If you’ve been listening to rock music at all over the past 55 years, there’s a good chance you own at least one album with the talents of Carmine Appice. The drum legend has played with the likes of Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, Beck, Bogert & Appice, Rod Stewart, Ted Nugent, Ozzy Osbourne, King Kobra, and Blue Murder, just to name a few. What better way to end a gigantic year of interviews than with a giant himself? Over the course of an hour, Appice reflected upon his storied past and gave us a glimpse into his ever-busy future. Despite just turning 75, this is a man who’s far from finished.
Greetings Carmine and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing this afternoon?
Carmine Appice: I’m good. How are you doing?
I’m great, thank you. I’d like to start by wishing you a happy birthday.
CA: Thank you! It was better last week. We had a party on the 4th. We made it early so people could fly to Florida and not be gouged by the Christmas prices. After that, people were posting stuff and I was getting birthday greetings on the 4th, 5th, 6th *laughs*. I kept saying, “Thank you for the greetings, but it’s not till the 15th.” But thank you very much.
Anytime man. It’s funny because I started this site nearly two years ago, and you were supposed to be our first interview ever. We had an interview set up before Cactus was supposed to play the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles in March of 2020. Then COVID happened. That said, you’ve managed to stay very busy throughout this pandemic, not just with Cactus, but in general.
CA: Yeah, pretty much. I wasn’t busy much other than starting to mix the Cactus record that we had finished. We had a Vanilla Fudge song that we started in December of 2019. We got Tim Bogert on it in January and I was working on it as a producer in February. I was gonna put new drums on it because the drum track was messed up, but then COVID hit in March, April, May. In the beginning of June, end of May, we moved to Florida. My brother Vinny built me a really cool recording system on Cubase. I started learning how to use it. Once I started learning how to use that, I started doing a lot of projects. I did a whole album called Energy Overload with this guy Fernando Perdomo. It’s an instrumental heavy prog album. I’ve been busy in the studio. Right now I’m working on the new King Kobra record.
How far are you into that record and when can we expect it?
CA: I’m not sure exactly when to expect it, but I have 11 drum tracks done. I’m gonna do one more. We have a bunch of guitar and vocals on it. We don’t have any bass from Johnny Rod yet. That’s only gonna take a couple of days. The main thing now is to get the two guitar players together. They’re different guys than the original guys. We got Carlos Cavazo from Quiet Riot and Rowan Robertson from Dio. They never really worked together. Carlos is used to working with one guitar player bands. We’re working on getting them to compliment each other, and the rhythms and the leads. That’s taking more time than I thought, but it sounds great.
Is Paul Shortino still on vocals?
CA: Yep, Paul Shortino is still on vocals. He’s doing a great job. He’s producing this whole thing because he’s the center of it. He’s the Pro Tools guy that everyone sends the tracks to. That’s how you do it.
Can the fans expect any touring from King Kobra here in the states next year?
CA: We’re actually talking about doing some gigs. We’re talking to an agent to book some gigs, but we don’t know when yet. We wanna do it when this album comes out so we have something to promote.
You’d be more than welcome at the Arcada!
CA: Oh yeah! Is that where you are? My buddy Ron (Onesti)!
I’m actually in Chicago, but yeah, I know Ron all too well *laughs*.
CA: Me too. He does that show with me and Vinny (Hangin’ and Bangin’).
Which was a godsend when COVID first hit because there was nothing going on.
CA: We’re now on episode #72. We’ve had everybody on there. We’re trying to get it onto a cable TV channel like AXS TV, because we have all these episodes. We can just upload it to them.
That would be an excellent idea. Speak of shows, I know you Vanilla Fudge just finished a run of shows with Robby Krieger. How did those dates go?
CA: They were good. Actually, I just saw Joe Bonamassa last night. He was pretty awesome. He came up and jammed with the Fudge. We did two nights at Sony Hall. He jammed with us on the first night. It was awesome. I’ve known him since he was a teenager.
He started very young. He’s been going, what, 25 or 30 years?
CA: I think he said he did his first gigs with his manager 30 years ago. He was 12. I’ve known him…he might’ve been a little older than 12. I though he was around 12, but I saw a video of him on the first gig that I met him on. It was the Leo Fender tribute gig. He looked like he was maybe 14.
Have worked with him musically?
CA: We were gonna do a band: Bonamassa, Bogert & Appice. His manager said it didn’t fit into their plans. Three years later he was huge. I don’t know how they did that, but there’s a video on YouTube of Bonamassa, Bogert & Appice doing “Superstition”.
He would’ve done a tremendous job filling Jeff Beck’s shoes.
CA: Without a doubt. He was a monster, and now he’s even better. Now he sings his ass off too and he’s playing tremendously. Great band, really great show. I went with Nicko (McBrain) from Iron Maiden. We’re good friends down here. He lives 20 minutes away. Now that I’ve got the studio, I recorded something for him for Modern Drummer, two things actually. I engineered it. How funny is that?
