October 17, 2024 • 31 mins
Carmine Appice is a legendary drummer known for his work with Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, Beck Bogert & Appice, and Rod Stewart.
Rising to prominence after appearing on the Ed Sullivan show in 1968 with Vanilla Fudge, he hasn't ever slowed down. In fact, he often has several projects on the go at the same time, these days.
He has recently released an all star album with Cactus, Temple of blues, featuring artists who have been influenced by Cactus over the years.
We discussed all this and more in this episode.
Strap yourself in. This episode is a fun ride!
You can help me keep producing episodes like this one at the following site:
https://buymeacoffee.com/tsolobandq
https://cleopatrarecords.bandcamp.com/album/temple-of-blues
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tommy-solo-s-famous-friends--4318572/support.
Rising to prominence after appearing on the Ed Sullivan show in 1968 with Vanilla Fudge, he hasn't ever slowed down. In fact, he often has several projects on the go at the same time, these days.
He has recently released an all star album with Cactus, Temple of blues, featuring artists who have been influenced by Cactus over the years.
We discussed all this and more in this episode.
Strap yourself in. This episode is a fun ride!
You can help me keep producing episodes like this one at the following site:
https://buymeacoffee.com/tsolobandq
https://cleopatrarecords.bandcamp.com/album/temple-of-blues
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tommy-solo-s-famous-friends--4318572/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Welcome to Tommy Solo's Famous Friends. This is where I
get to chat with people I've connected with over the
years in the world of arts and entertainment, and today
I'm glad to welcome back to the show legendary rock
drummer Carmine at Peace. Welcome back, Carmine.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
How you doing.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm doing just fantastic. It's always a pleasure to talk
to you. Before we hit record, I mentioned that Cactus
is back, and you said that it never really went away.
So you are a busy guy. I know that, But
what's with this Cactus never going away stuff?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Well, we got back together in two thousand and five,
I think it was, and me, Tim Bogan and Jim
McCarty and another singer. We've been working ever since. We've
been into Europe, we've been to South America, we've been
to Japan, We've been all over there with Cactus.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So, you know, we just.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Kept going and we had a couple of switchover So
the last couple of years we did some touring. We
did an album on Cleopatrick called Tightrope. They released it
in CD and vinyl and it was a really really
good record, you know. And then on Cleopatra. We did
a lot of stuff. You know, it seemed to do
well on Cleopatra, so we we got a call. I
(01:33):
got a call from Brian Ron's Cleopatra, and he said,
you think you can do a record that would take
in people who were influenced by Cactus. I said, yeah,
I could do that and probably get some friends too
that can play on it. So he said yeah. I said,
but I need a budget. So he gave me a
budget and we went out and did it, and you know,
(01:56):
I got all my friends. I called Steve Stevens and
asked him if he would do it. He goes, yeah, man,
I said, you know, I've been influenced by Cactus. I'm
from New York. I said, oh wow, that's cool, and
that was interesting for me. People had to my friends
were influenced by Cactus as well. So I went out
and did it. Meanwhile, while we're doing it, Cactus always
(02:16):
been a blues rock band, you know, It's always had
some blues songs on it, and like Alaska is a
Stone blues and all our court changes the aparture and
farms of blues and no Need to Worry has always
been a blues you know, We've always been known as a.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Blues rock band.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So I'm watching my friends like fog Hat, Robin Trower,
they were hitting the blues charts and billboard, and I said, wow,
I said we should.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Do that too. So I called Brian.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I said, you know, instead of calling me this influence
of friends, we should market it as a blues album
because blues rock is like fog Hat, it just like
Robin Trouer. I said, let's call it Temple of Blues.
I said, great, idea, Temple of blues influencers and friends
makes it's a nice title. He said, yeah, it's good.
So we already had the cover. Have you seen the cover?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Oh? Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
The cover was like my idea to have a like
a Sgeant Pepper kind of cover. When we first did it,
the Authorrector put Sergeant Pepper outfits on everybody. I said, no,
I don't mean exactly like Sergeant Peppa. I said, just
the idea of having everybody that played on the record,
that worked on the record, on the cover.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
That's the difference. Everybody on that cover is on the album.
The Beatles thing was just an all star friend whatever.
But this album, I got to tell you Carmine. When
I put that on in my truck the other day
for the first time, I had been listening to FM
rock radio before I put the scene, and I swear
to God from the first note of Parchment Farm, I
(03:46):
had to check my rear view mirror to make sure
I hadn't just blown my head off. This is a
This is a bombastic a man, this is this is
a great album, and.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
It's a great record. I said, I produced it. Let
me finish. Start with the cover. So when I told Brian,
let's change the cover, Let's make everything in the temple.
All the artwork would be in the temple. Okay, so
we did that. But as far as the production on
it and the sound of it, I had my buddy.
He was a co producer on a Pat Reagan who
(04:15):
was an amazing mixer, and he mixed the whole record.
And after he did a mix, he sent it to
me and I check it out and go, well, at
least a little more of this and all of that.
But he's just amazing. So when we finished the album
and he mastered it as well, same thing with me.
I put it on in my car, I said, Wow,
this thing is like killer. It really kicks it, but
(04:36):
it's still blues. It's bluesy. So I was very happy
with the way it came out. And then when we're
marketing it as a blues record, I heard the two
guys that promoted the fog Hat record, and I'm listening
to Brian. We're talking every day before it came out.
He goes, well, it's in the pre orders. It's like
number four and number three, number five on the Amazon
(04:57):
pre orders.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
It's doing great.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
So when it came came out two or three weeks later,
it hit the Billboard shots at number three on blues.
I said, I haven't been on a Billboard, any Billboard
shot since nineteen eighty nine. The way the music business
is today, I was like blown away. And we went
out and played some shows with fog Hat. Some of
the guys couldn't make the shows. The Cactus is the
kind of band that you can put different people in it. Lawns,
(05:20):
they kicked in that material. It's the material that sells
the band. That Cactus, pasmaphone, that's Cactus. So we had
Tony Franklin playing bass on three gigs with fog Hat,
and we had a new guitar player Ardie Dillon who
played with me and my brother in our drum Wards show,
and my singer couldn't make it, so we got my
friend at Terry, who I know. He's from Long Island.
(05:43):
He's a great singer. He came and did it and
we went out like with that group and we kicked it.
And then we continued later on in June and we
got a regular bass player back and we did a
bunch of gigs with that and he kicked it again,
you know. So now we've got some more gigs coming
up in twenty twenty five. I want to do a
(06:04):
Temple of Blues too. I have some great ideas for it.
