PipemanRadio Interviews Carmine Appice About Cactus All-Star New Album

0:02 This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio, and I'm here with our next guest, who is an absolute legend with oh my god, amazing music that we're going to talk about things going on. So let's welcome to the show, Carmine Apiece. How are you? I love it. I've been doing some tons and tons of emails, email, interviews and website, podcast radio. It's great, really good because I really love doing this album. You know that we're doing that we did and it's got a great reactions, so I'm real happy about that. Well, you know what it makeses me too, is how many people got involved with this album. Like I'm sure you thought that was normal, but maybe it's surprised you too, well it did. I mean, look at the album cover, you know, right, And when I told him I wanted to make the album look like Sergeant Pepper the album cover, and originally the guy made it exactly like Sergeant Pepper with those things coming off his shoulder, blue outfit, you know sat And I said, no, no, dude, not exactly like I just want to have all the people that played on the record in one spot. So there you go. He did that he did a good job with that, and then we even added like the owner

1:36 and president of pre Patch of Records, and the co owner co owner was a drum student of mine, and my manager's on there, the guy that engineered it on there, my singer from Cactus, the bass player from Cactus, guitar player from Cactus. Everybody's mixed in there with all the other guys, you know, so it's pretty cool. I'd like to do a contest somewhere and go, who can they all the people here, all the rock stars, or who can name the people who are not rock stars? Will be even better? Yeah, there you go. You know I know that. Hey, they could go to one of your shows. Yeah, that's a good deal, but they got to live from the in the in the actual town we're playing it, otherwise it doesn't work. That's right. And you got a couple of great shows coming up, Like I'm in westbom Beach, so you're going to be right near me and Boca on the eighth, that's right, and come down. Make sure you come down. Yeah, I love to man because it's going to be an amazing show, for sure.

2:46 I'll tell there's it. Michael book this right, yes, tell Michael, we'll hook up the tickets for you. Oh, that would be phenomenal because I'm sure it's going to be an amazing show. Yeah, and you're also going to be in Orlando on the seventh with fog Hat. That's pretty cool. And then oh, no, fog Hat. Yeah, just fog Hat on the seventh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On the first one, that's Ruth eck wood Hall I believe it is, mm hmm. And then on the the ninth ist see Orlando. I don't know the name of that venue. Actually, I think what the info I got I could be wrong. The seventh is Orlando at Orlando Live with fog Hat, and the ninth clear Water. So wherever I got that information, it's probably wrong.

3:43 Verse there you go. I know, I know Traversa. We just had a big thing with my manager about you know, the flights and who's going where, who's flying out of where? And I know they're all flying out of Orlando, so that has to be the last gig. Well, there you go. Yeah, So that one with Pat Travis, I think it was pretty awesome too, having d Schnyder sing, he sounded he did, he did, and you know, and that happened because his band back, I don't know when it was. I think it was before Twist's sister, maybe after, I don't know. He had a band called window Maker and the drummer of that band was one of my students, you know. And he he told me that he did Evil, and when I listened to it, I told him he was playing the wrong drum film drum groove, I should say, en Phils. And when I told him, you know, I want to have d maybe do the vocals, and he said, man, he would love to do it. So I called Dan and he said, I'm in. I didn't have to say more than we're doing it.

4:47 You know, attribute to Cactus and we do Evil. Do you want to sing? He says, I'm in. He didn't even think about it. Nice A few guys like that on the record, you know. So Jim McCarty, original guitar player, I didn't know anything about D except Twist's sister. And you know, Twist McCarty's like seventy nine years old. He knows nothing about the metal thing because I know about it because I was in it, right, He was never in it, so I knew about that he could sing. I said, No, this guy's a great singer. Man, he could sing just like Rusty Day, original singer. So he said, oh man, I'm bummed out that he's going to sing that song.

5:27 So as soon as I got the song done, I sent it to him. He goes, so, who's that singing. I said, that's the guy you were bummed out about. And he said, wow, he sounds like Rusty. I said, I know he does, right. He did a great job and a great job in the video as well. Yeah, that's what I noticed when I listened though, because you know, I'm a Twisted Sister fan. Yeah, but he didn't sound like Twisted Sister there. If I didn't know, I would have thought it was the original singer. Yeah, me too. But I know these long time, you know, and I got all these guys on my phone. You know, everybody's on the record or in my phone pretty much. Uh. You know, Ted Nugent is another one. You know. Ted Nugent was like, I know Ted since nineteen sixty seven. I said, you know, I want you to do this track, you know, on the album. Which one you want to do? He said, I want to do one way or another.