Yeah, I know Nicko has the Rock N Roll Ribs down there. Didn’t King Kobra open for Maiden on the Somewhere in Time tour?
CA: No, we opened for KISS. We might’ve done one gig, but we opened for KISS mostly. We needed to play on a big arena tour. Alan Miller who managed us used to work for (Bill) Aucoin. We knew KISS very well. I just played on Paul’s (Stanley) album not long before that. They actually paid us instead of us paying them! They’re good guys.
Was pay to play a frequent practice in the 70s and 80s even for major label bands?
CA: Not in the 70s. Mostly in the 80s. That’s when it started. In the 90s, going strong and beyond. Now the clubs do it.
Which is really unfortunate.
CA: It’s unfair. It’s really bad. The business is bad enough. Bands have to play for nothing, or play and have to sell 30 tickets in order to play. It’s terrible.
It sucks for these bands because you’re sinking enough money to get to the show, bring your gear, and make your music in the first place. To break even, you’ve gotta be selling X amount of CDs and merch. It’s essentially Russian roulette.
CA: It’s terrible. It’s like the rest of the business. It’s messed up. I’m happy and I’ve been blessed to have the career I have. I’ve played with the greatest people, when records actually sold records. I’ve made a lot of money on records. I’m still doing it, and I’m doing it mostly for the passion of it. The Guitar Zeus box set was luckily already recorded. Even the two extra tracks, we recorded them in 1995 on analog. We just brought in Tommy Thayer from KISS and Derek Sherinian from Dream Theater and Sons of Apollo. There’s a band I was managing called Kodiak. They were like a young Van Halen. I don’t know if they’re really going anymore. They got kind of unfocused, but their guitar player is 18 years old and just like Eddie Van Halen, so he’s playing on one track as well. Then we got a few other new ones with Bumblefoot, John Norum, and some Japanese guy named Char who’s like the Jeff Beck of Japan. So there’s about five or six new songs on the album. Plus, there’s rough mixes that we did when we were making the albums, of just me, Tony (Franklin), and Kelly Keeling playing rhythm guitars. Any guitar player that buys the boxset can play along with us for soloing, and there’s one with vocals. You can play rhythm guitar, little fills around the vocal. When the solo comes, play the solo, and then go back to the song. In essence, it’s like you’re recording with me, Kelly, and Tony.
I believe that Guitar Zeus boxset comes out this Friday.
CA: It does. 4 LPs, 3 CDs, and a booklet. That’s the main package. Then there’s a bundle where you can get all that plus a Carmine face logo on a black chain with a turquoise Guitar Zeus pick, an autographed photo, and a T shirt. It’s a nice bundle. You’re getting 39 songs.
It’s a big set. When did you first get the idea for Guitar Zeus and who were the first guitarists that came to mind for the project?
CA: It’s funny you should ask that because the whole thing started as a joke. It was ’92. I had a solo album out in ’82. When ’92 came, I was still trying to get a new solo deal. I was putting together a band because after Blue Murder, John Sykes sort of went into hiding, so we didn’t do anything with that, but I liked the idea. I got together with Bob Daisley from Ozzy (Osbourne), Jeff Watson from Night Ranger, and Joe Lynn Turner. We had a band called Mother’s Army. Before that, we were thinking of naming it Zeus. We didn’t use it obviously.
I was talking to Jeff when I first went up to work with him in San Francisco. He said, “I just got a solo deal on Shrapnel.” “That’s unbelievable. You’re a guitar player, you come out of a band, and you immediately got a record deal. I’ve been trying to get a record deal for 10 years and I haven’t got one. What do I need to do? Play guitar? A drummer doing a guitar album? Maybe I’ll call it Guitar Gods and I’ll get my friends to play on it.” Then I said, “I’ll call it Guitar Zeus.” I was kidding. We all laughed and went about our business recording the album we were working on. That night, I went to bed and my mind was clicking away. I said, “Man, that’s a good idea. Guitar Zeus: A drummer doing a guitar album. I can do press in drum magazines, guitar magazines, rock magazines, rock radio. It’s a good idea! Let’s see how I can facilitate this.”
While I was trying to find a manager to facilitate the business part of it, I was going around doing stuff. I did a clinic at House of Guitars in Rochester, New York. The other guy doing a clinic was Brian May. Brian was a friend of mine, so I talked to him. Freddie (Mercury) had just died and he had nothing to do. I said, “Brian, I’m gonna do this album. If I do it, would you play on it?” He said, “Yeah, I’ll play on it.” That’s one. Then I ran into Ted Nugent somewhere. I asked him the same thing. He said, “Yeah.” That’s two. Then I figured, let me get some guys who are very hip for today. It was all grunge at that time: Nirvana, Pearl Jam. We were like dinosaurs. So I was talking to the guys in King’s X, Dug (Pinnick) and Ty (Tabor). They were really hip in those days. They said they would do it too. They were big Cactus fans. I knew they would do it anyway. We toured with them, with Billy Squier and Blue Murder. I went on their bus and they were blasting Cactus. That was pretty cool.
