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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 30, 2006 1:30:48 GMT -5
Carmine AppiceInterview by Nightwatcher February 16, 2006When compiling a list of rock drum legends, Carmine Appice certainly has to be near the top of any credible list. Before John Bonham, Ian Paice or Neal Peart, there was Appice. A very strong argument could be made that, Keith Moon and Ginger Baker aside, he was one of the original heavy drummers. Ever since his pioneering work with Vanilla Fudge, with whom he rocketed to the upper reaches of the charts, reaching #6 on the Billboard Singles Charts in 1968 with an inspired, psychedelicized heavy slab of proto metal cover version of The Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On," the Staten Island born drummer has been rightly considered one of the finest ever to sit behind the kit. A huge influence on many other all time greats, including Bonham, Appice's stature cannot beunderestimated. In fact, either directly or indirectly his influence can be heard in pretty much any heavy rock drummer to come on the scene ever since. Throughout seminal 70s work with Cactus, Beck, Bogert & Appice, KGB, Tommy Bolin and The Rod Stewart Band (For whom he co wrote such huge hits such as "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" and Young Turks"), continuing throughout the 80s with King Kobra and Blue Murder, a stint with Ozzy Osbourne, as well as countless sessions. Most notably with Pink Floyd on their 'Momentary Lapse Of Reason' album, also appearing on albums by Ted Nugent, Jeff Beck, Eddie Money, Ron Wood and Rick Derringer, remaining extremely in demand throughout the decade. Continuing into the 90s with Mother's Army, more sessions and hugely popular, record setting drum clinics, the turn of the millennium has seen a flurry of activity, as appearances on releases by Heaven & Earth, John Sykes, Tim Bogert, Steve Fister and his own 'Guitar Zeus' and 'Travers & Appice' projects fully attest to. Never one to rest on his laurels, Appice has continued to forge a path that serves to reaffirm his status as one of the all time greats. An extremely astute businessman, he's been able to parlay his musical prowess into an exemplary, hugely profitable career that has spanned nearly 40 years in the spotlight with no sign of slowing down anytime soon.
Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Carmine while he was in Los Angeles to discuss not only his long storied career, but also upcoming projects such as the highly anticipated Cactus reunion, slated for this summer at the prestigious Sweden Rock Festival, the long awaited stateside release of the 'Guitar Zeus' albums (Featuring performances by some of rock's most highly regarded axemen, including Brian May, Slash, Ted Nugent, Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather and Neal Schon among many others), his work with the reformed Vanilla Fudge, Travers & Appice, possible Blue Murder & BB&A reunions, plus much, much more. Read on as we talk with one of the true legends of rock, Carmine Appice...
Special thanks to Billy James at Glass Onyon PR for coordinating and a BIG thanks to Carmine for doing this interview for Rock N Roll Universe! Rock N Roll Universe : First of all Carmine, we'd like to thank you for taking the time out to talk with us, we really appreciate it... Carmine Appice : Okay, no problem! RNRU : Looking at your website, I see that you're working on the Carmine Appice Project, 'Six String Heroes'.. CA : What that mostly is, I did a project called 'Guitar Zeus.' We were going to change the name of that, but we're actually not going to do that... I was going to call it 'Six String Heroes' in America, because we never released it here. It'd be great for Europe too, because we've remastered the whole thing, edited it, added a couple of tracks to it. In Europe, the only one that really came out was the first one. But we decided to go with “The Ultimate Guitar Zeus" instead!! RNRU : So basically this is the same as the 'Guitar Zeus' project, with a few new tracks added? CA : Yeah, it's 'Guitar Zeus' possibly with a new name. Like I said, we never really released it here in America, and we're getting it together. As a matter of fact, I just got an e-mail from a label, and we all agreed not to change the name. So, we're NOW going to call it 'The Ultimate Guitar Zeus.' We're working on a promotion gig in New York to promote it as well. RNRU : With Travers & Appice, you also have a new DVD out 'Live At The House Of Blues' and a new studio album 'Bazooka'. How do you feel those turned out? CA : Yeah, we've got a new studio album 'Bazooka' that came out in October. So, we've done two studio albums and a DVD in a really short span. That's a lot of stuff. (Laughs) The CD that goes with the DVD, in America, they released that separately, too, so actually we have three CD's and a DVD. Unfortunately, where the business is at today, it's good that you can do that, because you don't have to sign with a label and sign everything away. These indie labels, you sign for one record, so you can go with more than one label for more than one project. We put the 'Bazooka' album out after the DVD and 'It Takes A Lot Of Balls' (our first studio CD). I mean we like to play, like to record. I think little by little, we'll build a following by releasing product. I think the 'Takes A Lot Of Balls' album came out really great. I think we did a really great job. We wrote it in probably two and a half weeks and it has a lot of power to it. Then we went out on tour, we did twenty something dates in Europe, and around ten dates in America. We gave it a bit of backing, and we had some fun doing it. The DVD was recorded right before we went to Europe. Once we got the deal, for the 'It Takes A Lot Of Balls' album, Escapi offered us a DVD deal. I think the sound and the performances were really great. I wanted a bit more hand held cameras -- I thought video-wise, it could've been done better -- instead of just stationary cameras. There was a mixup somewhere along the line, the company wanted an old looking, 70s kind of TV show where they had stationary cameras. That's not what the record company wanted. They wanted high energy, which you could get with the hand held, running around the stage. All in all, it came out pretty good, but it could always be better. Then Cleopatra came up to us and said, "We'd like you to do a new record. Do your hits, with a modern flavor, maybe a couple of covers, and some new ones, have a few guests on it, and we'll put it out." That happened about a year ago, so Pat and I put our heads together, with Chuck Wright, Lanny Cordola and Tony Franklin. We went into the studio and put together 'Bazooka.' Again, it took about nine days. What we waited on was to get Bobby Kimball and Steve Lukather, both from TOTO, and Rick Derringer. That took time, so by the time we got them we were actually running late. Basically Pat Regan was busy mixing Ritchie Blackmore's album, so it took awhile to get him to mix it. As a matter of fact, Pat and I were on tour, with Vanilla Fudge/Pat Travers in Canada when he was mixing it. It was kind of a drag, because we couldn't be here. But we did like a really high tech mixing session. When he got the album done, he uploaded it to a website, we downloaded it, made a CD and listened to it in different cars on the road. Then we called him up by cell phone, and told him, "The drums need this, the vocals need that, the guitars need this." Then he'd fix it, and send it again. But there were times when we couldn't get onto the web to download it, so a day or two would go by. It was a bit of a nightmare. But, all in all it came out pretty good. Had I been there like usual, I always hang around during the mixing on all my projects with Pat. Pat's been doing my mixing since 1997!!. Usually I sit there, and I'm a believer of having the bass drum loud, then the snare, guitars, then vocals, sort of like an old R&B mix. That's how the first Travers & Appice was done, it sounded killer, the guitars were fat, it was done in analog. So the 'Bazooka' album, I could've heard a few changes in some of the mixes, but it was starting to get late, so we had to kind of Sh*t or get off the pot . (Laughs) So, we let it go. I'll tell you what, I hadn't heard it in about a month, I put it on in my car, and it sounded pretty damn good. Pat Regan is a great producer/mixer. RNRU : You recently played with Vanilla Fudge for a tribute to The Doors, which is supposed to be aired on VH1 Classics 'Decades Live' show. That also features Pat Travers and The Doors Of The 21st Century, or DC 21. What was that like, and when is that scheduled to be aired? CA : Well, there's a problem going on with that show. As you know, John Densmore is suing the Doors Of The 21st Century, and he won a judgement in the courts, when we were on tour in the middle of the Canadian tour, they wanted the band (The Doors) to stop touring. Which was really a drag because it was a three band Canadian tour and all three would have to stop touring. It effected many people working on and for the tour. Somehow we got through the whole tour thanks to our manager, Tom. The 'Decades' thing, is a tribute to The Doors, Densmore won't sign off on the songs. So, it's sort of in limbo, but I heard something that it might be out in April. But I had taken my own video camera, and I filmed some stuff. What an incredible show. We went up and played "You Keep Me Hangin' On," and "She's Not There." Plus we played "Love Her Madly," which we totally changed to a Vanilla Fudge type of ballad. Really soulful and cool. The audience was going absolutely beserko. There were a couple of weird things. Mark Stein said he remembered playing the song on the SAME SHOW with the Doors at The Seattle Pop Festival, where Jim Morrison was five feet away, and he watched him play it. He said, "Maybe if we thought hard enough, we could get Jim's spirit in the room." When we started playing "Hanging On," a bolt of lightning hit the building and knocked out the electricity. That was kind of weird. Then, it happened again, when we tried to redo it. RNRU : That's certainly spooky... CA : Yeah, it is spooky. Throughout the whole Doors set it was going on the whole time. Then, at the end we all got up, The Doors, Pat Travers, The Fudge, and played the Edwin Starr song "War." That was pretty cool. I went up and played with Pat, we did "Boom, Boom" and