By Jim Barber
Already a legend in the annals of rock music, with hundreds of album credits, millions upon millions of records sold and legendary performances alongside the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, and an influence on succeeding generations of percussionists, Carmine Appice shows no signs of slowing down, even as he enjoys his eighth decade on the planet.
A co-founder of two of the most important, creatively unique and influential rock bands of the late 1960s and early 1980s, Vanilla Fudge and Cactus, Appice cast his mark in stone on the music landscape with his innovation, his power, his dynamism and his can’t miss performance stagecraft. For more than 50 years, he has been name-checked alongside fellow drummers with the last names of Moon, Bonham, Baker and Starr as the most significant and talented to ever sit behind a kit and bash away.
With an unabashed affinity for collaboration, and a desire to try new styles, new sounds, new approaches, Appice has been a constant presence in the pop, rock and metal community, through his time helping craft the legendary disco hit, ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ for Rod the Mod, to swapping chops with Tim Bogert and Jeff Beck in Beck, Bogert & Appice, his iconic but very short run with Ozzy during the Bark at the Moon era, to forming the grossly underrated 1980s hair metal band King Kobra, to his partnership with Tony Franklin and the late great former Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake guitarist/songwriter John Sykes in the brilliant and bombastic Blue Murder in the late 1980s, and on to his self-produced Guitar Zeus project [see article here**], there is definitely no off switch. Whew! That’s a heckuva list!
In the early years of this new millennium, understanding that there was not only still an audience for his early work, but a whole new crop of fans seeking some soulfulness, some prodigiousness, some inspired musical wizardry on their ‘playlists,’ Appice revived both Vanilla Fudge and Cactus, each releasing new music as well as re-releasing previous recordings.
Since signing with Cleopatra Records around the time of the pandemic, Cactus has released two new studio albums, Tightrope in 2021, and Temple Of Blues: Influences and Friends. Now, the band, has released Temple of Blues II, following on a similar formula, and with similarly compelling effect.
The idea to follow up the first Temple of Blues record, utilizing the current lineup of Cactus – Appice, vocalist Ed Terry, guitarist Artie Dillon and bassist James Caputo – joined by a pantheon of classic rock icons, came from Cleopatra Records owner Brian Perera.
“It was his idea to do these records in the first place. When we were talking about other stuff he suggested maybe we do another Cactus Temple of Blues record and I said yeah, let’s do it. At first I didn’t know what we would do, so I started looking through the Cactus catalogue and I found three songs that I thought worthy of re-recording and being on it, and for the rest of them, because I really wanted it to be noted as a blues album, I deliberately picked some real old school blues [most of them composed by Willie Dixon]. So the album that ‘Evil’ came off, from the first Temple of Blues album, was [the 1969 compilation] The Howlin’ Wolf Album, and I loved that album so I said, ‘you know what’ let me look at that album. So I did, and found eight songs from that album, and they’re all real blues – Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon – and I said let’s just modernize them and do what we did with ‘Evil’ with these other songs. And that’s what we did, because that album has so many cool songs and cool versions of the older recordings and such good drum grooves that are not an ordinary drum groove. This guy Morris Jennings was brilliant and I don’t know if they told him to play the drums like that, but he just came up with the groove on “Evil’ which is great, and he came up with all these different kinds of grooves on the album. I took the same basic thing that he was doing and modernized the sound and made the groove sound a bit more like right now, and then I matched the players to the song who I thought would fit the groove,” Appice explained, noting that not only was he selecting the songs and playing drums, but he was also the arranger and producer of the Temple of Blues albums.
“I produced this one and the last one and I did it like I did with the Guitar Zeus albums back in the day, I produced that as well. I’m not really known as a producer, you know, but I can produce obviously. For this project it’s a bit of a nightmare, but it’s a nice nightmare to have so many people and so many moving parts. It’s a lot of spreadsheets, with a lot of entries of the names of the guys you’re gonna call. Then you’ve got the next spreadsheet of the guys who can’t make it, then you got the guys and the songs they go with. With our version of ‘Spoonful,’ [most recognizable of which was recorded by Cream in 1967] I thought about matching Bob Daisley [former Ozzy bassist] and Ted Nugent and thought that would work. First I’d do Ted’s part and then I would send it to Bob because I know Bob can play along with anything, and Ted always changes stuff a bit. Like, he did a really good, and totally Ted groove on the song which wasn’t there before. That’s the cool stuff that surprises me and makes the process so much fun.
The second single from Temple of Blues II is a raunchy cover of the classic Willie Dixon penned blues tune ‘The Little Red Rooster,’ recorded first by Howlin’ Wolf and later to popular acclaim by The Rolling Stones. It, like the other tracks on the album, features some noteworthy guest artists, including what could possibly be the last ever vocal performance of the now-retired former Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider, along with the caustically raw guitar work of L.A. Guns founder, Tracii Guns.