Then, I was going to Japan for Rock Super Session Vol. 2. I did Vol. 1 with my other solo album in ’82. I did it with Tom Petersson, Rick Derringer, Eric Carmen, Duane Hitchings, and myself. We played the Budokan and all kinds of great stuff. In ’92, they wanted to do a second one, so we did. It had me, Tony Franklin, Kelly Keeling, and Mitch Perry. Before I got Mitch, I asked Doug Aldrich. Before he got big in America, he was known in Japan. He couldn’t do it, but I was talking to his manager. In talking to his manager, I mentioned, “Do you do any deals over there?” He said, “Yeah, I do deals.” I told him the idea. He said, “I can get a deal for that.” And he did! He got a big deal for it.
When I was in Japan with Kelly, I said, “Do you write songs?” He was on the last Blue Murder record. That why I used him. He had a great voice, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, piano. He played everything. So he played me some songs. I go, “Wow, these are cool songs. There’s just too much fat on them. Too much stuff going on with arrangements. It goes here, it goes there.” I cut the fat off some of the songs and they came out great, so I hired Kelly to be co-writer with me on the songs. Then Tony wrote some songs. I had to get Tony on there because I love me and Tony as a rhythm section. I thought we were really amazing. Guitar Zeus ended up sounding like Soundgarden meets Blue Murder meets The Beatles, with a killer drum sound and great bass sound on analog.
Phil Kaffel, who did No Doubt, helped produce the first album. The second album was done in the same studio with me producing it and Pat Regan who does everybody: Mr. Big, Deep Purple, Rainbow. He mixed it and the mixes are tremendous. We overcut songs. That’s where the two extra songs came from, the ’96 and ’97 session. The second deal was done with Polydor. That was even bigger than the first. The first album came out. It went #3 in Burrn! magazine in Japan. It sold a lot in Japan, sold a lot in Europe, and I did a European promotion tour. Then we got a second one. And then after that we did Guitar Zeus Japan with Japanese players, and Guitar Zeus Korea with Korean guitarists. Two of those tracks are on this boxset too. It turned out to be this unbelievable project that’s still alive now. Have you heard any of these new songs?
I’ve heard the albums over the years and plan on getting this boxset when it comes out.
CA: You should look online. It’s all on YouTube. There’s a video for a song called “Mystified”. It still sounds like modern music. It doesn’t have all that *imitates blast beat* bass drums and all that *growls* crap, but it’s really heavy. Like I said, it’s like Soundgarden meets Blue Murder meets The Beatles. We even had our own wild tuning to make it sound really heavy. We’ve got a killer drum sound, and great songs with great guitar players on each song.
It is an amazing concept because here we are celebrating 25 years of it. This box set really sums it up. I’m looking at the names on here: Slash, Neal Schon, Brian May, Pat Travers. The list goes on. I feel like you’re the only drummer who could put together a project like this.
CA: Well, nobody else did *laughs*. You may be right. I always come up with these crazy ideas. The Drum Wars thing with my brother is a crazy idea that goes out on the road and works. I put a show together called Slamm. It was like The Blue Man Group and Stomp with a rock guitar player. We played rock versions of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and a couple other songs with trashcans and buckets and big 55 gallon oil drums, playing tubs with black light glow paint hammer handles that you’d buy at Home Depot. It was really a good show. I wish I had great agent at the time. I didn’t That show could’ve went somewhere.
We did a video for NASCAR. We were playing at the Cutting Room in New York and a guy comes in and says, “I want you to play a NASCAR garage.” I thought he wanted to do a show in the garage. He wanted us to actually play the garage: play the gas tanks, the tool boxes, the drills. I said, “Wow!” So we wrote this song with all that stuff in it. That’s also on YouTube. It’s called “Slammcar” and we actually played the garage. The drills are going “woo woo!”, and those things they use to take the tires off very quick. We played the NASCAR oil tank. I still have it down there in a locker.
Going back just a bit, you touched on extreme metal drumming. What are your thoughts on it and its players, like Dave Lombardo and Gene Hoglan?
CA: I don’t know Gene personally, but I do know Dave. Dave was a big Cactus fan. I think he went through my book as well. He always said he looked up to me and what I did with Cactus. If you look at Cactus, there’s a song called “Parchman Farm”. You see how fast that is. For 1970, that was speed metal. I just saw this guy on the internet who reviews songs and it was so funny. I got a kick out of his reaction to “Parchman Farm”. He said, “That drummer’s like an octopus!” His name is Jamal_AKA_Jamal. He’s got 840,000 subscribers. Check out his review of “Parchman Farm”. It’s so funny. At one point he had to stop the song and go, “Wow!” He started freaking out over it.
