Carmine Appice: I came home unannounced and Prince was in my bed. I knew Ozzy from when they first started. Cactus played with Sabbath. I loved Ozzy.
Ozzy was a good guy. Joann Butler: What would your current self tell your younger self? Carmine Appice: Never release the second Vanilla Fudge album. Joann Butler: How come?
Carmine Appice: Because it was horrible. But I went on to write “Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?” and “Young Turks” number one and top five records. Joann Butler: What’s he like? Carmine Appice: Rod?
He's a nice guy. Did you read my book? Rod wrote the intro. In the book he says you know all the great things about me and stuff and then he said “I fired Carmine f*** knows why.” Led Zeppelin opened up for Vanilla Fudge, I got John Bonham his drums.
Joann Butler: God you have everybody Carmine Appice: Just my life. Hey this is Carmine Appice and you’re watching LifeMinute. Joann Butler: Congratulations. The new album, Temple of the Blues II.
It sounds awesome. Carmine Appice: It sounds great. Did you see the video? Joann Butler: The “Little Red Rooster” video?
Yes I did, it’s excellent. Who produced that? Carmine Appice: Well, me and the engineer guy that edited it and everything, we directed it and put it together. Joann Butler: It was really good.
Carmine Appice: It was my idea to start in the old blues area you know? And then he said “I got a good idea to put Dee in the car.” We wanted to put the rooster on the emblem, you know, on the edge. But he couldn't do it. So he said, “What do you think?” I said, “That looks great.” Then when we finished it all, you know, he had this whole thing with the rooster.
He said, “Man, I want to change the rooster to a beautiful red head.” I said, “But then it's a male, you know.” Joann Butler: Yeah. Carmine Appice: You’re gonna change a male into a female, maybe a gender change that was going to put a gender change, But then I thought it might be too much bull**** with the policy. I probably should have done that. I probably should have got some press, you know.
But, so we changed it to a beauty makeover and then went in, I said, “When it comes out and everything turns to color.” Joann Butler: Yeah it’s so cool. Yeah. Carmine Appice: And then, and then when it was done, I said, “I got to send it to Dee, because that Dee is AI. He didn't drive in the car.” Joann Butler: Oh, you kidding me.
Carmine Appice: No, he didn't drive in the car. Joann Butler: Oh my God. Carmine Appice: And we didn't play in the South. Everybody played in their own houses.
Joann Butler: Amazing. Carmine Appice: And it's pretty amazing. Should get an award for video. Joann Butler: It really is.
That was one thing I was going to ask you. Carmine Appice: Yeah. Joann Butler: I was going to say, you know, what do you think of music today with all the technology, but there you go. In this case, it helped you out.
Carmine Appice: It works, you know it works. I mean, as long as you use it right. Joann Butler: And it’s still your creation. Carmine Appice: The fact that we recorded that whole album, nobody was in the same room.
And same with the last album, the last time, the only thing that was in the same room was, Warren Haynes sang and played the guitar in the same room at the same time. The rest of the album, everything. You know, that's what you got to do today. You can't get people to, you know, fly.
I did that with my, I had an album called Guitar Zeus in the early 90s and I, 90s were I had all these great guitar players on it, you know, and I used to fly with them with my 24 track, you know, and it was it was a b**** then it turned into D88s, the little things, you know. Joann Butler: Yup, yup. Carmine Appice: And now you don't even have to go there. You just stay at home.
All the drums were recorded right there. See those drums? Those are Cactus base drums from 1971. Joann Butler: Oh, my God.
Really? So cool. Carmine Appice: Yup. And those are gold records and platinum records that nobody gets any more.
Joann Butler: Oh my God, I know. Carmine Appice: Like, this one over here. That one there is the double album from Young Turks. You know, we did The Young Turks on there, and I got a different combination of drums and cymbals, but they sound great and I do it myself.
I'm the engineer. And then I send it to my co-producer, Pat Regan, who's just amazing at mixing, and then he mixes it all Joann Butler: I love it. Carmine Appice: I love doing it. I walk through my garage.
It used to be once I recorded something. If I go to a studio, I get, you know, two hours, get in the sounds and then I could punch in and fix things. But if I take it home, I said, “Oh, man, I should have done that.” I have to go to the studio and redo the whole thing. Over here, because it never moves, those drums stay there, I never move the AC and, humidity is on exactly the same, and I can record something today.
Next week come back and go, “Yeah, I want to fix that fill” and come in and fix it. And it's unbelievable. I always wanted to do that. Joann Butler: It's awesome.
Well see? So it's working for you. Carmine Appice: The old drum, the old way of doing it, the drummer's always doing the track. All the drums first.
Joann Butler: Right Right. Carmine Appice: And then like, take 15, you still ain’t got it, forget it, it's gone by then, you know, if you're not catching the first 2 or 3 takes, forget it. But then everybody else comes in, they, do the guitar, they over dub the guitar, they over dub the base, over dub the vocal, nobody but the drums had to do anything from the beginning to the end. So 1982, I was determined to figure this out, and I did, and I've been recording like that since 1982.
Joann Butler: You’ve influenced so many people. How did you know that you wanted to do something different? Like, you know, you create this kind of different sound. Carmine Appice: I just did it.
Vanilla Fudge, we were just doing what they were doing in New York. And we got the hit "You Keep Me Hangin' On". It was a one take mono. Seven minutes that changed my life.
Everybody sang and played at the same time and made a demo. Put it on the radio. Everybody loved it on the radio. Loved it, loved it.
Atlantic heard it and they signed this. That was the single. And we did the rest of the album. The producer, you know, all he did was produce what we did live on stage.
We didn't do it anything, like different. I did some overdubs, vocals different, but it's all on the same show. And "You Keep Me Hangin' On" was different. That was one take mono and that one became the hit.
That's why it's a mono. Joann Butler: Right. Carmine Appice: Because of the demo. Joann Butler: And how did you get discovered?
Carmine Appice: Well, I played all my life, all through my life, from teenagers. I mean, when I got out of high school, I didn't go to college, and I had, my father and mother said “You got to get a day gig in Brooklyn,” you know, take the train and work, come home. Those days, it was a buck and a quarter an hour. And at work, 45 bucks I’d make.
