Intervju - Pat Travers & Carmine Appice Jag hade det stora nöjet att sitta ner med Carmine Appice och Pat Travers innan deras spelning i Stockholm. Två legender i musikvärlden och det blev en oerhört trevlig pratstund på 45 minuter. Båda var mycket öppna och sympatiska. Tyvärr fick Pat lämna oss efter halva intervjun för att hinna tillbaka till hotellet innan giget, men Carmine fortsatte att hålla låda. How did you guys meet? I guess you´ve come across eachother before? PT: We met in 1982 when Carmine was playing with Ted Neugent and I was doing some shows with Ted in the south and in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. We were travelling around together, staying in the same hotels and after the shows we´d go back to the hotel and hang out at the bar and kick the band off the stage and get up and play and jam a lot. We had a lot of fun doing that. I mean, I was a huge Vanilla Fudge fan. They were a big influence on me in a lot of ways and even more than I even remember. It wasn´t till we were doing one of my songs in the set and Carmine was learning to sing the harmony part with me and I went: "Hey It´s just like an old Fudge song and you know what? It is an old Fudge song!" And I remember because I wrote it some time ago, but I remember when I wrote it now, at the time thinking...I like that slow vibrato of Vanilla Fudge, so it´s funny how that happened. CA: I was listening to it the night before and I thought: "That´s like Vanilla Fudge vocals!" It makes it so easy for us to sing because it´s the same kind of vibrato as the Fudge.  PT: Other than those couple of weeks we would bump in to eachother from time to time and at NAMM shows. Basically it was a year and a half ago at the NAMM show that TM Stevens, the bass player, was at the Dean Markley guitar string booth because we both endorse those guitar strings. And Carmine showed up and we had this jam just the three of us and we were all going: "Wow, God damn that sounds good! We should get together!" and then of course everybody just departs and that´s how it goes. But I never forgot about it and I always thought it would be a good band to put together. And then in January this year I got a call from a fellow named Greg Hampton, who I had met a couple of times before and he was working on this album with Carmine for SPV.
CA: "Carmine and a guitar hero"! That was what it was to be named. PT: They were originally gonna use Rick Derringer but then the scheduling didn´t work out... CA: So I was stuck with a record deal, budget money, had a few songs and no guitar player hero. So Greg said. "What about Pat?" I thought that was a great idea and we had a jam last year and we played great together. Maybe he´s not busy? So he happened to be coming to LA for the NAMM show and some gigs, so we said "Stop in and I´ll show you what we´ve got and see if you like it?" He came in and luckily it fit the direction he was going in as well and next thing you know he was in. We didn´t even tell SPV (laughs). PT: We didn´t let hear anything until it was done. No, it worked out well and Carmine had five or six songs in various states completion. I had three or four myself and then we just collaborated and that worked out. Then we had the bass player we used because TM wasn´t availble, so we used a guy named Uriah Duffy who was just perfect. CA: His idol was TM Stevens! PT: Yeah, so he had the same kind of craziness and funkiness, so it worked out reallgreat.But TM is one one of the tunes on the album. We recorded the backing track and I was glad that we were doing this because we had the main guitar riff written and I think I added one other part, but we were never working on the asumption that there were some vocals and I kept asking: "It would really help to know where the vocals...which part is the chorus and where does the vocals start?" CA: I knew where the chorus was gonna be and I was talking to TM and he said: "Well, what kind of lyrics do you want?" "Just give us some good sexual lyrics!" PT: And Carmine just kept saying that TM was gonna rap something...We just recorded this backing track and I had no idea and it wasn´t until a godd six weeks later that I heard it and I heard it just about completely finished and it just blew me out. I have a great sound system in my truck and I put this thing on and it rocked! CA: And somebody said: "Well, since you´re gonna sing on it TM, you might as well play bass on it! So we gave him the track and he put a great bass track on it and great vocals. We actually did the whole album in nine days! I think it´s a great album! It´s fun and lot more fun than a lot of the stuff that´s out there today. I listen to a lot of new stuff and it´s boring as hell. This is back to basics, just fun and