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Backstage Pass Radio
S7: E7: Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge, Rod Stewart, Ozzy Ozbourne) - Mastermind Behind Modern Rock Drumming
Date: October 30, 2024
Name of podcast: Backstage Pass Radio
S7: E7: Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge, Rod Stewart, Ozzy Ozbourne) - Mastermind Behind Modern Rock Drumming
SHOW SUMMARY:
Legendary drummer Carmine Appice invites us into his world of rock drumming, sharing captivating stories from his celebrated career with bands like Vanilla Fudge, King Cobra, and Rod Stewart. Alongside special co-host Guy Gelso, Carmine reflects on the rich musical legacy of his family, including his brother Vinny's work with Black Sabbath. Together, we celebrate the passage of time, the rhythms that define our lives, and reminisce about the shared history among rock drumming elites, with anecdotes about industry icons and unforgettable tours.
Explore the evolution of drum gear with Carmine as he recounts his pioneering efforts in transforming rock drumming equipment. Hear firsthand about his interactions with legendary drummers like Keith Moon and John Bonham, and how his collaboration with Ludwig led to groundbreaking innovations such as larger drums and the Octa Plus set. This episode reveals the inventive spirit of the 1960s and 70s, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the camaraderie and creativity that shaped modern rock drumming.
Discover Carmine's dynamic music career, from the early inspirations of drumming greats Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich to collaborating with iconic artists like Jimi Hendrix and Rod Stewart. Learn about his role in co-writing hits like "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" and "Young Turks," and gain insights into his perspective on the evolving music industry. Carmine shares personal stories about the essence of being a musician, balancing studio and touring experiences, and the enduring influence of rock icons. This episode promises a nostalgic journey through rock history, celebrating the legacy and continued impact of drumming legends.
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Carmine Appice
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Your Host,
Randy Hulsey
My guest today came up in New York City and has risen to be one of the most notable and renowned rock drummers of our time. It's Randy Halsey, with Backstage Pass Radio, and I hope that everyone tuning in today is happy and healthy. Joining me on the show today is one of the most prolific drummers in rock and roll history and has been a part of such acts as Vanilla Fudge, king Cobra, rod Stewart and Ozzy Osbourne. Acts as Vanilla Fudge, king Cobra, rod Stewart and Ozzy Osbourne. My special co-host this evening is also an accomplished Hall of Fame drummer that has traveled the world delivering the rhythm section for one of the greatest bands to ever come out of the great state of Louisiana. Hang tight and I will be joined by the one and only Carmine Apice and Guy Gelso right after this a piece, and Guy Gelso right after this.
Speaker 2:This is Backstage Pass Radio, the podcast that's designed for the music junkie with a thirst for musical knowledge. Hi, this is Adam Gordon, and I want to thank you all for joining us today. Make sure you like, subscribe and turn alerts on for this and all upcoming podcasts. And now here's your host of Backstage Pass Radio, Randy Halsey.
Speaker 1:Carmine, welcome to the show man. It's great to finally make your acquaintance after several emails floating back and forth this week, so welcome man yeah, we booked this on Labor Day.
Speaker 3:I said wait, it's Labor Day. Yeah, I'm glad you called me out on that, because I didn't even think about Labor Day when I initially booked it, I thought it was next week playing a gig in Providence, and the flights were so expensive I said it must be because it's Labor Day. Yeah, you know, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad today worked out nonetheless. Guy, good to see you pal. Welcome back to co-host with me this evening.
Speaker 4:Glad to be here. This is one of my heroes right here. Yeah, well, great.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, guy, I was thinking earlier, before we started. I had you on my show. I think it was August of 2021, and I think I was season in season one, and I think you were episode 10. So three years ago, man, where does time go?
Speaker 4:yeah yeah, that's a good question. Tell you what it goes really fast.
Speaker 3:Every sunday I get this thing from la. It's a car club, it's uh. Every sunday it comes to my email. Damn, damn, it's coming faster and faster. You know I said well, I just got this yesterday.
Speaker 1:It was a week ago, you know well, I wanted to do just a shout out uh to my lovely friend dana steel for getting us connected. Carmine and uh many of the listeners uh may remember d Dana, dana's Hall of Fame voice from her rock radio days at 101 KLOL here in the Houston market.
Speaker 3:I was hanging with Dana the night. Sharon Osbourne fired me.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 3:Dana was there and hanging out with me.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting story there. Well, I think Guy and the Zebra Band also has some stories about Dana as well. So, Carmine, where are you calling in from today? Where's home these days for you?
Speaker 3:I'm in Florida, South Florida.
Speaker 1:Okay, and Guy, how about you? Are you in Covington area right now of Louisiana?
Speaker 4:North of New Orleans. Okay, yeah, I'm married to Southern girls so I'm not getting out of here.
Speaker 1:Well, I, I heard the. I heard the story. I think you're originally. If my memory serves me correctly, you're a California guy that chased a girl to Mardi Gras, right, and you never went home.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's that them yeah.
Speaker 3:Interesting story.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I wound up in a band and before I know it, I'm broken. I don't have anything. I couldn't get back home.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I know Danny Johnson is from Louisiana and I know Kelly Keeling from Louisiana too. Yeah, and from the band Baton Rouge yeah, and you guys, that's it. That's all I know from Louisiana. We started here, yeah, yeah. And from the band Baton Rouge yeah, and you guys, that's it. That's all I know from Louisiana.
Speaker 4:We started here. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, carmine, you know you're a Carmine. You're a world-renowned drummer and I guess you come by that talent. Honestly, talk to the listeners real quick about the history of drumming in the Apiece family.
Speaker 3:Well, I started with my cousin Joey, who was a drummer. I used to go to his house and got inspired by him and little by little I got a drum set. And then my cousin Frankie started playing, and my other cousin Anthony, and my cousin Tommy and my brother and just so you know, we had like seven drummers on my father's side of the family. Me and my brother made it big per se and my cousin Frankie almost joined Little Feet at one point. Oh wow, I didn't know that. And then Richie came back to Little Feet so he didn't join. But had Richie stayed out he would have been in Little Feet, which at the time was a pretty good-sized band.
Speaker 4:So you have, there's three working drummers in your house besides Vinnie and you. No, they don't work they just played. Oh, just played Okay.
Speaker 3:They just played. My cousin Tommy is retired now. He's down here. He plays with a couple of bands. They do some gigs, but it's just for fun, you know it's not really about money.
Speaker 1:You spoke of your brother, vinnie, and you know he, he went on to have, uh, some notoriety around bands and artists like black sabbath, john lennon, rick derringer, I guess, dio joel hoekstra hoekstra was on my show, uh, not too ago. So a wonderful, wonderful human being. And then well, guy, guy, real quick. You know. We talked about kind of Carmine's past and the upbringing and the Peace family. What was your start? Much like Carmine, like what? What got you going behind the kit?
Speaker 4:I'm going to be honest with you Really, and that's why I agreed to do this with you, because this guy right here, Carmine, is one of the guys that got me into this. I mean, I was really into Mitch Mitchell and Hendrix. Well, it started with the Beatles, you know, laying on my bed listening to Sergeant Peppers and hearing all of that song. And then I got into Hendrix and I loved Mitch Mitchell. So I went to see Hendrix at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium and Vanilla Fudge is playing and you guys were doing the break song. Yeah, yeah, I just, you know, that was it for me right there I had to go play drums. I mean, really, I'm not trying to pump you up, but that's it.