We just did a track with Cactus and Melanie.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I was going to ask her that that's the same Melanie.
That's uh yeah, I got.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
That is just amazing, unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Did you hear it.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I have heard it, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, unbelievable. She sounds like Jannie Chaplin. Some of those
streams she did was like wow, So that's the same thing.
Brian called me up and she loved the way the
Cactus album sounded, and he said, I'd like to do
Melanie with Cactus. I said, what said, yeah, I got
heard singing purple haze. Because they have the rice she
passed away, they have the right to her A and
(06:46):
I vocal and her vocal and I said, wow, I'd
like to hear that. So he said it to me
and I said, wow, that's Melanie. That's really really different.
So he said, can you do that? I said, of course,
I can do that. Come on, So he got it.
I sent it to my engineer Pat again. He stretched
it out, so we put it on a grid.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Editor's note.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
In this context, a grid is an editing mode that
is part of pro Tools recording software. Now back to
this show.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
You know the grid is, so I put it on
the grid so the click would run and it would
be in time, because you can't do that otherwise, you know,
when you're recording digitally. So gave me the vocal and
I listened to it, and I put an arrangement together
in my head, but I did it. I started with
the drums, so I had her vocal on my drums.
I played that for Brian and goes, oh, that's killing man.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
I said, okay.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Then I brought in Tony Franklin to play bass, and
Audie Dillon a guitar player to play and she was
singing and we did an amazing arrangement to her vocal
and my buddy Pat mix it again. It sounds like
the Catus record.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, it's it's incredible. And I mean, Noody knows better
than you how much the music business has changed over
the years.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
End technology, technology is great, but selling it, you know.
I met a guy yesterday said, it's a young girl
from around here in Florida. She's on TikTok and she
just got one hundred million views on TikTok. One hundred million.
But I don't know what does she make money from that?
I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
It's hard to say anymore. I talked to somebody who
was very big in the Canadian music business as a
record company executive and a legislator and so on, and
he passed away recently as well. But when I talked
to him last time, he told me that the breakout
tool today is TikTok, but it's not for guys like
you and me. It's for the young people, right, So
(08:36):
all we can do, and kudos to you, you just
keep moving. I don't know how you get any sleep,
man Like I last time I spoke to you, it
was about the instrumental album with Fernando Perdomo, which is
another fabulous.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
That was a great record, but nobody heard it.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Well, it was a great project. And then I felt
like I had to talk to Fernando too, because I'm thinking,
who's this guitar player. I see he's everywhere. He's on
the Temple of Blues as well.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yes, I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Talk to you about King Kobra after the running up
that hill, but you are so busy and you had
switched PR companies and before I could even figure out
who to reach out to, you've got this Temple Blues
thing going on, and talk about an all star lineup. Man,
the names like I mentioned before, Joe Bonamasa d Snyder.
It's come a long way since Cactus was originally formed.
(09:24):
I mean you had Jim McCarty on guitar, I was
Tim Bogert on bass, and then Rusty Day from the
Ambi Dukes was the singer. Now you've got a totally
different lineup today. Now you've mentioned that it's kind of
a musical chairs to a point, how do you tour
an album like this?
Speaker 4 (09:42):
And we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, you really don't tour. You do some individual dates.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Luckily, I guess you don't have to sell a lot
to get on the blues charts, so what you would
normally sell you wouldn't even.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Hit the rock charts anymore.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
But it was so much fun doing it because you know,
like I did Joe Bonamasa's podcast, and he started out
was man, when I heard Tactics patch my Farm, it
blew my brains out. I said, well, it's funny you
should say that, because I'm doing this album. I would
love for you to play potch my Farm, and he said,
I'll do it. So I knew certain things, like I
knew guys from King's X were big Cactus fans. I
(10:37):
knew they would do it. Now I got Bonamasa, and
I knew D Schneider loved evil because he did it
on an album called Widow Maker with one of my
drum students, Joe Franco, And he said, oh, man, you
should call D. He loves cactus. I said, okay, So
I called D and he said he would do it.
And I knew the guy from King's X would do it.
I knew Ted Nutchan love cactus. I knew he would
(11:00):
do it, so I had some people I knew would
do it, so I just went from there. When I
called like Ted, I said, well, what song do you
want to do it? He says, I want to do
one way or another. I said, okay, I'm going to
get Doug Pinnick to play bass and let him sing
it because he's a great singer. The duck said, yeah, man,
no problem. That's how it went. But the funny thing
about this record, it started out in my studio here
(11:23):
I live in Florida. This is a guest house, you know.
I'm sitting now in the kitchen part of the guest house,
which I use for my room mics. And the whole
record started with the drums, which is very strange. I
don't know anyone that starts with the drums. Okay, So
I put the click on like parchment fom the Temple
from the original album.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I put it up.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
It's two hundred and forty seven beats per minute, just going,
can't So I put that on for like three or
four minutes, and then I said, bro was one too
one two better?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
En?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
This is I'm singing to myself as you but they're
they're sitting over here in my postument and that's how
I did partument fall okay, And then I did one
way or another like that, and then I said, this
is too difficult. I have to play the something. Can't
be thinking about everything, you know. So then I said,
(12:18):
I'm going to do that. I'm going to put the
click down and they're going to sing those parts into
the microphone so I don't have to think about it.
Then I have something to play to. And it's also
it gave me a map of the song and where
I'm going, and that's how I did the rest of
the album. And then once I got that down, then
I'd send it to my singer, who didn't go on tour,
but he was on tour with us the last tours
(12:40):
we did, and he put a guitar, a vocal and
harmonica where it needed. And then we sent it to
our bass player who put a bass on it. So
everybody has home studios. So we did that, and now
we had demos of each song, and that it was
easy to say, Okay, Ted, you want to do one
way or another, here's one way or another without the vocal.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Then once Ted got on it, then we put Doug
on it. Then we put his vocal on it, and
we just built a whole album like that. You'd never
know that this was done without not anyone in a
studio together.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
That seems to be the result of COVID a lot
of long distance recordings. I've done a few recordings in
the last few years where it was just the producer
and I in the room and everybody else was somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
What do you play? You play guitar, Well, I've.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Got guitars behind me, keyboards and I sing.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I just actually recently did some session work for a
Canadian artist who has a couple of gold records on
his wall. And when I was working with my producer,
you talk about the click track. This guy is a
brilliant musician, but he sent me this song without a click.
Some time signature changes and so it was a bit
of a challenge. But I've always said it comes to
(13:51):
my music, I can't do it without a rock soli drummer.