John Sebastian played harmonica. Tony Franklin played bass. So, it's a really cool show. It had a lot of energy, the audience was going crazy. It was the very first 'Decades' show that they did. It should've been on in October. I don't know. Then Tim Bogert had a motorcycle accident in August. Because of the whole thing John Densmore created, we had to stop touring, so Tim went home when he should've been out touring. He started riding his motorcycle, got into a wreck and has been hurt ever since. He couldn't do anything until March. We had some festivals in South America booked, a tour in Australia in February that we had to cancel. RNRU : How's Tim doing now? CA : He's doing okay. He's ready to go now. So now they're working on shows for the summer. In the meanwhile, we got an offer and a gig with Cactus for the Sweden Rock Festival. A Cactus reunion. RNRU : Besides you and Tim, who else is going to be in the reformed Cactus band? CA : Jim McCarty, who's the original guitarist, he also played with The Buddy Miles Express and Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels, who wrote such great songs like "Devil With A Blue Dress On." Pete French, who was in the second Cactus band, is on vocals. We had the original band for a couple of years, then Jim left the band, then Atlantic told us to get rid of the singer, too. So the next time that we went out it was with Pete French, we did a record with him as well. Our original singer, Rusty Day, is dead, so there's no way we can actually do a full reunion with the original members. So, the next best thing is to get Pete in. So, Pete's going to do it. We're doing that show, and we're trying to put together maybe a few other shows. RNRU : Randy Pratt from The Lizards is reportedly going to be playing harmonica with the band as well, is that correct? CA : Yeah, we're going to be having Randy playing harmonica as well there. He is a great harmonica player and a BIG Cactus Fan!! RNRU : What inspired you to put Cactus back together after all these years? CA : Well, the festival called us. They emailed me, I turned them onto my manager, and they said, "We want to put Cactus on the show". I guess that's something they do over there. They get bands who have broken up to get back together for one show. They wouldn't take Vanilla Fudge, they wanted Cactus. RNRU : Did they offer you a lot of cash to do it? CA : Enough to do it. It's not like a hundred grand or anything, but it's enough to do it. It's well over four times what we used to get. So, we thought we'd do it just for fun. RNRU : Besides the show at Sweden Rock, would you be interested in doing another Cactus studio album? CA : Well, we actually have an album we did at Randy Pratt's studio that we've been recording for the last two or three years. We've got twelve songs down, and we need a singer with the lyrics. Once that happens, we'll probably do some additional guitars, percussion and background vocals. Then maybe get it out. Supposedly, Escapi Music is interested in doing that. They want to get it out to coincide with the tour. They'd better hurry up. They were supposed to give us an offer for it a month ago. I said, "Well, if you're going to be offering, I'll put a contract together." Then start recording at Randy's and get it done. It'll only take maybe a couple of weeks to finish. We'll see where it goes. RNRU : Originally you and Tim basically broke up Cactus to join up with Jeff Beck, which turned into Beck, Bogert & Appice. Are there any regrets about doing that in the first place? CA : Well, you know, when we actually broke up Cactus, we had the second Cactus band, and were on tour with Rod Stewart and The Faces. Rod had heard that we were going to break the band up and go with Jeff. He said, "You know what? You should keep Cactus together. I think if you keep it together you'll have longevity and you guys will do really well. Because if you go with Jeff, he's just going to f*ck you up." Rod and Jeff didn't get along for a long time. So, we didn't listen, and he was right. All we did were a couple of tours and an album with Jeff. It wasn't a longevity thing. It sort of stopped the momentum of our career, mine and Tim's. After it broke up, it sort of sucked, and Tim was really fed up at the time after what we went through with Jeff. That kind of screwed us up. In the long run, had we kept Cactus together, we probably would've been one of the premier jam bands, with all this jam band stuff that's been really big over the last ten years. We were right there. We used to tour with The Allman Brothers. The same kind of band. So, we probably would've continued and been a big jam band. (Laughs) Who knows, we could've been Phish. I think that was the regret. The BB&A thing was great at the time, it went Top 10, the album just went gold 2 years ago, we toured the world, but we really didn't make any money. We made a good household name for ourselves, but we needed another record to keep it going. You never know, maybe this year might be a reunion for all my bands. Hey, The Cream got back together. (Laughs) RNRU : Looking back on the 'BB&A' album, how do you feel that holds up today? CA : I think it holds up pretty well. It doesn't have the sonics of today, but I'll tell you what, all the playing on that record is still probably as good as any playing on rock records today. We laid the foundation for a lot of that style of playing. We're trying to get the Japanese 'Live' album out worldwide. We're working with Epic on that. That's another thing that Escapi Music wants to give us an offer on, because Jeff isn't signed to Epic anymore, I don't think. So, that leaves it open to do it anywhere, with anybody. RNRU : You've said before that you weren't really pleased with how the 'BB&A Live' album came out, that there was another show that you recorded that was a lot better.. CA : Yeah, I believe that the second live album that was recorded in London on the very last show has a much better sound and the music was a bit cooler. There's new songs on there. The things that we didn't like about the Japan album... I mean obviously it's stood up to the test of time, but Number 1, it was done on an 8 track. Number 2, they didn't do any editing or mixing of any vocals. There were a couple of bloopers in there that were left in there. BB&A was the kind of band where we would experiment every night and jam. We didn't know what we were going to do. When it was on it was amazing, and when it was off it sucked. But there was a consistency also. We wouldn't go below a certain level. In our eyes, even if we thought a night sucked, everyone still said we were great. But, when we had magic, then it was really ridiculous. RNRU : Well, you were taking chances every night improvising... CA : When you do that, sometimes a guy's doing a solo, you look and you think it's the end, you go to a vocal and he's still soloing. That's the kind of stuff that was happening on the BB&A 'Live In Japan' album. There's a lot of that going on. We'd go for something, Tim went and Jeff didn't, or Jeff went and Tim didn't, or something like that. When that happens, if the rest of the song's good you fix it, edit it. We did a few fix ups on the Live DVD (Travers & Appice), you probably'd never notice it, because we did a good job. (Laughs) Everybody that does a live record does a little fixing up. But these guys didn't do anything, so that's why we hated it. We heard it and went, "Oh my God, this sucks." Then it went on to sell 100,000 records in Japan straight away. Now I listen to it, in retrospect I still hear the mistakes, but it is a great album. It caught the timeless playing and spontaneity of BB&A, which a lot of people like RUSH listened to, so many bands... Van Halen, Kings X, you could go on and on. To me, Jeff and Tim at the time, we didn't want something like that going out. So we said, "Good, it's only in Japan." We didn't know that it was going to be one of the biggest import records and now CD's. Now, what I want to do is get the 'Live at The London Rainbow,' have the 'Live In Japan' and put them together. Put a couple of tracks from the 2nd BB&A album that never saw the light of day. Put out a whole new package. 'Beck Bogert & Appice Live... Delayed, But Live.' (Laughs) It's funny, BB&A have so many bootlegs out as well, and that makes the legacy bigger, too. When Tim and I were in Japan in '99, to do the tour with Char, Bogert & Appice, we did Beck Bogert & Appice songs. We did "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," "Evil" from Cactus, "Parchman Farm"... a little of everything. We didn't do "Keep Me Hangin' On," but we did a song called "Satisfied," which is a Beck Bogert & Appice song from the 2nd album that never came out. But it was on so many bootlegs that the whole audience knew it. We played The Budokan, 8,000 people, and they all knew the song from the bootleg. It's pretty funny, you've got a big hit on a bootleg, and you've made not a dime on it. So, we put it on the 'Char, Bogert & Appice' live record. But, for instance, that would be a good song and one other for the live BB&A record. It'd be a great CD. RNRU : It'd be great if you could do like the Allman Brothers are doing and put out all the archival stuff.. CA : Well, Jeff Beck's the kind of guy that really needs to like everything he puts out…, but he agreed to release the 'BB&A Live In Japan' worldwide. I was talking to his manager, then I went to Epic, and they gave me a good CD copy of 'BB&A Live At The London Rainbow.' There's some of it on the member's area of my website. I didn't really give out the titles or the names, just instrumentals. But, you can hear them, and they're pretty damn good. So, we might be able to, that's what we were trying to do is get an offer from Escapi. And my manager's been talking to Escapi Music. What we're looking to do is try and get an offer first from somebody. When I went to see The Cream, I called Jeff Beck up before and after the show and said, "Dude, if we put our trio back together, we'd blow everybody away. These guys have no energy, BB&A would blow them off the stage." They had a lot of hits, but it doesn't matter. We had a lot of hits, too. So, maybe there is a seed planted.
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 30, 2006 1:32:03 GMT -5
RNRU : Speaking of Jeff Beck, you've been quoted that of all the guitarists you've worked with he's your favorite. Would you consider working with Jeff again in a band situation?