6:20 I said, okay, you got it. So then I got ahold of Doug Pinn because I know he's a big Cactus fan. He said, I want you to play bass on two songs, you know, and sing one. He goes, I'm in you know. I told him about the Cactus album. You know, I didn't know these guys I knew were Cactus fans, but some of them. I didn't know Steve Stevens, I didn't know Doug Aldridge, I didn't know Malcolm and Doza from Weissnake. I didn't know, you know, Vernon Reid. I didn't know, you know. So there's a bunch of them. I found out when I called him and I said, what are we doing? And I said, this is what we're doing, you know, would you like to play? He goes, yeah, man, I'm a Cactus fan. I love Cactus, you know.

7:02 And I said, wow, I didn't know. I knew Van Halem was, you know, because the song eruption their first album was taken from the beginning of our song Swim Let Me Swim? Did you hear that song? I didn't even know that till you just said that. Now, okay, so listen again to the beginning. Because what we do is we always did it. We did at the beginning in the first album, we hit a card Brown and your guitar Brah brah, Wow guitar, and then we're going to the song Wow. And I never listened to Eruption because when it came out that was with Rod Stewart and I didn't listen to Van Halen.

7:47 Then when people kept telling me about how great it was and I listened to I said, whoa, this is the beginning of Let Me Swim Extended Wow. So on this album, I said, I'm going to stend the intro so it kind of you can see more how how it was Eruption, you know. And then I said, I need a great guitar player that could play that. I got Doug Alders to do it nice and he just smoked it from the beginning to the end of the song. And yeah, it's it's stuff like that that's you know, really made Cactus Cactus, you know. Yeah, I think too. A lot of these people, like, especially like the metal bands. Yeah, you're an influence to them, and people don't realize that, Like people think metal just like metal heads are just into metal. But all us metal heads started off with bands like your band and like Zeppelin and the word metal. Okay, I don't know where that started. Right. Number two, all the bands that you say in metal, they will hard roped bands quite hard rock, uh Ozzie hard rock like Sabbath. Hard rock wasn't what you call metal. I consider metal started Metallica with that buzz saw guitar. To me, that's where metal started. What do you call it heavy metal? Because that's what it sounded like, right,

9:20 you know, But all the bands before all that that were big, ted, nugent, you know, all that stuff. There was always hard rock. You know. Well, what's interesting about what you're saying. It's so true because when I was a teenager going to like Metallica and Slayer shows in the very beginning, bands like Quiet Riot, we didn't consider them metal. Doesn't mean they were good or bad, but no, they weren't metal to us. I mean even Slayer, they weren't that buzz sauce guitar back in the day. Right, All those bands, bio has it. I mean all those bands there were hard rock, you know. And then as the per se the metal movement moved on and everybody started having that bus or Metallica kind of bus or guitarist and fast bass drump like Lars right, And I think that's where it all started. All that stuff that's going on today started with Metallica in my eyes. I mean I'd be wrong, but for me and all the stuff before that, including Black Sabbath, it was hord rock. I mean, Black Sabbath was just to me like another Zeppelin coming out of Birmingham. Well, yeah, you think about the original Sabbath music was very bluesy. Yeah, I mean we played gigs with Black Sabbath back in the day when they first came out with Cactus and was that one that

10:52 anyway, there's a band that's what's the name of Bruce Springfing was in oh Okay and we were all on the same bill and he was rock blues. We are rock blues, and so is Black Sabbath. Yeah, I mean Paranoid to me was back in the day it was like a communication communication breakdown, yeah kind of thing, you know. And and then as it went along, right along, I mean, their sound got thicker, you know, but it still didn't have that buzz so right, you know, so it kept that's my own opinion. Well, it always Sabbath is heavy. They're heavy heavy hard rock, you know. But you know, to me, uh, that heavy metal thing, you know, like cactus logo behind you, Cactus it says heavy metal on it. I lost your for a minute. That looks like it's made of metal. Yeah it does. You know that that logo alone can make a great metal album. Yeah, right, it's the logo. Yeah. I think I'm making shirts of that.