So it's hard for me to imagine why anybody wouldn't
just be over the moon for the opportunity to play
with you.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Well, you know, I got that from a lot of people,
and for me, it's like wow.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I'm like wow.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And to play with them, yeah, well you're living inside
your own skin, right, But yeah, yeah. I've always said
without a good drummer, your band is nothing, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Without a doubt, the hot rock, rock, solid, solid and energetic.
I learned to play with a click where I don't
play exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
With the click.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
I go a little behind, a little ahead of it,
you know, going like this so it sounds real. I'm
going to be doing a clinic in Long Island.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Where are you at?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I'm in London, Ontario, Canada.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Okay, I'm going to be doing one in Long Island.
And right now I'm doing a really wild project. I
have this Rod Stewart show. It's called Tonight's the Night,
celebrating the music and legacy of Rods to it. I'm
not calling it a tribute because I hate the word tribute.
Because I'm playing the songs that I worked with Froud
on and I played it, so it's like a tribute
(14:58):
to myself. We got the sax player to play with
Rod fourteen years, this woman named Catcher. I got a
guy named Rod Caudle that looks and sounds and dresses
and he lives Rod Stewart. So we're doing a gig
and Palm Springs. So what I'm doing is I'm working
with the guy writing the orchestra charts and we talk
(15:21):
about without a click. We had a live show. We
sent them, but it was difficult to get the orchestra
lined up with the live show because you know, we're
not clicks, we're human. So it goes like this, you know.
So what I started doing, which brought me to the
fact of the click. I got Fernando to do seven
songs left that we busted. We did four songs without
(15:44):
the click, and you know, it was easy with some
of them, like some guys having the luck. Everything's eight notes.
It was easy. Young Turks was fairly easy. But when
you get like Tonight's Tonight, it wasn't easy. So I
said to Fernando, can you do these songs to a click?
He said yeah, So yesterday I played myself to infatuation
(16:04):
with a click that I'm going to give to the
guy who's doing the charts, which would be easy now.
And that was all to a click so he could
line his machine that prints out the music and the
charge to ninety beats per minute. Let's say and then
I'm on ninety beach per minute and they'll line up right,
you know. But even I got a PC, he's got
a Mac. Even when it's together, my PC doesn't play
(16:26):
it properly. The Mac plays the properly. So it's really crazy.
So anyway, I'm going to take this Infatuation track to
the clinic. I'm going to use it as a demonstration
on how to play to a click and how to
play to it without sounding like a machine.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
That's the trick. I had a a drummer in my
band for years who's a Canadian legacy artist and was
very well known Canadian band, and he played to the
click on stage, off stage, whatever. But he got to
the point where it was too perfect and we had
to go in a different direction because I felt like
there was no breath there.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
No, no, I didn't think there was going to be
such a big deal. There's the songs a live show,
put the orchestra stuff to it. But then when you
listen back and it's it's like the orchestra isn't playing
with the tracks of the live stuff, Like there's we
do you keep hanging on that Rod did when I
was in the band and it's one of the major
songs in our show. In the second verse, he was
(17:22):
doing different intervals that I said, Man, how the hell
is that going to work? He said, you got to
hear it with the chords at the band's playing. But
I couldn't do that because it wasn't in time. So
I got the orchestra and I got our track, and
I spent hours cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting on my
computer on my cube base, just making it kind of
(17:44):
in time. Once I did that, I said, oh, I
see what he's saying. Oh, it is pretty cool. And
now it's going to be a lot easier having to
click me playing drums on it, So it's going to
sound it's going to sound natural rather than just pop,
you know. And Fernando plays like that. Sure he's not
click click click guide, but the click is there just
to hold it all together.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, And I think that's where a lot of people
get it wrong. You know, they don't understand it's like
a road. You stay on the road, but there's going
to be some curves. Yeah, there's going to be some
powertholes and whatnot, And you stay on the road, right
and we'll be right back after this. It's interesting to
(18:36):
me that the fans have no idea how much work
goes into this stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
You know.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And I've often said that if I'm going to put
all that time and effort into a project, I want
it to be my own material. I'm very impressed with
tribute acts that do you know the note for note
stuff and in your case, like you say, it's not
really a tribute because you were part of it.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
We're part of it.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Like the last gig I catch Or played with rog
fourteen years, so what they've been doing. Robed the singer
had a drummer his brother played with them forever, so
he played the stuff almost exactly like the record, but
he like Tonight's to night. He played with four in
the bass drow. I'm like, then, nice night. It's not
(19:16):
the way it's played. He's played at boom.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
She got doom.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
It swings, you know, right, So she says to me,
you know, we had a second drummer do it, who
was one of my students.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I brought him into doing.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
He played to a clique the first day and I said, dude,
you playing to a click. I said, you forget about
the click. You're dragging the band down. So he stopped,
but he did a good job playing. But then it
got to the point where by flying him in and
out from New York and it just got too expensive.
So I said, look, I'll just play the first part
of the show because we would do what I called
the WHIMPI Rod, some guys have all the luck forever
(19:50):
young and you know those kind of songs. I told
you lately, I love you those kind of songs. And
then he had introduced me, and then we come out
and we do all the big songs that he had,
Hot Legs, Young Turks and Passion and You're in My
Heart and Tonight Tonight, all that stuff that I play with,
we do do you think I'm sexy? And Maggie and
we keep hanging on. It was really highlight of the show.
(20:13):
So I said, look, I'll play the songs and the
last show, Casum, you better study these songs because you're
not playing them right. I said to the single, Look,
I'm not playing them right. I'm driving the band. That's
what I'm doing. I'm pushing and driving the band. And
that's what I did with Rod, I said, with songs
that I didn't play on I played it. Carmen played it,
(20:34):
you know, I didn't play it like like the record.
I played it to drive the band in the show.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You know a difference between live and studio, right, and
exactly certain energy that's missing live when you just play perfectly.
And I talked to another producer recently and he says
that he gets these metal bands that go into the
studio and his number one comment is stopped being so
bloody perfect. I said, technology today and you talk cut
(21:02):
and paste and this and that. Some of it is
so rigid it's unbelievable. So it's good to have something
like I say, this Cactus album when I put it on,
and man, I want to talk to you about long
tall Sally whose idea was to slow that down? That
is so righteous.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I didn't even remember back then. We just liked to
do different arrangements like potramre fom. I didn't know that
was a blue song. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I wasn't into blues.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Rusty Day was a blues and Jim McCarter they were
like really into blues. So when we jammed that tempo
in that song, that could have been anything. It wasn't
about the song potram phom. He could have sang any
of rustyse lyrics. It was a great melody and lyric guy.