Anyway, I like a lot of these drummers. I like Dave Lombardo. I think he’s really great. And I liked Slipknot’s Joey Jordison. He was awesome. He went through my book also. Max Weinberg’s kid (Jay) is really awesome too. What I don’t like, which a lot of guys my age don’t, is those vocals. The *growls*. I like to hear singing. I was with Testament’s guitar player (Alex Skolnick) the other day. They have some of that, but they have singing too. Some of the intros I’ve heard on some of this music with the young drummers, it’s amazing how they follow the guitars with their bass drums. A lot of work went into that. A lot of practice. I respect them for that. Then that vocal comes in and it kind of blows it. There’s no song.
Well what I’ve always found interesting about your version of “Parchman Farm” is that it came out in ’70. Two years earlier, Blue Cheer did a version. Despite being the same song, both are radically different. Blue Cheer’s is heavy and psychedelic, whereas you guys amped it up. Like you said, it’s essentially early speed metal.
CA: It is. All we wanted to do was have a song faster than Ten Years After’s “I’m Going Home”. Ours was at least 10 beats per minute quicker, and the freight train double bass drum, nobody ever did it in those days. That was the template for (Van Halen’s) “Hot for Teacher” according to Alex (Van Halen). They were big fans of Cactus. I have cassettes somewhere in my house of Van Halen playing Cactus songs when they were in the clubs. Alex told me when it came out, “We listened to “Parchman Farm” for inspiration.” You can hear it in the double bass intro.
I’ve been revisiting those early Cactus albums lately. Although Cactus and Vanilla Fudge were and are both hard rock bands, they’re very different styles of hard rock. Did you and Tim (Bogert) purposely intend to stray from the psychedelic sound of Vanilla Fudge?
CA: Yeah. Originally, Cactus was gonna be Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, me, and Tim. It was gonna be a Jeff Beck Group direction. Supergroups were in. Blind Faith was happening and West, Bruce and Laing. All that was in. We wanted to play with Jeff. Then Rod didn’t want to work with Jeff, but Jeff was gonna do it anyway. He was gonna come over, but a couple days before he got in a car accident and was laid up for 18 months. He couldn’t so anything, so me and Tim said, “Oh great. We broke up Vanilla Fudge to do this and now he can’t come. What should we do?” We always loved Jim McCarty from Detroit. He brought in Rusty Day from The Amboy Dukes. We sort of had a supergroup, just not as big as it would’ve been with Rod and Jeff. Then we started working on material and came up with all these things.
I thought “Parchman Farm” was one of our songs! I didn’t know. Rusty was so fluent with lyrics. We would just play riffs and he’d be singing along with us with lyrics and everything. I thought it was our song. Then I found out it wasn’t our song. It could’ve been our song! It could’ve been any song. It’s not about the lyrics on that song. It was about that monstrous groove that nobody else had done before.
It’s your song now.
CA: Yeah, that one and “Evil” and “One Way or Another”. Those were our three big ones. I know a lot of people like “Bro. Bill” and “You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover”, but “Evil” was covered by a lot of heavy metal bands. Somebody recently did it, a fairly big heavy metal band. That was a good song for us.
A few years ago I saw Greta Van Fleet and they did it.
CA: Yeah they did it, but there was also…it starts with a C…
Clutch?
CA: Yep, you got it. They’re the ones. Then Widowmaker did it with Dee Snider. And then a band with Mike Portnoy did it. That’s only in the last couple years, three or four acts cut it. That’s our big song. When we do it live, I do my solo on that song.
This year marks two 50th anniversaries for Cactus. It’s 50 years of One Way…or Another and Restrictions. What are your thoughts on these albums today and do you prefer one to the other?
CA: I like both of those albums. I came up with most of the music for Restrictions on my organ. I had an organ in my house and Rusty Day sang the lyrics. Then we gave it to the band. Restrictions had a lot of really cool songs on it, but so did One Way…or Another. I don’t know. I was kind of leaning towards One Way…or Another for sound. We did it at Electric Lady. Restrictions has a different sound, but it’s really good too. Lyrically and song structure wise, Restrictions was a really good album.
You’re right about the sound. One Way…or Another, that record, and specifically the title track, whenever I play it in my car, the street shakes!
CA: Did you hear the new record, Tightrope?
Yes! I reviewed it for the site. Great record.
CA: I think that’s one of the best records we’ve ever done, as far as production, songs, and playing. McCarty’s not on it, and neither is Tim obviously, but it’s really a killer Cactus record. Pure Cactus.
Totally. It’s sweaty. It’s rocking. It’s loud. I really enjoyed the cover you guys did of (The Temptations’) “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”.
CA: You know why we did that?
Didn’t your current guitarist play on the original recording?
CA: Yes. We went out on the road and played. We said, “you know what would be fun? Let’s tell the audience that he played on “Papa” when he was 17 and then we’ll play it.” So we played it and everybody loved it. Then we started arranging it on the road. We came up with that arrangement, so when we went in the studio, that was one of the first things we recorded.
