BraveWords caught up with legendary drummer Carmine Appice recently for this weekend’s episode of Streaming For Vengeance, where he talks about a vast array of subjects including his new project with Fernando Perdomo and the Guitar Zeus 25th anniversary box set that’s out now. We also take a long walk throughout his storied history with Vanilla Fudge, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, King Kobra, Blue Murder, Pink Floyd and more! 

Here is a preview, because Appice is the perfect “case study” on how the music industry has transformed and artist revenues - pre-COVID - have suffered greatly due to a number of factors, mainly streaming services. 

BraveWords: I must show you this, because I bought this when I was ten years old. The original 45 of ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ It was at Sears for $1.17 Canadian (laughs).

Appice: “There it is! Haha! There you go!” 

BraveWords: Obviously this song has paid a lot of your bills. At what point did you see the change in revenues?

Appice: "It must have been five or six years ago. Because I saw the mechanicals go from an enormous amount, to nothing. Six figures, from like seven and eight figures. So what do you do? The only thing that makes money with those kinds for songs now - with ‘Young Turks’ and all the other songs I own - is ASCAP (The American Society Of Composers, Authors, And Publishers). ASCAP gives you the airplay. I saw it coming, so my other job - the other thing I love to do is real estate on the side. I said ‘I’m going to sell it back to Warner Bros.’ who had most of the publishing for Rod and everything else. I’ll sell it back to them and EMI, I’ll sell ‘Young Turks’ back to them, but I’ll keep the ASCAP, and I’ll buy real estate, which generates much more money than ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ was generating. But if you can get it in a movie, you’ll get big money. If you take a song like ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ what kind of commercial would you visualize? Like maybe Victoria’s Secret?"

BraveWords: Countless. 

Appice: “Yeah, countless. You know we only had one commercial? Do you know what that was? Chocolate chip cookies, Chips Ahoy. That’s probably ten years ago.” 

BraveWords: Was that because of Rod turning it down?

Appice: “No, Rod doesn’t care. That’s just the people wanting it. It just blows me away. And that’s why when we were selling it I said, ‘You know what? We got one commercial in 40 years, a cookie commercial, I’m just going to sell it back to them.’ Because I was waiting for the next commercial to buy it."

BraveWords: That just cries out some kind of mismanagement. 

Appice: “Unbelievable.”

BraveWords: Sticking with Rod, and you brought up the whole Songbook series, it would be lovely to see Rod rock again. Why do you think he’s not following your footsteps? 

Appice: “Number one, I think he had some problems with his voice. He had some sort of thyroid cancer at one point, and I think that affected his voice. I remember a month ago in Florida we went out for a drink and hung out. I have reflux which affects my voice, and he has it too. Here’s a funny story about Rod. Rod was signed to Atlantic at the time, and they went to meet with Ahmet Ertigun, and Rod said that he wanted to do some crooner stuff, and Ahmet said, ‘Not on my label!’, so he let him go. So Rod went on another label and they sold more records than he ever sold. Those three albums sold 30 million albums." 

BraveWords: And I’m not coming from the point of criticizing, because I’m a rocker, but that was a very intelligent career move. 

Appice: "He’s doing a Faces album with Kenney Jones and Ron Wood. But I told Rod, 'I'd like to come to one of your gigs and come onstage and play ‘Hot Legs’ with you’, because I played it on the record, you know? I co-wrote it. I have a show called The Rod Experience which has guys I played with, with Rod, and we do the 1979 Kick Ass Rod Show. I never played ‘Young Turks’ with Rod, but we do play ‘Young Turks’ as well. The guy sounds just like Rod, looks like Rod, and I have Paul Warren who played with Rod for 14 years, and different people like Phil Chen who played with Rod, and Jimmy Crespo. The only one I didn’t have was the keyboard player who played with Rod. But it was a kick ass show. We went to China, we went to Macau, did shows on the east coast. Lately I haven’t been doing any. I’m trying to hook up with some managers who can really get that show going. You got that big show going out, Killer Queen, they’re a tribute to Queen and they’re doing $30-40 grand a night." 

BraveWords’ Streaming For Vengeance with drum legend Carmine Appice will air this Saturday, February 5th at 3:33 PM EST.