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The Warrior Spirit With CARMINE APPICE From KING KOBRA · HEAVY Music Interviews

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All right, it's coming out a piece and I've been around for a long
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time. I played with an Elophudge, Cactus, Bba Beck, brogan the
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Peace uh Ted Nugent, Ozzie, and then right after Ozzie, I started
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King Cobra, which we're going to talk about today because we just released a
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new record and I'm very proud of it because it kicks ass kiss. I
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hope that hope that works for you. That's fine, Calvin, thanks for
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joining us this one. And as you say, King Cobra released your latest
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album, but We Are Warriors a couple of weeks ago, mate, So
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how's the earlier receptions been for it? But again I have a little problem
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with the accent, So I sorry. King Cobra released your latest album,
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We Our Warriors a couple of weeks ago, So how's the earlier reception?
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Maybe well, so far, so good. People have heard it, love
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it. I know. Record Company said the first few days are broke in
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the Amazon shots at fifty seven on the Rock Shots. I didn't know what
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that means today, you know, you know, I mean if you told
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me, like, hey, broke in Billboard fifty seven, I know what
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that means, you know, but with all this streaming and all this Spotify
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and all that, which I hate. You know, I don't even do
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that. People go listen on Spotify, said, I will not do that.
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They rip us off so badly, the musicians, that I won't even
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do it. I never listened to anything on Spotify, not once. But
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everyone that listened that heard the record love it. You know, they loved
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the video. The video is very interesting. Have you seen the video?
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I have it nice. I listen about it. Well, it was done
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with TGI stuff, you know, like they're doing the movies. Okay,
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and you should look at it on it's on YouTube, and it's you know,
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like it starts off with the camera zooming in. I'm top of the
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building in New York City. Wow. And then we're in a subway car.
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We're in a under a train track at night with fire to burning,
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with a striped bar behind it, I mean, and the camera goes through
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us. You know, it just doesn't. It's not one dimensional. It's
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three dimensional. And the great thing about it is we all did it in
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different places. You know. It's amazing video. It's really amazing video.
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It costs more than you know usually they record label these days. Give you
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a budget, you could do two or three videos with it, you know.
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Oh look how cute? How How old is she seven? How old
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is she seven? It said, I remember when my baby was seven.
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Now she's thirty four. A lot of memories between seven and thirty four.
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Yeah, I mean I have pictures over there of my kids when they were
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young. My son was maybe five or six, my daughter was eight,
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you know, Beau, Yeah, I was young many years ago. I
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was young too. Yeah, must like it up by me talking. Yeah,
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But anyway, I think you'll like the video. The video is awesome.
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Oh definitely, we'll check it out. Can you tell us a bit
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more about our way our Warriors from a musical point of view and what you've
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done for with it with the song of the album, the album, well,
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the album. You know, I've always tried to stay within the limits
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of whatever band that I'm working with, you know, and we are Warriors
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started out with me and Paul and and sometimes grow in. Sometimes Carlos is
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putting, you know, some ideas down because we all have studios, you
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know, and the whole album was done again put everybody in their home studios
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because you know, with the kind of budget you get today, and everybody
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lives in different places. You know. It's really it doesn't pay to fly
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everybody in to get hotels, you know, and sit around and write songs
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and then go into a studio. You might as well just show the money
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out the window that you get him. As it is now, Me and
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Paul probably made five cents an hour making that video. Making that album along
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with the video, like five cents an hour really because we we spent a
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lot of time on it, with a lot of time writing the songs.
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But we did it all by the internet, you know. As you can
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see, I have my studio here behind me, wow, you know,
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and there's my old I got some old bass drums there and I got some
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great sound and when I engineered my own drums, you know. And then
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we got my buddy Pat Reagan to mix it. He's an awesome oh man,
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he's so good. He's an awesome mixer. And you know, we
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did everything that way. Paul did his vocals in his house in Las Vegas.
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Call Us did his guitars and in La Johnny Rod did come to Paul's
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house and he played on the album. Paul House and Rowan play the Paul's
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house as well, So I guess it's between me, Paul and call us.
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You know, we did it in our own little studios, but you'd
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never know it by the way you hear it. I mean, some of
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the songs that really really tough to high end, high end mixing, high
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end sound and high energy for sure, and great lyrics, great groups,
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And whenever I do a record, I try to have different groups, different
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tempos on every record, you know, so everything doesn't sound the same.