It translates very well to the Cactus style.
CA: Every album always had a cover, except for V and the one after that (Black Dawn). We didn’t really do any covers, but we had “Long Tall Sally” on the second album. “You Can’t Judge a Book” and “Parchman Farm” on the first album. On the third album, we did “Evil”. So this sort of goes with the Cactus style.
Absolutely. There’s one Cactus anecdote I want to ask you about. In 1972, you guys played an infamous festival in Indiana called the Freedom Festival and Ice Cream Social. What are your memories of that day?
CA: *shrugs* I don’t remember. Do you know anything about it?
The story goes that Cactus played this festival with about 10 other bands. Ike and Tina Turner headlined. Apparently there were people outside and the promoters said after 9 P.M., entry was free. Then they walked back on that promise and a riot broke out.
CA: Wow, I don’t remember that. It’s a good question. Stump the rockstar, you did it *laughs*! That’s a good thing for an interview.
I was so curious about that show. If you can believe it, after this festival, the promoters were banned from hosting any more events in this town, so they booked another fest in a nearby town a month later. Black Sabbath and Faces were supposed to headline. Only half the lineup showed up and it spiraled into a Lord of the Flies scenario. Kids started overdosing, setting things on fire.
CA: Yeah, I don’t remember any of that, but I do remember a funny one. They used a flatbed truck for the stage and my drums were on a rug on a dump truck, so they were elevated a little bit. Of course when I was doing my solo, my playful Cactus guys went in and started dumping the truck. My drums started sliding down. I got so pissed off. You wouldn’t believe it.
I could imagine! That must’ve been a beautiful drum kid.
CA: Unbelievable. It never fell off because I started screaming at them. The audience was digging it though.
While we’re on the topic of trucks, you wrote and recorded a bunch of classic songs and albums with Rod Stewart. My absolute favorite of those songs is “Hot Legs”, which has one of the most entertaining videos ever. Where was that video shot and what went on behind the scenes?
CA: That was shot in a little town outside LA. I think it’s called Piro. Those were all people that were there. We were filming at this old defunct gas station with one little drum set and the shot between the girl’s legs. We were on a truck later that night. It was an unbelievable experience. That was my first real introduction to doing a production video for a song. We had a ball. It was great. That old guy sitting there, you almost didn’t expect to see him, with a piece of hay in his mouth. It was like an old cowboy town. And those little kids running around. There was a lot of Indian and Spanish ancestry there.
I just can’t get over those first 20 seconds or so when you’re on that truck as it’s moving. How did someone not fall off?
CA: It wasn’t going very fast. They might have sped it up. We were all going, “Hot legs!”, having a great old time.
It’s such an anthem of a song.
CA: Me and Vinny are gonna start doing it for Drum Wars with both of us playing it. We’re gonna make it really heavy and detune it down to D.
I always thought musically that song was Rod’s nod to his Faces and Jeff Beck days.
CA: Yeah, and everybody thought that I was a co-writer on it because the drums were so blatantly in front. What do you hear on that song? The drums and vocals mostly. And that fill after, “I love you honey!” *air drums* *laughs*. There’s a video I saw on YouTube of us recording “Hot Legs”. This was before it was even finished. Rod’s melodies weren’t exactly what’s on the record. He’s singing, “Who’s that knocking on my door?” *laughs* It was funny. You see me. I’m chewing gum and playing. You see the band playing. You see Andy Johns in there and Tom Dowd. It’s really a cool little video.
I gotta check that out. You had a great relationship with Rod. You did, what, 5 or 6 albums?
CA: Yeah, he wrote the intro to my book. He said, “I fired Carmine. Fuck knows why.” Which is definitely the case. He was doing some drugs at the time and drinking too much. He had this other guitar player in his ear that was jealous of me because there was the big name and my name was under it. He didn’t like that. He got me screwed up for a few things actually, but it’s cool. We’re friends now. I don’t hold grudges. My career went on. When Ted Nugent heard us playing at American Music Awards, he said, “Look, when you’re done playing that wimp rock and you wanna play man’s rock, give me a call.” I did and I played with Ted for a year.
I heard that was a similar case with Ozzy as well, your name overshadowing the others.
CA: She (Sharon Osbourne) blatantly said, “Your name is too big. You need to start your own band. We need more of a sideman, so we’re getting Tommy Aldridge.” Tommy’s a great drummer, but he’s a sideman. How often do you see “The Tommy Aldridge Band” or a band that Tommy Aldridge did other than Black Oak Arkansas back in the day? Everything else he was brought into. With King Kobra and Blue Murder and Cactus and Vanilla Fudge and BB&A, I was always starting the bands. Tommy was more of a sideman that they wanted. I love Tommy’s playing. He was a great player.