I thought that's what he was doing. So when it
came out and they said, oh, this was written by
(21:50):
Mose Allison, whoever it was, I said, wow, I didn't
know that. There's all these other songs we did one
way or another and Let Me Swim and rock and
Roll Children. We just jammed and sang on it. And
like I say, that song could have been anything. It's
not about it was Partsmaphilm. The lyrics didn't sell that song.
Mellie didn't sell that song. It was freaking playing sold
(22:12):
that song, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah, the musical chemistry.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah, nobody played a song like that. That was the
very first fast, double bass drum song that was around
in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Then Billy Cobham did one in.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Nineteen seventy two, and people used to argue with that
who did it first? I did it first. It was
nineteen seventy And you know who's big fans of Tactus
van Halen. You look at eruption. That song eruption, it's
not a song, you know what it is?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, listen to the beginning of Let Me swim. I
(23:03):
deliberately extended it, and I put a great guitarist, I
Dug Alderge on it, so it goes like broown the guitar,
blamp blam blown guitar.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Right, yeah, that's eruption, right yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Okay, that's why it's the same thing. They love tactics.
So when they did Hot for Teacher, Alex told me
the roadmap for Hot for Teacher was pastmaphom Ah. You
could hear Hot for Teacher's double bass and posture phone.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
This is an impressive album and it's out now on Cleopatra,
and there's a band camp page for Cleopatra whereverbody can
pick it up. And I highly recommend that people do,
because man, I'm still listening to it my truck, and it's.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Just you don't get tired of listen to it every
time you listen to hear something else, and all the
people are playing on like doug Alders and let me
Swim as a Monster with Malcolm Mendoza from White State
Killer and all the guys at the Great Job Restrictions.
I wrote with Rusty Day in my basement on old
Lowry organ. He sang, I played the chords and we
(24:09):
brought it to the band and we arranged it with
the band and their album.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
People love it.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I mean King's Actually they took so much from Cactus
and different things.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
He told me.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
He said, you guys were definitely mentors of the band.
I love those guys. They're so great and it's so
easy to get along with. Some guys didn't even get
paid the Blues with Warren Haynes. He played the guitar
and the vocal at the same time in the same
room for himself, but the Blues started with the drums.
(24:39):
Think about playing that got by yourself.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
You know, well, you're not the typical drummer. I think
what separates you from a lot of guys, aside from
your brilliant playing, is that you have a very musical ear.
There's not a lot of drummers out there who write songs,
So to have that melodic ear and to have the
technical ability you have on the drums goes a long way.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
I mean I tell people like when I'm going to
do this clinic and I do that track, and was
show them that I play melodic drums. I try and
make them melodic. And I listened to the vocal or
whatever the lead thing is like me, it's Fernando the
Instrumental album. I mean, we got screwed on that album.
That should have been fin the Grammys in a rock
(25:29):
instrumental department. They put us in a regular album along
with Taylor Swift. You know, I said, how can you
do that? It's a rock instrumental I consider that stuff.
You got like Jeff Beck doing those kinds of records,
but his records were more jazz rock. We were more
rock jazz, you know what I mean. It was a
rock basis rather than a jazz basis. It was very
(25:52):
progressive rock kind of stuff. Time signatures and great melodies,
and we redid that Running Up the hillsong.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I thought that was so good.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It was.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
The video. Have you seen the video for the drum.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
City Yes, yeah, last time we spoke brilliant.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Brilliant video.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
I mean, that's my artwork. I have it up on
my wall here. Drum City and my editor animated it
so it worked that cars were running and things were
going up and down that It was great.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
The videos were great, The music is great, and I mean,
if you haven't heard it yet, people check out record.
Running Up that Hill is Brilliant again on Cleopatra Records.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
I don't think Cleopatra got it. I don't think they
knew what to do with it.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
It's interesting, you know that people put labels on us.
I've never been what I would consider a pop artist myself,
but for years and years I was nominated as Pop
Artist of the Year for the London Music Awards, and.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
I always had this scrutch kidding, I'm still waiting for
a nomination from the Grammys for something. If I had
a nomination for some just put it in for this
Cactus album in the Blues Departament. I mean, if I
get a nomination, I'm happy. And I got all these
awards over I you know, I got the Heavy Metal Award,
(27:11):
and Vanilla Fudge got their Music Award, and Long Island
Music Award and certificates from this one and that one,
but I never had any nomination for Grammys. He even
had a proclamation for Los Angeles Come Out of Peace
Day in Los Angeles, but I never got the nomination
for a Grammy. My daughter, who does special effects makeup,
(27:31):
she's had five nominations for Emmys. I said, man, you're
doing better than me. I just love to have the
nomination for some whether I win or not, I don't care.
That nomination is good enough for me.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
That's it. You know, I kind of get around about
being nominated for the pop artists, but you know, you
can't downplay that stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
It's it's great.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
We'll recognize you whether you win or not.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Exactly as long as you got the nomination, you're good.
I mean, like for me, I'm in the Modern Drummer
Hall of Fame, this Hall of this Hall of Fame
as a person, but it would be nice to get
as an album, especially these albums I produced it. Like
I said, we got screwed out of that a piece
of doomo album. Man, that was a great rock instrumental album.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I don't know any other rock.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Instrumental albums that were around. I don't even know any rockins.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Like you said, you probably you were just in the
wrong category for totally totally. So this album, Temple of
Blues is brilliant, and again people, you got to go
out and get it. What's next for you, Carmine.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Well, besides the Rod thing, I hope we do a
Temple of Blues too, because I think what's going to
be on it is that Melanie song, and then they
got their rights to a guy named Junior Wells and
who Junior Wells ish. Yeah, so they already wanted me
to do Cactus with Junior Wells doing They said, you
picked the song, so we're looking around for a song,
(28:52):
but I also want.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
To do that.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
And then I got about three or four songs from
Hellenwolf where the Evil Song came out of that would
be good to redo with Cactus, as well as maybe
three or four more Cactus songs that we missed on
this record. So that's what I'm planning. I said to Brian,
I said, you know, we should do Temple of Blues too.
He said, let's let this one run us course and
(29:16):
then we'll do it. That took me nine months to
make that record. I'm on more so a lot of work,
a lot of work, but I'm prepared to do number two,
and you know, maybe we found a niche to Cactus.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Well. I'm certainly looking forward to everything new from Cactus
and everything new from you. I don't want to take
up your whole day, Carmine. I know you very busy, man.