I put in one hand 45 bucks after tax. And I’d play on the weekend and make 250 bucks. So I said to my father, “So what should I do, dad? This one or this one?” He said, “Wow, you should make 250.” I said, “Good.” So I quit the job, you know, but I was playing before that.
I was doing weddings, bar mitzvahs, jazz gigs, bowling alleys, anything at that where you play gigs, 20 bucks, 30 bucks and I, you know, I have a book, I have two books for my, from those days with all my gigs in it, you know, I was like, someday it'll be worth some money. Joann Butler: Oh, yeah. Carmine Appice: And then, and then like, I was playing clubs, and one night, these two guys walked in, named Mark and Timmy, Mark Stein, Tim Bogert. They said, “Look, we need a drummer.
You have everything we need. You sing, you got a great bass, drum foot, you got good technique. You look good. You got everything we want and we'd like to invite a group called The Pigeons.” I was making 250…300 a week.
You know, I was doing fine. And just in those days, I met Jimi Hendrix, I was playing clubs and he was playing clubs, too. So I said “Yeah.” I never played with a bass player, but my bands always had left hand bass on an organ. So I said, “Let me go check them out.” And they offered, this guy that owned a big club that I had played for before, and he was like a mafia guy, you know, Goodfellas was all these guys.
Henry Hill used to come to my house and sell me stuff out of the trunk of his car. I just fell off a truck, you know, I, you know, you’re in New Jersey, right? Joann Butler: And Italian. Carmine Appice: So, I went out and played with them, and yeah they were great, they had great vocals.
Mark Stein was an amazing singer. They all played great. And it was 100 bucks a week guaranteed whether we worked or not. I said, “You know what?” That was like $1,000 a week now.
You know? “Sure, I'll take a chance.” So we went and we started playing, and then we got a gig in Newport, Rhode Island. We spent four weeks there, and listened to The Beatles albums, you know, especially, was it the Sgt. Pepper and all that area, you know, and we said, “Oh, let's make it rain.” It was like, this was the fad going on in New York.
Leslie West was in a group called The Vagrants. Billy Joel was in a group called The Hassles. And we all did these slowed down versions of songs, except we had the most talent in one band. You know, we had four voices and had great musicianship, and we’d come up with these killer arrangements, and that's how we made it.
So those four weeks there really did it. And we noticed that when we did, “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” instead of people trying to dance, and we did “Ticket to Ride” and “She's Not There“, and stuff like that, off the first album, they stopped dancing, for Vanilla Fudge “Hangin’ On” and they would look at us and watch the show. And so we made the show really outrageous, you know? And that's what happened.
And then we put it on the radio and Atlantic signed us. I always tell them I said, look at that, you’re together two years I joined the band. Five months later you made it. That's it.
Nine months. And it wasn’t a long thing for me. It was harder to stay there, than it was to make it. That’s why Vanilla Fudge broke up.
I started Cactus, me and Tim. Cactus did well, and joined with Jeff Beck. That did well. Joann Butler: What about Beck, Bogert & Appice?
Carmine Appice: That was after Cactus. Joann Butler: That was after Cactus ok. Carmine Appice: That was supposed to be Cactus with Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart. Rod didn’t want to work with Jeff anymore.
And Jeff was coming over with Peter Grant's manager, and he got in a car wreck and was out for 18 months. So we said “What do we do now?” So we decided to get other guys that were in big bands. Jim McCarty was in Buddy Miles Express, and was in Mitch Ryder, in Detroit Wheels had a bunch of hit records. And then, Rusty Day was in The Amboy Dukes with Ted Nugent.
So we got those guys, and we did Cactus and it did well. All around the world, we’d draw three, four thousand people, and we did a festival and in England, 600,000 people at the festival. Joann Butler: Yes. Carmine Appice: And people think that we had connected with Melanie then, but we didn't.
Melanie got me, got to me through Cleopatra, who was my label. The owner, I’ve known him since he started the label, and we were, like, good friends. So I consider them my label. I do everything with them now, you know?
And they gave me this vocal of a Melanie during “Purple Haze.” I said, “Do you think you can put Cactus to “Purple Haze?”” and I said, “Yeah,.” So we got the vocal and my engineer Pat did a click at the tempo we wanted and he stretched the vocal out. And then I did the drums first. And the whole album, I did the drums first. I didn't play with anybody.
I did, in my head. I put it down on tape, I sang it for them. And so I did that and I, I said, “Well, this is pretty cool.” And I took it and I did an arrangement to it. And then where there’s guitar solo, we cut the vocal out, and waited 16 bars and put it back in.
It's a real technical thing, you know. The whole album was real technical, you know, when it comes down to it, and just starting with the drums, it's usually not the way to do it, usually have a click and a guitar and the vocal you play to, you know, just start with drums. So it's pretty crazy. But it came out great.
That track came out great. So people I'm doing interviews said, “Well, did you meet Melanie at that festival? Was the Isle of Wight Festival? I said she was on it, no, I never met her.” It's funny, on the interviews.
I say this track is a long way from that roller skate song. Joann Butler: Right, right. Carmine Appice: You know? Joann Butler: Yeah.
Carmine Appice: When I heard her scream. Joann Butler: It’s beautiful though, it sounds beautiful. And right before she passed. Carmine Appice: Her scream sounds like Janis Joplin.
She was like, you know, I went, “This is Melanie?” And he said, “Yeah” and I said “Wow.” He got the rights to her vocals and her estate. So there's that one, and the way it all fell together. Joann Butler: I can't believe all the people that are on it. You know, Ted Nugent, Billy Sheehan, Bumblefoot, Dee Sni- Dee, Pat Travers, the guys from King’s X that are so cool, Steve Morse…
Carmine Appice: I love the guys from King’s X. Steve Morse, Joe Lynn Turner, and Derek Sherinian. Joann Butler: Yeah. I mean it goes on and on.
