Interview

When it comes to the history of rock n roll, it is sometimes hard to seperate the leaders from the followers. The ones who contributed from the ones who merely rode the bandwagon. Make no mistake, drum legend Carmine Appice is an innovator. His band Vanilla Fudge single handedly invented the power rock formula that spawned the likes of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. We're not just talking influence here. Both Ritchie Blackmore, and Jimmy Page have been quoted as saying "we were COPYING Vanilla Fudge"! Carmine's resume reads like a wish list of A-list rock super stars. He has played with Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Ted Nugent, and Ozzy Osbourne. He formed several of his own bands such as Cactus, King Cobra, and Blue Murder. Carmine has also written and recorded the on going series Guitar Zuess, that brings together an all star cast of guitarists and musicians both from the past and the present. He has written many instructional drum books, and well as staring in an his own instructional video's. As well as his drumming skills, Carimine is a fine singer and composer. He cowrote several Rod Stewart classics. He has done countless clinic tours and appearences. Carmine Appice is in the FIFTH decade of his recording career. Most important, and impressive, he is still vital, valid, and on top of his game as one of the greatest rock drummers ever to grace the genre. In August of 2001 three of the four original Vanilla Fudge members reunited for a short US tour. It was then that I talked at length with Carmine about this 35 year full circle of rock n roll legend.

Question: I have this new 3 song sampler with you guys (Vanilla Fudge) doing an Nsync song! It sounds amazing! Your voice, the production etc. The NSync song especially rocks!

Carmine Appice: It's wild isn't it? When I did that, I brought it home to the house. My daughter is a big NSync fan, and I said what do you think? She said "wow dad, you really changed it, it really sounds rock now!" We actually gave it to the guys in NSync. They were trippin out on it too!

Question: I wonder if they even know who Vanilla Fudge was?!

CA: Well, probably not, but funny enough, I actually went to school with Joey Fatone Sr. When I met the group back stage, Joey Jr. (of NSync) was on the phone with his father, and he says "Hey pop, Carmine Appice just walked in here!" So he gives me the phone and his dad says "Carmine, it's Joey Fatone, remember? We went to school together!" I said "Yeah, I do remember! I can't believe this is your kid!" When I hung up the phone the kid (Joey jr) said "Man, all my life I've been hearing about you! Before I made it, you were the only famous person that my father ever knew!" Isn't that funny?! Have you been to my web site?

Question: Yes I have. I thought I knew my stuff, but I learned a few things. I didn't know Zeppelin OPENED for Vanilla Fudge, and some of the all star bills you guys have been on, like with Hendrix!

CA: Yeah, actually yesterday I said to the crowd "The last time we played in L.A. it was with Jimi Hendrix at the Hollywood Bowl!"

Question: Is this a one off thing with Fudge or is this going to continue?

CA: For years and years people have been saying "why don't you get the Fudge together and do some touring and some recording because the fans would love to see it" so after hearing years of that, we did it in '99 and it went over really well. Then we had a few legal problems we had to straighten out with the name. Now we have it clear so now we're planning to get it going.

Question: Is there plans for an album?

CA: Right now were just planning more for going out and playing and building our following back up.

Question: What happened with Mark Stein

CA: He has been out of the business basically. We played a gig in Japan and he didn't want to do it. Then, there must have been a mix up because we had this manager guy who said he contacted Mark and asked him if he wanted to play america, and he said no. Then Mark said that he did want to play and that we never asked him. That's where the screw up came. It took almost two years to work it all out. So after all the legal crap, we left it at a point where every year when we go out to do something we'll ask Mark if he want's to out and tour. If he want's to come out then we'll go out and do it. If not, then Bill will do it. It's like an open door thing. Nobody is pissed off at anyone. Now everything is worked out. It would be nice to have Mark come back, but after all the things that happened he just wanted to lay off it.

Question: I don't think a lot of people realize the significance of Vanilla Fudge in rock history.