Speaker 3:Oh man, I'm getting pumped. Thank you, man, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. You, tom Tom. Thank you, man, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. You're not alone. There's a lot of guys that told me that. But I was talking to somebody today about the break song because he showed me a solo of Don Brewer in 1969 or 70, whenever it was, and he said you know it looks similar to your solo. I said that song, the break song, started a lot of you know like Ginger Baker did a solo, but he never did a solo like that, you know, and I had the big monster drums and I did a lot of Gene Krupa, buddy Rich and Max Roach in that solo it sounded really powerful and rock and heavy and hard. Well, ginger Baker was a jazz guy. He played soft, he played nice stuff, but he didn't play hard and heavy. And Mitch I love Mitch. He did solos too, but they were like jazz solos.
Speaker 4:They came from that. When I saw you, it was the first time I saw anybody really hitting hard and being, you know, big and bold about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm twirling sticks, I'm twirling sticks, and now that's become the thing I saw a drummer the other day doing. You know, when I twirl I do this kind of twirl, you know, and when I play, I play like this and nobody plays like that.
Speaker 4:Oh, no, no.
Speaker 3:I saw a young kid the other day playing a song. He was animal. He's playing with his left hand on the high end, his right hand's coming down like that on the snare. I said, oh, that's my twirl. And he was a young kid. He was like 20 years old, 6, 18 years old and I see a lot of these fast guys today doing what I used to call rocks. Because you do that and like you know that, that boom boom tattoo, that that boom boom dot, that dot, dot, dot, two, four and six on the hands, followed by two. We do them fast. They sound great. I've been doing them forever. I used to teach them at the clinics and then all these young guys are doing it. They do it at a super speed, but they're still doing falling rocks. Like I said, I did thousands of clinics. I used to teach these at clinics.
Speaker 3:Now, to see it all blossom into these young kids and doing twirls, you see that one guy on the internet, that guy, that Spanish guy, yeah, he's ridiculous, that guy. He's ridiculous. That guy. He's like the Buddy Richards of this generation. Yeah, you know, I mean he's. He's a not a record star, he's an internet star, you know. Yeah, it's a different world from when you and I. But you know, funny he had a band. He started his own band and he showed his video of the band. And what did he play? Boom, boom you. And he showed his video of the band. And what did he play? Boom bop, boom, boom bop. You know.
Speaker 4:That's what there is. It's about keeping time.
Speaker 3:Well it's, You've got to play with the song you need, you know.
Speaker 4:That's right A lot of these guys with all the speed and technique and fancy stuff. Put them in a studio and see if they can record a song like you did all those years. And it's yeah, it's about feel.
Speaker 3:Except when you're in one of these new bands that you know they're just double bass. You know, one time Parchment Farm from Cactus was one of the biggest, fastest double bass drum gurus around for many years. And these guys do it Parchment Farm's, like a ballad, you know. It's nuts with the feet bouncing around, I can't it's unbelievable how these techniques you know one guy, you know one hand it's crazy because it all started this fast feet stuff with dom famularo, which was my teacher and your friend too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, dom started that really fast stuff going and then all the kids took it, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, dom is a great guy man. I still got on my phone his last text to me. I know Dom for a long, long time since 1975. He used to come to my clinic. He was still working at the Long Island Drum Center as a salesman and a teacher and my mother and father I found just a day before I found out he had cancer. Here in my house I found a scrapbook that my mother used to make a scrapbook of that clinic. Back in the day he wrote such a beautiful letter to my parents. I said wow. I said to him, I said what a beautiful guy. I mean I know we did clinics together, we had a lot of fun together and I said what a beautiful man. Then the next day I found out he had this cancer that was going to kill him.
Speaker 4:I was actually studying with him and he didn't make one of the lessons and I called him up and said what's the matter? And he says I turned yellow and that was. You know, we were writing a book together. I wrote one of the last books he ever did with him.
Speaker 3:Wow, good guy, good guy.
Speaker 1:Well, that's interesting to hear your background there, guy. That Carmine is probably one of your earliest inspirations for ever, even getting behind the kit. And you know, what's funny is, when I text you and ask you about doing this, I was really thinking more along the lines of oh, it would be cool to have a drummer be on the show, but I had no idea that that conversation would come up. So we learn something new every day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I've been lucky in my career. If you get a drummer his age, chances are I had something to do with his growing up. Chances are I had something to do with this growing up, Because those were the days when we were huge. We were there. It was four drummers me, Keith Moon, Mitch Mitchell and who am I missing? I'm missing somebody. Well, this is before Bonzo. This is before Bonzo.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:What can you say? There's three, All right, let's say three and Dino Dinelli. How about that? Two Americans and two British?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you were there. I heard you playing this heavy stuff before I heard Bonham and as soon as I saw that I said okay, I know where this is coming from and you know it's. I don't know I got.
Speaker 3:Bonham his kit. I know he saw my kit. They opened up for us and he saw my big monster kit and he said, oh man, he was playing a little Ringo kit. You know that's probably how we got that fast triplet Because you know a bass drum is faster. Then he wanted a kid like mine. So I called Ludwig, me and Ludwig.
Speaker 3:At the time we were pioneering all kinds of stuff. You know my big drums were like there's no other kid like it. You know there's no other kid like it. And he saw it and said oh man, you think you could help me get an endorsement and get a kid like that. I said I'll call him. So I called Ludwig and I said this kid's going to be. He's playing with Led Zeppelin. I think they're going to be big. You know in the statement of what six day cadets you know. But he got the same kid that I had. And then six months later we went on tour again. We both had the same kit. He had a double bass drum and then Robin and Jimmy said you know what, you're too busy with that. Take the left bass drum away. When we did that, that became the Led Zeppelin drum set.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, wow.
Speaker 3:And the gong. You got to have the gong.
Speaker 4:You got to have the gong too. I had to have for you now. So how was the gear? We all know how the gear is. Now they're overthinking everything with gear. How was it playing on this gear back in the 60s? Because the stands were not real strong and stable.
Speaker 3:Well, I was the guinea pig.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was going to say I used to break everything. I remember one time we played Chicago it was Jess Rotel opening up Led Zeppelin in the middle and Van play Chicago. It was Jetsville Hotel opening up Led Zeppelin in the middle and Vanilla Fudge on the top. So you have, clyde Bunker was the Jetsville Hotel. So I remember when Ludwig, they were all Ludwig guys so they gave us all their Atlas stands, their new Atlas stands and heavy duty and they fixed the problem with the Speed King pedal. So we were just playing, having fun when Clyde was on me and Bonzo stood behind him and threw spitballs at him. And the same thing when Bonzo was on me and Clyde did the same. And obviously they did that to me. But at the end of the night we gave Ludwig back their stands broken. Sure, we said we've got to make these stronger, and they did, and they made them stronger. So to make these stronger, and they did, and they made them stronger.
Speaker 4:So you know it was all pioneering stuff back then I'm going to say I mean heads weren't like they are now.
Speaker 3:No, I used to play the Ludwig Rockers with the silver dot in the middle, you know, and I used to do ads for them and you know it was great stuff. I mean, my kids sounded amazing. And then I realized that the Speed King didn't hit in the middle of the bass drum, no. So I said you know what, let's bring it down to 24-inch where it hit in the middle, but let's add some wood to it. Right? So we added wood to it and made it 15-inch instead of 14. That made them sound bigger. And then they said you know, it's easier for us to make 16-inch. I said, yeah, I like the 15s, they sound good. So then they started making 16-inch bass drums and they said, well, let's make everything bigger. And they came up with a thing called the Power Toms. Yeah, right, so it started from these bass drums that are behind me, you know. So then the Power toms became became. All the drum companies started doing the power drums in different sized toms with the depths. You know it started from Ludwig and the Octa Plus set was 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18. It was like an octave. I had that. I was the second guy to have that. Ronnie Tutte, elvis' drummer, had the other one and I did an ad. They said can you write something like a solo? I wrote a solo called Into it and I wrote you know I would never play a solo like that, but they wanted something. So I gave it to them and they had the picture of me with the Octoplus and I use that today as a T-shirt. It's my 70s shirt and people love it.