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So the same thing with this album. You know. The Persson really says
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it is one of the best albums of your Korean Like, I know everyone
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says that, but did you genuinely believe that. I believe it because it's
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really great songs, produce really well, and it has all the elements of
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being a great record, and you know, because we had more control of
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it, I did as well. I think it is. It's not the
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best, one of the best albums. I mean, I don't know.
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I like I liked them all though, you know, the last two we
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did with Paul with the original band was great. The first album Betty the
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Strike was awesome for the day, you know, But you know, I
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think for the energy and the songwriting and the lyrics. You know, it
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could be one of the best. Let's not the best. The album Also,
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us is in two new band members, mate, so I can you
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introduce us to them and tell us what they bring to the table. Well,
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the first well, let's put this away. The albums were good in
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twenty ten and twelve had the original band with Paul. Then when we came
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up with this record deal, which is ten years later, they didn't want
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to do the record. The two guitar players. I said, you know,
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nobody will hear it, nobody will buy it. Why waste our time?
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I said, well, you know what, to keep the legend going,
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we started something, let's just keep it going, you know, just
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put out good music for it. So they didn't want to do it.
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So then it was like, well, look, we guess. So Paul
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was working with Rowan Robinson in la I mean in Vegas, and one of
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the shows that he did the rock Fall, and he said, let me
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ask let me ask him if he'd like to do it. I said okay,
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So he said okay, And then we were kicking around on ideas for
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a second guitar player, and Paul said, look, what about Carlos Cavazzo.
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I said, wow, I love Carlos. I love his playing,
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you know, but he hasn't done anything in a while, so I don't
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know if he wants to do anything. So Paul's wife and call Us his
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wife were good friends. They were always talking. So Paul asked him and
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he said, yeah, I'd love to do it. So I thought that
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was a plus. So it's just right away. Call Us had two tracks
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and he put down which is We Are Warriors, and I forgot the other
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one. Well, there's another track. Because there's so many different ways we
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wrote the songs. I can't remember what the other one wasn't I haven't even
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got my own copy of the album yet, so right, you know,
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but that was the first one he brought We Are Warriors, and we played
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it. We really liked it. When the label heard it, they said,
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that's the first single, that's the first track. We said, okay.
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So so he wrote a couple of songs, him and Paul, and
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the other songs were written more like a band, you know, like Paul
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would thought something would rowing and then he would send it to me and I
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would give a suggestions. I'll do the drum track and give some the suggestions
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about you know, maybe some edits and this and that. So all the
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other songs were written by the four of us, five of us actually,
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and you know, that's the way we always did it. With King Cob,
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we always split all the songs. There's nobody you know other than Dave
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Michael Phillips. He came in with complete song, but then we tore them
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apart and rearranged them and stuff. So we always split all the songs.
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So everybody came in with their own thing rowing place and great rhythms, some
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great solos. It came up with some great parts. Johnny Rodd came in
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with some great bass parts and some great harmonies, you know, and me
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and Johnny usually did all the backgrounds, and I came in with all the
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groups. I always tried to keep the grooves different, you know, so
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it's just like like boom gab boom and gab boring drum parts, you know.
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I was trying to make the drum parts interesting. And Paul's vocals are
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always been great. His lyrics have always been cool. I mean, one
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of my favorite one is a song called Trouble, you know, and it's
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got this group like I did on this Blue Murder albums a song called Blue
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Murders. That that kind of group. And you know it's all about this
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song comes out, there's a knock on the door, and who is it?
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It's trouble at the door. It's trick, which is nothing but trouble.
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You know, great lyrics. I mean I heard those lyrics. I
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said, man, these are freaking great lyrics. You know the door?
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Have you heard? Have you heard that song? I listened to the album
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back when I did the questions up and I can't remember. That's okay,
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yeah, okay, so you know what I'm talking about, that song trouble.