“Cactus! The name conjures such amazing memories for me. An inspiration for the rock I would play in the years to come. Can you imagine what it was like to ‘get the call’ that your heroes want you to rock with them? Mind blowing! And now to be asked for a second time!? What a treat to dig into a blues classic like ‘The Little Red Rooster’ with Cactus! Hell yeah!” Snider, who guested on the first Temple of Blues album two years ago, said in a press release to announce the single and video.
The first single from the album was an incendiary cover of another iconic Dixon composition, ‘Back Door Man,’ which featured Cactus vocalist Ed Terry singing his heart out, accompanied by his bandmates as well as guests Billy Sheehan on bass and the guitar virtuosity of Eric Gales.
The follow up single to ‘The Little Red Rooster’ came in April with the release of a powerhouse version of ‘Bad Stuff,’ originally from the 1972 Cactus release Ot and Sweaty. It features a veritable all-star band roster, headlined by former Deep Purple and Rainbow frontman Joe Lynn Turner, alongside former Dixie Dregs, Kansas and Deep Purple axe slinger, Steve Morse, as well as prog-rock keyboard legend Derek Sherinian. Holding down the rhythmic fort is Appice himself and longtime collaborator and pal Tony Franklin on bass (The Firm, Blue Murder).
“When Carmine asked me to contribute a vocal to the new Cactus album the first question was ‘what song?’ He said a bluesy rock song called ‘Bad Stuff’ that would be perfect for me. And when I heard about the amazing lineup of Steve Morse, Tony Franklin, Derek Sherinian, and, of course, Carmine, I was completely sold! The result is a low-down dirty blues track that moves and grooves with a sexy voodoo swagger. I’m very proud to play a part on this killer album,” Turner said in a press release.
Franklin, of course, whose nickname is ‘The Fretless Monster’ was one of the members of the triumvirate that comprised Blue Murder, alongside Sykes. It was a legendary conglomeration of talent that never hit its stride. One of the great ‘what if’ questions amongst fans of classic rock of a certain age, those who were impacted by the hard rock and metal of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, has been whether this former supergroup would ever be reconstituted in its most successful and musically impactful form. The band’s 1989 self-titled debut album was a bona fide hit, with the singles/videos for the songs ‘Jelly Roll’ and “Valley of the King’ receiving boatloads of airplay.
For various reasons, a follow-up album was not issued until 1993, and by that time Appice and Franklin had departed the project, and the album was not commercially viable, due in large part to the onset of Grunge and alternative rock, as practiced by the likes of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana.
Sykes, who spent 15 years as part of a reconfigured version of Thin Lizzy from 1994 to 2009, unfortunately died a few days before Christmas in 2024, would never commit to a reunion, even though discussions were had on numerous occasions. According to Appice, much of the hesitation came from the way Sykes wanted the band to be structured and marketed.
“We rehearsed at John’s house and we were going to do it, and we had dates booked. John was with Lizzy and the manager they had, he left to do the new Blue Murder thing and he booked some dates and then him and John had a fight or something so the dates were blown out, and that was the end of it for a while and I went off and did other things. We were still jamming over at his place, and one of the last things I remember in my conversations with John at that time was he wanted it to be John Sykes and Blue Murder, and I wanted us to just do it as Blue Murder. I said, ‘let’s just call in Blue Murder and go out and do Blue Murder.’ I told him he could do his John Sykes stuff any time. He wanted to go out under his name, because he had the connection with Whitesnake and Thin Lizzy. I told him, ‘man I got just as big bands as you have in your background, maybe bigger, and Tony has too.’ Let’s just do Blue Murder. Then we kind of let it lie, and the next time I saw him was at the NAMM show in 2020 just before Covid, and he was there and introduced me to this little German drummer kid who was all gaga at meeting me, and John said, ‘yeah, we’re going to go out and do a little tour like I wanted and then after that we’ll do Blue Murder.’ I said okay, which was fine because I was doing stuff with Vanilla Fudge and Cactus. But that was the last time I physically saw him, although we’d talk on the phone once in a while. In the last year of his life it was hard to get through to him and I finally sent him a text and I said, ‘dude, are you okay? You’re not answering the phone.’ Then he finally texted me back and said he was fine, and then the next thing I know, he’s gone,” Appice said, as he talked more about the legacy of Blue Murder and how interest in the band hasn’t seem to waver over the last 37 years, even though the classic three-piece lineup only did the one record.
“We played with Bon Jovi for eight shows and we were jamming and then all the little girls, they loved it. We were a pretty good looking band and had great music. Initially John said he wasn’t meant to sing, but we couldn’t find a singer [the very first lineup of Blue Murder featured another legend behind the drum kit, Cozy Powell, with the late Ray Gillen on vocals. Gillen was briefly in Black Sabbath and would come to the fore a couple years later fronting another supergroup, Badlands, with former Ozzy axeman Jake E. Lee and future Kiss drummer Eric Singer.] Me and Tony said, ‘hey, look, you got the record deal on the strength of your own voice on the demos, just sing it and we’ll be like Cream, a three piece,’ although we also had a keyboard player [Nik Green] out on the road. But it all came together, and that album was great, really great. I would have bet you my house that was going to go platinum or double platinum, and the next records would have been even better. I think we had something, but then something on the business side, and other stuff happened, so eventually me and Tony quit and John eventually did a second Blue Murder record.