CA : I would consider working with Jeff again. Jeff is definitely my favorite. He's the original. Not only because he's the original, but because he's so creative and different from all the other guys of that time. I used to know Jimi Hendrix really well and Jimi said his favorite guitarist was Jeff. It wasn't Eric, it wasn't Jimmy Page, it was Beck. At the end of one of Jimi's songs he did "Rice Pudding." He used to call Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin, "Excess baggage." I'd say, "What do you mean, 'excess baggage'?" He'd say, "Oh, they ripped off from all of us, put it on their albums, now they're selling platinum, it's a rip off." That was right from Jimi's mouth to my ears. I went, "Holy crap."(Laughs) Then Led Zeppelin went on to be the biggest band in the world. But, for me, Jeff was always the most innovative and wildest of the guitarists. Page, Clapton, Beck... Clapton was always going towards being a black bluesman. Jeff said to me about the Cream show. "First of all, Eric's using the wrong equipment." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Look at The Cream, he used to play a Gibson with a couple stacks of Marshalls, now he's playing a Fender Strat with a Fender amp... that ain't the Cream." When I went to see the show here in New York, he was right. I met Lenny Kravitz there, and he said the same thing. From what I hear the DVD has more energy than the Garden show. I listened to the CD, I have the DVD, but I haven't even looked at it yet. I'm not even inspired to look at it. We used to play with The Cream, many times, and Cream were about jamming. Like BB&A, jamming. It's like taking a song like "Lady" and doing it just like the record. We don't do that. It's about the jamming. So what have you got? You've got "Crossroads" slowed down, with no jamming, "Spoonful" done like a shuffle, with no jam... THAT ain't The Cream. It's like The Cream: "Let's make 10 million dollars." (Laughs) I've gotta give Eric credit though, a lot of credit, because he put that all together. From what I understand, Jack and Ginger hate each other. I think Eric did it just to give the guys like a last big payday. Jack's been sick, but I'll tell you what, Jack sang his ass off, played great harmonica, he just didn't jam on his bass. Every other time I've seen him, I saw him with Ringo, three times and he was tremendous. I've done clinics with Ginger, and he was great at the clinics. So I don't know what the hell's going on with him, but he was making mistakes. I was really disappointed. I went there real excited to see The Cream. What I saw was a skeleton of The Cream. The three guys on the stage, the audience's going crazy because Cream was on the stage. They could've farted and got a standing ovation. (Laughs) That's the sad thing about it was that they gave them the respect of what they've done over the years, but the band wasn't anywhere near what it was like. We put Vanilla Fudge together, we got all four original members, we got reviews that said out energy level was amazing. We kicked ass. We blew The Doors off the stage in some of the reviews, they also said we were the best band on the show. We put out energy. We're the same age as them, but we put out energy. Tim's over 60, Vinnie's over 60, I'm 59 and Mark Stein's 59. We're in the same age bracket as Cream, give or take a year or two. I wouldn't have a band go on the stage if it had no energy. Not that it sucked, but it had no energy, and that's what it was missing. They're all great musicians, Jack's a great singer, but there's no energy there. And no Cream jams!!
We just went to see The Black Crowes on New Years Eve, and you get used to seeing the big video screen where you can watch the hands playing. They didn't have that this time, and they had Trey Anastasio from Phish, who's supposed to be the "jam master." It reminded me of Vinnie Martel from The Fudge. There was some great stuff being played, but the jams just kept going and going. They peaked and peaked and peaked, then they kept going! Then the peaks started going downhill. I didn't know why they kept missing the peak. But I would've liked to have seen it on the video screen, seen his hands, what he was playing. Because he was playing some cool stuff. The drummer was good, the whole band was good. They had some killer blues. That's what I'm saying about Cactus and BB&A, with the jam bands it's the same concept we had. We had songs, the melodies were there, but we made the songs specifically so we could get to the playing. That's how his songs were built. I said, "Wow, that's just like we used to do." I never really saw Phish, because I heard they were a jam band. I never really listened to them either.
RNRU : What do you think of the whole jam band genre? Do you think that's a good thing? CA : Well, I think it's a good thing because it keeps the musicians in the foreground. Look at Warren Haynes from The Allman Brothers and Gov't Mule. I saw him the very first tour he did, one of the first dates, 10, 12 years ago when he played in northern California. I met him and he's like "Oh, I loved you in Cactus and BB&A." He's a fan. He's a big guy, not very image concious. But he went out and started Gov't Mule and they were playing 3 nights at The Beacon Theater. That's like 8,000 people. Sold out. I'm going, "God, how does he do that?" It's cool. I listened to a few of his albums in Europe with Randy Pratt, and it reminded me of the stuff we did with Cactus and BB&A. It's a lot of jamming.
RNRU : It's got that heaviness too, Gov't Mule is definitely more like the early 70's heavy bands than just a jam band which sets them apart..
CA : Exactly. His stuff sounds like Cactus and BB&A. The heavy guitar, heavy drums with a lot of playing. I've always had those bands with Tim, and there's no bass players like Tim. Tim plays lead bass. Most bass players pretty much lock it in, move it around a little bit. Just like The Black Crowes with Trey. The drummer and Trey were mostly the ones doing all the jamming. In our band it was all of us. What they do was more like R&B, they weren't heavy at all. On the verge of jazz rock, but not heavy jazz rock like Mahavishnu, or Jeff's 'Blow By Blow', which was on that album.
RNRU : Did any of your drum parts actually make it on that album?
CA : Not by me. My drum parts got on there though. (Laughs) "Scatterbrain" was my drum part. I didn't get credit, but that was my drum part. There were a few other ones, not "Freeway Jam," though. Actually, I'm going to be getting CD's of me on "Blow By Blow." Randy has them in his studio. We bumped down from some of my tapes. When I do, I'm going to put a few of the tracks in the member's area on my website.
RNRU : Jeff left both you and Tim in Atlanta during the BB&A U.S. Tour, going back to England to chase after his girlfriend at the time. Did he ever apologize to you for doing that?
CA : I don't remember. We were so pissed off at that. But we knew that was part of his makeup. We shouldn't really get pissed off, because it's not something we didn't know might happen. Because it happened before with the Jeff Beck Group, according to Rod. He left, we were pissed, me and Tim weren't used to doing tours anyway. Our bands, Vanilla Fudge and Cactus, we used to work Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday then go home for Monday and Tuesday. We were always working every week, but we didn't go out and do tours unless we were going out to the West Coast for about three weeks, then we'd come back home. Then we recorded on the days when we were home. We'd fly our gear there and fly it back. We'd piss money away, it was unbelievable. (Laughs) But, being in a group like with Jeff Beck, because he lives in England, you may go and do a 3 month tour, then you'd have 3 months off. You might get together for a month and try and write songs, record, but usually you'd have a 2 month span where you didn't do anything. He'd be building cars, and he loved that. So we weren't used to touring anyway like that. So, when we did finally wait 2 months to go out and tour, we're out for a week, everything's sold out, all of a sudden we wake up in Atlanta and Jeff went home. (Laughs) We waited 2 months to do this, so that's why we were really pissed off about it. He left not only us, but he left the whole road crew, and a semi full of equipment. It was a sold out show that night. Tim gets pissed and holds a grudge, but I'm more like, "Oh fuck it, let's move on." I remember going to England after that, but after that it just wasn't the same. We ended up having to do a French tour about a month after, and I rode in the car with Jeff, and Tim rode with the Tour Manager. That's when we started listening to Billy Cobham and Mahavishnu. I was listening to it, and I turned Jeff onto it. As a matter of fact, when we were in France, me, Jeff and Tim went to see Mahavishnu, because they'd never seen them. I'd seen them a lot of times, but Jeff was just blown away. They were the ultimate jam band.
RNRU : Speaking of touring, you mentioned Hendrix before, and back in the early days of Vanilla Fudge, you guys toured as part of a package tour with the Experience. Reportedly Vanilla Fudge blew Hendrix off the stage, and Jimi begged to get off the tour. As you spent a lot of time with Jimi, did you ever get a chance to jam with him?
CA : Yeah, we did jam. We used to go down to The Scene, in New York, which was a little club where everybody used to go. I jammed down there a few times with him, then after The Scene, Jimi used to have The Record Plant on 24 hour hold all the time. A few times he'd go around to The Record Plant, and different people would jam. I jammed with Jimi at The Record Plant. I don't know where the tapes are, or what happened to them. Probably somewhere in the Hendrix estate. Maybe they were never finished, they were just jams. We did a few jams like that, off the wall kind of stuff, but we never did a jam on stage in front of the audience during the tour.
RNRU : What was Jimi like as a person?
CA : He was a really soft spoken guy. He was always smoking or drinking. One time we shared the same groupie, in Tampa. I was fucking her, then I found out he was fucking her. (Laughs) We talked about it. He was a really nice guy, soft spoken, kind of quiet. Until he went on stage, then he was an animal. But he was always doing that. When I met him, before he was Jimi Hendrix, he was Jimmy James. He used to play clubs in New York. A couple of times we played on the same gig, one time we ended up in a black prostitute's apartment smoking pot, talking about one day we'll make it. That was about 1964.
RNRU : Was his playing as developed then as it later became at that point?
CA : Yeah, pretty much. There was another guy that I used to play with, Ron Leejack, who ended up playing in Cactus, he played like Jimi. There were a couple of guys who played like that in New York, that fuzz tone, taking The Yardbirds to the next level. Ron had an old Telly (Fender Telecaster), he'd get a couple pretty good sized amps then he'd cut holes in the speakers, and get the same type of sound that Jimi had. He never made it, except as part of Wicked Lester, which also had Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, and was in Cactus for a while. But he was a great guitar player. He was in my band, we were called Thursday's Children. We used to go around, and we used to play opposite Hendrix.
RNRU : Led Zeppelin opened up for Vanilla Fudge during their first tour of the U.S. Both you and Tim have been quoted as saying Zeppelin were the first band that could blow the Fudge off the stage. What was that like, seeing them for the first time?