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Great lyrics that troubles coming knocking out my door. We've all had a
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few of them, yeah, exactly. So We Are Warriors is a bad
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seventh album. Mate, So, how you mentioned that you'd like to change
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your tempo up on each album, But how much has your sound changed from
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your debut Reaching to Strike in nineteen eighty five album. It's other than it
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being analog and versus digital. You know, these song directions have always been
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the same, really, you know, like we always has a nice ballad
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on it every every album with King Cobra. You know this one we have
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that that redo of Love Hurts, which was a great redo. I thought
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I thought that should be a single. You know, maybe I don't know
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where you get played anymore, but you know Spotify. What's that Spotify?
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Yeah, you know, but you know they do. You gotta you gotta
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sell three million albums, three three million views to make like a thousand bucks
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ridiculous. Yeah, it's terrible. You know, nobody makes money on that
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no more. That's why everybody's touring. Yeah, they got back in history
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may like you formed King Cobra around nineteen eighty three after eighty five us to
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be, but I was the olds Borne So yeah, it's a musical climate
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light that gave birth to the band. And then where did you fit in
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back then? Well, the reason why I did it was because Sharon Osborne
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fired me, all right, and she said I never forget her has she's
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like like that, like you know, like that kind of look whatever you
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call that look. Yeah, it's just horrible. And she said, your
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name is too big. You need to start your own band. Because when
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I was on that tour, I was doing clinic master classes every day.
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I was making a lot of cash every day and she didn't like it.
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And plus I have my own my own PR person because I was given money
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from that from those gigs to charity to Uniseth, and I gave them thousands
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of dollars. She didn't like it. I was getting a lot of PR
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from that while we're on the tour, and I guess she felt that I
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want tour with them. You know, they're paying, you know, for
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my travels on their diamond everything. I'm making all this money and I'm getting
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a lot of PR for it. Plus I had my own shirts, my
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own T shirts that she cut the head off of all my shirts. I
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had a T shirt and me playing. She cut the head off my shirts,
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you know. And you know when I found out and why, well,
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who did it? I was trying to find out why and who did
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it? And the Terror manager said go talk to Sharon. Then we had
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to go on stage. And that night there was an articles all this stuff
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was in my book and stick at my life and sex drums and rock corrella
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and I come into the gig that night. She kept telling me that I'm
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tired when I go to play the game. I wasn't tired. Ozzy was
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tired. Not me. I was already fired up after my clinics. And
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and one day I came in and there was an article I did, I
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think it was in Cleveland. There was a full page article in the newspaper
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talking about me and my nix and you know, my history. And and
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then I'm playing with Ozzie and they asked her what the biggest effect is,
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and I told him the drum solo. Because they were on stairs at Buck
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the Moon. The stairs would open up, there would be a track that
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comes all the way down in front of the stage with my drums on it,
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and that's where I was doing my solo, and then it would go
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back up after the pyal and offer, we'll go back up in the class.
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Stairs closed and I'll get a great reaction. And just so happened that
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night that I talked about it. Stairs didn't work. The effect didn't work.
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So I said to Bob Daisy, you think she would screw up the
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show to show that, you know, because I said that in the auticle,
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and screw up her own show. And Bob Daisy said, oh,
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definitely, you know. So then next thing I know, you know,
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Tommy Alder joined the band again she fired me. So when she said your
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name is too big, you need to start your own band, said okay,
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I'm gonna stop my own band. We were on tour with Motley Crewe
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and you know all that bolone. I went with Morley with Nicky six in
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the last few months. It surprised me because I thought we were friends,
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you know. Anyway, Yeah, I was friends with them. I befriended
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them. They were just an opening act and when I was in the headline
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that act, and I talked to him, hung out with him. So
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when I sam going to start a band, they were like three black head
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guys with blonde from man. I said, you know what, I'm gonna
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do a band. I had black and purple hair for a long time.
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I said, you know what, I'm gonna start a band. I'll be
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the black head guy. Everybody else will be blonde, but we'll put colors
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in everybody's hair to make it really outrageous. I already had the idea in
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my head. I had mocked Free. The singer was already on board with
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me because I was going to do a solo album. He was going to
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sing on it. So I was just it. That was this I told
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him my manager got fired, and and we had some people that you know,
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we did demos and we had a record deal on Capitol, and we
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worked with Spencer Prophet who did Quiet Riot, the producer. He helped get
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the deal. We got that. We got a big publishing deal and you
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know, big merchandise deal. Because the image was great. I put so
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much money back into the band, so much money back into the band,
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and as it did with many of the band projects I did, the record
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company just didn't do their job. We had everything, we had, the
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image, we had. I was ready to go on the road. I
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had my own motor home, at my own truck. You know, I
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had the image. I bought a state, a state set. I had
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all the person making clothes for us. Everything was black, red and gold.
