs of things that occurred in my life in there," he said carefully.

But the song singled out as the ultimate "Pam Slam" is Half Your Age, in which he explains that he's happier with a younger woman (at the time Danish model May Andersen) in the lyrics -- "she's half your age and twice as hot."

"I think it would be accurate for people to take it like that," said Rock. "I thought it's still got the amount of evil I was looking for but it's still kind of light-hearted and fun."

Needless to say, Rock seemed to be relieved, in a way, when he found out Anderson recently took husband No. 3 -- Rick Salomon -- in Las Vegas last weekend with rumours she's two months pregnant.

"Honestly, when I look back at the whole situation, I'm so thankful to have made it through and to be out of it," said Rock. "I would have been really completely f---ed if I had stayed in that situation. And not only myself, but my son (14-year-old Bob Jr., from an earlier relationship). That's what really was the final factor in it all. I've always kept my mouth shut, but she kind of dragged me through the mud right after."

In the Rolling Stone article, Rock disputes Anderson's claim she suffered a miscarriage while they were together.

Clearly, he has moved on.

As he gets up, he points to the buxom brunette to the left of him on the Rolling Stone cover and says, "I took her to the Yankees game."

And then he points to the blonde next to her and adds, "And we hung out in New York. And if you were me, you would do the same thing."

Seconds later, a laughing Rock announces he's just gotten a text message that the two women are now engaged in a "cat fight" over him.

Apparently there is no rest for the wicked.

Son not quite like his (in)famous father

Kid Rock has a reputation as a wild man, with a stripper pole, among other things, in the bedroom of his Malibu mansion.

"I also have Elton John's piano in there but no one talks about that, they only want to talk about the stripper pole," he kids Sun Media during an interview yesterday. "So I think maybe I'm going to take the stripper pole and get it mounted through the piano."

Still, his new album, Rock N Roll Jesus, will do little to dispel that ladies' man image with sexually drenched lyrics on two songs, So Hott and Sugar.

So what exactly does he tell his 14-year-old son, Bob Jr., who lives in Detroit, when it comes to girls? Apparently, nothing that sticks.

"He was supposed to take a girl to a homecoming a few weeks ago," explained Rock (real name, Bob Ritchie). "The girl he was going to take is age 14 and had to go up north with her parents or something, so another friend had him lined up with a girl who was 17. So I said, 'Are you going to go to the homecoming with whatshername?' And he goes,' No way! She's 17. I'm not going with her!' I'm like, 'Are you kidding me?' I go, 'You are not my f---ing kid! There's just no way! What's the matter with you? What, are you going to rebel next and become a doctor?' "