Ahead of his show with Pat Travers at Englewoods On Dearborn in Englewood, Florida, drum legend Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, Ozzy Osbourne, Rod Stewart) spoke with Sarasota Herald-Tribune. An excerpt from the chat follows:

Q: Led Zeppelin’s first North American tour was opening for Vanilla Fudge. What was that experience like, getting to introduce them to that audience?

Carmine: "Well, we knew Jimmy Page at the time. He was with the Yardbirds and we’d done some gigs with the Yardbirds with Vanilla Fudge. So our manager and their manager were friends, we had the same attorney, we were on the same label. So we got the record well in advance to hear it because they said, 'Do you guys want these guys to open up for you?' We could’ve said no, but we were nice guys and said, 'Yeah, Jimmy Page’s band, sure, they sound great.' I love John Bonham’s drumming on the first record.

"We didn’t need them on the first gig, we’d already sold out by the time they were added. But our agent was their agent and he told the promoter, 'Look, I’ll tell you what, you pay half and Vanilla Fudge will pay half,' because we were the headliners. In those days as a headliner, we were making five, six, seven thousand a night, not like headliners today. And they opened up for us, people were yelling, 'Bring the Fudge on,' but in general they had a good reaction. And they continued on from there. Six months later, we did gigs with them and it was equal bill, that’s how big they got so fast. It was a lot of fun those days, because everything was new."

Q: Bonham was among the drummers who’ve considered you an influence. How does that feel?

Carmine: "There were drummers like John Bonham, Ian Paice from Deep Purple, Roger Taylor, Neil Peart. You can tell by all these guys that use gongs. I brought the gong into rock and then Bonzo brought it in with Led Zeppelin, Carl Palmer had gongs, everybody had gongs, it became like a staple. The two China cymbals on a boom stand, I brought that in and even in Spinal Tap, you had a gong and two Chinese cymbals. It became like this is the rock set-up, so stuff that I did caught on and a lot of drummers used it. There’s guys that went through my drum book, I wrote a drum book as well and it was very successful. Guys like Slipknot’s drummer, he went through it, the female drummer that was in Motley Crue for a minute went through it. Dave Weckl went through it, even Andrew Dice Clay went through the book. It’s crazy."

Read the full interview at Sarasota Herald-Tribune.