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You know. In my drum set was black red and gold. Had
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black trum had with King Kober and gold gold like laminate gold writing and my
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name is and then King and then Capitol Records didn't do their job, you
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know. So and then the next album, you know, they wanted more
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singles, so we gave him a whole album one side of singles, and
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everybody, all the fans said what the hell are you doing? You know.
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They simply said to us, if you don't do it, well,
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we'll let you go as a label. No, we didn't want to get
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let go on the label, so we did it. It didn't help anyway.
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And then Johnny Rodd left to join WASP and Mark Free left to sing
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I don't know soft the stuff. Then became a woman, you know,
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and we did King Cobra three with me, Dave and the whole new band,
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and then that didn't work, and then I joined Blue Murder and that
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was the end of that for many years. Something Hammel Blue Murder, you
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know, the record company didn't complete the job somehow, and that record was
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so good. I would have bet you my house that that record is going
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to sell two million albums, you know behind it. It didn't. And
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then gruns came in. That was the end of Blue Murder, you know.
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And then I spent all of the nineties in Japan because grunge was here.
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Guys like me were like dinosaurs, you know, and it slowly came
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back in the two thousands. God, you say, you throw a lot
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of a new brother, all right, you beIN throw a lot? Yeah.
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Sold in the book though, But you know, I was lucky that
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I made it back in the sixties, seventies, in the early eighties where
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all the Monday was being made with record sales and all that stuff, you
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know, because we're draged to it. I wrote two of his biggest songs.
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You know. When we did Australia, we played in Sydney, we
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did the stadium and we did a six thousand seed for six nights. It
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was like something like a ninety thousand people. You know, in those days,
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you made money, you know, I mean you make money today.
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But to get to that point, you know, you got to either be
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established or you gotta be on the road for six ten years before you get
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recognized. You noticed all the new bands that I'm making it mostly they're all
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in their thirties. Yeah, and I like in the twenties, they're not
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like twenty years. I made it when I was twenty years old. I
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was on the Sullivan Show. Fifty million people of van Ella Fudge were YEA
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three albums on the charts top ten single. You know now that don't happen
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even like tell Us Swift. That's the biggest thing. How long has she
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been around fifteen years? They have a look at her and think it's an
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Ivan. I think, yeah, so yeah, so anyway, so that
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so that's what happened. That's why I did King Kobra. Now, I
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was ready to stay with Ozzy and help him because I was I was a
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master teting to kill a drum sound I learned from Andy Johns. I knew
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how to get it, and the drum sound of his record it was bad.
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Later on he used a Dwayne Baron to produce him and I worked on
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the drums sound with Dwayne at Posher Records when he was a second engineer and
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the first record we did that they used my drums sound that we created there
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was Quiet Riot. It sold five million records. Yeah, I know how
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to get that sound. I wanted. I wanted to get that killer tick
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ass drum sound with Ozzie, you know, but I never got to do
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it. And I wanted to help write songs on that first buck At the
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movie album, the first five hundred thousand records, I was listed as associate
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producer because I was in New York with Ozzie and Tony Bonziovy finishing the record,
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helping the drum sound that Tommy Olders that was not very good at the
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time, and we remked it and got a better drum sound. They were
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doing Ozzie's vocals and mixed it, and then I flew on the SST you
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know, the supersonic jet to go to England with Ozzie to do the bulk
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at the movie video. You know, I'm surprised as Sharon left him in
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my care I visited overside, Yeah, it was probably. And then I
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had associate producer on every first five hundred thousand albums, and then I had
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to deal with them. Then I would get a bonus every five hundred thousand,
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you know, So that went out the window. It all went out
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the window. Something silly, you know, ridiculous. You've been in the
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music industry for over forty years made, which is a long time, like
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fifty five, fifty five or there you go. I was undercut. Yeah,
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sorry mate, but well that's even longer time in music, mate.