12:05 But that looks better than the shirt. So you've been doing this such a long time. How do you keep all the excitement about music that you do after was it fifty years or more? Look? I live in Florida. You live in Florida. There's a lot of people like Nico and Tico. You know, they play golf. You know. People say to me, do you play golf? I said no, I said what do you do for hobby? I said, I played drums? Nice? No, So I just love playing drums. I love creating music. I have a studio in my house now. And you know, like this whole album started with the drums, you know, which usually is an unusual way to start an album. Usually have you know if you can do it like that? You have a click guitar and a vocal and then you put the drums on and I started the other because you know, I didn't. I didn't know any better to a better way to start it, because I'd have to get a guitar player and a singer to play everything, and it just would have taken a lot of time. So at first I started like Passion Farm and one way or another, and I just sang the song in my head to I had a click going, and I sang the song in my head as I played, and it went really well. But then I said, you know what, this is too difficult to dude another twelve songs like this, so I have to figure a way to do this. I put the click on and then I actually sang this song verbally onto the click on my machine,

13:39 so like I was doing evil, I go bomb bomb drumfil dead Lidan, then drum Phil, you know, bomb Bob, drum pill, then sing the song A Long Way from Home, dead Lid. You know. I went to the whole song like that, and then I had something to play to, right instead of me humming in my head, I'm playing it to this. And then when the solo came, solo, you know, and then solo too, and I know what they are because I played these songs and then I said, this is going to work. And then I did every song like that, and then I send it to my singer Jim Stapley, who played guitar and harmonica. He put down a rough guitar and harmonica and sang a vocal. Then we sang to the bass player. He put a bass on it, and that's Sjames computer and that was the band Cactus, and I tore it so once I got that, then I recalled people like Ted Nugent, which song you want to play one way or another?

14:37 Okay, here's the song you know, Okay, you want it with or without Doug Pinnick. He said, give me Doug Pinnick. So if I send it to him. I got Doug to play on it and he would sing it. Then we send it to Ted. You know the same thing with Evil. Doug put the bass on it. We had Jim McCarty on guitar, and then we put the vocal on it. You know. So it was a lot that it took a year to do this, I imagine it did it did? It wasn't like you know, something that you did in three weeks. Some albums I did. We recorded in three weeks, you know, But I'm very happy with the finished product. And I got my engineer co producer, Pat Reagan. He's a musical guy. He's a keyboard player. He would fix anything that was non musical or musical that I would miss, Like, for instance, when we did Rock and Roll Children, we had Vernon read on it. When he did Vernon read the solo, we had bass Rudy Sarzo, me and Vernon was doing a solo.

15:39 But the riffs he was playing and the scales he were playing were very unusual, and Pat said, these are very unusual and needs something on it to the courts to tie it into what we're doing. So he said, I'll put some keyboard on it. So he put a keyboard on it. When I heard it, it sounded like a rhythm guitar, right, but it made sense. Then it made the whole area that he was playing make more sense where he was where he was playing different chords and different riffs and leads. The chords that Pat was playing tied into what he was doing, and it made it sound a lot better, you know. So it was just a lot of a lot of cool stuff going on in that that you most people wouldn't even know about. You know. Well, that's the difference when you're a pro, right, when you've been doing this that many years, you know. And I learned how to play drums to a click. And then I was really mad back in the early eighties because why I didn't do this with King Kobe, I don't know, but you know, I was tired of like doing a track and say, we're going to do a song.

16:51 Okay, let's do the drums first. Do the drums played, the band plays the track, We do the track fifteen tracks into it. Still I got the drum part right, so that means I got to do it again, over and up til we get a drum part we like. And then the guitar players go in. They erased alll the guitar. They played to the drums the vocal same thing, but the drums could never do that. So I said. I was working at Pasha Records where they recorded the Quiet Riot record, and I did the Ted Nugent record in there that I played on, and I didn't like the drum sounds. I told the engineer and Spence, the profit producer of the studio, and he brought Pasha Records that released the Quiet Right record. I said, we got to change the drum sound in here. This is terrible. So we changed the drum sound and the first band that used it was quite right, and they saw five million. Every time I saw Kaki Binella, I said, you did that with my new drum sound. There he gave me a kiss on the cheeks, says thank you, you know. But then I said, I gotta, I gotta do this somehow. I got to be able to re called the drums and punch in and out like the guitar players like everybody does.