I do want to thank you so much for taking
the time out of your day to do this with
me once again, and until next time, cheers.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Okay, cheers right.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Tommy Solo's Famous Friends is a one man production, meaning
that I've done all the work including recording, editing, guest acquisition,
et cetera. And check out the articles based on my
interviews at five to one nine magazine. That's five to
one nine magazine dot com. The theme song for Tommy
Solo's Famous Friends is a clip from my original composition,
(30:07):
The Burn. All rights reserved. If you enjoy the show
and you'd like to help us keep it going, why
don't you click on the buy me a Coffee link
in the show notes, hit the like button, subscribe all
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
You can find me on Facebook and Instagram, and until
next time, cheers,
Welcome to Tommy Solo's Famous Friends. This is where I
get to chat with people I've connected with over the
years in the world of arts and entertainment, and today
I'm glad to welcome back to the show legendary rock
drummer Carmine at Peace. Welcome back, Carmine.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
How you doing.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm doing just fantastic. It's always a pleasure to talk
to you. Before we hit record, I mentioned that Cactus
is back, and you said that it never really went away.
So you are a busy guy. I know that, But
what's with this Cactus never going away stuff?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Well, we got back together in two thousand and five,
I think it was, and me, Tim Bogan and Jim
McCarty and another singer. We've been working ever since. We've
been into Europe, we've been to South America, we've been
to Japan, We've been all over there with Cactus.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So, you know, we just.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Kept going and we had a couple of switchover So
the last couple of years we did some touring. We
did an album on Cleopatrick called Tightrope. They released it
in CD and vinyl and it was a really really
good record, you know. And then on Cleopatra. We did
a lot of stuff. You know, it seemed to do
well on Cleopatra, so we we got a call. I
(01:33):
got a call from Brian Ron's Cleopatra, and he said,
you think you can do a record that would take
in people who were influenced by Cactus. I said, yeah,
I could do that and probably get some friends too
that can play on it. So he said yeah. I said,
but I need a budget. So he gave me a
budget and we went out and did it, and you know,
(01:56):
I got all my friends. I called Steve Stevens and
asked him if he would do it. He goes, yeah, man,
I said, you know, I've been influenced by Cactus. I'm
from New York. I said, oh wow, that's cool, and
that was interesting for me. People had to my friends
were influenced by Cactus as well. So I went out
and did it. Meanwhile, while we're doing it, Cactus always
(02:16):
been a blues rock band, you know, It's always had
some blues songs on it, and like Alaska is a
Stone blues and all our court changes the aparture and
farms of blues and no Need to Worry has always
been a blues you know, We've always been known as a.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Blues rock band.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So I'm watching my friends like fog Hat, Robin Trower,
they were hitting the blues charts and billboard, and I said, wow,
I said we should.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Do that too. So I called Brian.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I said, you know, instead of calling me this influence
of friends, we should market it as a blues album
because blues rock is like fog Hat, it just like
Robin Trouer. I said, let's call it Temple of Blues.
I said, great, idea, Temple of blues influencers and friends
makes it's a nice title. He said, yeah, it's good.
So we already had the cover. Have you seen the cover?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Oh? Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
The cover was like my idea to have a like
a Sgeant Pepper kind of cover. When we first did it,
the Authorrector put Sergeant Pepper outfits on everybody. I said, no,
I don't mean exactly like Sergeant Peppa. I said, just
the idea of having everybody that played on the record,
that worked on the record, on the cover.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
That's the difference. Everybody on that cover is on the album.
The Beatles thing was just an all star friend whatever.
But this album, I got to tell you Carmine. When
I put that on in my truck the other day
for the first time, I had been listening to FM
rock radio before I put the scene, and I swear
to God from the first note of Parchment Farm, I
(03:46):
had to check my rear view mirror to make sure
I hadn't just blown my head off. This is a
This is a bombastic a man, this is this is
a great album, and.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
It's a great record. I said, I produced it. Let
me finish. Start with the cover. So when I told Brian,
let's change the cover, Let's make everything in the temple.
All the artwork would be in the temple. Okay, so
we did that. But as far as the production on
it and the sound of it, I had my buddy.
He was a co producer on a Pat Reagan who
(04:15):
was an amazing mixer, and he mixed the whole record.
And after he did a mix, he sent it to
me and I check it out and go, well, at
least a little more of this and all of that.
But he's just amazing. So when we finished the album
and he mastered it as well, same thing with me.
I put it on in my car, I said, Wow,
this thing is like killer. It really kicks it, but
(04:36):
it's still blues. It's bluesy. So I was very happy
with the way it came out. And then when we're
marketing it as a blues record, I heard the two
guys that promoted the fog Hat record, and I'm listening
to Brian. We're talking every day before it came out.
He goes, well, it's in the pre orders. It's like
number four and number three, number five on the Amazon
(04:57):
pre orders.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
It's doing great.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
So when it came came out two or three weeks later,
it hit the Billboard shots at number three on blues.
I said, I haven't been on a Billboard, any Billboard
shot since nineteen eighty nine. The way the music business
is today, I was like blown away. And we went
out and played some shows with fog Hat. Some of
the guys couldn't make the shows. The Cactus is the
kind of band that you can put different people in it. Lawns,
(05:20):
they kicked in that material. It's the material that sells
the band. That Cactus, pasmaphone, that's Cactus. So we had
Tony Franklin playing bass on three gigs with fog Hat,
and we had a new guitar player Ardie Dillon who
played with me and my brother in our drum Wards show,
and my singer couldn't make it, so we got my
friend at Terry, who I know. He's from Long Island.
(05:43):
He's a great singer. He came and did it and
we went out like with that group and we kicked it.
And then we continued later on in June and we
got a regular bass player back and we did a
bunch of gigs with that and he kicked it again,
you know. So now we've got some more gigs coming
up in twenty twenty five. I want to do a
(06:04):
Temple of Blues too. I have some great ideas for it.
We just did a track with Cactus and Melanie.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I was going to ask her that that's the same Melanie.
That's uh yeah, I got.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
That is just amazing, unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Did you hear it.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I have heard it, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, unbelievable. She sounds like Jannie Chaplin. Some of those
streams she did was like wow, So that's the same thing.
Brian called me up and she loved the way the
Cactus album sounded, and he said, I'd like to do
Melanie with Cactus. I said, what said, yeah, I got
heard singing purple haze. Because they have the rice she
passed away, they have the right to her A and
(06:46):
I vocal and her vocal and I said, wow, I'd
like to hear that. So he said it to me
and I said, wow, that's Melanie. That's really really different.