going at it! CA: And the title´s great, "It takes a lot of balls"! Who did the cover art work? CA: Chuck Wright! Chuck Wright the bass player? House of Lords? CA: Yeah, he does covers as well and we use him for everything, like t-shirts, key rings and underwear. Ok, so you´re touring Europe now and then you´re off to Russia. I guess you´ve been to Russia before? CA: Never been to Russia! Once I was driving through Berlin and I just had to get off the road and piss on the communists (laughs), so I did that and I got a kick out of that. But it´s funny because I´m doing interviews with Russian journalists and all my life up til a few years ago, they were our enemies, so we´re looking forward to it. It´s gonna be a lot of fun. We´re going to the Czeck Rebublic as well. That´s a nice place! Prague is great! CA: Actually that´s what´s fun about this tour. We´re going to all these places where we´ve never been before. Like TM´s never been up here before, in Scandinavia. There´s a lot of history there and a lot of cool places. What are you doing after that? Have you toured the States yet? CA: No, we´re gonna do some shows there. We did a little mini tour for three shows and we did a dvd shoot at the House of blues in South Carolina and some radiopromotion. Then we came back here. PT: We´re gonna see how it goes and see what reaction we get. We´ll try and hijack some shows. Like, I have a show with my band on November 6th and I´m gonna have Carmine come in and do some songs. CA: I´ll fly out and do some songs. We´re gonna work out a tour with Vanilla Fudge, Pat and Mountain. So Pat will come out and play a couple of songs with Vanilla Fudge at the end of the set and then we´ll stay up there and then me and him and Tim Bogert will do a couple of BBA songs, Pat songs and so on. You were here this summer Pat! I missed you though. PT: Yeah, we had a good day! A lot of cool bands. I went to see Ronnie Montrose and he rocked! Really nice guy! CA: Yeah, he´s great! Who was he playing with? He had Jimmy DeGrasso on drums, an unknown guy singing and a bas player I´d never heard of. Is it just T & A now or are you guys involved in tons of other things? PT: I´d like to see...we´re investing the time and effort into trying to build up a following. It´s really like having a new band. Obviously I´ve got my own shows and Carmine´s got Vanilla Fudge commitments. We´ve all got differnet things that we try to do, but... CA: We try to keep this involved with the other things we do and we´re gonna shows in America. We´re trying to get on a major tour in America. PT: That would be the best for us, if we could get on a tour. Obviously we need coordination from the record company in the US. They gotta promise a certain amount of promotion. CA: Instead of coming here and doing two weeks of promotion, let´s come here and do some shows. It´s like a new beginning. It´s the first time I´ve had a release with a major company in a while. My last one was in ´96, but I didn´t tour. So we´re gonna do what it takes to get this thing going. When it comes to record companies...is it harder or easier today to get record deals and so on? PT: Very difficult! CA: Most guys like us don´t have major record deals. Some are lucky, like Jeff Beck who, even though he doesn´t sell any records, he´s still on Epic. Pretty amazing! I don´t understand why he´s the only one on still on a major label. He´s been on the same label for thirty years. But most guys don´t. PT: I bet they negotiated that deal down! CA: Even if they did, Jeff doesn´t sell any records. He sells fifty thousand in America if he´s lucky. He sells in Japan and some in Europe, but not a lot. If a Jeff Beck record comes out you´re not gonna see it on the charts. But I guess he´s a legend and that´s why they keep him. How do you feel about the music industry today, with down loading and a few really big record companies? 
CA: That´s the problem! They don´t even look at an act like us. If we had...like the song TM did, "I gotta have ya". If we took that song and put it out as the Colombian Wonder Munchies, a brand new band. They´d go: "Hey, this is pretty cool. We think we could get airplay with this!" But as soon as you say it´s Travers & Appice they won´t look at it. And on the other side, if it´s a new act...I was managing a new act in LA with my old manager.This was like a Metallica meets KISS. They had sequenzers as well and they were like a hifi KISS. Big show with robots and stuff and this is like the next KISS, right! I had every major label come down and nobody would sign them because they didn´t hear the one song that would sell ten million records. They don´t want to build something anymore. If you don´t have one song that´s gonna sell ten million records, forget it!