Speaker 3:But after a while I got tired of one head. I had one head on the top, so let's put a head on the bottom. So again, it's another first from them. So we put the head on the bottom. So again, there's another first from them. So we put the head on the bottom. Now we got the octopus double-headed, which nobody else had, you know.
Speaker 3:And then that kid ended up being on the cover of my Rod all my Rod Stewart stuff, you know. And then it ended up being on the cover of my book, realistic Rock, which at the time he wrote a book. Yeah, nobody was writing it. You went to it, right, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then, you know, I did the first rock clinic and they tried to get me to do clinics when I was at Vanilla Fudge. I wouldn't do it because I was too much of a pop star. But when I wrote the book they said do the book, do clinics, you'll sell the book. But when I wrote the book I said do the book do clinics, you'll sell the book. I said okay. So I started doing the clinics. I liked it. My first clinic was in Long Island, in Hempstead, for the Sam Ash. We had 800 people there. I said, wow, this is pretty cool. And I got paid from Ludwig. So then you got deals, where every year I make a new deal with Ludwig and I guarantee X amount of clinics and they bought X amount of books. So it turned into a whole different side of my career.
Speaker 1:In the beginning, Carmine, you were really never. You were more of an R&B guy, right, you kind of came up through R&B.
Speaker 3:I started with a horn band. That's interesting. I had a horn band and we used to play clubs in New York. Jimmy Hendrix was playing in New York with us, opposite each other. Leslie West was in a group called the Vagrants. They were the first ones when they played opposite us. I said to these guys they look like vagrants. We used to dress in pinstripe suits and had our hair teased up and looking really cool and we had horns and everything. They just had a five-piece band that looked like bums. Then later on, four or five years later, I met them. They were selling out the Action House, which used to be called, you know, speaks. When you met it, 2,000 people venue wasn't seated, it stood up, they packed it. That's when I joined the Pigeons.
Speaker 3:Mark and Vinnie came to see me. Mark and Timmy came to see me at the Choo Choo Club in New Jersey and said we're doing this experimental band. It's production numbers they do in Long Island. We're looking for a drummer who could sing and has a good foot. We'd like you to join.
Speaker 3:And I was doing fine, I was doing four nights a week playing 300 bucks back in 66. That was good money, you know. And uh, they said, look, this guy, phil's our manager and he'll give you a salary every week whether we work or not. But we just got to work on getting these songs together. So I said, well, let me come down and check him out. When I went there, I said, wow, these guys are great. Mark Stein was an amazing singer, great keyboard player, tim was unbelievable, vinny was a real good guitarist and we all sang and I used to sing doo-wops, so we all had that vibrato like a doo-wop. So I fit it right in there and I said, wow, this is pretty cool. So I went with them and then, nine months later, we had to keep hanging on on the charts. I always said that to them. So you see, I joined the band. Nine months later, we had a song on the charts Well.
Speaker 1:Song on the charts Well what were you listening to in your younger years, the formidable years you know, say your early teens Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. Okay.
Speaker 3:Everybody thinks I'm going to say the Beatles like you. Yeah, I didn't think that. I listened to Gene Krupa, buddy Rich, max Roach, joe Morello. The Gene Krupa story movie had the soundtrack. I listened to Teen Beat by Sandy Nelson, cozy Cole, what was it called? Topsy Part One, topsy Part Two, and then I'd hear R&B, doo-wop. I could play the doo-wop, I could sing the doo-wop, and then I did a lot of R&B, you know, like in 16, 17, 18, 19. That was the years that's when I had the horn band and I played with the opposite, jimi Hendrix, and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:You spoke of Rod Stewart earlier and I think it was somewhere around 1978. The Blondes have More Fun record was released and there was a song called Do you Think I'm Sexy, and that was a 1978,. The Blondes have More Fun record was released and there was a song called Do you Think I'm Sexy, and that was a co-write for you, correct? Was there another co-write? Young Turks?
Speaker 3:was another yeah, young Turks, okay, young Turks, yeah. Then we had some band songs, like the song Blondes have More Fun was like a band song. It never really made any money. It was all right for a while. But I had BBA before that, right, beck Bogan to Peace, and when that broke up I was listening to Ma Vista and Billy Cobham. But I turned Jeff on to that stuff when we were driving the tour.
Speaker 3:So after that broke up I went to England. I spent three months there working with Jeff, which was going to end up being blow by blow. I played on. I still got some stuff on my computer of me playing on those songs. But then we couldn't work out a deal because my manager, phil, wanted it to be a Jeff Beck album and they said, well, we just want it to be a Jeff Beck album, not a Jeff Beck group or just a solo album. So Phil and Steve Weiss I'm sure you know Steve Weiss too right and so Steve Weiss, my dear lawyer they said we want it to be a Jeff Beck feature in Carmine and Peace and I said, no, it's got to be a Jeff Beck album. So they ended up taking me off the album and they couldn't work out a deal either with Epic Records because I was doing an advance for it. So I ended up not on the album.
Speaker 3:And when it went big, big, I was really fucking pissed off. Man. I said I sold 2 million albums and I was at the beginning of this thing. You know, I was at the beginning of a lot of things that I ended up not in it. Or you know, like getting John Bottom the drums and he ends up being the biggest guy in the world. You know stuff like that. So this thing gets huge and I was pissed off and I took Bernard Purdy on tour. And then lately in the last few years I realized if I was playing with Jeff Beck at the time, I wouldn't have joined Rod Stewart. And Rod Stewart really made my career explode in drumming, writing the songs, producing, doing the clinics. Rod used to say if you're going to do a clinic, make an event out of it. Yeah, and I used to do that. I used to do clinics and give money to UNICEF and it gave me press all over the place. I gave a check to UNICEF for $50,000. You know. So I learned a lot from Rod, you know.
Speaker 1:How did you and Rod pair up? How did you come together?
Speaker 3:Well, I knew Rod First of all. Rod and Ronnie Wood came to a Vanilla Fudge recording session before there were anything they walk in. It was like two little boys. They walk in, sat in the corner.
Speaker 3:We're shown before faces on the wall and these groupies in there, and you know, and then, and then they, you know, on the wall. We had these groupies in there and then, with Jeff Bickham, they got big with the Faces and we went on tour with them with Cactus. We did 30 shows with them and we did 30 shows with them. We were wrecking hotels, a groupie scene, we were doing all these crazy things. So I knew them. I knew everybody in the band. I knew the road crew, I knew the tour manager. We used to record hard costs together in trucks and that was crazy. So I was out on the street one day with Sandy Gennaro. Do you know who he is? I don't. Yeah, you know Sandy. Sandy played with, went on to play with well, the girls won't have fun, yeah, and a few other ones. Joan Went on to play with well, the girls want to have fun, which I made up, yeah, yeah, and a few other ones, joan Jett. But I saw him in the street. He said hey, carmen, how you doing? I said what are you doing? He said I just came from auditioning with Rod Stewart. I said, oh great, did you get it? He goes? No. He said you should do it. I said well, good idea, because I was in the middle, I'd just done a KGB record and I didn't like what was going on there and I was ready to move on. So I said who'd be? Context, he gave me the number. It was the tour manager and we wrecked hotels with him and we had all the groupies parties with him. So I knew him and I said so I called him up. His name was Pete. I said Pete, it's Carmine. He goes oh, how you doing? I said good. I said Rod's putting a band together and you don't freaking call me. And he goes you're always busy. I said well, I'm not busy now. I would love to play with Rod. I loved Rod, his voice. He was the best showman, best vocalist of the day back then, you know. So Rod said he called Rod, he was in England. He said I talked to Rod. He said go up to the house. The band is up there, see if you like it. He said to me and I said see if I like it. Yeah, yeah, see if you like it. He said Rod knows how you play, you know. I said okay. So I had a Pantera at the time.