Carmine Appice: I can’t remember everybody, and the last one had more because, I had a double album last time. Joann Butler: Yeah. Carmine Appice: You know and my Guitar Zeus, I did that in the 90s. I did like Guitar Zeus 1, Guitar Zeus 2, Guitar Zeus Korea, Guitar Zeus Japan, and I just listened to all the music on the plane the other day coming from LA.
I just saw my grandson for the first time. I went from LA to Florida, it was like no internet. So I said, “I'm going to listen down to the whole Guitar Zeus record,” and I did, and I couldn't believe the amount of work we did. The same thing, you know, except those days you had to go into the studio.
When I did Ted Nugent I flew with the 24 track to, where was Michigan at the time. You know, with Yngwie Malmsteen, a 24 track to Florida, you know, and then they came out with D88s, you know what they are? A little tape I could put it on there, and then I recorded them on there. That was great.
So, I mean, the engineers looked at the pile of my 24 tracks and said, I was going to Japan. Said “Would you rather take those? Or would you rather take this?” Joann Butler: Right. Carmine Appice: I said “I think I'd rather take that.” So I went to Japan, I did it, and then anytime I needed a guitar player here in America, I would just send them the D88s.
You know, make a copy and they’d send it back. Joann Butler: I mean, obviously, you know all these guys, like, because you worked with them all over the years. But how about the King’s X guys? How did you find them?
Carmine Appice: Well, those guys were interesting because I was doing a tour with Blue Murder, my only tour with Blue Murder and, King’s X and, I can't remember who headlined that tour. Anyway, I'm always the kind of guy that, you know, the band under me. I like to meet them, like when I toured with Ozzy I hung out with Mötley Crüe, when they were nothing. You know, I became friends with those guys.
And so I said, “Oh which one’s King’s X’s bus, that one?” I walked in their bus and they were playing Cactus. Joann Butler: Cool. Carmine Appice: I said, “Wait a minute, you're playing that because I'm here.” They said “No, we play that all the time. We love Cactus.” Joann Butler: Awesome.
Carmine Appice: He said “We got so much inspiration and we worked so much of your stuff into our stuff. It's unbelievable.” And then they showed me a few things, with, I say, “Yeah, that does sound like us.” You know, and they've been my friends ever since. Joann Butler: It's so cool. Carmine Appice: They sang on the Guitar Zeus record, both of them and I had them on the Cactus, Terrible Blues One and Two.
Joann Butler: Yeah. Awesome. Carmine Appice: I had ,Doug sang on the gig we did last week. I tried to get, Ty on but he couldn't do it.
He was busy doing something else. But he’s awesome man, he’s awesome. Joann Butler: I love it. Carmine Appice: And I found he had, what a rough childhood he had man.
Wow. Joann Butler: Really? Carmine Appice: I felt really bad, he had a really, really bad childhood. But he took it and look where he is, you know?
He never told anyone. I heard it when I was sitting at the table. Me, him, Billy Sheehan, and Eric Gales, and we were just all talking about childhood and all that stuff, and Eric. Well, I don't think Eric, Eric knew me.
I knew him for years ago when he did the Hendrix tour, but he never really heard me play and stuff. He said to my singer from the Rod show, I have a Rod show called Rod the Show. Joann Butler: Yes. Carmine Appice: Which is endorsed by Rod.
And he looks like Rod, sounds like Rod, and dresses like Rod. But you know, that's why Rod, I showed him. He said, “Wow, I'm honored you're doing this” because we're calling it Rod the Show: celebrating the musical legacy of Rod Stewart. Yeah.
So eventually when he does retire, we'll be the only ones doing that stuff. You know, if he if he, if he does, Joann Butler: What's he like? Carmine Appice: Rod? He's a nice guy.
Did you read my book? Joann Butler: No but I know… Carmine Appice: It's X-rated, but I don't know if you want to read it. Joann Butler: Oh, yeah.
Carmine Appice: It's pretty real. And Rod wrote the intro and they fired me. And he says in the book, he says, you know, all the great things about me and stuff, and then he said “I fired Carmine the f*** knows why.” That really was it. I like, I said, “Why?” You know, but I know why now.
There was somebody in his ear doing coke and s*** telling him, you know, he was jealous of my popularity with the band. You know? So he was Rod’s good English, you know, they're English. They drink all the time.
I don't drink, you know, I didn't do coke, you know, so I wasn't in the clan enough. Joann Butler: Yeah smart. Carmine Appice: But anyways, but he knows now, he knows now. And he's a good guy, you know?
Joann Butler: Yeah. You're still friends. He gave you a table? Carmine Appice: Yeah.
Yeah, we're friends through email. You know, I get it. He's so big and popular, you know, probably gets a million emails a day. I mean, I get a lot and I don't answer a lot of them, but he does.
And he gets back, a funny story with AI, my wife, put words into the AI about our dogs. She said, “I want a 70s funk song.” Twice two different songs. Fantastic songs. Five minutes.
Vocals, horns, keyboard, vocals. Everything. And I said “You know what” to my brother, I said, “You know, we should do another album together, except we're not going to have to write songs because nobody cares anymore about writing songs.” You know, that's true unless you're a huge artist. So I said, “Why don't we take some of our songs that are famous, and we'll put it through the AI and see what that comes up with.
If it's good. We'll copy it.” So we did that with “Hot Legs”. All right. It came out sounding just like Van Halen.
All the guitar riffs, even my drum fills. And then I sent it to Rod, and he said, “Oh that's great. So what is this?” I said, “It’s something we just came up with.” He goes, “It sounds great. Good luck with it.” And I text him back that it’s AI and I never heard back from.
But still, still thinking about that. The heavy metal label, it's not really what heavy metal is to me and my brother. Heavy metal is like with, Metallica. Joann Butler: Right.
Carmine Appice: That's heavy metal. All the stuff before, that's hard rock. Joann Butler: Right, I agree Carmine Appice: Van Halen's hard rock, Led Zeppelin's hard rock, Mötley Crües hard rock, King Cobra’s hard rock, Blue Murder’s hard rock. It’s all hard rock.
Heavy metal was started with Metallica. Joann Butler: Right. Carmine Appice: So I'm going to say do “Hot Legs” like Metallica, and see what comes out. Joann Butler: That's funny.
