Vanilla Fudge’s Carmine Appice can lay claim to being the father of hard rock drumming – just ask Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, Deep Purple’s Ian Paice or Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward, all of who cited him as an inspiration. Sure, The Who’s Keith Moon and Ginger Baker of Cream were both doing wild things on their instrument, but neither was the pure powerhouse the New Yorker was during his late 60s pomp.
His secret? “No PAs. That simple,” he tells Classic Rock in a new career-spanning interview, which covers everything from his time in Rod Stewart’s band to his unlikely link to mobster and Goodfellas inspiration Henry Hill. “I beat the hell out of the drums so I could be heard. The bass drum was so small, so I figured if I got a bigger bass drum it would be louder, and it was. So I made everything bigger, which was much louder. But you really had to hit them hard to get the sound out.”
But Appice says there’s one of his drumming contemporaries who deserves to be way better know than he is. Asked to rank Bonham, Baker, Moon and himself in order of greatness, he throws in another name entirely.
“We’re all so different,” he says. “Bonzo was great cos the band was great – they [Led Zeppelin] kept him up there. If he was in another band, I don’t know if he’d have stayed up there. Ginger Baker was there at the beginning of rock with that double bass drum. Keith Moon was just so unusual. I took what I did and made it really powerful. And I’d add Dino Danelli from The Rascals.”
Danelli was the drummer and co-founder of New York band The Rascals, originally known as The Young Rascals. Coming through on the same circuit as Vanilla Fudge, they notched up a run of hit US singles between 1965 and 1969, including three US No.1s. While they weren’t as heavy as Vanilla Fudge, Appice says that Danelli – who died in 2022 – should be better know.
“He started everything in rock drumming – the playing, the showmanship, the twirling,” he tells Classic Rock. “He was a monster player and never got credit.”
Appice, who still leads a modern incarnation of Vanilla Fudge, also recalls helping give Led Zeppelin their first break in the US when Zeppelin made their Stateside debut supporting Appice’s band in Denver, Colorado on December 26, 1968.
“We knew Jimmy Page from The Yardbirds, and we had the same attorney,’ the drummer remembers. “They sent us an acetate of the first album and we listened to it and went: ‘Whoah…’ I heard Bonzo on Good Times, Bad Times and went: “This guy’s really good.” So we were ready for them. We became great friends. I do remember walking down the street and telling Robert Plant he should move around more.”
Carmine Appice in 1968 (Image credit: Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
However, Appice shoots down the rumour that he was in line to replace Bonham in Zeppelin after the drummer’s death in 1980.
“I heard that rumour,” he says. But I never got a call. Matter of fact I was with Rod [Stewart] at the time. He said: “Are you joining Led Zeppelin?” I said: “That’s what the rumours are, I haven’t heard nothing.” He said: “There’s rumours I’m going to retire. Keep the rumours going, we’ll sell more tickets that way.”
Read the full interview with Appice in the new issue of Classic Rock, on sale now. Order it here.
(Image credit: Future)
(LouderSound)
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