18:03 So I worked with the engineer Dwayne Barron, who went on to do produce No More Tears Altum with Ozzie. And we went in and I said, oh, let's put the drums down, and let's put a track down, and let me punch in the vocal, you know, and let me punch in a vocal. And we punched it in. Then I heard, oh, the symbols were cut off. I said, okay, can we do it again? This time I'll hit both symbols so to cover it up. We did it and that's good. So once we did that, then we learned how to punch in and out. So from then on nineteen eighty two, I was playing drums, punching in and out. I did a Vanilla Fudge Mystery out like that. I did an album with ricked Erring called DNA like that. I didn't do the King Koba record like that. Why, I don't know. And then after that I did the Blue Murder record.

18:52 I did it twice. We did the whole record, and then the next time Bob Brock said, we got a much better drum sound. You want to do it over. I said, sure, we did the whole record over with the drums, and I've been doing it ever since. So doing this record, you know, I was able to do that, like I was. I never I never moved the drums that are in my studio. I never take them out to play live. I have other drums for that. The microphones. Everything stays the same. The AC and emidifier is on, so humidifying humidity in there is the same all the time. AC keeps at the same temperature, so the drums don't expand. And that said, they say, they stay the same, so I can go in there after we get somebody to play on it, and then I go you know, what with the guitar. I don't like what I played, I'm going to change it. I can go in there and punch it in. And I'm my own engineer. Now. That's why it says on the album Drum Sounds and Realistic Rock Studios with me as the engineer, Realistic Rock was a giant drum book. I have, as I called it, a realistic rock studios, which it is, you know. And now I engineer my own drums and I give it to Pat and he makes it even better. You know.

20:03 That's why this album has a tremendous that's a great sound. You know. Everyone talked to said the sound of this record is amazing, you know, the drum sound and everything. You can hear everything, you know, and even even Brian from Cleopatra Records suggested that you do this album. Yes, and so that says a lot too. Well, It's really wild how it happened. You know. I've done a bunch of stuff for Brian. I did two instrumental albums. I did another Cactus album, a new one. I did a couple of albums that he found that were live, like the first time we ever played with Jimmy Hendrix. He released it, and you know the Cactus Records do they do good on his label? So he came up with this idea, said, you think you can do that.

20:48 I said, yeah, I can do that because in the nineties I did a record called Guitarjus. I got all the greatest guitar players on it, you know, and I said, yeah, I can do this. So we did it, finished it, and then I'm watching like fog Hat. Fog Hat just got the number one spot on the Blues shots in Billboard, and the same thing with Robin Troue. I said, they're the same kind of band as Cactus, so why not market it as a blues record. Yeah. So I told Brian that and he said that's a great idea. He said, let's change it to Temple the Blues and I said, yeah, let's continue the influences of friends. Great idea. Oh so now, now last week it was number six on the Amazon pre orders for blues right nice, It was seventeen, went up to six and went a little higher.

21:41 That's that's tapering down because it's not released yet. But he just told me today he's gotten major Spotify's streaming on the Ted Nugent track one way or another because they keep releasing singles. We've got the first video, we're working on the second and third videos in between that keep leasing singles. Is there really serious about this record? You know because it was his idea? Right, Yeah, but it's doing great. He said, this is going to be a breakout record for you. It's already breaking out. I said, wow. I said, what's the next one we're going to do? Right? They said, your your team, you and your producer, and you know whoever he's working with you is making a fantastic record. He did another thing which I can't talk about, but it was a female artist that had you wouldn't you wouldn't even think of her as a rock artist. But she did a version of Purple Haze. So he sent me the vocal and we put Cactus behind it, and it just sounds unbelievable. Wow. And he only did it with me because he said, because the Cactus record sounds so good that I want to do this artist with Cactus backing her up. Wow, it's really really cool. I couldn't I couldn't have done it if I didn't have Well, there you go, impossible, impossible And how does it feel after all? These years to put out like a breakout album. You know, not many people are in your shoes. Well, it feels great.