Speaker 3:I was always into cars. I had an old Jaguar, I had a Pantera. I figured, well, I'm going to a garage house. I got to take the cool car. I had a beautiful house in Las Feliz, in Hollywood. You know it was like an old 1924 Spanish house and it's worth a little bit of money. But I said, well, let me take a cool car. I don't know what kind of house Rod had. I pull up, there's these giant gates, two and a half acres in Beverly Hills. I mean just an amazing house. He had a guest house with the garage door open. The band was set up in a six-car garage. I said, wow, I was really impressed. And I pull up and there, like Porsches and Lamborghinis and all these amazing cars in the driveway.
Speaker 3:And then I had known Phil Chen, who played with Rod from the Blow by Blow record. I never got to do it. I played with him for months. And this guy, jim Cregan, I know from when we did a show while I was there with Ian Pace and John Lord and a whole bunch of people. We had to play at him in London. We did two or three nights there. So I got to know him there. So when I walked in I said hi to Phil. I said hi to Jim. There was this guy, gary, I didn't know, the keyboard player, john Jarvis, I didn't know, and this guy, Billy Peake, I didn't know. And this guy, billy Peek, I didn't know. So we chatted. They were playing paddle ball right near the pool. They were enjoying Rod's house.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking to myself, I want to be in this band.
Speaker 3:And we went and played in the garage. We played Chuck Berry, we played some R&B, easy stuff for me. Then Rod came home finally, and then we played with Rod and at the end of it he took me to the side. He said look, it's up to you If you want to be in the band. You got it. I said yeah, I want to be in the band. He said good.
Speaker 3:He said I'll give you a solo every night because I know you have fans out there and I know when you do a solo you leave the fans uppity and high energy and, you know, really not bored. I said thank you and he said so. I said great. He said one problem. I said what's the problem? He goes your name, my name. He says yeah, you're Carmine Apice. You're Carmine Apice. You're Carmine Apice. You're Carmine Apice. You got all these names. I said I want to say you know, I wouldn't be playing in front of 20,000 people when I come out and say you're a drum solo. I want you to, you know, say the right name. So he said what do people mostly call you? Say the right name. So he said what do people mostly call you? I said, well, most people call me Carmine Apice, and I correct them to Apice. He said why don't we go with that?
Speaker 4:Oh, is it Apice? Oh God, I've been saying Apice my whole life.
Speaker 1:Rod did his job.
Speaker 3:Then, right, I still get that shit. 50 years later I'm still on to that bullshit because of my brother. So I said okay. So we went on with an app with a piece. And then Ludwig did an ad. Everyone wants a piece of a piece With a picture of me, a really cool logo with me and it talks about me in a little ad and that was in every rock magazine in the world. So that kind of straightened the name a piece out. That was good for four years with Rod. Then my brother came out with Black Sabbath. He's a papacy.
Speaker 1:Set you back a thousand years right Carmine, unbelievable.
Speaker 3:It's still going on. That's why we drum voice. I had a video company, you know. When DCI started with Steve Gadd, I had a drum clinic. I had a video company. When DCI started with Steve Gadd, I had a drum clinic. I said, why should you put it out? I put it out myself. I started a company with the rest of my family and we started Power Rock Drum Video. So I put out my first video with it. It did really well and we were still doing this drum voice I mean this piece thing.
Speaker 3:We went out and did a clinic tour together, me and my brother Everyone's calling it viniapese, viniapese, carmine, apese, viniapese. And they were so confused so I said to them let's do a video called the drum wars and we'll make like a comedy of it, you know. And then at the end my brother gets on the phone and said they're both wrong. My brother gets on the phone and said they're both wrong, it's Carmine and Vinnie Apeachy. And it was just a goof video. You probably see it on YouTube. It was just a goof video. And then it turned into we did tours together, you know, and that was a lot of fun. We did an album together and it was really great. And then I had a medical problem so I couldn't go back to Europe and that's where the label was and they thought we'd be big and because I couldn't go there anymore, we kind of went away.
Speaker 4:We were on the Rock Legends cruise plane and that was when, you know, you had the problem and you couldn't fly and somebody filled in for you.
Speaker 3:Well, it wasn't. I couldn't fly. I can't be anywhere. I had these hemorrhaging nosebleeds yeah, unbelievable, wow, I almost died. Coming back from Europe. It took me a week to get back. I can't go to Japan. I mean, it really fucked my career up. I was big in Japan. Can't go there, can't go to Europe. I got a call two months ago from this promoter for Cactus to play his 6,000 seat venue, which we did before we sold out, you know, and I couldn't do it. Can't go to South America. I can't go anywhere. I stay in America. But there's enough gigs in America to keep him busy.
Speaker 1:Well, carmine, I would go out on a limb to say that Rod Stewart was probably top five all time for me personally, right In my formidable years.
Speaker 3:Rod, Stewart, I would go further. I would go number one, steve.
Speaker 1:Trang, would you?
Speaker 3:I was going to ask you that question, rod Stewart, who's the other?
Speaker 1:four Steve Trang. You know I'm a big Steven Tyler fan, right? You know, of course, I love Robert Plant, a big Zeppelin fan, so I'd probably be top three.
Speaker 3:For me, rod was always number one. You know why? Because he always had. There was something about him. When the faces to him in 1971, before Aerosmith and all that, he wore the scars and he ran all over the stage. My mother used to the scars and he ran all over the stage. My mother used to love him because he was all over the place. He didn't stand there like Robert Plant, was a great folk, he just stood there. I remember when they opened up for us, I said to him you know, can I tell you something? He goes well. I said maybe you should move around more. I said that to him, to Robert Plant At the time. He was nothing.
Speaker 3:Rod Stewart had the voice. He started that growly voice thing. And that's the problem with today's music. Nobody sounds unique, they're all the same. Back in the day, that's Robert Plant, that's Led Zeppelin, that's Rod Stewart, that's Bad Company, that's Zebra. You can hear differences in everything. Sure, today, you know. That's why companies like Guitar Center, their name is obsolete, mm-hmm. Even the hard rock casinos, their name is obsolete. Yeah, you know. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, that's obsolete. You know it should be. The Music Hall of Fame, that's obsolete. You know it should be the Music Hall of Fame. First of all, you bring rappers and country in there. It's not the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, no more. The hard rock casino and restaurant. You got Lady Gaga up there. It's not hard rock anymore, you know, like Guitar Center and Sam Ash. All those music stores are going out of business. Yeah.
Speaker 1:This world has dumbed down a little bit over the years and you guys have probably seen it more so than I have. But everybody gets a trophy, everybody gets a ribbon these days. So you can't keep certain genres out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because they're going to get their fucking feelings hurt. So I mean that's a whole nother podcast in itself right.
Speaker 3:I thought Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was about influence when it first came out. You know Buddy Holly, you know Bo Diddley, chuck Berry, sure 100%. It's about influence, it's not about how many records they sold. You know, I mean Vanilla Fudge ain't in there. We influenced so many people. We took so many people on tour with us Slime and Family Stone, three Dog Night, led Zeppelin, deep Purple, I mean Janis Joplin, grand Funk, railroad, the list goes on.