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So let's been so many styles and trends come and go in that years,
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and so much technology and stuff like have you ever tried to sort of adapt
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with that or have you just done your own thing and kept your own path
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the whole time? You mean adapt to technology. Yeah, and the time
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that changed totally, totally. I've been I've been playing drums to a click
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on records of this eighteen eighty two, and I've been able to punch in
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and out of groove. Because in the old days it was like, all
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right, we'll go in. Let's get the drum track. Take number five,
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Take number six. By the time you know you get to take number
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ten, you lost the field. Forget it. You might as well not
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do it. No, and once you get the drum track, the bass
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player goes in any plays and if you don't like what he played, he
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you know, he punches in. You know, same with quatar, vocals,
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everybody, but the drums. So when I started messing around with punching
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in on tape, you have to know how to do it, which I
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learned how to do it. It was wreath of fresh air for me because
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I would put three tracks down, I picked the one that I liked,
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and then I would pick I don't like that verse, let's going to fix
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that verse. I don't like that drum fill, Let's fix that drum fill.
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In nineteen eighty nine, when I did Blue Murder, we started with
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a cool drum sound. Did all the tracks on you know, we all
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played together and I picked the drum track I liked and I fixed it.
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By the time we did most of the whole album, Bob Rock came from
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and said, we got a much better drum sound. Now you want to
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do it all over. I said, yeah, let's do it. And
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while we did it, I went through every drum film. I tried to
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make sure that every drum fill was different in any other drum film, every
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drum field was different. And I was able to do that because I was
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using the technology to punch in, you know. So that just continues along
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the way. When we started doing digital, what I tried to do is
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do digital and then I would give it to my buddy had master and head
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master to analog and then back to digital. But now with Pat Reagan,
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like with this album, he had a program that sounds just like analog.
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So we would mix it through that program and it makes it sound analog,
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you know, So I guess, yes, I have, you know,
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use the technology and embraced it for the better of my recordings and stuff.
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Before we let you Go made We've started three news Spotify lists through Heavy based
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on artists that we speak to you. So, using any songs of your
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own from your career, can you give me three different set lists on what
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one four to get the party started, one to save the marriage, and
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one song that could potentially end a marriage. Well, we'll say that again.
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So we've just started three playlists going. So using your own songs,
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you started, you started, you started a playlist. Yeah, they're three
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different playlists through heavy Okay, but we're going to use songs from artists that
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we interview. So I one of your songs that will get the party started,
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one of your songs that will save a marriage, and one of your
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songs it will end a marriage. Well, I did a song call Everybody
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Everybody's Coming, which is a party song I did with Darrange Bog with the
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piece and so Everybody's coming, Everybody's coming to the party. All right,
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that's the lyrics. All right? Yeah? Okay? Uh another song that
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what's the second one that could save your marriage? Save your marriage? Wow?
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Dude, I was married five times. Will you be able to answer
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the Indian marriage run? Pretty well? They never they never saved it?
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Uh? What's that one on the King cover? Uh? Something about it?
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There's the one called King Cold on the second altcoll something will survive?
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H got it. I've just I got a lot of songs. I gotta
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really think about it. They gotta be my songs, right, got be
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your songs? Mhm, Well, I mean somebody played on. I didn't
26:10
have to write it, right, it's somebody played on yet I Ain't Love
26:17
a Bitch by Rod Stewart ha ha yeah is that the yeah? And then
26:25
the last one is what the break up one could potentially end your marriage.
26:30
That's a rough well, that's a rough questions, dude, let me see
26:36
him. Do you think I'm sexy? Ye? That might end the marriage?
26:44
Nor is that the Is that the Phantom? You've got a necklace?
26:48
Said? So good? Had the Phantom? You've got a necklace? Said?
26:51
It's that the Fantom the Skull mak, yeah, yeah, I got
26:53
that. That the Fantom one? Yeah? Yeah, I'm a big Fantom
26:59
fan. Is oh yeah, I just liked it. Wait and then after
27:03
I board and put out, people told me what it was. Normally I
27:07
wear a turkquoise necklaces, you know, but today I say I'm talking about
27:12
King Kob. I'll put this on today. Very nice. So it's been
27:17
an absolutely pleasure speaking with it. You come on. The album We Are
27:21
Warriors is out now, so get a box it, mate and Na,
27:25
thanks very much for your time. Bro. I hope things get out