So he said, can you do that? I said, of course,
I can do that. Come on, So he got it.
I sent it to my engineer Pat again. He stretched
it out, so we put it on a grid.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Editor's note.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
In this context, a grid is an editing mode that
is part of pro Tools recording software. Now back to
this show.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
You know the grid is, so I put it on
the grid so the click would run and it would
be in time, because you can't do that otherwise, you know,
when you're recording digitally. So gave me the vocal and
I listened to it, and I put an arrangement together
in my head, but I did it. I started with
the drums, so I had her vocal on my drums.
I played that for Brian and goes, oh, that's killing man.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
I said, okay.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Then I brought in Tony Franklin to play bass, and
Audie Dillon a guitar player to play and she was
singing and we did an amazing arrangement to her vocal
and my buddy Pat mix it again. It sounds like
the Catus record.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, it's it's incredible. And I mean, Noody knows better
than you how much the music business has changed over
the years.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
End technology, technology is great, but selling it, you know.
I met a guy yesterday said, it's a young girl
from around here in Florida. She's on TikTok and she
just got one hundred million views on TikTok. One hundred million.
But I don't know what does she make money from that?
I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
It's hard to say anymore. I talked to somebody who
was very big in the Canadian music business as a
record company executive and a legislator and so on, and
he passed away recently as well. But when I talked
to him last time, he told me that the breakout
tool today is TikTok, but it's not for guys like
you and me. It's for the young people, right, So
(08:36):
all we can do, and kudos to you, you just
keep moving. I don't know how you get any sleep,
man Like I last time I spoke to you, it
was about the instrumental album with Fernando Perdomo, which is
another fabulous.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
That was a great record, but nobody heard it.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Well, it was a great project. And then I felt
like I had to talk to Fernando too, because I'm thinking,
who's this guitar player. I see he's everywhere. He's on
the Temple of Blues as well.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yes, I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Talk to you about King Kobra after the running up
that hill, but you are so busy and you had
switched PR companies and before I could even figure out
who to reach out to, you've got this Temple Blues
thing going on, and talk about an all star lineup. Man,
the names like I mentioned before, Joe Bonamasa d Snyder.
It's come a long way since Cactus was originally formed.
(09:24):
I mean you had Jim McCarty on guitar, I was
Tim Bogert on bass, and then Rusty Day from the
Ambi Dukes was the singer. Now you've got a totally
different lineup today. Now you've mentioned that it's kind of
a musical chairs to a point, how do you tour
an album like this?
Speaker 4 (09:42):
And we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, you really don't tour. You do some individual dates.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Luckily, I guess you don't have to sell a lot
to get on the blues charts, so what you would
normally sell you wouldn't even.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Hit the rock charts anymore.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
But it was so much fun doing it because you know,
like I did Joe Bonamasa's podcast, and he started out
was man, when I heard Tactics patch my Farm, it
blew my brains out. I said, well, it's funny you
should say that, because I'm doing this album. I would
love for you to play potch my Farm, and he said,
I'll do it. So I knew certain things, like I
knew guys from King's X were big Cactus fans. I
(10:37):
knew they would do it. Now I got Bonamasa, and
I knew D Schneider loved evil because he did it
on an album called Widow Maker with one of my
drum students, Joe Franco, And he said, oh, man, you
should call D. He loves cactus. I said, okay, So
I called D and he said he would do it.
And I knew the guy from King's X would do it.
I knew Ted Nutchan love cactus. I knew he would
(11:00):
do it, so I had some people I knew would
do it, so I just went from there. When I
called like Ted, I said, well, what song do you
want to do it? He says, I want to do
one way or another. I said, okay, I'm going to
get Doug Pinnick to play bass and let him sing
it because he's a great singer. The duck said, yeah, man,
no problem. That's how it went. But the funny thing
about this record, it started out in my studio here
(11:23):
I live in Florida. This is a guest house, you know.
I'm sitting now in the kitchen part of the guest house,
which I use for my room mics. And the whole
record started with the drums, which is very strange. I
don't know anyone that starts with the drums. Okay, So
I put the click on like parchment fom the Temple
from the original album.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I put it up.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
It's two hundred and forty seven beats per minute, just going,
can't So I put that on for like three or
four minutes, and then I said, bro was one too
one two better?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
En?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
This is I'm singing to myself as you but they're
they're sitting over here in my postument and that's how
I did partument fall okay, And then I did one
way or another like that, and then I said, this
is too difficult. I have to play the something. Can't
be thinking about everything, you know. So then I said,
(12:18):
I'm going to do that. I'm going to put the
click down and they're going to sing those parts into
the microphone so I don't have to think about it.
Then I have something to play to. And it's also
it gave me a map of the song and where
I'm going, and that's how I did the rest of
the album. And then once I got that down, then
I'd send it to my singer, who didn't go on tour,
but he was on tour with us the last tours
(12:40):
we did, and he put a guitar, a vocal and
harmonica where it needed. And then we sent it to
our bass player who put a bass on it. So
everybody has home studios. So we did that, and now
we had demos of each song, and that it was
easy to say, Okay, Ted, you want to do one
way or another, here's one way or another without the vocal.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Then once Ted got on it, then we put Doug
on it. Then we put his vocal on it, and
we just built a whole album like that. You'd never
know that this was done without not anyone in a
studio together.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
That seems to be the result of COVID a lot
of long distance recordings. I've done a few recordings in
the last few years where it was just the producer
and I in the room and everybody else was somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
What do you play? You play guitar, Well, I've.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Got guitars behind me, keyboards and I sing.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I just actually recently did some session work for a
Canadian artist who has a couple of gold records on
his wall. And when I was working with my producer,
you talk about the click track. This guy is a
brilliant musician, but he sent me this song without a click.
Some time signature changes and so it was a bit
of a challenge. But I've always said it comes to
(13:51):
my music, I can't do it without a rock soli drummer.
So it's hard for me to imagine why anybody wouldn't
just be over the moon for the opportunity to play
with you.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Well, you know, I got that from a lot of people,
and for me, it's like wow.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I'm like wow.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And to play with them, yeah, well you're living inside
your own skin, right, But yeah, yeah. I've always said
without a good drummer, your band is nothing, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Without a doubt, the hot rock, rock, solid, solid and energetic.
I learned to play with a click where I don't
play exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
With the click.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
I go a little behind, a little ahead of it,
you know, going like this so it sounds real. I'm
going to be doing a clinic in Long Island.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Where are you at?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I'm in London, Ontario, Canada.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Okay, I'm going to be doing one in Long Island.