CA : Well, Zeppelin were a brand new band. We didn't know at the time, when they first came out. The very first show, they were playing and people were yelling, "Bring On the Fudge!" It was a sold out show, and I found out later, about 2 years ago, that we ended up paying half their fee that night. So they owe us $750 for the last 35 years. Compounded with interest, that's probably worth a decent amount of money. (Laughs) They were put on the show, we were already sold out when they were added. It was Vanilla Fudge with special guests Spirit. We were headlining at the time, we'd just had 3 albums in the Top 100, 2 in the Top 15 with a Top 5 single. We were on Ed Sullivan, we were rockin'. The gig was already sold out, the agent put them on the show, it was Barry Fey who was promoting. When they were on, they were yelling, "Bring On The Fudge!" Nobody really cared until the album came out. They were a brand new band. We saw the potential in them, we thought the album was tremendous. In the beginning they only got to play about a half hour. When I met John Bonham, he told me I was one of his idols. He'd hit the skin and grab the cymbals like I did in "Hangin' On." He'd do that, and look at me and laugh. And I'd laugh. Who knew that he was gonna be the biggest rock drummer that ever lived? The stuff that he took from me like that would pass on to other generations, and they think that he originated it. I actually had an experience with Tommy Lee like that, when Tommy was opening up for me when I was in Ozzy. I saw him doing that. I said, "Hey dude, where'd you get that?" He said, "I got it from John Bonham." I said, "Well, indirectly you got it from me." He said, "No way dude, I got it from Bonzo." I told him "Yeah, but Bonzo got it from me when I was in Vanilla Fudge." And he didn't believe me. So I told him, "When we get off this tour you come to my house and I'm going to show you a couple of Ed Sullivan shows." So I showed him that show for that, and he's like, "When was this?" I said, "This was February 1968, and Led Zeppelin wasn't even out yet." He was like, "Oh man, you DID start that." Yeah, I did. Then I showed him the second Ed Sullivan show, which has the big blonde bass drum, which on the end of that if you listen to it it sounds very similar to "Rock And Roll." That was 4 years before "Rock And Roll." I played him that, too. I said, "What does this sound like?" He said, "It sounds like the end of "Rock And Roll." "Yeah Tommy that was 4 years before "Rock And Roll." So, I made a believer out of him. That's all fun and everything, but we didn't know. I remember walking down Santa Monica Boulevard telling Robert Plant he should move around more. Their album just came out, we were headliners, so we had the right to talk to these young, green guys when they'd say, "What do you think of the band?" It was pretty wild, then they became amazing. Then they toured with us again 6 months later, and this time were were equal billing. It took them 6 months to get to where we were. That was fun, because one time me and Tim went up with them, they'd play "How Many More Times," with all this stuff going back and forth between Jimmy Page and Robert. Then Bonzo and John Paul would walk off the stage, then come back on. One night they said, "Hey, why don't you and Tim go up there?" So, we went up there with Jimmy and Robert. That was fun.
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 30, 2006 1:34:44 GMT -5
RNRU : Did you get a sense from the beginning that they were going to be huge?
CA : Well, I remember calling Ludwig when John saw my big blonde drumset. He said, "Aww man, I would love to get some drums from Ludwig." I called Ludwig and said, "These guys are really gonna be big, you should give this guy John Bonham an endorsement." So, on my word they gave him an endorsement (this was before their album came out). Those days they didn't give a lot of endorsements. They had me, Dino Danelli, Mitch Mitchell, and Ginger Baker, and a couple of other ones. It's not like now, any given big drum company has two, three hundred endorsements. Back then, it was a handful. Back then they only gave drums out to guys who could really sell something. So, on my word they gave John the same set up that I had. I had the 26 inch bass drums, ONE BIG tom in the middle, the gong, MY whole septup. John got the same set that I did, except when he got his gong, they had a new gong stand that Paiste made. It wasn't something that John designed. They changed the design at the company. So he got that big stand where the gong stood up, which I got as well right after that. But, he was in England, closer to Switzerland, where Paiste was, so he got it before I did. But the drumset, he used the same set I did on that '69 tour. He had the same exact kit with the double bass drum. Then Robert and Jimmy said after that tour they didn't want him to use the double bass anymore. So he took one bass drum off then it left him... like if you go to that DVD they have, on disc 1, you see the blonde Ludwig kit with the tall tom tom which was pretty big. That's the kit I got him. The same as my kit. Then after that he kept pretty much the same set up. You look at the Vanilla Fudge, "Hangin' On," that was the 26 bass drum on that, so the proof is in the pudding. I sort of got my due a bit in John's book called 'Thunder Of Drums'. I read the book and in it he tells his friends when he met me how jazzed he was, that I was his idol, blah blah blah... how he got the drums, it's got a picture of me in there, and it basically gave me my due to what I am to John Bonham. Hey, if you're going to influence anybody, let it be John Bonham. At least I can say that I influenced the guy who became the biggest rock drummer. It's just like Neal Peart, he's a great drummer, but because he's been in RUSH for so long, it makes his popularity. There's a lot of great drummers who don't get to make it at all. He's been in RUSH for so many years, his popularity is huge. If Zeppelin broke up and Bonzo went to another place, the thing wouldn't have been as big.
RNRU : Also in Bonham's case, since he died there's a whole mythological thing going that's made him larger than life, and that factors in as well...
CA : Yeah, that's what happens to people when they die. Look at James Dean, he's been bigger since he died than he ever was when he was alive. Same thing with Jimi Hendrix. Jimi, I know as a fact wasn't doing very well. His album sales were gone. He was playing all these gigs, like at The Isle Of Wight, he went on really late at night. He was headlining the festival, but by the time he got on the crowd was gone. Just like Woodstock, it was such a big event for Hendrix, but you see it and there was nobody there by the time he played.
RNRU : Yeah, by the time he played there were reportedly only 20,000 people left at the festival..
CA : It was actually less than that. Less than 20,000, I think it was under 5.000 by the time he got on stage. Don't quote me on that, but when you look at the 'Woodstock' movie, there was wall to wall people, a wave, a mountain or sea of people, then when he went on, you see a few people scattered here and there. (Laughs) Hendrix wasn't wealthy, he lived day to day, he pissed all the money away. From what I heard, his manager ripped him off, and he was in debt. Now, he's got a 100, 200 million dollar estate. So, now he's bigger than life. So John Bonham died at his prime, Zeppelin broke up, but you know that band still makes millions of dollars a year. Unbelievable.
RNRU : Coming from your heavy rock background with Vanilla Fudge and Cactus, was there any disappointment on your part that Rod didn't rock out as hard as he did when he was with the Jeff Beck Group?
CA : Well, Rod did rock out. The Rod band was great, it was just a different kind of band. Like a Rolling Stones type of band. When I joined Rod, Rod said, "Play like you did in Cactus. I'll give you a solo every night, I know you have fans out there." I had to learn to play a little behind the beat, which was a bit different. Basically, it worked out great. I was with him 7 years, we wrote "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" and "Young Turks," I was with him at the peak of his career. We'd play The Forum, Madison Square Garden multiple nights, we'd go to Australia and play to 50,000 people, same in Japan. It was an amazing time in my career. It's great to know that everything you record and put on a record that you're going to sell 5, 10 million records. You can get a house full of Gold records from all over the world. It's a different sort of feeling. You get sort of jaded too, because you don't really know what's going on. Sort of like Billy Joel's drummer, Liberty Devitto, who was with Billy for 30 years, made good money from him, and now Billy fired him. And he doesn't know how to make a living in the music industry. You get jaded from all this stuff, from being with a giant act, and you don't actually realize that there's life outside of this Rod Stewart camp, or Rod Stewart's success. And most of it isn't as successful as Rod Stewart, or Billy Joel. (Laughs) So, you get spoiled. Like, when I came out of Rod's band, I released a solo album on Rod's label, and I didn't know there were radio consultants, that you've got to hire people to get on the radio. I didn't know any of that stuff. All I knew when I was with Rod, we released songs and everything went to #1. Everything was taken care of. It was amazing.
I'd go out to clinics, I was free to do all this stuff in the clinic world that was never done before. I went out on a tour called 'Drums On Wheels,' and I had two roadies, a drumset, I was doing record breaking attendance everywhere. I was the only rock drummer doing it, pretty much. I opened up the clinic market to rock drummers with Ludwig. They wanted me to do it in '71. They wanted me to do it in '69, but I never did it until '71. Had I done it in '69, I really would've had a head start on everybody. But I did it in '71, and at that point I was the only rock drummer doing drum clinics. The first couple I did were at Sam Ash in New York, and there were like 1,000 people. It was like, "Holy crap!" I remember going to Auckland, New Zealand and holding the attendance record with 1,000 people there. I went to Europe in 1980, for a 25 city Ludwig clinic tour, then right after that, a week later, I started a 25 city Rod Stewart tour of the same cities. I had done 10,000 people on my clinic tour. I had a publicist, donated money to UNICEF, all these things. Then Rod came to one of my clinics, and there was a crowd of like 500 people, and he said, "This is the way to do it. whenever you do one of these, make it an event. Don't just make it a drum clinic." Do press, do whatever you can to make it big. I had a manager in the 80's, who was a monster manger for publicity. When I went with him, he was with AUCOIN, with KISS. They said, "Look, everyone knows you're a great drummer but now we're going to make you into a personality." They did. From the 80's, all the press that they generated... you have to realize, I haven't been on the US charts since 1989. But I've still got a career that generates money. We just signed the biggest book deal in instructional books with Alfred Music. The biggest drum instruction book deal that anyone's ever signed. In the 6 figues range, it's unbelievable. It's a lot of fun. I was around, luckily, when a lot of stuff was virgin. We took the initiative to say, "Hey, let's make this happen. Let's take it to the extreme." I gave $50,000 in a two year period to UNICEF from my drum clinics. Now it's different, everything's overdone. But we're still doing some. My brother Vinnie and me are going to try and do a thing called 'Drum Wars,' which is going to be a DVD coming out of a video we released a couple of years ago. We're going to experiment this year and do a couple of shows on the East Coast, and have no other instruments besides drums. Just make it a kickass drum show. I did that in the 80's too, with my 'Drum Off.' Then Guitar Center ripped me off. They called it 'Guitar Center Drum Off'. "Drum Off" was my term. The 'Carmine Appice Drum Off' I did in L.A. for 5 years, and I did it nationally for a few years. Then I stopped doing it for a few years, next thing I know Guitar Center calls up, "We're doing a 'Guitar Center Drum Off,' do you want to be a judge?" "No, that's my name." They said, "Yeah, well we're doing it with Guitar Center." I told them, "I should've copyrighted it then." (Laughs)
RNRU : You've got to do things to keep your career going, it's a rough business..