Carmine Appice: And then we'll copy it. Joann Butler: Can you do that? I don't even know how that works. Carmine Appice: Yeah, I can do that, without using their version.
Joann Butler: Right. Carmine Appice: What they do… Joann Butler: Make your own. Carmine Appice: I mean, we'll change it a little bit.
We'll take the vibe of what it is. But I don't even know if I have time to tell you the truth. You know, it takes a long time. It took six months to make this record.
Or more. Joann Butler: Wow. That makes sense. Carmine Appice: Same with Vinny.
Vinny's got a studio. He built my studio. Joann Butler: Yeah, I gotta ask you about him Carmine Appice: We go back and forth. Joann Butler: Vinny, of course your brother.
Another amazing drummer. How did you, how did that work? Like. Carmine Appice: Oh, it worked that, I had made it, I had made it and he was only young when I made it.
And we had seven drummers in my family. I started by, my cousin Joey had drums. He played, I’d go to his house, Italians you know, all the holidays, and I played his drums. Then I, I’d bang on pots and pans.
My parents got me drums, so eventually I started drumming. On this album I did with, Pat Travers called The Ball Sound. there’s a song called, “Stand Up”. It tells you the story of how it started with me playing drums and stuff. Anyway, so when I started making it, Vinny was like eight years old.
Nine years old. And he’d see me on TV, and, you know, he’d go into his little cubbyhole in the basement, and all the pictures of my bands on the wall, you know? And then I go home one day, and my mother, and this is in the song, and I go in there and Vinny's playing drums. And I said to my mother, “Who taught him that?” She says, “He's in there all the time, driving me crazy like you did.” You know, so I put that in the song.
I thought that was good, you know? Anyway, so yeah, I saw the talents. I sent him to my drum teacher. He was like eight, nine years old, and my drum teacher made him really good.
By the time he was 12, he was really good, you know, and then he was under my wing like that. And then, he got a gig up in, you know, I made it, and then he got a gig up the Record Player with his band from Brooklyn and, the owner of the Record Player was managing them, so they used to practice there all the time. And Jimmy Iovine, who wasn't really big yet, comes up and says, “Hey, we need some handclaps on a song. Come on down” So the handclaps were “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” with John Lennon.
So they meet John Lennon, they're hanging out with John Lennon and all that, then Rick Derringer calls my mother, calls my mother's house and said, “Hey, Rick Derringer, I'd like to talk to Vinny.” “Oh, no, you mean you want to talk to Carmine?” “No you want to talk to Vinny.” So eventually they got together. He took Vinny and the guitar player Vinny was working with. And when they started, Rick Derringer, just called Derringer. And they went out on tour and stadiums with Aerosmith.
And my brother was 16 years old. He did the whole John Lennon thing, 16 years old, he goes, and he's like this is school year, the teacher hits him on the head, he goes “Vinny wake up. What are you doing?” He goes, “I'm tired. Excuse me, is anyone else in the class work with John Lennon last night?” Joann Butler: That's so funny.
He told me how he met your mom with the, with the pan, he had a pan. Carmine Appice: Yeah, that was another story, that’s a great story. I do a thing called Carmine Appice diaries. You know where I go in a place, you know we do, like a venue, a 300-seat venue and kind of an intro.
And the intro goes and shows a diary floating and all the pictures just going in there, and then it hits the ground, and it comes up on to the screen, has all the diaries, all the stories are write in, John Lennon eats lasagna, why is Prince was in my bed?, Rod Stewart… Joann Butler: Prince? All right, well, tell me some of those. Carmine Appice: And then I have the audience pick the story.
All right. And what story do you want to hear? Joann Butler: Why is Prince in your bed? Carmine Appice: When I was getting divorced one time, one of the times, I had my house that I was selling.
So my friend who managed Prince before he was big. She said, I bought into her house, she said, “You can have that room. But once in a while, our new artist called Prince sleeps in the room when he's in town. He hates hotels.” I already had a new girlfriend.
I said, “Okay, I'll stay over there.” So one time I came home unannounced, and Prince was in my bed with Vanity. And I walk in and I said, “Oh, I'm sorry.” You know, I said, “I'm sorry,” you know, but he was very shy. Joann Butler: Yes that is what I heard. Carmine Appice: He’s a very shy guy until he went on stage.
So I was always coming home like, he’s playing something, “Hey Prince is that new track?” “Yeah.” “Who played on it?” “I did.” That's it. Until I got to know a little more, then one time he asked, I had a Pantera. You know, one time he said, “I need a ride to Hollywood. Can you give me a ride to Hollywood?” I said “Sure,” took him in the Pantera and it scared the hell out of him.
You know, going around the Hollywood hills and stuff, you know? But then when he played, he started getting big, and he started, he played his first gig at the Universal Amphitheater. 6,000 people. And he invited me.
I got him these things called synsonics drums, they’re electronic drums, and I used, I gave him some, I don’t know if he used any, I think he might have used them on some of his records. And he invited me to the gig. I went there with my girlfriend at the time and the woman that owned the house, and I'm watching him on stage. He comes on in women's underwear and he's laying down on a mattress, humping the mattress.
I said to her, “Is this same guy who lives in the f******house? Are you kidding me?” That blew me away. And then they did the movie. Joann Butler: Yes.
Carmine Appice: And he invited me to the premiere. And I sat in the premiere next to Sheila E, and I didn't know who she was. She didn't know who I was. And then we became friends.
You know? Joann Butler: Yeah. Carmine Appice: But it was, it was really a good relationship. And then he had a drummer named John, John, I think his name was.
And every time John would see me, he said, “Prince says hi.” And one time he played, he opened up for the Stones at the Coliseum in LA, and they booed him off the stage. Joann Butler: What? You're kidding. Carmine Appice: Yeah, he wasn’t known yet and they booed him off the stage, and he came home and me, him, and this girl, Jamie, that was his manager.
We sat around the table drinking some tea, and he was so bummed out about being booed offstage. I said “Look dude, the first time Vanilla Fudge went to Portland, Oregon with The Mamas & the Papas. Totally mismatched, and we got booed off the stage also, but my singer said, “Look, we flew 3000 miles to get here. You can boo us if you want, but we're going to play for you whether you like it or not.”” Joann Butler: Yeah.