What´s the reason for this? It seems like back in the 70´s and 80´s they were into building careers. Why not now? PT: They want it quickly! There used to be waht you called "record guys". They were in the business because they liked the music. They liked the records and they liked the fact that they found an act and nurtured them through three albums before the fourth album took off. That´s what they got the satisfaction and "ohh by the way" the money was nice as well when it was successful. But then they started paying out these mega advances to people and that meant that they could only promote so many acts. The bands that didn´t get the big deals didn´t get any promotion. CA: And then in America you´ve got Clear Channel. They took over the whole business. I know and they´re here too! CA: Yeah! America´s having a really bad touring season and we´re finding out that Clear Channel is holding back on a lot of stuff because they don´t know what´s gonna happen. So when they´re holding back, and they own all the promotion companies, the venues and everything, so when they´re holding back the whole business is holding back. When they do come out with stuff, a major act´s tour, it´s $125 for a ticket. C´mon! It´s ridicuolus! I wouldn´t pay $125 to go see anybody. It´s a joke! But that´s where it´s going. Everybody´s gone money crazy! And then you have a small label as SPV, which are trying to do what we used to do, and they´re having problems too. And you´ve got other small labels in America doing the same, but there´s no big advances and hardly any radio airplay. It´s terrible! Was it more fun back in the 70´s and 80´s? CA: Well, it was easier! PT: When you´re in your twenties you´re completely unencumbered. You don´t have the kids, the wives, the house mortages and all that other stuff you get as time goes by. You can go to bed at six o´clock in the morning completely drunk and show up for a nine AM photo shoot. That´s great! (laughs) CA: I slept nine and a half hours yesterday for the first time in ages. In those days it was easy. I usually tell stories about the sixties and in those days everybody had a record deal. We had major record deals. The record came out and radio played it and we were all on tour. The Fudge with Hendrix and with Cream and the Who. We all played together and we jammed and had a good time. The business wasn´t the number one thing, it was the music and creativity because it was all new underground stuff. But everybody had a major record deal and it wasn´ even an indie. All the record companies would give the songs to the radio and they would play it and people would come. It was like a whole thing. Now, when you release a record and you try to get it on the radio...I was talking to the guy at SPV in America and he said he put two to three thousand dollars out to the radio station and it´s like payola. You´ve gotta give them money. "I´ll play your record but what do I get? How a bout a trip to Hawaii? I´ll put your record on heavy rotation!" It´s fucking crazy! It´s probably not like that here, because there´s no radio here? Well, we´ve got "free" radio since a couple of years back and when that happened I thought we would get metal stations, rock stations, jazz stations and so on. Now it´s all Britney Spears and that kind of crap music! PT: I´m sorry but I gotta go back to the hotel, but I´ll see you later Niclas! Absolutely! I was checking out your website Carmine and I noticed that you´ve got a couple of books out as well. CA: Yeah, I have instructional books out. I wrote them myself and I released the firts one back in 1971 and it´s become WB Publication´s number one selling drum book for twenty years. It´s sold some three hundred thousand copies. I went in to a music store and I saw a guy on a bok cover, we´re talking 1971 now, and he had long hair and he looked like he came out of the fifties. He was smiling and he had the drum sticks up and it said something like "How to play rock drums!" I looked through the material and it was crap. So you know what, anybody can write on, I can write one. So I wrote one and it took me thirty days. Right now I´m writing a "book book" about each tour and hopefully when it´s finished I hope to get it out. All the stories in my life. And then my attorney...in the Fudge and Cactus days we had an attorney named Steve Weiss who was also the attorney for Led Zeppelin, Bad Company and so on. He was a powerful guy and the most amazing thing he did for me was he got me a deal for the book, but he got me a deal where I own the copyright and I didn´t find that out until years later when the deal was up and I was making a new deal, I could go anywhere because I own it. So that was a very important step in my career but I didn´t know it at the time. Since then I´ve written new ones and I´ve got one coming out which is a "play along" book and it´s eight songs without the drums with a click track and it also has the drum tracks on there. And on there is Richie Sambora, Ted Nugent and so on. The first one was "Realistic rock" and now I´ve got one called "Realistic rock for kids". And that one is catching on for the six to eight year olds, because there´s nothing out there for