And right now I'm doing a really wild project. I
have this Rod Stewart show. It's called Tonight's the Night,
celebrating the music and legacy of Rods to it. I'm
not calling it a tribute because I hate the word tribute.
Because I'm playing the songs that I worked with Froud
on and I played it, so it's like a tribute
(14:58):
to myself. We got the sax player to play with
Rod fourteen years, this woman named Catcher. I got a
guy named Rod Caudle that looks and sounds and dresses
and he lives Rod Stewart. So we're doing a gig
and Palm Springs. So what I'm doing is I'm working
with the guy writing the orchestra charts and we talk
(15:21):
about without a click. We had a live show. We
sent them, but it was difficult to get the orchestra
lined up with the live show because you know, we're
not clicks, we're human. So it goes like this, you know.
So what I started doing, which brought me to the
fact of the click. I got Fernando to do seven
songs left that we busted. We did four songs without
(15:44):
the click, and you know, it was easy with some
of them, like some guys having the luck. Everything's eight notes.
It was easy. Young Turks was fairly easy. But when
you get like Tonight's Tonight, it wasn't easy. So I
said to Fernando, can you do these songs to a click?
He said yeah, So yesterday I played myself to infatuation
(16:04):
with a click that I'm going to give to the
guy who's doing the charts, which would be easy now.
And that was all to a click so he could
line his machine that prints out the music and the
charge to ninety beats per minute. Let's say and then
I'm on ninety beach per minute and they'll line up right,
you know. But even I got a PC, he's got
a Mac. Even when it's together, my PC doesn't play
(16:26):
it properly. The Mac plays the properly. So it's really crazy.
So anyway, I'm going to take this Infatuation track to
the clinic. I'm going to use it as a demonstration
on how to play to a click and how to
play to it without sounding like a machine.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
That's the trick. I had a a drummer in my
band for years who's a Canadian legacy artist and was
very well known Canadian band, and he played to the
click on stage, off stage, whatever. But he got to
the point where it was too perfect and we had
to go in a different direction because I felt like
there was no breath there.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
No, no, I didn't think there was going to be
such a big deal. There's the songs a live show,
put the orchestra stuff to it. But then when you
listen back and it's it's like the orchestra isn't playing
with the tracks of the live stuff, Like there's we
do you keep hanging on that Rod did when I
was in the band and it's one of the major
songs in our show. In the second verse, he was
(17:22):
doing different intervals that I said, Man, how the hell
is that going to work? He said, you got to
hear it with the chords at the band's playing. But
I couldn't do that because it wasn't in time. So
I got the orchestra and I got our track, and
I spent hours cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting on my
computer on my cube base, just making it kind of
(17:44):
in time. Once I did that, I said, oh, I
see what he's saying. Oh, it is pretty cool. And
now it's going to be a lot easier having to
click me playing drums on it, So it's going to
sound it's going to sound natural rather than just pop,
you know. And Fernando plays like that. Sure he's not
click click click guide, but the click is there just
to hold it all together.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, And I think that's where a lot of people
get it wrong. You know, they don't understand it's like
a road. You stay on the road, but there's going
to be some curves. Yeah, there's going to be some
powertholes and whatnot, And you stay on the road, right
and we'll be right back after this. It's interesting to
(18:36):
me that the fans have no idea how much work
goes into this stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
You know.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And I've often said that if I'm going to put
all that time and effort into a project, I want
it to be my own material. I'm very impressed with
tribute acts that do you know the note for note
stuff and in your case, like you say, it's not
really a tribute because you were part of it.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
We're part of it.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Like the last gig I catch Or played with rog
fourteen years, so what they've been doing. Robed the singer
had a drummer his brother played with them forever, so
he played the stuff almost exactly like the record, but
he like Tonight's to night. He played with four in
the bass drow. I'm like, then, nice night. It's not
(19:16):
the way it's played. He's played at boom.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
She got doom.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
It swings, you know, right, So she says to me,
you know, we had a second drummer do it, who
was one of my students.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I brought him into doing.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
He played to a clique the first day and I said, dude,
you playing to a click. I said, you forget about
the click. You're dragging the band down. So he stopped,
but he did a good job playing. But then it
got to the point where by flying him in and
out from New York and it just got too expensive.
So I said, look, I'll just play the first part
of the show because we would do what I called
the WHIMPI Rod, some guys have all the luck forever
(19:50):
young and you know those kind of songs. I told
you lately, I love you those kind of songs. And
then he had introduced me, and then we come out
and we do all the big songs that he had,
Hot Legs, Young Turks and Passion and You're in My
Heart and Tonight Tonight, all that stuff that I play with,
we do do you think I'm sexy? And Maggie and
we keep hanging on. It was really highlight of the show.
(20:13):
So I said, look, I'll play the songs and the
last show, Casum, you better study these songs because you're
not playing them right. I said to the single, Look,
I'm not playing them right. I'm driving the band. That's
what I'm doing. I'm pushing and driving the band. And
that's what I did with Rod, I said, with songs
that I didn't play on I played it. Carmen played it,
(20:34):
you know, I didn't play it like like the record.
I played it to drive the band in the show.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You know a difference between live and studio, right, and
exactly certain energy that's missing live when you just play perfectly.
And I talked to another producer recently and he says
that he gets these metal bands that go into the
studio and his number one comment is stopped being so
bloody perfect. I said, technology today and you talk cut
(21:02):
and paste and this and that. Some of it is
so rigid it's unbelievable. So it's good to have something
like I say, this Cactus album when I put it on,
and man, I want to talk to you about long
tall Sally whose idea was to slow that down? That
is so righteous.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I didn't even remember back then. We just liked to
do different arrangements like potramre fom. I didn't know that
was a blue song. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I wasn't into blues.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Rusty Day was a blues and Jim McCarter they were
like really into blues. So when we jammed that tempo
in that song, that could have been anything. It wasn't
about the song potram phom. He could have sang any
of rustyse lyrics. It was a great melody and lyric guy.
I thought that's what he was doing. So when it
came out and they said, oh, this was written by
(21:50):
Mose Allison, whoever it was, I said, wow, I didn't
know that. There's all these other songs we did one
way or another and Let Me Swim and rock and
Roll Children. We just jammed and sang on it. And
like I say, that song could have been anything. It's
not about it was Partsmaphilm. The lyrics didn't sell that song.