Speaker 1:Frank Zappa- All of which are probably in the Hall of Fame. And Vanilla Fudge, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're all in there, but we're not. Yeah, some of them are not either, but still, I thought it was about influence. Meanwhile you got Jeff Beck in there twice, one with the Yardbirds. What? Vanilla Fudge wasn't as influential as the Yardbirds, you know, come on. Yeah, the Yardbirds, you know, come on. Of course Jeff Beck was in it, that's why, and Jimmy Page and the other Clopton was in it, that's why the Yardbirds are in there. But you know what? I don't care. If I turn this camera around, there's all kinds of awards here. Yeah, the Long Island Music Hall of Fame. Yeah, that hits me here, because that's where we started. Yeah, I got the heavy metal thing. You got awards. I got a letter from Fred Astaire up there.
Speaker 1:All right, yeah Well, Guy, you and Carmine have that in common, right? The Long Island Music Hall of Fame, correct, Probably?
Speaker 3:yeah, they did it right.
Speaker 4:Music Hall of Fame. Yeah, it's about the quality of the music. But you know, colin, at the end of the day, when you go to bed at night, you can look at this and go.
Speaker 3:I broke ground for all of this. You know 100%. You know what. I don't care, I really don't care. I mean I got, you know, I got so many awards and albums and you know this award and that award. I got an award from Apex. I got awards from Sabian. I got Fred Astaire. My drum book is the biggest selling rock drum book. I'm fine. I think it's their loss. I would think I was going to say when they brought the Go-Go's in there, I said are you fucking kidding me? The fucking Go-Go's are in the Rock Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3:Why they influenced somebody, I'm sure. Tell me why they weren't the first girl group.
Speaker 1:No, and the runaway runaways came long before them.
Speaker 3:Yeah put the runaways in there. Fine, they were the first experimental punk female group. Fucking gogos, come's, come on.
Speaker 1:Sorry, yeah, that's when I really lost respect, yeah I was gonna say I'd probably be a little disgruntled over that one too man that was like I, I don't even want to be in that with the go-go's for sure.
Speaker 3:You know I'm happy I'm on the rock walk of fame at the guitar center in hollywood. There you go, and they used to have my drum set, the one that I had the big 26-inch bass drums and my red jacket I wore under Ed Sullivan and my gong, in the window there for years. You know, for many, many years Now, the red jacket's in the Rock, the Long Island Hall of Fame. It's in the vanilla fudge window.
Speaker 1:Carmine. Over the years you lent your studio talents to such artists as Paul Stanley of Kiss and, I think, pink Floyd might have. I read something about Pink Floyd, but at heart, right, are you a touring musician at heart and a studio guy? Second, talk to the listeners a little bit about I don't care, okay, as long as you're working right, I don't care. Okay, as long as you're working right, I don't care Okay.
Speaker 3:Look, I wasn't the kind of guy where somebody calls me up and they want me to play on their record. I'd say I shy away from it because I only did records that would help my career. Pink Floyd, paul Stanley. One day I was home and Jeff Beck called me. He said what are you doing? I said I'm in LA. I said I'm just hanging. Why he goes? I'm in the studio with Stanley Clark. We want you to come down and play with us. I said well, my roadie's, I can't get my drums now. Sir's closed or whatever. He said you got any drums at home? I said yeah, I got some drums at home. She said just throw them in the car. So I had like a little kid with one tom, a floor tom, a snare and a 22 bass drum and a couple of cymbals. Put it in the car. I went down. I played rock and roll jelly with Jeff Beck and Stanley Clark.
Speaker 3:Never got paid, you know, but it's fun. Yeah, you know, I just do things I just think for fun. I did Tommy Bolden. I don't think I got paid for that either. You know I never got paid for People. Get Ready with Jeff and Rod. You know I'm not really a studio guy to get paid. You know, I just do it out of the love of the music, you know, and something that is going to create my, something for my career. I'm not just going to do hey, joe schmo calls you, I give you a grand. You want to play on my uh, on my song? Like, no, I don't think so call vinny.
Speaker 3:Well now, vinny appasi right yeah, call my brother and on that.
Speaker 4:And on that note a couple of years I guess it was maybe three or four years ago there was a party at the NAMM show, the RCF Speaker and you played. I played first and then a couple people later, you went up and you played and you just sounded I think you were doing Zeppelin. It sounded so great. And afterwards I was talking to Vinny backstage and I said God damn, your brother sounds as good as he ever did. And he goes, vinny goes. Oh, he just loves to play, just loves to play.
Speaker 3:He said what, he said what.
Speaker 4:He said you just love to play drums. Yeah, I do, I love to play.
Speaker 3:I mean. But you know why In the studio here I don't like to sit down and like just play something, just play or practice on the drums. I'm beyond that now I am what I am. I've seen solos of mine where I said oh man, I forget all about that. That's really good stuff. Why don't I do that anymore? But I have my stick, control book and a drum pad here and every day I do a half hour, 40 minutes of that and I jump onto the treadmill just to keep myself in shape. But to do I go in and I had this guy, jonathan Joseph.
Speaker 3:You know who he is. He played with Jeff Beck for a while. He's a great drummer and he came over. We had lunch. He came over. He said let me hear these drums. So I played them. He goes oh my God, these drums sound amazing. He said I never played double bass drum. It. That's a whole different deal. I said, yeah, it is. So he went on and played and then I went on and played a little bit. But you know that is enjoyable. You just go on and say, oh, let me learn this, let me learn that. You know, I just don't like doing that.
Speaker 1:Guy, what's your take on studio work versus touring? And maybe it's an age thing. The age comes into that mindset of okay, maybe I don't like to travel as much now, like even at 58, you know, I'm not as mobile as I was when I was 30, right. So speak to the listeners a little bit from your perspective about touring, being a touring working drummer versus that of a studio guy.
Speaker 4:Well, I'm totally in a unique situation in that I've been in one band my whole life, whereas Carmine has been in so many different situations, and I am so envious of that, because every experience with different artists is a learning experience where I have to learn it all afterwards. And so I'm finally at the point now where Randy comes in here. He lays down a shitty vocal and guitar track for me and I lay down drum tracks for the album here and I can do it now, but I don't have the confidence in the studio that you have. You just walk in and do it. I mean, I'm a live drummer and I'm, you know, when I get in the studio, I start thinking. As soon as I turn that button on, I start thinking too much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, see we just did another track and check this one out. This is crazy. There's a new release. It just came out a couple few days ago. It's called purple haze by melanie and okay, how's that for an odd couple?
Speaker 3:Oh, that was, she passed away in January and I work a lot with Cleopatra Records, right, the owner of Cleopatra, my buddy. It was his idea to do the Cactus album that we ended up doing. And you know, when I did that Cactus album, we were doing it and I was noticing Foghat and Robin Trower on their blues charts, right. So I told them let's market has a blues on me, so let's call it Temple of Blues, it's okay. So we did a broken blues chart. So number three on Billboard. I said, wow, haven't been on Billboard charts since 1989. This is great. So now for the next album.
Speaker 3:This track they released with Melanie and us is going to be on the next album. And the way we did it was she died and she did this track with an acoustic guitar. So AI lifted her voice out, made her sound younger and sent me the vocal. I got my co-producer, my engineer that mixes my stuff I don't know if you heard that Cactus album, man, that sounds monstrous, it's killer. And he said, well, let me stretch it out and put it onto a click. So he put the vocal onto a click and then he gave it to me and I arranged it with the drum track, right, so it goes.
