Staff Writer
 
Ted Nugent may no longer live in Michigan, but he still considers himself a "Michiganiac at heart."
 
That's one of the reasons he's continuing his "Whiplash Bash" tradition in and around his home state. He'll play The Palace of Auburn Hills at 8 p.m. Wednesday, as well as Mount Pleasant's Soaring Eagle Casino today, and dates in Illinois and Indiana.
 
Nugent said he and his family moved to Crawford, Texas, about a year and a half ago, partly because his wife was getting sick from the mold in their Concord home.
 
He said his wife, Shemane, still gets migraines too often, but is recovering.
 
Nugent said he's found other reasons for moving to Texas: year-round hunting opportunities in his new neighborhood that include exotic game; what he considers to be a superior educational system for his son, Rocco, 14; and lower taxes. Plus, the conservative activist lives "right around the corner" from President George W. Bush.
 
The guitarist said he plans to rebuild his Concord home next spring and will return to the state regularly for hunting and for music. But he'll officially be a Lone Star man beginning Jan. 1.
 
But don't get too comfortable, he warned.
 
"I am, like, the winter water wonderland guy," he said in a phone interview. "The threat that I will run for governor (in Michigan) still lives."
 
He's back right now, preparing for his mini-tour. He said he's been doing the Whiplash Bash for about a dozen years, partly to balance out the fall hunting season.
 
"Because I so crave the insanity of the rock-and-roll energy ... it's not like I can take it or leave it," he said; he needs to schedule some shows after the "silence and purity" of spending most of the autumn bow-hunting.
 
"After four months (of hunting), it's all so primeval," he said. "I can't wait to get back to the guitar and play into the most obnoxious amp I can find."
 
Nugent played with and without amps on his USO tour with country singer Toby Keith last June, an experience he found so "awesome and awe-inspiring" that he intends to repeat it in April.
 
He said they played in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Falluja and Tikrit, Iraq, where they saw "the good, the bad and the ugly." Traveling in an armor-plated Hummer during night-time convoys took him along the same route where Marines were killed, he said. At one stop, he said, he had to take out his Gerber mini-tool and fix the Hummer's door.
 
"I carried my own machine gun over there," said the longtime gun-rights activist. "It was quite intense. It fortified my patriotism and my certainty that America is indeed the last best place ... and that evil metastasizes in our absence."
 
Nugent said he completely supports the Bush administration and the "great military minds."
 
"But it's up to we the people to constantly monitor and ask questions," he said. "I support those who ask questions and those who condemn (the war). ... It's silence I hate."
 
Playing for soldiers in a war zone is the "rock and roll American dream, projected intensely," Nugent said.
 
"You haven't lived until you have Toby Keith playing acoustic guitar next to you in a tent in Falluja," he said. "The spirit, enthusiasm, emotion -- it was just riveting."
 
Nugent said he will tour with Keith next year. No Michigan dates have been scheduled.
"It'll be redneck heaven/hell, depending on your perspective," Nugent said.
 
Nugent said they'll duet on a new song that Nugent's written, "Still Alive and Well, Still Raising Hell."
 
"It'll be a real fascinating diversionary chapter in the history of rock and roll," he said with a laugh.
 
Keith has drawn some controversy for his conservative political stance and songs, as Nugent has.
 
"He's a real good man, a diehard s---kicker. A working hard, playing hard, true American," Nugent said.
 
In the meantime, Nugent is preparing for his annual Whiplash Bash, which will focus on Nugent's hits and best-loved songs, as well as a few new ones, such as "Bridge Over Troubled Daughters" and "Funk U."
 
Once he's finished the short Whiplash tour, he'll head back to Texas, where he'll perform at an event for more soldiers heading to Iraq from Fort Hood. He'll appear with his friend, Gov. Rick Perry, and play a version of "The Star-spangled Banner" that "will make them kill more bad guys."
 

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