CA : Yeah, like I was sitting down with Liberty Devitto the other day, sitting down with my label, they're releasing the 'Guitar Zeus' thing, the Travers/Appice DVD, and we're talking about that, talking about doing a gig in Hawaii with Travers & Appice, the 'Drum Wars' DVD... and we're sitting there. I know Liberty just got out of Billy's band, and he's trying to get his act together. I said, "You're getting a close view of what I have to do to make a living." I can't depend on one band, where I can make a million bucks a year. I have to have royalties, book deals, record deals, touring and everything else. I love it all, and knock on wood, I have royalties. A lot of drummers don't. Guys like Kenny Aronoff, I talked to him in Japan, we were in the same hotel, and he said, "I'd love to be where you are." And I said, "I'd love to be where YOU are, you're always on tour with the greatest acts, playing with all these great people." He said, "Yeah, but you know what? If I don't tour, I don't make any money. I don't have any royalties from anywhere."
RNRU : Now, you're definitely the exception, but do you feel that in most cases drummers get the shaft in those types of situations?
CA : Yeah, drummers get screwed. They do, and that's what Liberty's book is going to be about. I'm writing a book about my life, I haven't got a deal for it yet, but I'm putting stories together. Mine's going to be about my life, the old days with Hendrix, The Fudge, etc, but his thing is how drummers get screwed. They write a song in the room and the drummer doesn't get any credit. For me, it doesn't happen that much because I've always been involved in songwriting. I had my own band, like in Cactus we split the songwriting 4 ways. Even when I did write songs on my own I split it 4 ways. The BB&A song, "Oh To Love You." I wrote that song. Jeff didn't write it, Tim didn't write it, I wrote it. The harmonies, everything. For 'Guitar Zeus,' Kelly Keeling and I wrote mostly everything. Pat and I wrote mostly everything for Travers/Appice, with Greg Hampton for the 'It Takes A Lot Of Balls' album. On the new record we wrote a little bit with Chuck Wright and Lanny Cordola. I'm always involved in songwriting. With Rod, there were a couple of band songs. I gave him "Young Turks" and "Sexy" with the co-writing. I've been lucky. Neal Peart's lucky that way, he gets involved in all the songwriting. Guys like Tommy Aldridge don't have any songwriting, or Kenny Aronoff. My brother Vinnie has a little bit with Dio. They were like band songs. You'd be surprised at how many of these drummers don't have any songwriting royalties. It's really a shame. So, if you get sick, and can't tour, you're fucked. The good thing with owning the copyrights is you can sell them for a lot of money. I could probably sell the copyright of my drum book for a lot of money. Last year it sold more than it's ever sold. It's security, basically, for my kids. I'm chasing down royalties now. The King Kobra record we did on MTM, 'Trashed,' we didn't get a dime for publishing. The Travers & Appice we didn't get a dime. For Derringer, Bogert & Appice we didn't get a dime. I've got the Harry Fox Agency chasing that stuff down in Europe. We've had to chase down Cactus royalties, and in the end it was worth it because it was big money. We do get money from BB&A, every 2 or 3 years we get a good chunk of money, but it'd be nice if they'd release 'Live In Japan' all around the world. It'd bring a lot of royalties. BB&A was certified Gold a few years ago, in America anyway, so it went Gold in other countries as well.
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 30, 2006 1:36:10 GMT -5
RNRU : What's your opinion on Rod's latest "Crooner" image that he's been doing lately?
CA : It's ridiculous. First of all, he doesn't have the voice. I don't know who's buying it, or why, but I don't think he sounds good. But, he did it for fun, he did it because that's what he wanted to do. It took off, it's unbelievable, they're advertising it a lot on TV. I saw him this past year in New York, and he looked like he didn't know what to do when the solo came. He can't run around like he did doing rock. So, he looked like he was uncomfortable. Obviously he must've been, because he couldn't do the whole show in that style. He had a 2 hour show, and only 20 minutes of it was that.
RNRU : You did the tour with Ozzy Osbourne on the 'Bark At The Moon' tour. What was that like for you, and was Ozzy as fried out then as he seems to be today?
CA : No, Ozzy used to get drunk, and there were some times when he'd do a lot of interviews and he'd get fried before he got onstage. He's say, "Carmine, I'm knackered." I'd say, "C'mon Oz, we're going on stage, Motley Crue's gonna kick our ass." But it was a great experience. We played good sized buildings, then again, he gave me a great drum solo, the band was tremendous, Bob Daisley on bass, Jake E. Lee, Don Airey, great musicians all of them. I've always said Ozzy was the weakest part of the band. (Laughs) But he's always been with all his bands. But, he's an icon. I give credit to Sharon. She did an amazing job in making him into a dynasty. I used to sit with him in the early '80's at The Rainbow and he couldn't even talk. He'd be so out of it, you'd be talking to him, next thing you'd turn around and his face would be in a bowl of spaghetti. She took that, and turned it into a success in every media. She was really ruthless but brilliant. She fired people, musicans sued her over royalties. She fired me, I sued them and won. Ozzy told me, "Look, I know you have problems with my Missus, but I hope we can still be friends." We were friends. All through that, he always said he wanted to be an actor. So, I guess he got his little chance on his TV show. But by then he was fried. When that came out, I couldn't believe that he or she let that out because it made him look so stupid, and he wasn't. He was an intelligent guy. He was out of it a lot, but he was an intelligent guy. He wasn't stupid. That show made him look stupid. I talked to one of Ozzy's sound or light guys and I asked, "Doesn't he care what he looks like?" He looked to me and said, "When did Ozzy care about anything?" I said, "You're right, he never did care." (Laughs) Because he was so out of it he never knew what was going on. But during the daytime, before he started drinking, he was more alert and more honest. That's when you'd see the real Ozzy and he was a cool guy. I used to really love Ozzy. I haven't seen him or talked to him in a long time, but he was always a nice guy.
RNRU : The reality show really kind of tore down a lot of credibility that he had with the hard rock/metal community unfortunately..
CA : Yeah, but look what she built. She built up Ozzfest, it's unbelievable. It's amazing what she did. She got cancer... I guess we were always considered "the enemy" with Sharon after that because I sued her. What she said in the press. The same thing she said about Billy Corgan, "He left for medical reasons, he made me sick." When I heard her say that about him I said, "God, can't you think up a new one? You said that 20 years ago about me." But had I stayed with them it would've been great. Because when I went with them, I told Ozzy and Sharon, "I'm looking for a home, I don't want to be jumping around anymore I want to stay with a band." I had offers to go out on tour with other people for big money, but I decided to go with them because they were looking for someone to stay with them, too. I let her know that I always got a lot of press in America, which I did at the time. They didn't like the fact that I was doing sold out master classes in every market, making a lot of money from it. I had my own press agent, I had my own t-shirts on tour, which she okay'd the deal. You can read about that in the Motley Crue book, 'The Dirt.' She cut the heads off of my t shirts, hundreds of my t shirts. How long does that take to do? (Laughs) I couldn't believe one day my one drum riser didn't work, when I had a full page ad in the Cincinnati paper that talked about the drum solo was the biggest effect. It wasn't my idea, it was their idea. I said that in the article. That they designed it, I'm just the one that plays it. But it is the biggest effect in the show. Unfortunately that night, it didn't work. So, I asked Bob Daisley, "Hey Bob, would she sabotage her own show to try and make me look stupid?" Bob looked at me and said, "Oh, without a doubt." So, next thing I know, 4 weeks later, maybe sooner, she fired me. She said, "Your name is too big, you need to start your own band. We need someone who's more of a sideman, like Tommy Aldridge." Gee thanks. (Laughs)
RNRU : What do you think of that whole situation with the re-recording of Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake's parts on the 'Blizzard Of Ozz' and 'Diary of A Madman' albums, where they replaced them with other musicians for the re-releases?