23:14 I mean because all the other albums we did, you know, they did okay, you know, we got a nice budget, but you never really got any royalties. The only ones I got royalties on was some of the Cactus ones, right, And you know that's why people didn't want to do it. Like the last King Koba record I did, the two guitar players didn't want to do it. They said, look, you work your butt off, you do it, it comes out, nobody hears it, nobody buys it. You know. I said, yeah, it makes sense. But I said, but you can keep the legend going. You know, that's why I Cactus Records did Vanilla Fudge Records. You know, they didn't sell like they used to sell, but keep the name going, keep the legend going. And but with this one, I felt that since it was Brian's idea, that the label will push it and the people I got on it. I mean, I did a Joe bonamassa podcast, right, and we were talking. He said, you know what, Cactus, when you did Parchment Farm, it blew my brains out. I said, well, I'm doing a new version with Billy Shean on bass, me my singer plays hot and and maybe Jim McCarty going to play the verses. I just need a solo, he says, I'm in right. That's how we got Bantomasa on the record. He said it on his podcast, So you know, I couldn't be doing press saying well, Joe said he'd do it, but then he didn't do it. But he is a good guy. He

24:45 does a lot of stuff like that, you know. So he he smoked on that part. And then Billy Shean was in love with anything that Vanella Fudge or anything that Timboga did. He says, you need me for anything to do, you know, a tribute to Tim, I'm there. So he did Parchment Farm, and not only that, he did Olio, which had Tim's bass solo in it. So I said, we'll do Olio with Tim's bass solo. Do you want to do that? Because no problems When he did it. The bass solo here did sounded just like Tim. He used all the same thing. He even did a fuss tone at a certain point. Wow, And he heard where I did the drum fell I told him twenty bars in that's where the fust tone hits. So we got it down. So then I said, who's going to play guitar on this?

25:37 I called? I said, well, I'm me Steve Stevens and he's an awesome player. And I didn't know that he was from Brooklyn and he was a Cactus fan. Wow, you know. I hung out with him in Japan where he became friends, and yeah, I would talk to him when I see him in La I call him, say hi, vice versa. But he said, man, I'd love to do that. I'm a Cactus fan. Man I grew up in Brooklyn, I said, I didn't know that. I didn't know a lot of these people were Cacus fans and Doug Aldridge and Malcolm Mendoza from White Snake, and I knew Rudy was Rudy Saw. I knew Billy was. I didn't know Warren Haines was. You know, so Ted Newten I knew was. You know I know Ted a long time. Well, that proves the need for this album, and so here it is, and we're dropping it on June seventh. Correct, Yeah, that's when it comes out to buy. But I understand the the tracks are on Spotify to get all right, you know the one the video we did with the first one with evil people of loving it and loving it. The next one we do the one with Ted's Gonna be Wild. We already filmed Ted and it was definitely the Motor City manman on that video. So now I'm doing mine on the twenty year, So I gotta I gotta be a little crazy on it, you know. There you go. Yeah, So and Doug, Doug Pinnick is singing and going to play bass, so we're going to tell him to be a little crazy also, so we all fit together. You know. I love it and I love that you're having so

27:11 much fun with it because you know, I am having fun then, and that's why people go, how long are you going to play? I said, look, untill I can't play anymore. I'm having fun, Exactly. I have the drums in my studio. I don't go on there every day in practice because you know, I don't have the ambition to do that. You know, if I got to play the with song, that's when I played. Yeah. Unless there's something I really want to work on and I'm going to do it. But I don't just go every day and just sit and play. I've been playing the drum pads and the technical stuff for the hands every day almost you know. Well, well you're still a legend and still amazing, and this album is amazing. Let's just tell everybody real quick how they can pre save the album, pre order it, connect with you and all that stuff. Well you go, I got all my my Facebook and all that Common a Piece official I got, I got Instagram. I don't even know what all these addresses are because I'm not on there all the time. You know, my website that's not working right now from here, but it's a common Apiece dot net, and I understand you could order the album, pre order it on Amazon and all those kinds of things, and pretty much that's it. And they can also go to Cactus Rocks dot net.

28:38 Cactus rocks dot net. We're updating that website right now. It's funny. Tim Bogot's son does that for a living. And you know, they didn't have a they had an on and off relationship. When I talked Fim a few weeks ago, I said, we got to do a new website. So he said, I'll do it. Let me do it. It's tribute to my dad and I said, okay, so he's going to do it. He can take care of the website. So we're building a new one right now that's going to have all the gigs on it. VIPs if you want to be a VIP, shows all the dates we have. It shows the album supposed to history. So it's gonna be great. I love it. I love the new album. Everybody's got to check out the new music. It's amazing. And man, thanks for giving us such great music after five decade, over five decades, it's amazing. Thank you for still listening. And you know, I never thought in my wildest dreams that those Cactus songs in this year twenty twenty four will come out alive again, right, but pretty amazing. Here we are, and so thank everybody for supporting it, and thank you for being on the adventures of Pipe Man. I just comment a piece and you're listening to W four see why Radio Chow