Carmine Appice: The Mr. Skin Interview

Where'd you come up with the name Vanilla Fudge? Because to me it sounds vaguely dirty.
Well, it depends where you put the Vanilla Fudge. I put Vanilla Fudge in a good spot and it was pretty dirty. Sometimes you have to do it, because it is dirty, to get rid of the odor [laughs].

Some girl back in '66, '67, told us that her grandfather used to call her Vanilla Fudge and it reminded her of us because we were like white soul. When we sang we were very soulful white guys. Vanilla Fudge to her meant white soul. We said, "That's pretty cool." We adopted the name, everyone loved it, and we ran with it.

As the co-author of the Rod Stewart song "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" I've got to ask who you think is sexy?
I think Angelina Jolie is sexy. She's got the greatest lips and face, beautiful, and the boobs to go along with it. I liked her in the first Tomb Raider (Picture: 1 - 2). She looked amazing in those outfits. She's got the bluest eyes. She's gorgeous. She's very exotic looking and I've always liked that kind of look.

I'm not good with names, but the chick that used to be with Steven Seagal, Kelly LeBrock (Picture: 1 - 2), she was in Weird Science. She's very hot. Raquel Welch, she still looks great. The one who played in Titanic, Kate Winslet (Picture: 1 - 2), she was cool looking.

I'm prone to big boobs. My girlfriend [radio deejay Leslie Gold] The Radio Chick, her logo is a pair of boobs in a bra. She's got big boobs and I love it.

Vanilla Fudge rocked hard, but you guys had a reputation for partying even harder off stage. Please make the Mr. Skin audience envious with tales of backstage tails.
Let's put it this way, the stuff that Mike Tyson got arrested and put away for we did every night [laughs].

OK, let's leave it at that. Maybe you could share the first time as a kid you saw a sex scene in a movie.
When I was a kid they didn't do nude scenes in movies. I remember the first sex movie that blew me away. I couldn't believe they were doing it. It was that one with Marilyn Chambers (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3), Behind the Green Door. I couldn't believe that stuff was going on, on the screen. It was more than a nude scene. It was ridiculous. That's what left an impression on me.

Are you a fan of hardcore sex movies?
Not really. When I was just in Europe I was amazed by all the anal intercourse that was going on in the hotel movies on TV. When you're changing the channels they go to these sex-movie channels and they give you five minutes of it, even if you're just skimming the channels. I saw so much anal sex that when my girlfriend came out I said, "We have to buy this movie! I've never seen butt-holes that were so big." It's like, how do they keep anything in anymore? Chicks were getting it in the crock and in the butt at the same time, and their butt-holes were like three inches in diameter. I'd never seen anything like that, but it was interesting to watch, I've got to say.

This coming from a man whose backstage antics would put Led Zeppelin to shame.
I've done it all. I'm the one who had the famous mud-shark story. Vanilla Fudge and Led Zeppelin were on the road with this chick that I picked up. We actually had all kinds of sexual relations with her with a mud shark, which is a miniature fish that we'd fish out the window of this hotel. It's a very famous story. It's in [the Led Zeppelin biography] Hammer of the Gods. I'm doing the full-on detailed story in my book, which will hopefully be coming out soon, The International Rock Guide to Hotel Wrecking. My girlfriend, The Radio Chick, who is also a Harvard Business School graduate, was editing the story. I called her up after she read it and I asked, "So what'd you think?" She goes, "I need fifteen minutes to take this in because this is the single most disgusting story I've ever read in my life." Believe me, it's going to be quite a book.

Back to films, do you have a favorite?
No, I never really had a favorite. There were a lot of movies that were sexy, in the old days especially. One that comes to mind is Basic Instinct (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3). I thought that was a great, sexy movie. It was really very cool. Breast Men is unbelievable. That was funny. I like at the end when the guy gets creamed in his Corvette. He's looking around . . . bam! Another movie is when Angelina Jolie played the model, Gia (Picture: 1 - 2). That was a good movie. I thought she looked great in that.

Do you think rock movies capture what it's like from your perspective?
The rock movies I see always miss it somehow. Like Almost Famous missed it on a lot of levels for me. For instance, they were all traveling around in buses. Rock groups didn't do that in the '70s. We traveled by plane. We never had buses. That was the country bands that did that. Stuff like that didn't do it for me. The details weren't exactly right. Whoever was consulting them wasn't correct on a lot of things.

Speaking of movies, you seem to have a secondary career as an actor, having appeared in Chasing Destiny and Black Roses. Are there any films that Mr. Skin should know about that you've been in?
No, those are the two. I enjoyed doing them. There's a DVD coming out that I did with my brother Vinnie Appice, you know my brother Vinnie is a player. He played with Black Sabbath and Dio. We always had the problem of calling him Apathy and me Appice, so we did a video called Drum Wars, which is an hour-long comedy/drum video. We battle for the name of Appice or Apathy. I go by Carmine Appice and he goes by Vinnie Apathy. It's just silly. It's out on video now at our website www.powerrock.com. We want to turn it into an off-Broadway show.

In your new Vanilla Fudge recording Then and Now, you cover NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys. Are you a fan of the girlie bubble gummers, such as Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears?
I tell you, Christina Aguilera is a great singer. My daughter's fifteen; a few years ago she was into NSYNC, she played those in my car all the time. When she played "Tearing up My Heart" I thought, you know, this could be a great Vanilla Fudge song if we ever did an album again. And I remembered that when we did this album. We did and it went over great. The Backstreet Boys song was a song I really liked and every time I heard it I heard these Vanilla Fudge harmonies in it. Vanilla Fudge will always be in me. Since I was the producer of the album I brought these songs to the table with the arrangements and we did it and it came out really good.

Funny enough, we went to see NSYNC. I brought my kids to see it. My daughter was just freaked out. Now she's into punk rock. She's into The New York Dolls. We went backstage and Joey Fatone, who's one of the NSYNC guys, was on the phone. I introduced myself and he gives me the phone. I say, "Who's this?" He goes, "This is Joey Fatone Sr., we went to school together in Brooklyn. That's my kid!" Then I remembered why this name Joey Fatone sounded familiar to me. I went to school with his dad! When I got off the phone, this kid, Joey Fatone, said, "Nice to meet you. I've been hearing about you all my life. You're the only famous guy my father ever knew." Isn't that funny?

I love the new record, especially because of that lovely naked lady on the cover. Was that your idea?
Years ago we never had anything to do with the cover. What we did was take different pictures of the girl and used it.

Can you introduce her to me?
No, she moved from New York and I don't know where she is. We have our DVD coming out with Vanilla Fudge with an orchestra and she's actually animated a little bit. First she's a regular woman and then she turns gold.

I have a new album out with Pat Travers called It Takes a Lot of Balls. It's a really heavy rock album and kicks ass. There's another naked woman on the album cover [laughs]. She looks like my girlfriend, nude with tattoos and big boobs.