But when we did our deal with her, I had my own publicist. I always had a publicist. My publicist was my publicist and that was part of the deal. And I had my own T shirts on the tour. I found out recently that after I left, months and months afterwards, I was still in the tour program and Tommy wasn’t. They probably printed up thousands of them. They weren’t gonna reprint it because they fired me. I didn’t know that. I could’ve sued them for using my name and likeness when they weren’t allowed to, but I just found out now. I’m not gonna do that.
I love Ozzy. Ozzy’s a good guy. He knew that she was wrong. He said, “I know you and my wide have a problem. I hope we can still be friends.” I said, “Ozzy, I know it ain’t you.” When I did do King Kobra, he was one of the first guys to hear us do a set at a rehearsal place. He was auditioning drummers funny enough and I was rehearsing with King Kobra to go on the road with Autograph.
At that time, were you disappointed that you didn’t end up having that creative relationship with Ozzy like you did with Rod Stewart?
CA: Yes, I was, because on that album, Bark at the Moon, I was associate producer. We had to really straighten out Tommy’s drum sound to make it sound better, me and the engineer, Tony Bongiovi, who I had worked with before in Vanilla Fudge. We had to do stuff to him, and we had to take Ozzy in the studio and finish his vocals. Then Tony would mix it. I got “associate producer” on there. So it was produced by whoever it was (Max Norman) and associate producer me. I saw it on the first 500,000 albums. Every time it hit 500,000 albums, I’d get a bonus. It never hit the 500,000 by the time of what happened, so all that stuff got cancelled. I don’t even know if you can go buy a Bark at the Moon CD today if it says “associate producer Carmine Appice”.
Now I gotta go downstairs and pull out my vinyl to see if it says that.
CA: I’d like to know. I was looking forward to helping him write songs, get that killer Andy Johns drum sound on his record. The “Hot Legs” drum sounds: Drums with heavier guitars. It would be awesome, but I never got the chance.
We talked about the new Guitar Zeus boxset and the new Cactus album. I believe there’s also a new Vanilla Fudge album coming out entitled Vanilla Zeppelin.
CA: No, we did that in 2005. We released it worldwide with a label that went bankrupt, so we’ve had the album. It was sold to Golden Robot Records. It was gonna be a secondary album after we release this other album that we were gonna do. They gave us a budget, but we never completed the deal because of COVID. It was Supreme Fudge, in which we were gonna do Supremes songs, along with some other R&B songs and originals. The only one we got to do was “Stop! In the Name of Love”. We got Tim on it. Because Tim was on it, we released it and did a video. We were the only band from 1967 to release a new product that wasn’t record back then with the original band. In 2021, we got “Stop! In the Name of Love” out with all four original members. It came out great. When we played it live on the shows we just did, people loved it. We got the same kind of reaction we used to get when “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” first came out. Now the business is so different. You’ll never get the sales like you got back then. If you get 50,000 streams, you’re gonna make 3 cents. But we’re planning to keep it in the show because it went over so great.
Now they keep releasing every so often another track from that 2005 Zeppelin album, which was our manager’s idea to do. He said, “Instead of doing a little bit of this one and so many of that one, why don’t we get one band and redo their songs?” So we said, “Let’s do Zeppelin because we were so close to them. We were good friends with them and took them on their first tour. They always had good music. Let’s screw around with theirs.” I think we did a good job. We do “Dazed and Confused” into “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” live. People go crazy. We got a totally different feel on it now. It’s great. Mark Stein sings his ass off. He sings better than Robert Plant can sing it now. Robert Plant can’t even sing that stuff now.
Yeah, Mark still sounds incredible. I just interviewed him a couple months ago. Anyways, I got confused because I saw the singles coming out for “Immigrant Song” and “Rock and Roll”. I was under the impression this was a new product.
CA: Well, it’s new in the last 15 years *laughs*. It was never really released here. At the time we tried to release it here, something happened with the label, so it never get a proper release. Then these guys are just releasing it on the internet as singles. Anybody can release something on the internet. Here’s a link, here’s your release vs. what we’re doing for Guitar Zeus. I’ve been doing a lot of interviews for that. I did a ton of interviews for my Energy Overload album. We’re getting great reviews: 5/5, A, A+. People are really liking it because it’s an instrumental album which nobody does. Most instrumental albums today are more jazz oriented. This is a straight ahead, kickass rock album. Progressive in the way of different time signatures and creativity, using my knowledge of music and time signatures. Playing 6/8 against a 4/4 timing, stuff like that. Then going into 7/8 and just being really creative. It’s all instrumental with great melodies; melodies that will stay in your head, not just *imitates random notes* *laughs*.
We talked earlier about extreme metal drumming. Going into another realm, what are your thoughts on the prog and jazz rock drummers of the 70s, like say Neil Peart?