Speaker 3:So I didn't do that, I did it like you know. And then it goes into the first verse and I did it like a Keith Moon kind of vibe, and then and then this in between goes up-tem, then down, and solos and up tempo and I sent it to the owner. I said what do you think of this? He goes, man, that's awesome. Then we put Tony Franklin on bass, as he was playing with us in Cactus at the time, and my new guitar player, artie Dillon, who's a monster, and we finished it. And my co-producer, he mixed it. It just sounds like King Kong with her voice on it, wow, and she does some screens like Janis Joplin. So it's a crazy way to record. I like challenges like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I like challenges rather than here's the guitar and here's the vocal, here's the bass guitar and the vocal, here's the click. But I like the challenge of here's a vocal, put an arrangement together. Working with Vanilla Fudge really got me arrangement conscious for my whole career, for everything from working with Rod working with BBA arrangement conscious for my whole career, you know, for everything from working with Rod working with BBA. You know songs and songwriting. I wrote songs before I wrote the Evening I'm Sexy. I majored in music in high school. I learned how to play keyboard and not a lot, but enough to write songs. When I wrote the Evening I'm Sexy, I wrote the verses on a keyboard. I wrote the chords to the verses on a keyboard and brought it to Rod. After my buddy Dwayne went to the studio and we put it down, he wrote the bridge, I wrote the verse and Rod wrote the chorus. I mean, I had the chorus and chords were not that, that, that, that, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you brought that back up, carmine, about that song, but the other one that you co-wrote when you were with Rod, the Young Turks tune. Where did the title for that song come from? Can you speak to the listeners?
Speaker 3:that was Rod the deal wasn't mentioned once in the song. No, it wasn't Young.
Speaker 1:Turks is like a rebel kind of dude. It wasn't mentioned once in the song. No, it wasn't, and was that song?
Speaker 3:Young Turks is like a rebel kind of dude Okay.
Speaker 1:Was that written about real people or these fictitious people?
Speaker 3:I'm not sure. Okay, rod's a great storyteller.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 3:Sometimes he's talking about people You're in my heart. He's talking about love of football Yep, parallel to the love of a woman, yeah sure.
Speaker 3:Makes sense, great. But all his songs You're In my Heart. You Think I'm Sexy. Every Picture Tells a Story. Hot Legs, passion, they're all everyday sayings. How was it working with Rod? It was awesome, it was great. It was great, he was great. He was great. He wrote a song and he gave you your publishing and your credit for writing the song and he split it. He wasn't like a hog, he's a good guy. I'm still friends with him. He wrote the introduction to my autobiography and in it he wrote he said great things about me in the forward. He said in it he wrote he said great things about me in the forward and he said in it I fired Carmine. Fuck knows why, you know, but he fired the whole band once and kept me. And then I built the second band. I got Danny Johnson and Jay Davis in that band. Yeah, you know they were doing my solo album. I heard my solo album. It was on his label, you know I mean. So you know I had a lot of connection with Rod you know From the old days.
Speaker 1:You had a question, Guy.
Speaker 4:Well, I was just, you know, thinking a lot of the bands from the 60s and 70s. They changed all the time. They were always breaking up and getting new players. It was just part of the process. You look at some of these drummers like Mickey Waller. He played in so many different bands. Who was that? What drummer? Mickey Waller from the first Beck album?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, he was a session guy back then.
Speaker 4:Then he did it in the 90s and the bands all stayed together. It's the same guys. They never break. It's a different thing altogether. So you come from that period where you were moving around lots of different bands. That was the way it's supposed to be.
Speaker 3:Well, there's things, a reason why. You know the reason why we broke up Vanilla Fudge because guitars were coming more in style and Jeff Beck wanted to play with me and Tim. So we broke up Vanilla Fudge to play with Jeff Beck, and then Jeff got in a car wreck. And then we broke a vanilla fudge to play with Jeff Beck, and then Jeff got in the car wreck and then we had already broken the fudge up. We blew out a massive tour of Japan which nobody did that back in the day, and so we couldn't go back. So we got McCarty and Rusty and we did Cactus as it was, and then Jeff still wanted to play with us. So then we jumped trip from that and we gave it to Dwayne Hitchings, and Mike Pinero was in it. And then you know, and then after.
Speaker 3:Mike Pinero being blue. You know I played with this guy, ray Gomez. You know that I brought into America. He was a great guitar player, played with Stanley Clough, and then, you know, I was in Europe doing that thing with Jeff and that didn't work out. And then I came back to America and then Steve Weiss said there's something going on in LA with Michael Bloomfield, would you like to do it? We needed a bass player. So I got Rick Gretch who played with Blind Fates, and then we went to do that. And then Michael Bloomfield was an idiot and that broke up just in time for me to go to Rod. I that broke up just in time for me to go to Rod.
Speaker 3:You know, I don't know why Rod fired the band and kept me. I knew I kept me because I was, you know, a name, you know, when he fired the whole band and the guy that helped me get fired, I helped him come back into the band because I said to Rod you need a guitar player who knows all the chords I don't know all the chords for everything and rather than having, danny and Jay were already in there, you know and then he brought back the keyboard player too. But he asked me is that cool? I said yeah, it's cool. He was a young guy at the time. He's still with them now.
Speaker 3:You know it's like when I was with Rod it was a band. We had a percentage of the take on the road and all that stuff. Now it's Rod and the band. They're on whatever salary. But you know we used to get press. You know we were talked about in the press. We were compared to the Rolling Stones and stuff like that. I mean there's a drummer with Rod. He's been with them for 35, 40 years. You know what his name is.
Speaker 4:No, thank what his name is. No, thank you yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly so, Carmine, talk to the listeners a little bit about the Guitar Zeus project. What can you tell us about that?
Speaker 3:Well, guitar Zeus 5 started in a funny way. I had a band together. Here we are again. Blue Murder broke up. It didn't make it, john Sykes was all depressed, so I up. It didn't make it, john sikes was all depressed so I was playing with vanilla fudge, but I still liked to record. Grunge just came in and fucked us all. Probably you too fucked us all up. We were all dinosaurs, yeah. So jeff watson was in night ranger.
Speaker 3:Had jeff watson, bob daisley, me and joel and turner good fucking band, yeah you know, wow, we, wow, we were recording at Jeff's house and Jeff just got a record deal. It came out of Night Range. He got a record deal with what's? That guy that gave all the guitarists deals. I forgot his name. Anyway, I said, fuck me, I had a solo deal 10 years ago on the Rod label and why you know know, it takes me. I've been trying for 10 years to get a new deal. You come out of Night Ranger band. You got a deal like that. I said, well, I gotta be a fucking guitar player. I said, yeah, maybe I'll do an album with guitar players. I'll call it Guitar Gods. And we were fucking with the name Zeus for this band. We ended up being called Mother's Army. I don't know why, you know. So I said no, I'll call it Guitar Zeus. I was kidding, we all laughed.
Speaker 3:I went to bed that night. We all stayed at Jeff's house. He had a studio in the house. I went to bed that night and I said, fucking, guitar Zeus, that's a fucking good name. If I can do that, I can get different guitar players that I know on it. I can do PR with guitar magazines, drum magazines, radio, talk about guitar. I said, wow, that's a fucking good idea. So now I need somebody to get a deal. That wasn't easy. It took me two years to do that.
Speaker 3:In those two years I went and did a clinic at the House of Guitars in Rochester. Who else was doing a clinic there? Brian May. This is when Freddie died and Brian didn't know what he was doing. So he went out and did some clinics. So here's my friend. I said hey, brian, I'm going to do this guitar album. Would you play on it? Yeah, man, no problem.
Speaker 3:I ran into Ted Nugent. Same thing Ran into the guys from King's X. I know they were Cactus fans because when we played with Blue Murder they opened up and I went on their bus and had Cactus playing. So they said oh man, we're huge Cactus fans, huge Cactus fans. Okay. So I got those two, I got Doug and I got Ty. So I figured, if I can get all these guys because King's X were like the cool instrumental band they still are Kings X were like the cool instrumental band they still are If I can get those guys Ted and Brian on it, that would draw other people in. Sure enough, I got a deal. I got those guys on first and started drawing other people in. Then it became so crazy.