Carmine Appice: By the time we finished, we had a standing ovation. I said, “So it don't matter. Just forget about that.” And what, he turned into, gigantic. Joann Butler: Sure did.
Yeah. Carmine Appice: So that's my story. Joann Butler: I don't think people realized how good he was until he died, you know, really. Carmine Appice: No, before that he had a lot of hit, he had a movie.
Joann Butler: Yeah, oh yeah. Carmine Appice: You have a movie, you're good enough to have a movie. Joann Butler: Oh, I love you him. But I just didn't think a lot of people are…
Carmine Appice: You’re big. You're big. You know, but then it’s like, Michael Jackson, nobody realized. He did “Thriller” then exploded, you know.
And then he died. But he did all this great stuff before he died, which is great. Both of them. Joann Butler: Yes.
That's right. Carmine Appice: I had Jennifer Batten on my guitar album too. Joann Butler: God you have everybody, everybody. Who's saying it right by the way, because Vinnys says Appice, you say a-piece.
Who's right? Carmine Appice: Yeah, I mean, it used to be Appice, it was Beck, Bogert & Appice. But everybody was screwing it up. They would say, Carmen, a-piece, and I’d have to correct them, “No.
It's Appice and it's Carmine.” So when I joined Rod, he said, “Look, we're going to play in front of 20,000 people tonight, you do your drum solo” he said, he used my drum solo to go out and put on a new outfit, you know. So he says, “So I want to come up and say this, “On drums.” So what should I say?” He says, “You’re Appice, a-peachy, a-pice, you’re this.” I said, he said, “What do most people call you?” I said, “Most people call me Carmen a-piece. So, Carmine a-piece would be good.” He said, “Okay, that's what we'll call you.” So in front of 20,000 people that night. I was Carmine a-piece, all over the world.
And then there was an ad over there from Ludwig Drum Company. All over the world they put this in a magazine. “Everyone wants a piece of Appice.” Joann Butler: Oh wow. Carmine Appice: And it was a good ad.
It sold my history, and big picture of me, and Carmine Appice on the bottom. It’s every rock magazine in the world. Everywhere. So I was Carmine Appice, that was great.
And Vinny came out with Black Sabbath, Vinny Appice. It's still going on. Joann Butler: That's so funny. Carmine Appice: It's funny when he, when they say Appice to me, I say, “You’re saying it wrong.” You know?
But they say Carmen too. I just, I said, “Come on. How do you get M-E-N out of M-I-N-E?” Joann Butler: I know, I know, I know . Carmine Appice: How do you do that?
Joann Butler: Don’t worry I won’t do that. You used to play with Ozzy, too, right? Carmine Appice: Yeah. Joann Butler: So.
And, of course, Vinny played with Sabbath. So what was that like? Carmine Appice: Well I mean, I knew Ozzy from when they first started, Cactus played with Sabbath, you know, so when they called, they called me to join the band. I didn't call him, and I got fired from her because my name was too big, after she said, “You should have thought about that before you got it,” you know?
Joann Butler: Who? Carmine Appice: And I was doing master classes in every, in every market, and she didn't like that I was getting, I gave money from that to charity. So I got free press, and she didn't like it. Joann Butler: Sharon, you mean?
You mean Sharon? Carmine Appice: Sharon. Yeah. So, Vinny told me a story about when he was playing with Ozzy and he did a drum solo.
He goes, “What should I, what do I say is it, a-piece? Or is it Appice” You know? And he said “Well it’s Appice.” So on the first night they played, he went, “Vinny, a-piece.” He didn't know what to say on stage. It was funny.
I loved Ozzy. Ozzy was a good guy. Yeah. His wife was the one that did all the dirty work.
After they fired me, she said, “You got to start your own band.” So I started King Cobra. I don’t know if you ever heard of King Cobra. Joann Butler: Of course. Yup.
Carmine Appice: Yeah, so we were rehearsing at this place, and I, I also bought with the money I got from the deals, I bought a mobile home, a truck, and a van. I wanted everything to be white. So we had to change, we had to paint the mobile home. This guy who worked for me was, you know, he worked on cars, he knew how to paint it.
So Ozzy was in there rehearsing drummers and I said “Hey Oz, what you doing here?” He goes “I’m auditioning drummers.” That was funny, right? So he said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I'm painting. Painting this.” I was just up on a little scaffold, putting brown paper on the windows. First thing he says was, “I know you and my missus don't get along.
I know you and me could still be friends.” I said, “Yeah Ozzy I know you.” And then I said, “What are you doing?” He said “Do you need any help?” I said, “Sure.” So I put him up on the scaffold, and me and him are putting brown paper over the glass. You know, I thought that was funny, you know, he’s a nice guy. I always got, whenever I saw him, he stopped and talked to me. But his wife would always pull him away, you know.
I was sitting at The Rainbow one time with him and I'm talking to him and he had a bowl of spaghetti. And we're talking and some fans came up for an autograph. I turn around and Ozzy's head was in the bowl of spaghetti. Joann Butler: What do you think it is?
Why do rock stars get into bad stuff? Carmine Appice: They must be doing the drugs they did when they were younger. I would think, cocaine. Joann Butler: Why?
Why do they get into it? Like why do, why do such talented people get into bad stuff? Carmine Appice: Because that was the deal back then. Nobody knew it was really bad, so you’d smoke pot, you know, and you’d get arrested for it.
Cactus got arrested for it one time, even though it wasn't pot. It was catnip. We gave it to one of our roadies as a goof, and he asked the stewardess on the plane to smoke it. Next thing we know, we land and everyone, “Are you in Cactus?” Yeah, we thought “Hey, great we’re in Cactus.” “Yeah get over there.” We got arrested.
You know, on our third album we had a song called Blues, called “Mean Night in Cleveland.” And that was a mean night in jail. And our lawyer got us out. Hey, we made the news, right? Eyewitness News all over the country.