CA : I think that's so ridiculous. You know what, I know Bob really well. You know, you look at that first album, it's called the 'Blizzard of Ozz'. It wasn't called 'The Blizzard Of Ozz' by Ozzy Osbourne. The 2nd album, same thing, right? That was the name of the BAND. The 4 people in the band, they were supposed to get a 25 percent share of the artist's royalties. But because Sharon was in charge, she made it into more of an Ozzy Osbourne deal. Everything went through their company. They got screwed. That album sold 10 million copies. Same thing with 'Bark At The Moon.' My deal with them for 'Bark At The Moon' worldwide was for every 500,000 albums that was sold, I was supposed to get a big bonus. I figured that out, and it would've turned into a lot of money for me had I stayed with the band. But that was probably the way she worked it. I don't know, maybe she thought she'd promise me the deal then get rid of me, then they'd renege on the deal. But anyway, Bob and Lee got screwed out of that, so they sued them. And they lost, too. It was a drag, I don't know how they lost. It's ridculous. It's like going in and taking the rhythm section off a Rolling Stones song, and putting some new guy on it. Number 1, it's not the same, and number 2, they did it digitally, with Pro Tools, so it totally didn't have the same sound. They didn't play the same parts, and it's a rip off of the audience. I can hear them on the radio when they play them, and you can hear the difference. Those are classic albums. It's just like taking Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr off the fuckin' Beatles albums. Or John Bonham and John Paul Jones off the first Led Zeppelin album and putting two new guys on it. You lose the magic, it's gone, and I thought that was in really bad taste.
RNRU : We were talking about Ozzy's show before. It seems everybody and their mother has had or is going to have some sort of reality show. Would you ever consider doing anything like that?
CA : Well, actually we're talking about something like that. I can't really talk about it yet until it actually happens. But there is some talk about doing some sort of reality show. But with more control. You've got to have some control over it. I do like reality radio. I have a thing called 'Carmine's Weather Report/Where In The World Is Carmine?' where I talk to people. Wherever I am, like last week I was with Liberty Devitto and Kenny Aronson, and Ritchie Scarlett from Mountain. I put them on the phone with different stations. Kind of like, "Hey what are you doin'? I'm here at Radio Station Free FM, in New York, K Rock in Howard Stern's old studio, The Radio Chick's taken it over... I've got Ritchie Scarlett from Mountain... " And we put them on the air over the phone to all these stations. Sometimes I call from Hawaii, I've called them from Sweden. That's fun. That helps promote my projects. My stations start off in St. Louis; Fairbanks, Alaska; Daytona; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Youngstown, Ohio; Bethlehem, PA, then Vegas and Hawaii. We talk to people all over the country.
RNRU : You're constantly busy Carmine...
CA : I've learned that if you want to be a drummer... like my brother Vinnie, when he was with Dio, I was always on the phone lining stuff up. He used to bust my balls and go, "Hey, why don't you get an implant? You're always on the phone". But now that he's out of Dio, and making a living in the music business... he does computers also, fixes them, sets up networks... but he's always on the phone, too. I tell him, "See? Now you understand." (Laughs) If you want to make a living, you do what you've got to do, or get out of the business and go into real estate. So, you've got to be on the phone. I've been lucky, I've always had a manager behind me where a lot of drummers don't. I've always found it easier to have a manager.
RNRU : There's been a lot of talk recently concerning some sort of Blue Murder reunion. Are there any plans for that?
CA : Let's put it this way. Me, Tony and John got together, I think in October, we played, and it was magic. We were gonna try and do some shows in Japan in December, but John had dates booked with Thin Lizzy, they were confirmed, then they weren't, but he didn't know what he was doing. So we couldn't do them. We started talking, we really liked it. So far, we're all up to doing it, it's just a matter of finding the right time. Hopefully this year, we can find a month where we can do some shows, or maybe even do a new record. We're talking about it seriously. We'll probably start it off in Japan. That'll be fun. I love Tony, he's my favorite bass player. I've probably played with Tony more than anyone. We brought him out on tour with us in Travers & Appice, in Europe, and Pat loved him too. Tony's my favorite bass player to play with. On the 'Guitar Zeus' albums, he plays incredible.
RNRU : The first album you guys did, the 'Blue Murder' album was incredible. Any thoughts on why it wasn't a huge hit in the States at the time?
CA : We had no management. In this business, especially in the last 15 years, everything has to fall in place. You needed the record company, the agencies, the managers... the manager was the key. The manager controlled everything, to make sure this happened, that happened. Honestly, we didn't have a manager. We had the greatest label, we had Bob Rock producing, the first project he released on his own. We had Mike Fraser, we had John Kalodner, we had all the pieces. Between Me, Tony and John we had great songwriting, John was coming out of the Whitesnake thing. We were chart mates. I was on the 'Momentary Lapse Of Reason' album with Pink Floyd, and John was on 'Whitesnake.' We were right next to each other in the Top 10. Tony had just finished up with The Firm, and it was just amazing.
RNRU : You would've thought that would've been a shoe in for a Whitesnake type of success at that time...
CA : John thinks that Geffen might've blown it because Coverdale told them not to make it successful. I don't think so. I think it was the fact that we had no management at the helm. We were out on the Bon Jovi tour, we did 13, 14 shows with Bon Jovi. We were out there jamming like these jam bands do, and people were eating it up. The girls were lovin' it. We were getting great reactions, but we had no manager man, period. We fired the manager we had, and me and John were taking care of things. I would talk to Jeff in the publicity department, and John was talking to the promotion department. We had no manager. My old manager Alan Miller was sort of in the background coaching us. We had no manager, then finally when we got one, it was too late. We had pushed MTV to play "Valley Of The Kings" a lot. They didn't want to. What Kalodner wanted to do was to release that album with that song as the lead song. Then the second song, "Jelly Roll," would be the big one that everyone slammed, including MTV. But we had spent so much money on the video that John and the band wanted to see it on MTV. Kalodner pressured, from what I remember, but John says he doesn't remember this, I think as a band we pressured Kalodner to have MTV push it. And it was the wrong song. So when it didn't happen on MTV, when they released "Jelly Roll," we got it to the Top 5 requests and airplay in the country at the time, we were getting sales. We needed MTV behind it, and they wouldn't get behind it. They already shot their wad on "Valley Of The Kings." So that's basically what happened I think. But it all comes down to management. If we'd had a strong manager managing us, then we would've been fucking huge everywhere.
In Japan, where it really didn't make a difference where you had a manager or not, I was always big in Japan. John was big with Whitesnake, Tony was big in The Firm, and it just took off. We went to Japan, and on the first tour we did there we played to 12,000 people in Tokyo. In Osaka we played the Festival Hall where BB&A was recorded live, and we played 2 nights there sold out. That was 7,000 people. We were huge there, then we never went back. John went back as Blue Murder without me or Tony, and it sort of backfired on him. Everyone told him to change the name, because that wasn't Blue Murder. So he did, then he started being 'Sykes' over there. He was successful, he was doing a couple thousand, maybe four thousand people in Tokyo. But at that time me and Tony were doing Pearl, which was a Japanese group, and we were doing big business, too. Our first album broke into the Japanese charts at number 7. It went Gold, and we sold 170,000 records there. We were on TV all the time with our video. We did about 5, 6 thousand people in Tokyo. We kept our image going, too. Then I did my 'Guitar Zeus' albums over there, so I was getting a great following over there. My following was so great that they put me in 'Burnn!', or one of those over there. They did a thing where they just took my moustache, they were taking body parts of famous rock stars, where you had to identify them, and they took my moustache. (Laughs) It was pretty funny. There was another big magazine, 'Masters Of Rock' that I was in an issue, and the issue before me the 'Master Of Rock' was Jimmy Page. Then, next one was me. I was the 'Master Of Rock.' I went, "Wow." So we really built the thing up in Japan. Now I haven't been back to Japan since '99. The last time I played there was with Tim Bogert and Char. We played The Budokan and two other gigs. We did about 11,000 people in Tokyo. So, if we did do a Blue Murder thing, we'd be back at the top of the heap over there. Even crazier would be a BB&A tour. BB&A in Japan, I have no doubt we could do the Tokyo Dome. There's even a nightclub there in Tokyo called BBA. It's just like those records just keep selling and selling. One time we were offered, and there was almost a commercial. We got Jeff to okay it. They wanted us to do a commercial for a car and use the song "Satisfy" from the second album as the track. All they wanted us to do was appear in the commercial for 30 seconds. They were going to pay us a fortune for that. Unfortunately, the guy who put it together, he was an advertising agent, we didn't know that he didn't have Toyota on board. But this guy was in a big advertising company. So we ended up not doing it. I ended up making a fool of myself instead.I told them not to do that again unless they had something solid. But it proved to me that Jeff would do something if the money was right. So I think if we can put the right thing together with Jeff, his manager will maybe go, "You know what, this is a great career move." You know, just play 4 shows around the world. Not go out and do a full tour, just kind of like the Cream thing. Do 4 shows, shoot a DVD. Maybe in Japan, Los Angeles, London, something special, where it's not overdone. Just do it for a week and it's done. That would be fun!!
RNRU : You were on Pink Floyd's 'Momentary Lapse Of Reason' album. What songs do you appear on that, and how did that come about?
CA : I played on "Dogs Of War." I only played on one song. I was just called up by Bob Ezrin. He left me a message on my machine. He said, "Carmine, this is Bob Ezrin, I'm doing the new Pink Floyd album, and there's a track that's just screaming for some Carmine drum fills. I'd love for you to come down and do it. Give me a call if you're interested." So, I couldn't imagine, because all the Pink Floyd I knew was very laid back. When I actually called him he said, "We've lined up a day to do it." I went down, and Nick Mason was there. I said, "Why aren't you playing on it, Nick?" I know these guys, we knew them from The Fudge days. He said, "Well you know my callouses are soft, I've been racing my cars, I haven't been really playing for months." Meanwhile, what I got from Bob was that they wanted some new blood in there. They needed some new blood playing on it.