Speaker 3:I did guitars. There's one that sold 100,000 around the world Not here, everywhere else Japan. I was on the charts in Japan. I was big in Japan with that. Then I got a bigger deal out of Japan with Polydor. The guitars used too, and then that came out around the world did well. Another 100,000 didn't come out here.
Speaker 3:And then I got approached to do a Guitars Use Japan, which is Japanese guys. So I recorded some more songs. Kelly Keeling did that whole thing with me and I had Tony Franklin on it and the concept was a mixture of Soundgarden, blue Murder and the Beatles and that worked. You know, we had a weird tuning sounded like Soundgarden and Blue Murder where Tony Franklin, me and him. It sounded like Blue Murder and Kelly was a great songwriter and I worked with him.
Speaker 3:I'd butcher some of the stuff he would write. Some of the stuff was too much. I'd take stuff out, put stuff in, I'd write stuff on my own and it became a great project. Then I did Guitars of Korea, right. So it turned to a big, you know, a big, a whole big thing, a series. And then I came here. I released it a couple of times with different labels, and a couple of years ago I released the 25th anniversary Guitar Zeus box set CDs and LPs on Deco Records. I'm still waiting for them to send me a royalty check because they printed too many of them. But I'm still waiting for them to send me a royalty check because they printed too many of them. But it's still going. You know it started in 1995.
Speaker 4:I was listening to some of that the other day.
Speaker 3:It's just great stuff it's really some of the great stuff. I mean, when I had, like, my engineer still mixing me now he mixed that stuff he said I need a freaking calculator for this stuff because we had all these wild time signatures and, you know, very progressive.
Speaker 4:You know it's great yeah, yeah, I love it when it's it's hard rock. It's rock, but it's got a little progressive in it, so it's fun yeah, time signatures and the vocals and yeah you the song called Safe.
Speaker 3:It's just like the Beatles. Then you go into middle heavy, heavy duty thing. That's got three bars of four and then a bar of seven and then you got Neil Sean playing the solo, but it's real heavy and then it comes back to the light Beatles thing. It's really wild stuff playing. I love writing it, producing it. I had Steven Seagal on it, I had John McEnroe on it. It was crazy stuff. Wow, it became my brand.
Speaker 1:It's funny you brought the police up, because I've always been a huge police fan. Their work is so intricate. But speak to the drumming style, if you can, or if you would like, about Stuart Copeland of the police.
Speaker 3:He's awesome. He's like a jazz rock player that plays rock and kinds of percussion. You know he writes film scores and he said, yeah, that's the snare drum I played Every breath you take on it. He goes, yeah, play it and I'm playing it and he's behind me playing a conga. You know he's just a fun guy, really into rhythms and drums and you could tell from him he was playing on the Police. It's awesome stuff. I mean on their first album, great. Every album was great, yeah, great.
Speaker 1:What was your take on the police Guy? Did you follow them much coming up or did you have any opinions on Stuart Copeland and his playing?
Speaker 4:The band that does things a little different I want to listen to. I mean, I don't think the guy ever played two and four anywhere. It was all over the place, you know. But that's what was creative about it. It was all over the place, you know, but that's what was creative about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you see, the concept with reggae Is the two and four Is on the bass drum, right, right and then the uppers. The top of your hands Are One and thirds Are doing other things, melodic things, but the bass drum's always.
Speaker 3:You know You're basically basing it Off that concept. You know I love playing, like today, I play reggae. I love it. I can do all kinds of stuff. I put some of it like in different things like Days and Nights and Guitar Zeus. The rhythm in that is a bit off the wall, got a little bit of reggae in it, you know. And I did an album with Pat Travis Travis and a piece TNA. It's called Travis and a piece TNA. It's called Travis and a piece TNA you get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, yeah, TNA.
Speaker 3:And we have a song that I wrote called I Can't Get it Out Some. I can't remember the lyrics, but I wrote it and I've had this melody for a long time and I wrote the rest of the song and the chorus went into reggae and it was great. I freaking loved it. You know I just love doing that kind of stuff. It's really really good stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess these days, Carmine, you're out on the road, or you, I guess you're out on the road with a group called Tonight's the Night, correct? Yes, talk a little bit about that project, what you have going on with them about that project, what you have going on with them.
Speaker 3:You know, in 2010 or 13 or something you know, I thought about. You know, I did all these songs with Rod. I co-wrote, played on the background vocals and played on a range, and I never get to play these songs anymore. So I talked to guys that play with Rod. I had Danny Johnson, I had Phil Chin, I had Jimmy Crespo, myself and this guy that played Alan played keyboards with Billy Squire and I put together a Rod show called the Rod Experience and it was pretty cool. We went to China and went all over the place and then it got too hard to book it because there were no agents back then to book this stuff and they were too expensive to fly people all into New York and rehearse or whatever. So I broke it up and then, like a couple of years ago, I saw Rod down here and he did about 12, 13 songs and out of them, eight songs of them was the ones I was involved in and I'm watching the audience go crazy. I said you know what I never get to play these songs.
Speaker 3:So I said I'm going to start it again with the same singer around here and it's Larding and a good musician, so here it makes it easy to rehearse. I did that. A lot of these guys were like, you know, a guy who played keyboard with Nico McBrain in an Iron Maiden tribute and they weren't really into Rod, you know. So I did that. We did three, four gigs. It didn't work out In the interim. I'm friends with this chick named Katra Reikman. She played sax with Rod 14 years. I went to LA. We had lunch. I said what are you doing? She goes. I'm playing with this guy. It's a Rod show. I go how is he? He goes. He's fucking amazing. He's just like Rod. I said, really. He said, matter of fact, he wants to talk to you. See if you could help him get some gigs in Europe. I know you book Europe. I said, yeah, okay. So I was talking to him. I tried to help him get gigs in Europe.
Speaker 3:So in the meanwhile, when my thing failed, I thought see what this guy's about you know. So I said, hey, you playing anywhere in Florida? He goes yeah, I'm playing in the villages up in. Where's it like? In Lakeland? Lakeland, I think. So I said, let me, I'll come up and see you. So my friend has a limo company. He said he's a drummer. He said I'll come up with you. I said okay. So we went up and I met him. I'm watching the show and I said, holy shit, this guy's just like Rod.
Speaker 3:So then we worked it out. I was going to go up on stage and play songs that I, you know, you're in my heart hot legs, passion, feeling I'm sexy. Young Turks just off the cuff. I walked out on stage, the audience went crazy and then we played them and they went crazy again and he comes off the stage and come out. He goes man, why don't we be partners? I said, there you go. So now we're really working on it to make it really a tremendous show. I put together a background video to go with the show.
Speaker 3:Okay, you know, and, uh, you know, with my show I had these white scrims. Everything was white on the stage, like we used to do with Rod, and we're not doing, we're not that point yet but we put balloons all over the stage. We kick out he's kick out anyway soccer balls and made him. We blow up soccer balls, you know. And then you know just silly stuff. But when Rod did a show it was all a party. Yeah, it was a big party, you know with the faces. He had a bar on a freaking stage.
Speaker 1:The lead singer for that project, carmine. His name is Rob R-O-B. Rob Rob Cottle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everywhere we go, people think he's Rod Stewart, even if he ain't Rod Stewart. Yeah, we Go out to a restaurant. He takes me. Are you like Rod? He go. That guy there wrote the evening I'm sexy and play drums, I know. Yeah, so we take pictures with everybody.
Speaker 1:It's amazing how, how scary. I've seen a few good Rod Stewart impersonators right, and Rob is on another level.