I had to call my mother, tell her “We're okay. It's just catnip.” But, you know, it was just the thing, everybody smoked pot, you know, even before, you know, all that time, Jimi Hendrix, when I met him, you know, we were in clubs smoking pot. You know? But now it's all legal.
You walk around New York City. We got rid of our apartment last week. You open a window to get some fresh air. Pot smell comes in.
I mean, you have legal booze, you didn’t even walk around drinking booze everybody, did they? That’s stupid man. I couldn't believe it. I said “Man, shut the window.” I don’t smoke anymore, I just like, I had my fill of it.
You know, that's why I'm still doing it. I love playing, I love recording, I don't like doing big tours anymore unless I'm, on my, a private plane with your own doctor, like Rod does. You know? Because we travel in the sprinter vans, you know, we do like, we're doing the tour I just told you, you know, it's mostly a sprinter van.
And it's like, you know, you got a four hour drive, you drive two hours, and you go to a hotel and wake up and drive two more hours, you know? You don't drive all straight through. It's like, it’s too hard. Even in a bus, you don't sleep in a bus.
Joann Butler: Yeah, I bet Carmine Appice: I sleep in a bed. I never took a bus until Ozzy. Joann Butler: Really? Carmine Appice: That’s the truth.
Yeah. My whole career up until 1983 from ‘67. Never took a bus. Always flying, you know, and flying was a lot easier back then.
I mean, we did a tour with Hendrix and Cact-, Fudge and two other bands, and we’d get all our gear in a truck, and they’d pull it right up to the belly of the plane that we're on. No security. Get on the plane, there’s like 30 of us. We go to actually, the truck pulls up, gets all the gear off right to the gig, you know, a limo to the gigs.
Joann Butler: Yeah. Carmine Appice: All that stuff's in my book, except, you know, I left a lot of the crazy sex s*** in the book. Like there was, I won’t tell you. Joann Butler: We’ll have to read it.
Carmine Appice: Frank Zappa made a song out of one of them. Joann Butler: He did? Carmine Appice: It’s called “Mud Shark". It was called “Mud Shark." Pull that up and listen to “Mud Shark." Joann Butler: Oh my God, that’s awesome.
Carmine Appice: It's crazy. Anyway… Joann Butler: How’d you come up with the name Cactus? Carmine Appice: Funny enough, we were in Arizona, and then on top of this drive-in theater in giant words it said “CACTUS.” I was with Tim, we were with Vanilla Fudge, I said “Tim, that’s the name of the group.
Cactus.” He said, “Yeah, I like that.” It looked huge. It looked strong. You know, when you think of a Cactus, it's a strong plant. Joann Butler: Yeah.
It never dies. Carmine Appice: No it never dies, it just keeps going. And now it keeps going. It's amazing, just keeping it going.
I never thought it was going to keep going. When McCarty said, “You take it, I don't want to do it no more. You take it.” We were just, we did European gigs, we went to South America, we did a lot of stuff, had big crowds as well. And then he couldn't, he couldn’t travel, he could not travel.
Worse than me. I mean, he would sleep like this during the day, driving to the next gig and he just, finally he said, “I can't do this.” You know? So, he said, “You take it if you want to do it and, you know, keep building it.” You know? I said “Okay.” Yeah, so I did a bunch, I did a bunch of deals with the first gig we ever did, a couple of other gigs we did, and so he's making money on it.
You know, not a lot of money, he was making money, and then Cleopatra Records, the owner came up with, he came up with the idea of doing this. It wasn't called Temple of Blues. He wanted me to do an album that would rep the influences that Cactus had on musicians. So it’s called Cactus Influences.
I said, “What about friends, say influences and friends?” I said, “Yeah, that's cool. He’d like that.” And then I was looking at the Billboard charts, the blues charts, and he had, who’s on the blues charts? Foghat, Robin Trower, Slash, all doing blues stuff. I said, “We should market this as a blues record.” He said, “Yeah, let’s call it Temple of Blues.” I said, “Great,” and we got everybody on the first album, everybody like Sgt.
Pepper. Everyone who played on the album is on the cover and it looks like a temple. And then we released it, and it did well, and then he said, “Let’s do the second one.” I said, “Okay,” but he said, “Don't do 14 tracks, do ten tracks for the LP and one track extra for the CD because it doesn't pay to do the two LPs. You know, financially.” I said, “Okay,” so you figure ten tracks for the album, one track for the CD extra one.
So that's what I worked on. Joann Butler: Awesome. Carmine Appice: So I had three Cactus tracks. I had the track for Melanie, sorted out, then I needed seven more tracks.
I said, “So what should I do? I want to call it Temple of Blues.” I wanted to get a nomination for Blues, combination Blues LP or album, you know, from the Grammys. And what they do? They put us in with temple, what’s her name?
Who’s the big, the number one woman act female act? Joann Butler: Taylor Swift. Carmine Appice: That's the one. Okay.
Exactly. So they put our album in with her album. I said, “Well, we’re not a rock album.” So this time I said, “I want to do blues.” So I knew an album that we got Cactus, “Evil” off of, which has been in a couple of things on Netflix and Apple Music and stuff like that. Apple TV had a couple of our tracks in the movies.
Howlin' Wolf's electric album, I got “Evil” off that, Jeff Beck gave me that album, Jimmy Page gave him that album. That album you'll hear Led Zeppelin, you'll hear some Jeff Beck, and you'll hear Cactus. So I took the other seven songs that we didn't do, and we did that on this album. “Little Red Rooster,” that was a Howlin' Wolf' album.
“Back Door Man” with me, Billy Sheehan, and Eric Gales. Phenomenal. When we just did the tour, we had that in the middle of the show, and my singer from Rod sang that because Dee was supposed to be there. As you know, he retired, so I had to get somebody with that growly voice.
So my singer did it. And when we were rehearsing, we did “Back Door Man.” Then we did “Little Red Rooster,” and I felt it and he felt it. He said, “You can't follow that. You can't follow “Back Door Man,” it's so amazing.