CA: VH1 Behind the Music certainly don't! The other day I saw one on Twisted Sister!! Give me a fucking break! Those guys are friends of ours but give me a break! What did they have to do with any rock history?? Vanilla Fudge would make a hell of a story. Who could claim to have taken all these bands on tour with them: Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Three Dog Night, Creedence Clearwater Revival. Then paved the way for bands like Deep Purple, Yes, Styx, and again Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck. They can get people like Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Jeff Beck and ask them" where were you the first time you heard Vanilla Fudge?" and they can tell you exactly where they were, because it made such an impression. It's the same kind of conversation I had with John Bonham when I heard his first album and he was doing that foot thing he does with the triplets. I said "God John that thing is great, I love that!" He says "what do you mean you love that, I got it from you!" I went "you got it from me? I never did that" He says "Yeah you did. On Ticket to Ride goin into the bridge you did it twice, and I took it and I just did it my way" I went back and listened to it and it was there! I didn't even know what I was doing at the time, I just did it. So to have him tell me that was wild!

Question: Have you always played double kick?

CA: No. Let's see, I started playing in '61. The first album came out in '67. I didn't get the double kick until June of '68. In those days you used to do a new album every six months. So we did three albums in a year in a half. We also had three albums on the charts in a year and a half. Two of them were in the top 20. The single You Keep Me Hangin On was #4. If we had that now we'd be playing stadiums! If you had a top four single now, forget about it! You would be all over the airwaves, MTV, the computers, you're all over every form of media that exists, which is rediculous. I couldn't believe it when I saw on tv the other day, they had the "teen choice awards"! I said "give me a fucking break!" Next they're going to have the senior citizen awards. Then I can vote!

Questions: Out of all the bands that you have been in, which one do you wish could have lasted longer?

CA: BBA. (Jeff Beck Tim Bogert Carmine Appice) Because with the Fudge we had five albums and with BBA we only had one. -

Questions: Why did it break up so soon?

CA: Well, because of Jeff Beck. Jeff is a cool nice guy, but when he was younger, he was very insecure. He didn't like holding a band. He didn't like the responsibility of holding a band. So he would do things like....we woke up in Atlanta Georgia one time, to play a sold out gig, and Jeff went home! So Tim and I wake up and the manager says "I have bad news, Jeff went home" We were like "what do you mean Jeff went home?" Jeff was known for doing shit like that. He went home!! We had the road crew, a semi trailer. In those days, having a semi with all your sound and lights and your gear was a big deal. Normally you had a little ryder truck. We had this huge semi filled with everything, and Jeff went home! We're paying the road crew and everybody. That kind of stuff was going on, and Tim used to get pissed at him, and Tim's the kind of guy who doesn't hold back. Especially when he was younger. He would tell you where to go! He would call Jeff up and tell him to get fucked. The last gig we played together Jeff and Tim actually went to hands! I had to get in between them to break it up! Just too much tension. We helped Jeff Beck get big. Set him up for Blow By Blow. The places he played before BBA were theater kind of places. When we joined up with him the strength in numbers thing came into play. We were strong from Vanilla Fudge and Cactus, and he was strong as Jeff Beck, and the three of us together was really strong all over the world. In Japan, we were the first one's to sell the Budokan out. That was the first time Jeff went to Japan. The thing was so big, it's still big over there. If we did a reunion in Japan, we could probably sell the tokyo dome out over there. We were so legendary over there that the people in power, the television presidents, are all BBA fans.

Question: What band that you have had has been closest to your musical vision.

CA: That's too general to be able to answer. Each one for it's time was right at the time. Maybe Guitar Zeus. Blue Murder was pretty fucking close too. That first album was tremendous. We had Bob Rock producing, Mike Fraser engineering and mixing. We had Geffen records. We had me, Tony, and John. I said "How could this fucking thing miss?" and it did! When we did it we knew it was great. We thought it was going to go all the way. We were really bummed out when it didn't do that. In Japan it did.

Question: I think the first mistake with that album was that Valley Of The Kings shouldn't have been the first single.