RNRU : Was working on a Floyd album any different from any other project you've been involved with?
CA : Well, not much different. All through my life in music, up until the 80's, when you went in and recorded, somebody screws up something, or you screw up something, and it's not like the perfect take. You might have one bass drum beat that you don't like, or a fill that you don't like. Well then, you had to redo the whole track. In the 80's with the technology you were able to punch in, like a guitar player. So, I started doing that. The first record I really did fully like that was the Vanilla Fudge 'Mystery' album. We did it totally to a click, and every album I've done ever since has been like that. The Blue Murder album was like that. It doesn't sound it, but we did that whole album to a click. When I went in for the Floyd album, I had a problem, because I was having a hearing problem. I do have hearing problems anyway. But as they turned the track up, everything was recorded on 4 track, and what they did was they had separation on there where I had to click. I had keyboards, I had guitar, vocals, but no drums. But, I couldn't hear it. I don't know why. So I kept telling Bob, "Bring it up, Bring it up." Then he finally came out and said, "Listen, I think you've got a problem hearing because the top end's too loud and you can't hear what's going on. I would suggest you put some tissue paper or cotton in your ears. It'll knock out some of the top end and you'll hear better." So, I did that, and lo and behold I could hear everything. So, to this day I still do that. You'll also get a headache from the top end. So I ended up doing that and it was great. I never really heard the finished product until it was on the record. I kept calling Bob and going, "Hey, what's going on, how is it?" He said, "Well, in a word, daring." I was out doing a movie called 'Black Roses' up in Canada when that came out. I went to an underground mall and bought a cassette of it. I listened to it the first time in a room in Canada. By myself in an apartment. And it blew me away. Because all we did was fill up a 24 track with drums, and Bob put it all together. So I didn't really know what it was going to sound like. The drums are powerful on that. When I heard it I loved it. But it took me awhile to find out what it was going to sound like because Bob was putting it together.
RNRU : Well that song's pretty unique in sound in the entire Pink Floyd catalog...
CA : I know, it's totally unique. Then when I saw them playing that song live, I saw Nick trying to duplicate some of my fills, which was pretty wild.
RNRU : I remember reading where he had some problems duplicating those parts live because Nick's not a really heavy drummer like you are...
CA : I wouldn't be surprised. I told them, "I'm ready to go on the tour when you're ready." (Laughs)
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 30, 2006 1:36:41 GMT -5
RNRU : Have there been any bands that have asked you to drum for them, but for one reason or another you turned them down, due to musically or personality wise, it didn't feel right? CA : Well, one was Hall & Oates. When I got out of Beck, Bogert & Appice, somebody approached our manager and they wanted me to join Hall & Oates. They were new, and I said, "Who the fuck are Hall & Oates? I'll do it as Hall, Oates & Appice." (Laughs) But Hall & Oates, I'd never heard of them. There've been a few throughout the years, but that's one that comes to mind. RNRU : Are there any artists that you haven't worked with that you'd like to in the future? CA : Zeppelin, if they got back together. (Laughs) I would like to work with Led Zeppelin, that'd be fun. I don't think it's going to happen though. RNRU : The King Kobra 'Ready To Strike' album has also recently been reissued. What do you recall about making that album, and how do you feel it holds up today? CA : I think it holds up pretty good, actually. It was done at PASHA. PASHA was Spencer Proffer's studio that I helped get the drum sound. I worked with Duane Barron, working out a drum sound in that sudio. Otherwise, they had a typical L.A. Linda Ronstadt kind of drum sound. The first record that they released with my drum sound was Quiet Riot's 'Metal Health,' which went through the roof. So, that sort of pissed me off. I've been so close to other people's success, and involved in other people's success so many times that's sort of like, "Enough already." I remember Frankie Banali when we met, I was getting the drum sound down in the studio. Then he got the drum sound and sold 5 million records. So Spencer helped get us our Capitol Records deal. We did the album there, with the same kind of drum sound. I thought it was a great band. That was the band that I was forced to put together after Sharon fired me. She said, "Go do your own band." So I did, I did King Kobra. I did the opposite of Motley Crue. I did 4 all blondes and I was the black haired one. Motley Crue, were all black haired with Vince Neil being blonde. I did the opposite. Then I put colors in everybody's hair, Kobra Kolors, we put a lot of money into it. We got a big record deal, big merchandising deal, I probably put $150,000 into it. The staging, the outfits, everything. It was all good. Again, it was one of those funky things. We had a great record, great musicians, great songs, but Capitol Records didn't do their job and it didn't happen. On the next album they told us that they were better off doing singles. They needed more singles on the album. We gave it to them, and they still didn't do anything. So that was tough. They switched around their internal structure where Ray Tuscan was in A&R, and he should've been a radio promoter. They put him back in radio promotion, where he should be, and he'd broken a lot of acts on Capitol. They made him an A&R guy, then back to radio. The first act he worked when he came back to radio was Poison. Poison used to open up for King Kobra, they took a lot of our image, and the rest is history. I tried the third King Kobra record on my own label, 'King Kobra III,' the record rocked. Two of the guys left and started The Bulletboys, and they were successful. It just goes to show you, it was the wrong combination of record companies. The first Bulletboys album, about 60% of their songs were gonna be the next King Kobra album. "Smooth Up In Ya," all that stuff. Again, close to someone else's success. They knew it too, they gave me a Gold album. RNRU : After the band broke up, vocalist Mark Free retired from music, subsequently had a sex change, and is now Marcie Free. Did you ever see that coming? CA : Never saw it coming. Even when I heard about it I went and had lunch with him, you could've knocked me down with a feather. It was unbelievable. RNRU : I'm going to name a few drummers, and if you would Carmine, please give me your thoughts on their playing... RNRU : John Bonham.. CA : John Bonham was a great player man. Powerful player, great hands, great feet. John really knew where to be simple and where to play the fills. He made his drums sound best, probably due to the tuning, and the way he played. RNRU : Keith Moon... CA : Keith Moon was the maniac of drums. He was totally unique. He was probably the only rock drummer that didn’t use the hi hat. Great showman, all the stuff you've heard about him was all true. (Laughs) RNRU : Tommy Lee... CA : Tommy Lee, I think is a really good drummer. He's solid, a good showman. I know he complains that he's not famous for his drumming, that he's more famous for being with Pamela Anderson. I think that's true to a point, his celebrity has come from being with Pam, but his popularity during the 80's came from Motley, because he was a pretty good drummer. He's not a really great technical drummer. I'd say he was like a Cozy Powell. A good, solid, showman rock drummer. RNRU : Dave Grohl... CA : Dave Grohl's a great drummer man, he's a powerhouse. When I heard him with Nirvana, I loved all the time signatures they did. A real powerhouse. In the videos you never saw his face, because his hair was in his face. I loved him. Really aggressive, with a great drum sound too. I don't know if it was due to the production. I never saw them live. I saw The Foo Fighters, but he wasn't playing drums. He's a great drummer, and I found out he's a fan of mine. RNRU : You've had the opportunity throughout your career to play with some of the best frontmen in the history of rock. Who would you say is the best frontman you've ever seen? CA : I would say Rod Stewart was the best frontman, by far. Especially in '78, '79 that era. The era of "Hot Legs," "Passion" and all that stuff. He was truly original, he could really move around the stage. I think he was better than Robert Plant. Robert was a great singer, but he didn't do a lot of moving around onstage. That's one of the things I told him when we were walking down Santa Monica Boulevard, (When Zep first came on the scene) that he should move around more onstage. Rod was the template for rock frontmen, for everybody... Paul Rodgers, Robert Plant, anybody that came along. He had the hair, the look and the voice, plus he was all over the stage. He was a sex symbol, he was everything. Definitely the template. RNRU : What has been your most 'Spinal Tap' moment? CA : King Kobra, definitely. When 'Spinal Tap' came out I didn't like it because it hit too close to home. Because we would do in-stores that had no promotion, and there'd be nobody there. We would go underneath looking for where the fucking stage was, we couldn't find it. There'd be no security, or no one to help us find it. I was living it, so I didn't like it. (Laughs) So, King Kobra was definitely my 'Spinal Tap' moment. RNRU : What has been your most memorable live performance so far? CA : I've had magic moments everywhere. I can't really pick any. At the beginning of Vanilla Fudge, playing all those shows with Hendrix, those were magical. Very memorable. Playing with Cactus, there were some really memorable shows with Cactus, like playing with Hendrix on the first gig. BB&A, there were tons of memorable moments. With Rod, it was unbelievable. Playing The Forum, The Garden, playing all over the world. Even with Blue Murder over in Japan, on tour with Bon Jovi. Even the night I got fired from Ozzy, in Houston, it was sold out. The show was amazing that night she fired me. The band was so tight it was great. There's just too many to pin one down. The tour we just did with The Doors and Vanilla Fudge, that 'Decades' gig was magic. So, knock on wood, I'm still having them. It's like saying to yourself, "What's the greatest flavor of ice cream you ever had in your life?" Can you answer that? No, you can't, there's so many. Or what's the greatest meal you've ever eaten in your life... so, it's a very hard thing to answer. RNRU : What's your take on the current music scene? Do you see heavy rock coming back in a big way anytime soon? CA : The music business is messed up big time. You've got the iTunes type of thing, then you've got record companies that won't build a band anymore. That's where it's gone wrong. You've got bands that are out there who've sold a million records, and they draw 500 people. Does that tell you something's wrong? I just see the business being more screwed up, and when all the old bands that are out there, like The Rolling Stones, when they get old enough and stop playing... those are the only people that are doing any business. The classic rock bands. When