You can't follow it live, especially.” I said, “You're right.” So I moved it to the end of the show. The only thing that can follow that was the “Cactus Boogie.” Energy wise, you know. And that's what we did. And that…
Joann Butler: Cool. Carmine Appice: Unbelievable reaction. Unbelievable reaction from the audience. Joann Butler: Awesome.
Carmine Appice: You know? So we're doing all these great boogie and bluesy kind of songs with tremendous, great drum tracks. And the guy did fantastic, fantastic drumming. So I took what he did on “Evil.” I did it my way.
I did the same thing on all this stuff. You know? Because some of it is good. They’re not just, “Boom, bop, boom.” They had like, “Boom, boom, boom, bop, boom, boom, bop,” all these cool grooves, you know, really cool.
So I did it my way and we did seven of their songs, three Cactus songs for the album and one Cactus song for the CD, actually two Cactus songs for the album and the Melanie track. There’s a Melanie track fit in, we’re having other people play. Except she had “Purple Haze,” which is a blues anyway. Joann Butler: Yeah.
When you go on tour, who's going to pop up with you? For, when your next few shows? Carmine Appice: Well, we're going to do Cactus Allstars. I think Billy Sheehan, Eric Gales, and Bumblefoot or Pat Travers.
And then the regular Cactus band. I think that we're going to try and book some stuff in July. Joann Butler: Good. Carmine Appice: Maybe the end of July, to give us three months to promote it Joann Butler: All right.
Cool. I gotta check it out. What was Jeff Beck like? I didn't ask you that.
And why did that band break up? Carmine Appice: He was a lot, he was a lot like Prince. Introverted. But when you got to know him, he's good.
But, you know, there's a few things I'd done with him that didn't work out. Things I did do with him like, “People Get Ready” started in my house cause I was getting divorced, from the second one. And he came over my house, he's, he has his girlfriend he broke up with, come to my house in LA, hung out. We just had a ball together, and then I said, “Let's do some music.” Went to Duane Hitchings’ house.
He wrote, co-wrote “Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?” and “Young Turks” with me at a little studio, and we started putting all this stuff together, the lick, that was Jeff’s, that’s Duane’s lick, not Jeff Beck’s lick. Then we started putting it all together and then Jeff said, “That sounds like “People Get Ready.”” I said, “Yeah, it does.” So I sang that in Vanilla Fudge. I started singing along with it, I said, “Yeah, it is “People Get Ready.”” So he said, “You think we can get Rod?” Because he wasn't on good step, you know, good steps with Rod. You know, and, so we called Rod, we met him in an Italian restaurant.
We met him, we played him the cassette, right in the car. How old is that? Right? And then he, he loved it a week later in the studio, and Ricky, playing with my friend Ricky Delena that grew up with my brother Vinny, same block, you know, and I had Jeff there, and Rod there, earphones on, and we played the track, I pointed to Jeff where to sing.
We put it out and we got no, we have no credit at all. But he was a nice guy. I don't know if that came from the manager or what. You know, a lot of stuff comes from the management.
Joann Butler: Yeah. Carmine Appice: You know? We always got along together. We always had fun.
You know, Tim punched him in the face when he was really sick. That was the last gig we ever did. Joann Butler: Wow. Carmine Appice: And it’s out on a box set now.
It's called the BBA box set, has two live shows, The Last Show and London Rainbow, and I sang most of the songs, so you should check that out, it’s pretty good too. Joann Butler: I will, I will. What would your current self tell your younger self? Carmine Appice: Never release the second Vanilla Fudge album.
Joann Butler: How come? Carmine Appice: Because it was horrible. It was horrible. It wasn't, it wasn't music.
It was, it was kind of a statement. But it was too early in the career, you know, it's called “The Beat Goes On,” Taking music from the beginning, you know, Mozart and all that, going all the way up to the Beatles, you know, at the time, the Beatles and then talk about, you know, like how music through wars and everything, Black Power and, you know, Sehgal, Black Power, nothing to do with music. Joann Butler: Right. Right.
Carmine Appice: The only song on it was Für Elise, piece of, a classical piece, that was it. Couldn't even play that on the radio. And the strength of the first album, was number four on the charts, it came out and every, all these radio stations, FM players, they played it, the whole record, you know, and everybody started calling in. They were on LSD and, and stoned out, and calling telling them to take it off, it was depressing them.
Joann Butler: Oh wow Carmine Appice: Ruined our career. Everyone around us, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, everybody around us that was on the charts, the top ten at the same time went on to be giants, Vanilla Fudge went the other way. All we had to do was the same thing we did on the first album. Joann Butler: Right right.
Carmine Appice: But we didn't, but we knew, we didn't know any better. Joann Butler: Right. Carmine Appice: This was Ahmet Ertegun, he owned the label, Shadow Morton, the producer. It was their idea, you know, their idea to ruin a band.
So that's what I would do. Joann Butler: Wow. Carmine Appice: Luckily, I went on to be successful, but who knows where Vanilla Fudge would have ended up being, could have ended up being, you know, Madison Square Garden two nights. You know?
We did play the Garden once, and the fell from was 5000 people, it was a big difference. So that's what I would definitely tell myself. Do, don't do this. You know?
I was questionable anyway, when I was listening to it. I said “What are we doing?” You know? And Mark and Vinny were like, they were the heads of the band. “Yeah, Rod this is cool man.” You know, when me and the manager and Tim Bogert heard it, we said, “Oh my God, what a bunch of crap." You know?
And it's proved that way. But I went on to write “Da Ya Think I'm Sexy” and “Young Turks,” number one and top five records, so it wasn’t that bad. Joann Butler: Yeah, tell us about that. Carmine Appice: That was way after.
That was after BBA. Joann Butler: Okay. Carmine Appice: I had a band with Mike Bloomfield called KGB that really didn't do anything. And then, I was asked to join Rod, and I did.
Like I said, Rod was cool. I want a song like “Missing You” by The Stones, because I went home, I’m on the keyboard, and then I went to Duane's house. He had a studio, made it sound good. He added a bridge, he gave it to him, he loved it.
Simple as that. All right. Took about 2 or 3 days, and then way down in Australia we had, we had a 30, 40 person crew. Rod comes out and he said “Look, songs number one in America and number one here, number one there.