CA: What happened was Geffen did the video and we spent $150,000. Just before the video we lost our manager, who was never good in the first place. John's step dad was managing the thing and me and John and my old manager was helping us. We were on tour with Bon Jovi and we had no management! The whole business side of the band was fucked. So John Kalodner said "We'll do the video for Valley of the Kings and get airplay and we'll build it". We insisted as a band that since we paid $150,000 for this video, we want to see it on MTV! So Geffen squeezed MTV to put it on, and it was the wrong song! Jelly Roll was definately the right song. Then by the time Jelly Roll came out, we had found a manager, the guy who manages Bryan Adams, Jelly Roll was top five aor airplay. At that point is when you hammer MTV to hammer the video, and then when they do, that's when you get your hit single. MTV didn't want to hammer it because they hammered the first one and it didn't do shit! So we didn't get the airplay on MTV like we needed, and without that it didn't cross over to the single and we only sold 160,000 records here.

Question: Isn't that weird? You can have all the right ingredients, but because of certain politics it just doesn't work out. And here you had the grand opening slot at the time with Bon Jovi!

CA: It was great with Bon Jovi because we were like this 70's jam band with a cool 80's image and the kids were getting it! They were getting the jamming shit. They were loving it. Every show we did with them we kicked ass!

Question: You and Tony are one of the best rhythm sections.

CA: I love Tony. He is my favorite to play with. I love the fretless. Kelly Keeling plays fretless like Tony now. He played bass on the new King Kobra album.

Q: I didn't even know Kelly played bass! Back to Blue Murder though, he sang on the one song on the second album Nothing But Trouble. What exactly happened with that album. You and Tony played on most of that album right?

CA: We played on 8 or 9 songs on that album. Me and Tony weren't in the band anymore so they played us down. They were trying to build up the new members. Kind of like what Whitesnake did to Sykes. After the first record didn't do what we wanted, then that grunge shit started coming in, which I actually liked in the end, bands like Blue Murder were not happening. John was so bummed out that the record didn't go big, it took him a while to recuperate. That following year 1990, I was doing some clinics and this and that. I don't even know what happened. Somehow, I think it was between his wife and my wife that got me out of the band. I came home from doing a clinic tour and something was said and next thing I know they said "you're out of the band" so I said "alright, well fuck you then, I'm coming to get my drums!" We were pissed off at each other for a while. Then after he auditioned all these drummers and tried to get them all to do all my licks from some of the demos we did, finally Mike Stone the producer call me and said "Carmine look, John want's you to come back and do the record." Tony was still there. I went back and did the record. Then by the time the record was done it was years later. I did the record in '91. It didn't come out 'til 93. I did the record as a side man basically. But it was the original band. But when the album came out it they played us down because John was going to japan with Marco Mendoza and some Tommy guy on drums. When that Blue Murder record came out it was so big in japan, it sold over 100,000 units, that these promoters called Tony and I and asked if we would go over to Japan and do a tour as like a "rock super session". So we did. It was me and Tony, Mitch Perry and Kelly Keeling. We did a little bit of everyones history. We did I'm On Fire from Blue Murder that Kelly sang on. We did a couple of Firm songs. We did a heavy version of Hot Legs. We did Blue Murder songs. Basically like what we did live with the original Blue Murder. It was funny, when Blue Murder first went to Japan they were saying in Burrn magazine, that we were the new "trio of the day." That Blue Murder has got to go down in history with some of the other great legendary rock trio's like Cream, Hendrix and like BBA!! I said "this is funny, I am getting compared to myself! I am in the new band and the legendary band. This is fucking cool!" That also started John's career in Japan. He was there once with Whitesnake, but we were the ones who persuaded John to do all the singing after we couldn't find a singer that he liked. That started his singing career. We pushed him into it!

Q: I know Cozy Powell was originally involved with Blue Murder. Did you come in when Ray Gillen was still involved?