Speaker 2:This guy every guy.
Speaker 3:every mannerism is like Rod Stewart the walk is like crazy Me and Katja in there when I come out.
Speaker 1:It's like a Rod Stewart show, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I come out and I say, hey, how you doing. I said you know, I played with Rod seven years and Katja played 14 years. So we have 21 years of Rod Stewart on the stage tonight. Wow, and I go, you ready to rock, yeah, you ready to rock, and we start with Hot Legs, you know. And then we just go, we do your Keepin' Hangin' On, because I did that with Rod.
Speaker 3:Rod said to me one day you know, I would really have loved to do your Keepin' Hangin' On the way you guys did it. He said it was so good the emotion. I said let's do it. I said I'm in the band, it's a good excuse. He said okay, so we did it. It's on Footloose and Fancy Free. It's amazing. There's a full orchestra in it and everything, wow. So I said why don't we do that? We did it. It got one of the most receptive applause of all the song. You know.
Speaker 3:Now we built it up to a point where it goes ba-bam-ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum. There ain't nothing I can do about it. You know. I said this is what we should do. I said we should do this with. We did it kind of with Rod. The band would stop just before that. It'd be. They'd say they'd go and everybody would freeze and there would be one light just on Rod and he'd be on the ground and then he'd go there and nothing I can do about it, and then go to the keyboard and then a whole other part. So we got to do that. Except now he goes on the ground and he don't say nothing. Yet everybody freezes and then catcher sax player grabs his cape that we have. We go over there and we put it on him and she stands there like an attitude a woman with an attitude and jumps it off. It's like James Brown. He goes, there's nothing I can do about it, and then he goes. It's awesome.
Speaker 1:People love it. That's awesome, you it, that's awesome, you know what I stumbled into the real big show yeah I would love this is a show I would love to see that, and I think the first time that I was ever exposed to cat show was um, a song that she was doing with rod at the royal albert hall, I think it was, I Don't Want to Talk About it and she stands up out of her chair to play that sax solo and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Speaker 3:It's amazing. Tonight's the night, you know, britt Ecklund did all that French speaking at the end. She speaks three languages, so at that point she grabs a mic and does all the French speaking in the mic. It's really authentic, I mean. And now in January 9th we have a gig in LA, in Palm Springs, with a 60-piece orchestra. So right now I'm in the middle of writing with the writer arrangements for the band, like we just did. You Keep Me Hanging On some of it. Arrangements for the band, like we just did. You keep me hanging on some of it. And when we did the other thing, my friend's kid and his two kids were in a special performing arts school play violins. So he took and wrote out the parts that the orchestra did on Rod's record and they did it with us and it sounded amazing. So he is writing all the charts for us. So he's going to write the charts for the full orchestra. Wow, just like the Rod record.
Speaker 3:That would be amazing Some guys have all the Lux of our Young Turks. Tonight's Tonight we're having the orchestra do its own little piece and then come into Tonight's Tonight. It's going to be amazing. And then we'll own the charts, which is great. We can do other things. I know Randy does that stuff with orchestras. Yeah symphonies. I'd like to do some of these Rod show with a few orchestras.
Speaker 4:Randy's been in that company for 20 years. Oh yeah, recently got Randy. Yeah, he got him to write some zebra scores and we did some shows.
Speaker 3:It's not even playing on an orchestra man. I love Randy, he's a good guy. I was blown away when I found out Phil managed you guys. I said, oh my God, I didn't know that. I thought he was done managing. And you guys came along.
Speaker 1:Can you speak of upcoming shows? You spoke of the LA Palm Springs. Are there any other key shows that you want to share with the listeners? We have.
Speaker 3:If you go on my website, call it a piecenet, they're all on there. We're building a new website. This is the part of the thing. I'm remarketing everything for them. You know he never had a logo. We've got logos and we've got merchandise. He never did merch. You know he has 800 people at a gig. Never did merch. So we're starting that.
Speaker 3:It's weird to find out what kind of merch these kind of people would buy. It's not like having a band like Zebra of Vanilla, fudge or Cactus. This is a different thing. They're looking at it as a tribute band. I look at it as a show. So I'm trying to find different things that might work, but anyway. So we got on my website.
Speaker 3:At comicpiececom, we got this weekend at the Stadium Theater in Rhode Island, providence area, and then we got a gig in Ohio on October 12th and another gig at the Riviera Theater up in Rochester, new York. It's winding down. We had a bunch of gigs through the year. He told us it's going to take a week I mean a year to build this, to get more money and build everything with you and Thatcher and everything. So before it was just Rod Cottle Tonight's Tonight. Now it's Rod the Tonight's Tonight show with Rod Cottle playing Rod, featuring Carmine Apice. Rod'sottle Tonight's the Night. Now it's Rod. The Tonight's the Night show with Rod Cottle playing Rod, featuring Carmine Apice. Rod's drummer and catcher, rod's sax player, you know. So it's like that's how we're marketing it now.
Speaker 1:Okay, and where can the listeners find the Tonight's the Night project?
Speaker 3:on social media you can try. It's either the Rod Tribute, rodtributecom or tonightstonightnet. Okay, like I said, we're still working on it. We did some filming in the villages. That's where I saw him first. We just played there again and the response was much better than when I was there the first time and we videoed everything. So we got some video to put on there and we got a video of Catcher with Rod. We got a video of me Passion.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to sell these t-shirts a sex police t-shirt and what they are. If you're found with a woman, you hear it coming up the street, up the hotel, going sex police, sex police, and everybody wore a sex police t-shirt. So I made sex police shirts and hats for the guys that are going bald, usually at that age. That's awesome Sex police hats. And I tell the story about that before we do Passion, because I say, if you look at the passion video, everybody's wearing sex police t-shirts except Rod, you know. And then you know we talk about that and we bring like a roadie out wearing a sex police t-shirt and we sold a few of those. So I guess I'm trying to figure it out. But you know we make it fun. I tell stories in the show which these other odd shows can't do that.
Speaker 3:Catra should tell stories but she hasn't yet. But you know, two weeks ago she went out on a date with Rod because Rod's wife had to go back to England so he had an event to go to. He called her and said can you come with me, I don't want to go by myself. She went with him and she showed him pictures of what we're doing. That's awesome. And he said that guy looks like me, dresses like me. And she said he sounds like you. It's pretty spooky. I'd like to see some movie, like some video of it. So we sent him some video. So if he ever gets back to us he might like it. If he does, we're going to ask him for two sentences endorsing it.
Speaker 1:That would be awesome. That would be awesome.
Speaker 3:Because this is by far the best rod show. I mean call it tribute, it's a rod show. She'd call it a rod, a rod tribute. The best rod show. That's what we should call it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, guy, thank you for joining to co-host this evening. It's always a great show when I can have one of the best behind the kit on to add color in your area of expertise. So thank you for that and for your continued friendship over the past three years. Carmine, thank you for being here as well. I certainly am honored to have you on with me this evening. You are a revered musician and I want to personally thank you for all your contributions to the craft. Again, thank you for spending over an hour of your life with us. I ask the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast on Facebook at Backstage Pass Radio Podcast on Instagram at Backstage Pass Radio and on the website at BackstagePassRadiocom. You guys remember to take care of yourselves and each other and we will see you right back here on the next episode of Backstage Pass Radio.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of Backstage Pass Radio. Make sure to follow Randy on Facebook and Instagram at RandyHulseyMusic, and on Twitter at RHulseyMusic. Also make sure to like, subscribe and turn on alerts for upcoming podcasts. If you enjoyed the podcast, make sure to share the link with a friend and tell them Backstage Pass Radio is the best show on the web for everything music. We'll see you next time right here on Backstage Pass Radio.