CA: I liked a lot of their stuff. My favorite one from them was “Tom Sawyer” because it was in 7/8 and I really liked that. There’s still a lot of bands like that. We just did this clinic for ddrum. It was for the buyers. They had a guitar player from Puerto Rico with this band that’s big there. They were playing all that heavy metal stuff, exactly note for note. The drummer’s feet were following the guitar player there on the tape. I was talking to him and he said, “Yeah, it’s like that every night.” For me, that kind of music is from here *points to brain*. Brain music vs. soul music. I grew up playing soul music. Even if we played progressive rock, like look at Mahavishnu Orchestra, who was unbelievable. Totally soul music, but creative and they get to improvise within the arrangement. It’s not exactly the same every night. If you go see certain bands one night and you see them another night, it’s exactly the same. You’re not getting anything different.
I particularly don’t like to see exactly the same every night. I saw Bonamassa last night and I saw him a year and a half ago. It was a bit different. That’s what I like. I like to be surprised. If you’re gonna see something that sounds exactly like the record, and you see three or four guys onstage just playing there, all you got is a light show, otherwise it’s exactly like the record. Then you go see them again and it’s exactly like the record. Why bother seeing them again?
I feel that’s a lost art, the jamming and improvising. That was a major staple of the late 60s and early 70s.
CA: Yeah, but some jam bands are still huge. Gov’t Mule, great jam band. The Allman Brothers are still huge, but they’re not together. Warren Haynes is awesome and the whole band is awesome. And Tedeschi Trucks Band, awesome. There are some bands still doing that. Vanilla Fudge still does that. Pat Travers still does that. I heard Pat’s new album. It rips. Killer record. It’s unfortunate nobody will get to hear it.
Pat came through town a couple months ago. He played Reggies in the Joint and it was unbelievable. He still plays his ass off.
CA: He’s great. We had three dates booked with Cactus and COVID screwed it up. If we ever reset them, we’re supposed to do them in 2022. There’s like eight shows we have to do. We’ll see if those happen.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Did you ever play the Kinetic Playground here in Chicago?
CA: Oh yeah. We played a killer show: Jethro Tull, Zeppelin, and Fudge. We were the headliner. It was funny because Clive Bunker, a great drummer. When Clive was on, me and John (Bonham) stood back behind and we threw spitballs at him. When Bonzo went on, we threw spitballs at him. Of course when I went on, they threw spitballs at me. Ludwig gave us a bunch of new Atlas heavy duty stands and heavy duty Speed King pedals. At the end of the night, we all gave them back to them broken. I was especially their guinea pig, before Bonzo and Clive were on Ludwig. They brought it down for me and I said, “These guys endorse us too. You should let them play, especially Bonzo. He plays pretty hard.” We gave them back the stuff broken. I said, “You gotta make it stronger man.”
We were pioneering all that stuff. It was all little drum sets when I started with Ludwig. It was the Ringo (Starr) kit. Then I got my big drum set and I got John Bonham the big drum set. I was the first person to play live the Octoplus kit. And I was the first one to put bottom heads on it. I had these huge drum sets. Ginger Baker had three toms up front and a couple on the side. Keith Moon had the same, but this had an octave of drums. It’s eight tom toms. Ludwig outdid them all and Baker was Ludwig anyway. This drum set really started this whole thing. It was their idea, but I was the first one they asked to play it. I even wrote a solo for the Octoplus kit. I called it “Into It”. They would give it away at all the stores. Sometimes I sign those now and again.
That was a quick evolution for the drum kit. In such a short span of time to go from, as you said, the Ringo kit to what you were doing. It was fast.
CA: It only took three years. In ’67, I started with the big bass drum, which in turn started the big maple kit. That was the one I got for Bonzo. When you took one of the bass drums away, it became the Led Zeppelin kit. It was quick. All that stuff was moving fast.
I couldn’t imagine drums today without what took place back then in the late 60s. You guys really pushed the boundaries of rock music.
CA: Yeah, there weren’t even any PA systems. That’s why I started playing so hard and so loud. There were five guys in that era. There was Ginger Baker, Keith Moon, Mitch Mitchell, Dino Danelli, and me. I think those five guys set the precedent of the foundation for rock drumming. Out of those five guys, I was the only one that was a pounder. I had technical abilities because I studied and knew what I was doing. And I pounded hard because there were no PA systems. I wanted to be heard. I put the whole body into it. When I first started playing with Vanilla Fudge and we were called The Pigeons, I played with my hands traditional grip. I didn’t even move myself. Then as things got louder and more progressive and more aggressive, I started finding myself playing butt end, using my whole body as power. That’s what happened.
And it shows, especially on that Ed Sullivan appearance.
CA: *laughs* Oh it’s ridiculous. Talk about octopus. I was all over the drums there, just killing it. Most drummers played The Dave Clark Five and played down here. I was way up here. I looked like an octopus. That was one bass drum. When I got to two, woah. I didn’t even know what to do with it. I just started screwing around, listening to this guy Max Roach. He had some cool ideas and I copped some of those ideas and rock-afied them. I said, “Well, I’ll just do what I did with my hi-hat on my bass drum.” That’s what I did. “Oh, this sounds pretty cool.” I started developing and playing it loud. I had a big 26 inch bass drum, a big tom in the middle, a big tom in here, a bass drum over on the side, a gong, chimes, all that stuff.