CA: No. What happened with me was: I had heard about the band with Ray and Cozy and John, and I was really pissed off because I really loved Sykes on the Whitesnake record. And I new him. They had actually asked me to do that Whitesnake album, the big one, but I couldn't because I was in King Kobra. I was signed with capitol and they wouldn't let me do it. I said I have my own "snake" to deal with! So I loved both John and Tony's playing. When I heard they were playing together and Cozy got the gig. I was like "that fucking Cozy!" He was like another John Bonham. He listened to all the Fudge stuff, and copped a lot of my stuff. He was my fan. When I first met him he was with Jeff Beck, he said "Oh man, I listened to you and you're like my idol!" and we became friends. I was supposed to join Rainbow and I couldn't do it, and they got Cozy. Then when the Beck thing fell apart with me and Timmy, he got Cozy.

Q: You were supposed to be in Rainbow?

CA: Yeah, Ritchie asked me to join Rainbow, but I had a group called KGB with Mike Bloomfield, signed to MCA so I couldn't and he got Cozy. So I said "what are you my professional replacement?!" So when Cozy got the gig with Blue Murder I was jealous, I said "that fucking Cozy, he gets all these great gigs with all these great guys that I would love to play with." So I just kept my eye on it in the press. Then I read somewhere that Cozy was out. So I said "You know I am going to go to england and just find Sykes and Tony and try and get in this band, because this would be fucking great!" So I went to England, and it just so happened that my brother Vinny was in England with Dio. They played a couple nights at the Hammersmith Odeon in London. I went there at the same time figuring "anyone I am going to want to talk to about the Sykes Blue Murder thing is going to be at the Dio gigs". I ended jamming Rainbow In The Dark with Dio. They brought me out and I played. I ended up talking to this guy Chris Welch who is a legendary jounalist from England. I asked him "how do I get ahold of Sykes and Tony about this Blue Murder thing?" So he gave me Syke's step dads number who was managing him and I called him up. He put John on the phone and he told me to come down. I remember distinctly listening to Aerosmith Permanent Vacation all the way up there in a rental car! It was about a three hour drive from London. It was three in the morning and I pull up to this bed and breakfast type of place and Tony had waited up for me there. There was this little bar there that was closed, so Tony kind of broke into the bar. We had a drink, smoked some hash, now Tony is straight as an arrow. He cleaned up his act totally. Then we went and played the next day, and it was actually Cozy's drum kit that I played on! When we played I was doing all the animalistic fills like the double bass things that are all over the Blue Murder record, Sykes was freaking out! He said "Man I can't believe it! Cozy does fills, but it's the same one all the time! Everyone you do is different!" We were so tight, it was unbelieveable. It was like we played together for years. So after one day of playing that was it! At the time, Tony Martin was supposed to be the singer. That was December 1987 when I joined. We were leaving at the end of January 1988 to go to Vancuuver to work with Bob Rock, and the day before we were supposed to leave, Tony Martin backed out. So I said "what do we do?" So at the time, Johns step dad, this marketing guy, and a lawyer were manageing it. The lawyer got the record deal for him. Powerful lawyer, but they are not managers! They said "we'll just start the recordings and then we'll find the singer as we're going." So that's what we did. We spent a couple months up there, did all the tracking, worked all the songs out with melodys and everything. John did the lyrics. After two months Bob Rock had to do the first Cult album, so we came down to LA and started auditioning all kinds of singers. We had David Glen Eisley, Derek St. Holmes, Mark Free, tons of people. Sykes wanted someone like Coverdale with a thick kind of voice. So that's part of why the album went on for so long with so many different variations. The album ended up costing about $800,000. For a first album, that's quite a lot of money! So between that and the video we had to recoup over a million dollars. Plus tour support and everything else! At the time John was building a studio in his house, which was my Idea. My brother was with Jeff Pilson and they had a rehearsal hall with an akai 12 track in it and they were writing and doing some really good demos. So I said to Sykes "Maybe we should do that man!" He said "I could do it in my house!"

Q: So he built a studio and kicked you out!

CA: Well, yeah, exactly! Pretty much. It was a shock to me because I thought we were good friends. We're talking about doing another Blue Murder record. I played on the last Sykes album Nuclear Cowboy, but I thought the mixes were terrible. It sounded better to me when we were listening back to it at his house than the actual end result.