that's gone, I don't know what's going to happen. How many years left are there? Maybe 10? There's a few groups out there, I guess maybe Green Day will keep going, and have a following that will get old with them. But there's not a following like with Pink Floyd, Genesis, or any of these bands that get together.They're at their peak now, they're playing 1 night at a big venue at their height. RNRU : Why is that? I mean, what's the main difference between the music of today versus when you started out? CA : Number 1, I think there's too much media on it. You see Green Day on MTV2, on the awards shows, so why do you need to go see them live? You saw it already. You've seen it a million times. You don't see The Rolling Stones everywhere. You don't see U2 everywhere. The fact of the matter is, these bands never built a fan base. They hit, have a fan base, then the next album doesn't make it, their fan base goes down. Then they have another hit, their fan base goes up. Instead of it building like Metallica, Led Zeppelin or The Police. If The Police got back together again they'd be huge. But we all had these buliding fan bases. Today, and I learned this about 5 years ago, there's a band out here called C9, or Carbon 9. They were like KISS meets Metallica. They had a full KISS-like show in a club, and they were amazing. Packing every club. We tried to get a record deal for them, so they could get on the road, do it in every city. Nobody would sign them. They said, "We don't hear that 1 hit that'll sell 5 million albums." They didn't care about building. That was 5 years ago. They didn't care to build them up like every other band, like Bon Jovi. You name any band that's big, that's had staying power, and they were all built. Like Mariah Carey, she came out, and the first year she sold 10 million albums, and she never did a gig. That's what's happening now. Look at The White Stripes. C'mon, is that our future? It's scary. It's incomplete. There's not even a fucking bass on the album. It sold, but they don't go setting any attendance records anywhere. That's what's going on. A lot of these bands you hear on the radio, they all sound the same. They're all fucking whining... whining vocals. I listen to some of this music my son has, like Avenged Sevenfold, and they have all these "Urrrrghhhhh" type vocals. It's ridiculous. Musically, some of these guys are great. The drummers are killer, as far as their feet go. They don't have a lot of feel, but they've got tremendous feet. The guitar players are good, but then the vocals come in and it just blows it. But now those bands are changing, where they're actually having regular vocals on their albums. So, that's changed, so it's cool. But even those guys... I guess they're selling records, maybe they're selling records by touring. Maybe those kind of bands will build up a following, some of these underground bands. I don't know. I really don't have an answer. Well, smaller labels are doing it. I believe Avenged Sevenfold was on a smaller label, then they signed to a big label. The big label is obviously going to give them more exposure. My son was pointing out that they're getting more into the vocals, and a lot less of the "Urrrrrrghhh" shit. And these guys have good voices, actually. They're clean voices, too. They're not like a Rod Stewart raspy voice, they're all clean, like my voice. (Laughs) They go from that to the other, and I don't even know how they sing like that. I don't know what the future is. In the 80's, early 90's i thought I knew what a hit song would be. I don't have a clue anymore. RNRU : Are there any bands in the current scene that you've heard that you're impressed with? CA : Like I said, I like Avenged Sevenfold, and this band called Thrice. I like some of the stuff Green Day's doing. I think they've got good energy and cool songs. They're doing some nice stuff. But to tell you the truth, I don't listen to the radio. I put on K Rock out here in Los Angeles, and half the time if I hear a song I like, nobody announces it anymore. You don't know who the fuck it is. Like sometimes with my kid, we'll go through the stations, put on K Rock, and I'll go, "That's pretty good, who is it?" "I don't know." Then you wait, and nobody announces it, so how the fuck do you know what you're listening to? RNRU : Well, it kind of makes it hard to go out and buy the CD if you don't know who the band is... CA : Exactly. There is that also. You don't know what you're going to buy. It all depends on who's got the biggest display. That's why the whole thing with Rod with the Frank Sinatra songs, their marketing was brilliant. It was all promotion. It was on TV, and that's all you heard. They never had one stroke of airplay on the radio. And it sold 10 million albums. Just from televison promotion, and him being on different TV shows. RNRU : Of course, realistically, where's something like that going to get radio play anyway? Clear Channel has everything pretty locked up it seems... CA : You don't. You know with this 'Guitar Zeus' project, we were looking at maybe trying to disguise it. Because those songs still sound modern, even though I did that in the late '90's. If you put it on, and said it was a new band, you might be able to get some airplay. But it'll cost a fortune to do it. An indie label, they would say it would cost upwards of 50 grand. So the labels say, "You know what, why don't we take that money instead and buy television ads." I said, "You're probably better with televison ads anyway, because the people that are on this, like Brian May, Slash, all these people, their audience is watching TV with their credit card." So, it might be easier to do that, market it on TV, put a little ad in Rolling Stone, Guitar Player Magazine, the drum magazines, and all the free magazines like in Long Island they have Good Times. Everybody's got their free music magazine in their area. Buying ads in those things, constant ads in those things, they're not that expensive. Just budget the money around. Maybe buy some ads on classic rock stations and play some of the tracks in the ads. Put out the money that way, and you'll probably end up selling more than if you went to try and get it on the radio. RNRU : Well, classic rock radio here in the States, even if The Doors, The Who, Alice Cooper, whoever, put out a new album, they're not going to play new stuff... CA : No. They play the same 300 songs, if that. Well, there was one thing, on one of my stations they were calling it "New Classics," and they would give albums like the new Vanilla Fudge a little bit of a shot. They're calling it a new classic. But most stations don't do that. That's why all these guys don't sell records. You've got Bruce Springsteen, and somehow he still keeps selling. RNRU : It gets kind of disheartening when you see someone like Alice Cooper only selling 30,000 copies... CA : But you know what, he'll play, and I saw him out here with Cheap Trick, and they had 8,000 people there. They don't really need to sell. It's sort of got now to where it's been in Europe. That's like, with T&A, in Europe we sold 10,000 units. The DVD we sold over 6,000, and went into the second printing. In the end, we might wind up selling 20,000 albums in Europe. Which, that's what albums sold in Europe. When BB&A was out, we sold 20,000 albums in Germany, where most of the sales are, and that was good. But they're used to not having radio. They know how to sell. They've got rock magazines. Over here, we don't even have magazines like that. We don't have anything where you can even do an interview for a magazine. We've got Circus, I don't even know if that one's still in business. All that I see that's around are the guitar magazines, Modern Drummer, things like that. There's a lull there. All you really have is like Rolling Stone, and what's a full page ad, 25, 30, 40, 50 grand? So you buy a little quarter page ad, and that might cost you 5 grand. RNRU : Yeah, but look at their readership. They don't cater to rock anymore, they have Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera on the cover, it's not a rock based audience by any means.. CA : I know, it's mainstream. Bands like us, we're alternative now. (Laughs) Me, I'm an alternative artist, I'm not mainstream anymore. I started out as an alternative artist, and now I'm back to being alternative. When you're selling 10 million copies you're not alternative anymore. RNRU : How much of an importance do you see the Internet being as a promotional tool for music these days? CA : Well my kids find a lot of their stuff on the Internet. I don't find music on the Internet usually. I think it's a good promotional tool, but you've got to know how to do it. On my site I get, on a really good couple of days, 1100 new hits. I've got all this merchandise to sell on the site, but you don't sell a lot from the amount of hits you get. I get 7,000 hits a month, and I might sell to a very small percentage of hits per month. RNRU : What advice would you have, if any to someone who's just starting out in the business? CA : I don't have a clue. I really don't. I don't know what it takes to get a record deal anymore. It used to be get with a band and develop a following, maybe it still is. Try to get a little record out, get some sales, and maybe a big label will pick you up. I don't know if that works anymore. You have to write a song. All I can say to drummers is try to study, try to learn to play everything besides just rock, so that you can make a living at it. Trying to make it in this business is very, very difficult. It's always been diffcult, but at least there were ways where I knew how to do it. Right now I'm really at a loss. People ask me this, and I really don't have a realistic answer. I'm not really in the record business per se anymore. I mean, I'm in the record business, but I'm in the indie record business. I'm not in the major record business anymore. I'm not even on the charts. It's totally different. As a drummer, I can give lots of advice. Practice, find a great teacher. Practice every day on the pads, drums, learn to practice with bands and music you like. That's what I can say as a drummer. To be in the music business, try to get involved in the songwriting. (Laughs) If you're in a band, or you join a band from the get go, let them understand that you're not just a drummer, you're creating musical parts of the song. So that when you get a record deal, it's not just the guitar player and the singer that writes all the songs. RNRU : Is there anything else that you'd like to say to all the fans out there? CA : I'd just like to thank everybody that's supported me for all these years. Without them I'd be in the real estate business. (Laughs) I've been lucky. I've had a lot of fans who've supported me in my bands, projects and records. I appreciate all that. I hope that we'll keep going and keep doing it. I love to get out and play in front of people, it's what I live to do. I'd like to thank everybody for giving me such a great life. For more information on what Carmine's up to, go to www.carmineappice.net Be sure to join his member's area, where one can access rare live and video performances, unreleased tracks, and much more. The rare BB&A and Cactus tracks are truly worth the admission alone! Also, musicians looking to hone their craft would be well advised to check out some of the excellent teaching materials available at powerrock.com/
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