I can’t end this interview without asking the inevitable question, but I’m going to word it a little differently because I know it’s been asked a million times before. Do you believe in your heart of hearts there will ever be a Blue Murder reunion?
CA: *laughs* That’s an amazing question. We actually rehearsed two years ago. I thought we were rehearsing to get a manager to do a tour. But then John wanted to do a John Sykes historical tour as Blue Murder. In other words, play Tygers of Pan Tang, Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, and Blue Murder. I said, “John, I don’t believe a history tour being played by Blue Murder is the thing to do. Blue Murder should play Blue Murder. We should play the first two albums. People are dying to hear those albums, especially the first album. If you wanna do that, that’s cool. You should do a John Sykes tour and do your history. Maybe after that we can do Blue Murder.” So we never did it.
Then almost two years ago now, in January, 2020, we were at the NAMM show at the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame awards. I was inducted the year before that. Me and my brother played there. John was receiving an award for Bob Daisley, so he was there. He said, “I’m putting together this new album. I’m gonna go do that historical tour. I’ve got a new young drummer who’s dying to meet you.” I said, “No problem. I’ll meet him.” I went and met him and everything. Then I said, “Good, so you’re gonna do that tour this year, and then when you’re done with that maybe we can do Blue Murder. Great. No problem.”
COVID came. He never did that tour. He became more of a homebody. I don’t know if it’s ever gonna happen. It’s too bad because I love that band. I went after to be in that band. I went to England where my brother played with Dio, looking for the manager because Cozy (Powell) just left and they were auditioning drummers. I went looking for it. I went there, smoked some hash with them, played with them, and then John came up and said, “You’ve played with everybody. You’ve got so many drum fills, more than anybody. You fit like a glove.” I said, “I knew I would. I love you guys.” I loved John with Whitesnake. I loved Tony with The Firm. They’re right up my alley. My kind of players. That was it.
The musicianship and the songwriting and everything on that first album is just perfect.
CA: I think the only thing we missed was the management. That’s why it didn’t happen. We were calling the shots. We called the shot that “Valley of the Kings” would be pushed on MTV. It shouldn’t have been. “Jelly Roll” should’ve been the big push. That’s the single. “Valley of the Kings” wasn’t a single. But we didn’t have a management company strong enough. We fired everybody before the album came out. That was smart. Then grunge came in and we were dinosaurs. If the first album would’ve gone big, it would’ve been fine, but it didn’t. It was big in Japan.
Yes, I’ve seen the footage of that Japanese tour. You guys were doing large halls and arenas.
CA: It was killer. We did six nights at a 2,000 seater. In Osaka, we did two nights at a 3,500 seater. It was big business because I was big in Japan. BB&A was huge in Japan. Vanilla Fudge was huge in Japan. So was The Firm. So was Whitesnake. Put it all together. We did “Hot Legs” in the setlist. The first song we did was “Still of the Night”. It was natural. They did a thing in Burrn! magazine, the trios of all time: Cream, Hendrix, BB&A, and Blue Murder. I was in two of them. It was awesome. I felt really proud. I didn’t see Tommy Aldridge in those *laughs*.
By the way, I love Tommy. I don’t wanna see the headline “Carmine Appice Puts Down Tommy Aldridge”. He’s a great player. Funny story about Tommy. When I got fired from Ozzy, we were in Houston. He was hanging around that weekend, so he knew he was gonna replace me and he didn’t tell me. Anyway, I went to see Whitesnake and The Dead Daisies in New York at the Westbury. I went in and saw The Dead Daisies. I saw (David) Coverdale and started hanging out with him. Then Tommy walked in backstage and he said, “Hey Carmine, how are you doing?” Then he paused and said, “You’re not here for my gig, are you?” *laughs* I said, “No!” *laughs*. But yeah, I love Tommy. He’s a good guy. He had the biggest head of hair. He still stays skinny. Rides his bike all the time. Great player, great twirler. I was always into twirling.
That’s great. What can we expect from Carmine Appice in 2022?
CA: Well, we finally got an agent for me and my brother. We’re gonna put this tour together with a new name for it: Appice Brothers something, a tribute to our history somehow. That’s what we’re doing: our history being tributed by us. We’re a tribute band to ourselves *laughs*. We have to find a name that’s gonna represent that. Then more gigs with Vanilla Fudge and hopefully more gigs with Cactus. Later on in the year, I’m probably gonna release King Kobra and another Appice Perdomo Project album. I call that the APP. I say to people, “Download the APP at iTunes so the band can make some money.” If we get another album out, maybe we’ll do two or three gigs. We’re gonna maybe play the Funky Biscuit or the Baked Potato. Just small rooms to have some fun.
The Guitar Zeus 25th Anniversary box set is out now on Deko Music. For more information on Carmine Appice, visit www.carmineappice.net.