Born in New York City in 1946, Carmine Appice is certainly one of those musicians who did it all in the music business. Active since 1966 he was part of bands like Vanilla Fudge and recorded with many fantastic artists like Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Ozzy Osbourne, Pink Floyd, Paul Stanley, Ted Nugent and many more.
So he had the chance to see the evolution of Rock music up-close and to meet many incredible artists over the decades. When he was in Vanilla Fudge in the 60s, the group even had Led Zeppelin as their opening act when the British band made their first shows in the United States.
The drummer recalled in an interview with RadioBypass (Transcribed by Blabbermouth), that the late legendary John Bonham told him that he had him as his idol.
Carmine Appice says John Bonham idolized him
“I know as a fact. (Bonham and I) were friends, and he told me that I was his idol. You’ve gotta understand this. Nobody could really get this now. When (Zeppelin) came over, nobody knew them. They opened up for Vanilla Fudge.”
“They were The New Yardbirds, and then they changed the name to Led Zeppelin. Keith Moon said, ‘Oh, you go down like a lead zeppelin,’ which means down. It’s hard to believe now that nobody knew Robert Plant, nobody knew John Bonham. They were brand new kids, younger than us. (John) told me he’d been listening to my records,” Carmine Appice said.
The drummer even said in the interview that Bonham told him that he got the idea of using a triplet bass drum motif in the song “Good Times, Bad Times”, from one of Appice’s drumming parts.
“He said he got it from me. I said, ‘I don’t even do that. What do you mean?’ He showed me on one of my songs somewhere in my catalog. I did it once, and he just did it and repeated it. And then I was blown away. He loved my drum set. I got him the same set that I had. Exactly the same set… And we became friends,” Carmine Appice said.
John Bonham tragically passed away in 1980 at the age of 32 and Led Zeppelin came to an end a few weeks later. Since he was a fundamental part of their sound, the band decided they couldn’t continue without him.