By the time Carmine Appice joined Rod Stewart’s band in 1977, the powerhouse drummer was already rock royalty, having helped redefine hard-hitting heavy rock percussion as a founding member of Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, and the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice. Yet, while his mammoth grooves brought an arena-ready edge to Stewart's band, Appice’s contribution to the singer's career went far beyond the drum kit—he would end up co-writing one of Stewart's biggest, most defining chart-topping hits of the decade, only to be sacked by the singer a few years later.
In the current issue of Classic Rock, Appice looks back on his uo-and-down career with Rod The Mod – as well as what he thinks about him as a performer. “Being in Rod’s band was the best,” says Appice. “I’d become really good friends with Rod when Cactus went on the road with the Faces. That’s when they were crazy – they had a bar on stage. After Cactus, I had a band called KGB with [guitarist] Mike Bloomfield, which didn’t happen. And I was asked to join Rainbow, but I couldn’t do it cos they were signed to someone else.
“Then I hear that Rod’s looking for a drummer. I get a message from Rod via his tour manager, saying: ‘Tell Carmine to come up to the house, see if he likes the band.’ Rod wasn’t there, but I knew those guys, [guitarist] Jim Cregan, [bassist] Phil Chen. Rod came back a couple of days later and says: “You got the job if you want it. Just one thing: how do you say your fuckin’ name? You’re like five different people.” (It’s pronounced ‘Ap-piece’, if you’re interested).
A highlight of the drummer’s time in the band was undoubtedly co-writing Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?, the disco-inspired monster hit that would give Rod a Number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Rod would say: ‘I want a song like Miss You by the Stones,’” recalls Appice. “I wrote it on a keyboard with a drum machine, I went to my buddy Duane Hitchings’ house, I played him the chords, we put a groove together, he wrote a bridge. So when we presented it to Rod it sounded like a finished song. He said: ‘Great, let’s do it.’
“We did it a few different ways - great big drums, big guitars, it sounded freakin’ great. Then [producer] Tom Dowd came in and put so much other junk on it – orchestra, percussion, Linda Lewis singing the high line. We were like: ‘Is that gonna work?’ Then it went to Number One in fifteen countries. I guess he knew what he was doing.”
Appice would stay with Rod until 1982, when he was fired by the singer – and he’s still not sure why it happened. “I don’t know, and neither does he. When I did my autobiography, he said in the intro: ‘I fired Carmine. Fuck knows why.’ There you go. Too much drinking, too much drugging, somebody didn’t like the fact that I was the second-most popular person in the band. I don’t remember how we made up. I went to one of his weddings. By ’83 or ’84 we were friends again.”
Appice currently leads the latest incarnation of Cactus, who have just released their new album, Cactus, Temple Of Blues II. Read the full interview in the new issue of Classic Rock, available to buy here.