You're going to make a lot of money. Let's buy the crew dinner.” You know, all I had was a credit card. He's the one with a lot of money, but I did. I bought it, you know, it's all good.
And then he wanted another song, like, a more punky kind of song. And we did “Young Turks.” Joann Butler: Two amazing songs. Carmine Appice: Yeah, two amazing songs. Joann Butler: And those aren't that drummy.
They're not like heavy drums on those two songs. Carmine Appice: No, no, no, there was heavy drums before Tom Dowd when it was one 24 track. It sounded really heavy and really guitar heavy, but then he put all these orchestras and vocals and all the sudden, they want 24 tracks on 48 tracks and everything shrinks. Joann Butler: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carmine Appice: And we were all bummed out a bit about that. But then it came out, went to number 1 in 15 countries. We said “Okay. We're good.” And the other one was the drum machine that I was using.
I was experimenting with it. And we were probably the first band to ever put a real drum machine to sound like drums on a, on a record. And I did hi-hat and cymbals and they sounded like s***. And it went to number four all around the world, you know?
So it was good. It was two experiments really. Joann Butler: Yeah. It's cool.
Carmine Appice: And then, you know, when I got fired from Ozzy, I was a little pissed off. Because I really wanted to work with Ozzy and help write songs and get the killer drum sounds. Because he always had s*** drum sounds in his records. You know, I told my friend, the guy that helped me get the drum sound that I worked with, to show him how to get the Andy Johns drum sounds that I did with Rod in Pasha Studios, the first record they released was Quiet Riot, that big, huge record.
That was my drum sound. Joann Butler: Yes Carmine Appice: That I worked out with him. Every time Frankie Vanelli, the original drummer that was on it, came over and saw me, gave me a kiss, Italian, gave me a kiss on the cheek and said “Thank you so much for that drum sound.” You know? Joann Butler: Oh my god, you've influenced so many people.
Carmine Appice: Yeah, but, you know, it wasn't like an influence. You know, it was like, nothing needed to be done, you know, Pasha, I did the record with Ted there, and it was horrible drum sound. So the producer said, “Well, what would you do different?” I said, “I would do this, I would do this, I did this, I did all that with the engineer,” the younger engineer and he helped. You know, I showed him how to do it, and he engineered, he worked the board, I didn't know how to do that.
And then we came up with this great drum sound, and then all the stuff I did there had that drum sound, you know? I made a record with Rick Derringer there, did the Vanilla Fudge Mystery record there, I did King Cobra there, you know, and I carried that drum sound everywhere, even in my studio here. I got a mic down the hallway, two mics here. There's one mic here, one here.
My room mics, all close micing there. The way the overheads fit. I learned that from Andy Johns. Rest in peace.
He was the best. Joann Butler: Who are your favorite, favorite drummers? Carmine Appice: Buddy Rich, Billy Cobham, Tony Williams, Max Roach, Joe Morello, you know, and out of all the drummers I like from my era, Keith Moon's gone, Mitch Mitchell gone, Dino Danelli’s gone. And who else?
I'm missing somebody. Joann Butler: Bonham? Carmine Appice: No, John Bonham came after me. Joann Butler: Well he…
Carmine Appice: I got John Bonham his drums. It's a long story. Joann Butler: Tell me that too, tell me that too. Carmine Appice: Well, Led Zeppelin opened up for Vanilla Fudge.
We heard the album before. I heard him do that triplet thing on Good Times Bad Times. I loved it. They opened up for, he had a little drum set, I had a big drum set.
You know, I got a picture, me and him, I, he said, “You think you can get me a drum set like that?” I said “Yeah.” I was big, big heavy duty guy in Ludwig Drums. I called him up and I said, “Look, there’s this band called Led Zeppelin. This drummer’s really great. I think he, I think he'd be really great Ludwig.
He wants a kit just like mine. What do you think?” Probably the understatement of seven decades, right? Okay, so they got it for him, they did it. They worked with me, and I got him his drum set.
They opened up for us. And then the later it was, they opened up for us. We opened up for them because six months later they had a gold record already, you know, and we were just good friends, you know, I was good friends. And I said, “I love that triplet thing you do.” I said, “Yeah.” He goes, “I got it from you.” I said, “I don't do that.” And he pointed out on one of my records where he would do like [Drum Sounds] constant, I would go, [Drum Sounds], so he took that [Drum Sounds} and developed on it, and he showed me on my record.
I said “Wait, I did do that.” And he goes “Carmine,” and there's some other things that he's done. All my fills, like you heard the fills in that video, [Drum Sounds], that came from me. He did it on a lot of records, a lot of records. So we were good friends, you know, we were good friends.
We go on the next tours and he got off stage with John Paul Jones and then they're supposed to go back on and he said, “Hey, why don't you and Tim go instead?” So, we did. You know, it was so different back then. It wasn't a business. Joann Butler: Yeah Carmine Appice: It wasn't a business yet.
You know. It was just a lot of fun. Everybody made records. Everybody went out on tour and had fun, you know?
We used to get a salary every month. Every week. Come back, we got two grand. “Wow.
We got $2,000” I mean, in 1968 that's worth like what, 20 grand? You know. But we had fun. Joann Butler: What does music do for people?
Carmine Appice: What does music, I think it makes them feel good. If they have problems, they’re depressed, sometimes a song will hit them. That's me, you know, sometimes they just go out, they have a good time, you know? And Cactus was a good time band.
You know, Vanilla Fudge was more of a serious kind of dynamic band, bunch of classical stuff in it, and voices and all that. Cactus was just a kick ass, go have a good time. Joann Butler: Yeah. Carmine Appice: Those days, go do some drugs and come see Cactus.
You know. Joann Butler: Not now. We'll have some iced tea and see Cactus. Carmine Appice: Yeah.
Joann Butler: That’s awesome. Carmine Appice: Thank you. Lovely to talk to you. Joann Butler: Well good luck with the tour and everything.
You’re a legend. Carmine Appice: My life. Thank you, bye bye. Joann Butler: Thanks, Carmine.
Bye. Carmine Appice: Bye babe.