young kids. It´s very cartoonish and inside it´s like a comic bookj and at the end of it there´s a certificate that graduates you up to the other book. How come you got into drums, and your brother as well? CA: Well, in my family on my father´s side, there´s eight drummers. My cousin Joey was the first one and then me and my brother Vinnie. My two cousins, Anthony and Michael, my cousin Tommy, another cousin Joey. (Guess he forgot one of them!) My cousin Joey, the first one, turned out to be a stockbroker. I made it and my brother Vinnie saw me make it and he´s eleven years younger than me, so he was like twelve - thirteen years old when I made it and he saw me on tv, in the magazines, at the concerts and he went: "I wanna do this too!". So he started and when I saw that he had talent I sent him to the same teacher I went to. When he was thirteen he was great and at seventeen he was playing with Rick Derringer and played on a record of John Lennon´s. Then he went on to Dio, Sabbath and all that. Now he´s got his own thing going in LA called the Hollywood Allstarz. Which consists of Carloz Cavazo from Quiet Riot, Jeff Pilson from Dokken, Jimmy Bain and the singer of Bonham and then Vinnie and another guy, the drummer of Giuffria. So they play a little bit of everybody´s hits and then they do a couple of 80´s songs. They play Vegas and places like that and he´s got around four or five gigs a month with that. He´s into computers also. He works with a company called Horizon. He´s certified five to seven times in Microsoft. He builds computers, fixes them and does it all. He loves it and now he´s back into playing and things are going ok. Do you live in LA? Yeah, but I grew up in New York and actually my girlfriend, who´s come along for the tour, she lives in New York and we just bought a house in LA together. I got my exwife and my kids in LA and my girlfriends in New York most of the time so I´m going back and forth all the time. I´m like bicoastal. But now I think I live in Europe (laughs). I was here in July 2003 with Vanilla Fudge, in October same year with Fudge, then in March and April this year and now we´re back again. And we´ll probably come back in the spring. Vanilla Fudge´s got a dvd with an orchestra coming out on a German label called ABC-pictures and apparently they´re gonna release that sometime in the spring and then they said they were gonna book some gigs with us with orchestras. Maybe we´ll do some T&A shows as well. This way we can promote this and sell that. (Frank Demio from the Lizards walks in) Then TM is leaving the tour on the 19th and Tony Franklin will join us, so we´re gonna do a Blue Murder song and Frank´s gonna sing it because he´s got the highest voice. Do you know Blue Murder? Well, just the first album. A freind of mine bought it when it came out. What´s John Sykes doing these days? Is it Lizzy? CA: Yeah, and he´s talking to me about planning to do something with Blue Murder next year, but who knows? He talks a lot! But you must´ve seen everything? You´ve been all over the world! CA: That´s one of my lyrics: "I´ve been around the world, doing all the girls. Bring ´em up, lay ´em down" (laughs) But is it still fun? CA: I love playing! It´s my hobby, so I love it! I don´t like being in the bus for fifteen hours like yesterday, but I don´t mind. It´s not like I´m depressed when I walk out of here. But I love playing and I love the fact of going in to a town and you don´t know what´s gonna happen. Good crowd, bad crowd, the band sucks, the band´s great! It makes life interesting and It´s not the same old thing. I like it that I´m going to Russia. It might be great, it might suck. I´ve been to a few places the last few years that I´ve never been to before. It´s good! I went to Greece last year for the first time and it was great. I enjoy it! I enjoy being at home too with the kids. My daughter just started singing in a punk band and she´s got all black and purple hair and I tell her I don´t want her to do it and she says: "But dad, you do it!". So what can I say. They played their first gig the other night and I heard tehm rehearsing and they were pretty damn good. As a matter of fact my brother Vinnie´s got his own little studio and he´s gonna take them in and make a demo. And I think I´ve made a deal for them in Europe and Japan so there you go. Fifteen, seventeen years old, but they sound great. It´s fun too because she´ll come up to me like: "Dad, can you help me with this melody?" and I go: "What´s the matter?" And she´ll say: "I just can´t get this chorus to go with the melody" and then we´ll make something out of it. And she goes: "We got a tape recorder?". "No, call your cell phone and put it on there!" I´ve gotta ask you about King Kobra. Are you in touch with any of those guys? CA: Yeah, I was just with Johnny Rod and our roadie Glen said he looked like an Italian mafia guy. He gained weight and he´s been in and out of jail a few times for different bullshit. He doesn´t really play, he does some construction work and I saw him a month ago. And Mark Free, who´s now Marcie Free...  Yeah, did you know about that back in the days, because the first time I heard of it I thought it was a joke!