Q: If you could pick individual musicians that you have played with, from all of your previous groups to form your dream band, who would they be?

CA: Rod Stewart singing. Jeff Beck on guitar. Tony Franklin on bass. Maybe Sykes on guitar. Somebody like Jan Hammer on Keyboards.

Q: One thing from your past that hasn't been widely publicized is your stint with Ozzy. It seems like it wasn't a good split between you two.

CA: It was ok between me and Oz, just not between me and Sharon. It was a drag, because I love Ozzy. When I came into the band I went to them and said "I really would like to come into the band and stay here. I don't want to come in and then be out in six month's doing something else. Because I am really looking for a home." At the time Ted Nugent asked me to do a tour and so did Eddie Money. I gave that up to join the Ozzy thing. So I went to Sharon and Ozzy and told them that. I also told them that I was getting a lot of press in the US, since I was in Oui magazine, and I also had a solo record out at the same time as Ozzy. I also told them about how in each city I do drum clinics and I have an agent, and that I would be promoting the tour that way. I had a deal with them (Ozzy and Sharon) I helped mix Bark at the moon. I had some bonuses in the deal. Like when it went gold I got this. When it went platinum I got that. So I had a really nice deal with them. I thought I was friendly with Sharon and everything. Then, I guess she didn't like the fact that I was getting a lot of press on the tour. After the Dallas show, or the Houston show, the band sounded fucking great. We were finally getting really really tight in the arenas in america. I noticed Tommy Aldridge was hanging around, but he was from that area, so I didn't think badly of it. Then Sharon brought me into a room and I said "What's up?" She goes "I think you know" and she fired me! She said "I think you need to get your own band together. Your name is too big" I said "Sharon, I have a contract with you, you can't just fire me!" She said "Yes I can". So she did. I came back home and my manager flipped out, my attourney's flipped out. They said I was going to have to sue them. I said "Well, I don't really want to sue Ozzy", but I was out a lot of money. - Plus I had master classes booked, so I had to continue with those. So when I was out of the band, they were in town playing the arena, and I was doing a master class. In every city! She said that I left for medical reasons: that I made Ozzy sick! That's the same thing she just said about the Smashing Pumpkins, exactly the same thing. When I started King Kobra it was a funny thing, I decided to buy my own vehicles for touring so we wouldn't have to rent. So we were painting all the vehicles with the road crew. The big truck we had was white, so we painted the motor home and my van white. We were in this rehearsal hall in L.A. and Ozzy was auditioning drummers. So Ozzy came in and came up to me and said "Hey Carm how ya doin?" I said "Good Oz, how are you?" He says "I heard about your new band" So I took him over and introduced him to the guys. He said "Good looking bunch of boys eh? Can I hear a couple songs?" This was before we played for anyone, so I said "Yeah!" So he was like the first one we played for! We played a few songs. Then we were outside masking up the windows on the motor home to paint, and Ozzy says "can I give you a hand?" I said "Sure!" So Ozzy's up there on a fucking little ladder masking up the windows with us!! It was killer! We were always friends after that. Another funny story is back in '79 Vinny was offered the Ozzy gig and I talked him out of it! At the time Ozzy was kicked out of Sabbath for being all fucked up and he was totally out of it. Then Sharon ends up making him into this huge thing. He's like an institution now! I have to give her that. She did an amazing job. She's phenomenal!

Q: The one thing we haven't talked about is the Nugent days.

CA: The Ted thing was pretty much the same shit. We Rocked. Ted's a fucking animal! I had my solo album out at the time with a song called Drum City Rocker. So we were saying the Drum City Rocker meets the Motor City Madman! We had a great time. Ted not drinking was really wild. I am actually surprised he never called me back to do another tour with him. His manager said "Carmine is like Ted he's a leader and has his own projects." That's the thing with a lot of people. I am almost forced into doing my own thing because people think "It's Carmine Appice. He doesn't want to play with me!" You can't win. You try and build up a name, and be a good musician. Then you build up a name to point where nobody want's to call you because they consider you a leader!