“He was trying to do it with other people, but it didn’t work, so John called me and Tony and we went back to it as session guys and did most of the second Blue Murder record [Nothin’ But Trouble]. He had a couple of tracks on bass by Marco Mendoza, and there was another drummer on a couple of songs too [Tommy O’Steen], but the tracks that me and Tony did were like magic as soon as we all played together. There’s definitely magic there. It was magic from the start. I remember after Ray Gillen and Cozy left, I went to England when my brother was playing with Dio and I found out where John and Tony were and I went and played with them, and it just clicked. Now, I was talking with my label recently and I said, ‘do you know what? I haven’t talked to Tony about this, but we should do what we do with Cactus with Blue Murder, right?’ Because, yeah, everybody loves Blue Murder. I still sign Blue Murder records all over the place. I think it could be possible. It would be a tribute to Blue Murder, we just need to find someone to do the guitars and vocals. So, we’ll see.”
Another one of his former collaborators also passed away in recent months, the legendary Black Sabbath frontman, and heavy metal stalwart, Ozzy Osbourne. While Ozzy’s then drummer Tommy Aldridge, who played on the first two studio albums alongside the late Randy Rhoads, Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman, recorded parts for the songs on Bark at the Moon (released in 1983, and featuring Rhoads’ replacement, Jake E. Lee), he was replaced by Appice for a short time, including for the shooting of the now iconic video for the title track (the one where Ozzy transforms into a werewolf), but Aldridge then came back mid-tour during some acrimony between Appice and Ozzy’s wife/manager, Sharon.
The reason why Appice was selected in the first place was because there had been previous interactions between he and Ozzy going back to the early 1970s.
“My relationship with Ozzy goes way back, way before I played with him. Believe it or not, Black Sabbath played their first tour in America with Cactus and the opening act for a show we did in New Jersey [in November 1970] was called Steel Mill and that was Bruce Springsteen’s band. We got along great at that time, and they called me, I didn’t call them. They called me to come join Ozzy’s band and although Tommy did the drums on the record, they asked me to come in and get a better drum sound and finish the album. I do remember Sharon kind of left Ozzy in my care for three weeks in New York City, and it was pretty wild because it wasn’t always safe there at that time, and he was walking around with big diamond rings on and everything. We’d walk to the studio [The Power Station, where the mixing of Bark at the Moon was happening] which was close to the hotel, and Tony Bongiovi [cousin of Jon Bon Jovi] was the engineer, and I worked with him with Vanilla Fudge, so I knew him and we sort of revamped the drums there and I also helped rework all the vocals with Ozzy and Tony and was supposed to have an associate producer credit on the record and get a bonus every time the record went gold, but that never happened,” Appice said.
“So Tony and I fixed all the drums and then me and Ozzy flew the Concorde to England to do the video for ‘Bark at the Moon,’ and we got along great the whole time. When we toured America for the album, I did a drum master class in every market we played. I had my own t-shirts for that too, but Sharon kept trying to screw up different things for some reason, not letting me sell the shirts and not letting me talk to the press. But, you know, it’s a long, long, long time ago, so it’s cool. But she fired me and said, ‘you need to start your own band.’ So I started King Kobra and I got big record deals and then later did Blue Murder. I haven’t talked to her since that 1984 day.”
It was also noted in the conversation that besides Sykes and Osbourne, former King Kobra frontperson Mark (later Marcee) Free had also died recently (October, 2025) as had another collaborator, Rick Derringer, who died in May, 2025, with Appice saying he literally talked to the well-respected and beloved guitarist/songwriter [The McCoys, Edgar Winter Band] the night before his passing, while he was recovering from a medical episode brought on by earlier bypass surgery.
The fact that so many of his friends, former musical compadres and contemporaries are leaving this mortal coil is not lost on the drummer. Appice is convinced that staying as busy as possible, especially busy doing something you love, is the key to a long life. And he knows of what he speaks, as on Dec. 15 he will turn 80.
“My wife [Leslie Gold, aka The Radio Chick] was a big radio talk show host in New York City for many years and she did a regular bit called ‘Life Story’ and she talked to people who are like 104, 100, 101 and what they all sort of said that the secret to life was purpose. So I believe purpose has a lot to do with it. We live in Florida most of the time and people are always asking if I play golf. I play drums, right, and I love doing it and I’m going to play until I can’t do it no more, and I guess that’s the reason why. And it’s also important doing new things, and being creative,” he said.
“My father told me when he was, like, 77 year old, he said, ‘you know, my brain feels like I’m 18, but my body don’t.’ I know I’m not as fast as I used to be. I mean, I was really a freaking animal on the kit when I was in my 20s, 30s and 40s, right up until maybe the last five years when I slowed down my speed on the drums a lot, but I learned to do other things to make up for it.”
For more information on Appice, Cactus and all his various activities, visit https://carmineappice.net, or https://cactusrocks.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