Mellie didn't sell that song. It was freaking playing sold
(22:12):
that song, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah, the musical chemistry.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah, nobody played a song like that. That was the
very first fast, double bass drum song that was around
in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Then Billy Cobham did one in.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Nineteen seventy two, and people used to argue with that
who did it first? I did it first. It was
nineteen seventy And you know who's big fans of Tactus
van Halen. You look at eruption. That song eruption, it's
not a song, you know what it is?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, listen to the beginning of Let Me swim. I
(23:03):
deliberately extended it, and I put a great guitarist, I
Dug Alderge on it, so it goes like broown the guitar,
blamp blam blown guitar.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Right, yeah, that's eruption, right yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Okay, that's why it's the same thing. They love tactics.
So when they did Hot for Teacher, Alex told me
the roadmap for Hot for Teacher was pastmaphom Ah. You
could hear Hot for Teacher's double bass and posture phone.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
This is an impressive album and it's out now on Cleopatra,
and there's a band camp page for Cleopatra whereverbody can
pick it up. And I highly recommend that people do,
because man, I'm still listening to it my truck, and it's.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Just you don't get tired of listen to it every
time you listen to hear something else, and all the
people are playing on like doug Alders and let me
Swim as a Monster with Malcolm Mendoza from White State
Killer and all the guys at the Great Job Restrictions.
I wrote with Rusty Day in my basement on old
Lowry organ. He sang, I played the chords and we
(24:09):
brought it to the band and we arranged it with
the band and their album.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
People love it.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I mean King's Actually they took so much from Cactus
and different things.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
He told me.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
He said, you guys were definitely mentors of the band.
I love those guys. They're so great and it's so
easy to get along with. Some guys didn't even get
paid the Blues with Warren Haynes. He played the guitar
and the vocal at the same time in the same
room for himself, but the Blues started with the drums.
(24:39):
Think about playing that got by yourself.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
You know, well, you're not the typical drummer. I think
what separates you from a lot of guys, aside from
your brilliant playing, is that you have a very musical ear.
There's not a lot of drummers out there who write songs,
So to have that melodic ear and to have the
technical ability you have on the drums goes a long way.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
I mean I tell people like when I'm going to
do this clinic and I do that track, and was
show them that I play melodic drums. I try and
make them melodic. And I listened to the vocal or
whatever the lead thing is like me, it's Fernando the
Instrumental album. I mean, we got screwed on that album.
That should have been fin the Grammys in a rock
(25:29):
instrumental department. They put us in a regular album along
with Taylor Swift. You know, I said, how can you
do that? It's a rock instrumental I consider that stuff.
You got like Jeff Beck doing those kinds of records,
but his records were more jazz rock. We were more
rock jazz, you know what I mean. It was a
rock basis rather than a jazz basis. It was very
(25:52):
progressive rock kind of stuff. Time signatures and great melodies,
and we redid that Running Up the hillsong.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I thought that was so good.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It was.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
The video. Have you seen the video for the drum.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
City Yes, yeah, last time we spoke brilliant.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Brilliant video.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
I mean, that's my artwork. I have it up on
my wall here. Drum City and my editor animated it
so it worked that cars were running and things were
going up and down that It was great.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
The videos were great, The music is great, and I mean,
if you haven't heard it yet, people check out record.
Running Up that Hill is Brilliant again on Cleopatra Records.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
I don't think Cleopatra got it. I don't think they
knew what to do with it.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
It's interesting, you know that people put labels on us.
I've never been what I would consider a pop artist myself,
but for years and years I was nominated as Pop
Artist of the Year for the London Music Awards, and.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
I always had this scrutch kidding, I'm still waiting for
a nomination from the Grammys for something. If I had
a nomination for some just put it in for this
Cactus album in the Blues Departament. I mean, if I
get a nomination, I'm happy. And I got all these
awards over I you know, I got the Heavy Metal Award,
(27:11):
and Vanilla Fudge got their Music Award, and Long Island
Music Award and certificates from this one and that one,
but I never had any nomination for Grammys. He even
had a proclamation for Los Angeles Come Out of Peace
Day in Los Angeles, but I never got the nomination
for a Grammy. My daughter, who does special effects makeup,
(27:31):
she's had five nominations for Emmys. I said, man, you're
doing better than me. I just love to have the
nomination for some whether I win or not, I don't care.
That nomination is good enough for me.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
That's it. You know, I kind of get around about
being nominated for the pop artists, but you know, you
can't downplay that stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
It's it's great.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
We'll recognize you whether you win or not.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Exactly as long as you got the nomination, you're good.
I mean, like for me, I'm in the Modern Drummer
Hall of Fame, this Hall of this Hall of Fame
as a person, but it would be nice to get
as an album, especially these albums I produced it. Like
I said, we got screwed out of that a piece
of doomo album. Man, that was a great rock instrumental album.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I don't know any other rock.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Instrumental albums that were around. I don't even know any rockins.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Like you said, you probably you were just in the
wrong category for totally totally. So this album, Temple of
Blues is brilliant, and again people, you got to go
out and get it. What's next for you, Carmine.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Well, besides the Rod thing, I hope we do a
Temple of Blues too, because I think what's going to
be on it is that Melanie song, and then they
got their rights to a guy named Junior Wells and
who Junior Wells ish. Yeah, so they already wanted me
to do Cactus with Junior Wells doing They said, you
picked the song, so we're looking around for a song,
(28:52):
but I also want.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
To do that.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
And then I got about three or four songs from
Hellenwolf where the Evil Song came out of that would
be good to redo with Cactus, as well as maybe
three or four more Cactus songs that we missed on
this record. So that's what I'm planning. I said to Brian,
I said, you know, we should do Temple of Blues too.
He said, let's let this one run us course and
(29:16):
then we'll do it. That took me nine months to
make that record. I'm on more so a lot of work,
a lot of work, but I'm prepared to do number two,
and you know, maybe we found a niche to Cactus.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Well. I'm certainly looking forward to everything new from Cactus
and everything new from you. I don't want to take
up your whole day, Carmine. I know you very busy, man.
I do want to thank you so much for taking
the time out of your day to do this with
me once again, and until next time, cheers.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Okay, cheers right.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Tommy Solo's Famous Friends is a one man production, meaning
that I've done all the work including recording, editing, guest acquisition,
et cetera. And check out the articles based on my
interviews at five to one nine magazine. That's five to
one nine magazine dot com. The theme song for Tommy
Solo's Famous Friends is a clip from my original composition,
(30:07):
The Burn. All rights reserved. If you enjoy the show
and you'd like to help us keep it going, why
don't you click on the buy me a Coffee link
in the show notes, hit the like button, subscribe all
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
You can find me on Facebook and Instagram, and until
next time, cheers,
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