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.”