CA: I didn´t have a clue! I lived in Palmdale, California which is like an hour from Hollywood. I was outside and putting my garbage out and a friend of mine who used to play with Eddie Money came by. He sells classic guitars now and he went: "Carmine, did you hear about your old singer?" I said "Who?". "Well, Mark Free! He´s had a sex change!" I just said "Get outta here! What sex change?" "I talk to him every once and a while. What do you mean he had a sex change?" Well, he said: "He just auditioned for a friend of mine´s band and he said he used to be the singer in King Kobra and his name is Marcie Free!". Pretty fucked up or what? So I said I didn´t believe it. I called Mark up and I go: "Hello Mark, what´s up?" and he goes (High pitched voice) "Hellooo!" And I said "Mark, what´s up? We haven´t had lunch in a while, why don´t we get together in the Valley? How about one o´clock? I´ll bring my wife and the kids.". He said "Ok, but I gotta leave at three because I have to go to electrolosis!". I go: "Electrolosis? Why? And he just said "I´ll tell you when I see you!". Driving down with my exwife and talking about it and my kids go: "Dad, your friend was a man and now he´s a woman?" And I go: "No, no, no!" . And this was when the movie "Mrs Doubtfire" was out. So we get down there and we´re waiting in the restaurant and he walks in with sweat pants and boobs and he´s got make up on and I just go: "Holy shit!". So he walked in, sat down and said (High pitched voice) "Hiii!". And I go: "Hey Mark, what´s up?" He just said: "I bet you´re a bit surprised!" I go: "Yeah, but maybe not! You wore more make up when you were in King Kobra!". Apparently he´s out of the business because nobody would hire him and he lives in Michigan and works for a mortgage company and has a really boring life. Too bad! He had a really good voice! CA: Great voice! One of the greatest voices! Yeah, we used to rock hard to the first King Kobra album and we went around doing the Kobra sign. CA: Oh yeah! How do you know about it? Well, we used to watch the video for "Hunger" then a buddy of mine bought the album. CA: Yeah, that was a mindblower and I toured Europe in ´96 and every first question was about that, because apparently Marcie Free released an album with somebody. And she preceeded me in every country and every first question was "Have you heard about...?" Back to Travis and Appice. Will there be a second album? CA: Oh yeah! Pat´s got some stuff for the second album. We´re looking at this as a new beginning. He´s been doing what he´s doing for a long time and I haven´t been doing Vanilla Fudge for a couple of years. So we just got back into that. But I always try to stay current and Pat´s been in the Pat Travers band for twenty years. But we feel we got a good start here and it can only get better. So we´re gonna try the next one. Luckily this was the second option in a two album deal, so if the first one happens we can negotiate another record and hopefully we can stay on SPV. I love Pat´s guitar sound and his vocals. When we were doing the vocals I said: "Pat, who let the black guy in here?". He´s so soulful! Well I wish you all the best with the album and the tour and hope to see you again! CA: Thank you! Pat Travers - Official website Carmine Appice - Official website
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