Carmine Appice

Carmine Appice was the drummer for the early psychedelic band Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, and later for BBA which stands for Beck (Jeff Beck), Bogert (Tim Bogert, bassist for Vanilla Fudge and Cactus). He was an early user of a two bass drum setup (a la Keith Moon) and inadvertantly caused John Bonham to work insanely hard at increasing his bass drum speed with one foot, because Bonham thought Appice was playing so fast with a single foot. He was one of the originators (along with Bonham) of the power template of rock drumming, playing heavily and with emphasis on volume from the bottom up (bass drum dominant). He, like Bonham, is far better than such modern craptastic drummers as Travis Barker and Neil Peart (while Peart is actually talented, he has no sense of what GOOD music actually sounds like and simply likes to show off his technical abilities, which are, admittedly, fairly impressive). Appice is one of the most underrated of the classic rock drummers.

Person 1: Hey man, listen to this Vanilla Fudge record. Carmine Appice is really good.

Person 2: Who is Vanilla Fudge, and why should I listen to a drummer? Everyone knows the world revolves around guitarists.

Carmine Appice by Bonzo, King of Drums December 16, 2008