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Travers, Pat - Legends Never Die... Just keep on rockin... Having watched VANILLA FUDGE on stage last year and now having at my hands the really good album from Travers and Appice “It takes a lot of balls” , it was a pleasure to have even by email an interview with Carmine Appice. The man is not only an outstanding drummer and performer , he is also a very nice person who gives answers about everything, from what is like to be 30 years in the rock n roll business to what means to play with another living legend like Pat Travers. Lets read about his new work where and how it was done and if you are missing something from the interview is Mr Travers who has to answer also. Until then enjoy one of the few remaining rock n roll survivors rocking in the internet.
Why guys Lets start HI THIS IS CARMINE ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS>>> Why Travers Appice and not Travers Appice Stevens, the whole thing is a project anyway, am I right? Actually i only played on one song and sang on one song , me and Pat did the whole record in LA. TM was in New Jersey.. We decided after recording to bring TM on the road So it was T & A with TM Stevens Why did you get together to play the old, powerful blues rock thing that you are doing equally good, with your own bands? I’ve been playing with VANILLA FUDGE which does not play blues Pat plays more bluesy stuff lately , so when I called Pat we put together the Travers –Appice cd it has blues –heavy Rock, Reggae all kinds of music, which is very different from both our bands we normally play with.. How did you come with SPV, a more metal company than you are? I did an album with Rick Derringer and Tim Bogert, this was part of the deal, .the deal was brought to us by our co-producer Greg Hampton…he had the in at SPV, so we did it.. How did you write the songs? Were there product of instant jamming in the studio, or were you met before the recordings and done some writing? We wrote the songs in six days ,we would play at Greg’ Hampton house with small gear…just to get the ideas down, no jamming really to write the songs..6 songs were written before Pat arrived in LA then he added his touch on those songs.. and we added to the songs Pat had. Also all the solos on the cd were done live at the time we did the tracks ,no overdubbed solos How easy was to combine your programs to record together? Correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t see any covers at this album, which is a little unusual for such kind of collaborations. How did it happened and you prefer originals? With VANILLA FUDGE we do many covers ,so with an original line-up like me and Pat we decided to do all original stuff, .It ended up that we both liked the same kind of music to play, . so our styles worked together easily Was it easy to work together, a powerful guitar player and a powerful drummer, who had the leads to this project? Well, it was easy, .as I had the record deal and basically I hired Pat to do this and I was the Producer as well,. so it worked out well, Pat had an equal say in most everything , but I was involved in the CD, The tour, the dvd we made which is out in April and so on, But anything that we must decide on I would ask Pat for an equal decision.. I had a clear vision of what the album should have been…we wanted a 70’s style cd as that is what we do well and that kind of music seemed to be coming back so it was perfect, .The vision was a kick ass, high energy 70’s kind of trio cd with real good songs… “It takes a lot of balls” is a little provocative title .To whom does it refers ? Is it a statement for today’s music scene with all these plastic pop bands? Actually, the title came from a button that was in the studio that related to a woman who held the record of some kind for pinball, so, when we saw the button it looked cool, .I suggested it as the title and related it to the cd because the songs on the album Had a lot of balls. Balls meaning hard rocking songs.
Shall we expect a second album , sometime in the future? Yes we both agreed that we like playing with each other live and on record and want to continue and do another cd. Carmine ,recently you played in Greece with VANILLA FUDGE and I had the chance to see you on stage, any memories from our country , or the show? I love that gig ,it was one of our better gigs in Europe, .I wanted to play there with T N A but we couldn’t reach the promoter ,we want to come back there with the fudge in 2005 ,any ideas how to play there again? Carmine you have played with almost every famous guitar player, what’s your experiences from the Travers experiment? Pat is one of the best, .he has great sound, feel and great solos, his rhythm playing is one of the best and he has a great voice that fits my voice very well Both of you the late years are working in more blues rock projects with your own bands and both of you released recently a covers album .Is it such a need for the musicians today to redefine their musical roots , that they release all these covers albums? I think because the songs from Rock’s past are great and people like to keep hearing them including musicians, but when I do a cover I like to change the song or why bother to cover it,.(CA) Your favorite album track and why? I love “taken”, I love the groove and the lyrics, .and all the different types of moods it goes through.. (CA) Shall we have any chance admiring such a powerful trio on stage? We both hope so we had a great time in Europe. After all these years where do you get your inspiration to write new songs? Just from life I guess, that is where a lot of the lyrics for the album came from or maybe from a movie, .like “I DON’T CARE” was taken from a movie “Once upon a time in Mexico”. The album sound is a little stripped to the bone, was it your choice, or was a producers choice, by the way who produced the album? I produced the album(CA) and we wanted a raw cd ,.not slick at all bare bones rock n roll, garage band sounding just kicks ass. Have you any idea who is the audience for you in our days? I seen 18 to 50 year olds at our shows so who knows? What more shall we expect form Travers Appice? In April a DVD that we shot at the end of Sept, with TM another cd another tour of Europe and a tour of the US and if we can a tour of Japan and Asia, that what I would like to see. Who is dealing with the vocals at the songs? I sang track 1,6,7,9 pat snag the rest, tm sang track 5 and gang vocals of me and pat on tracks10 and 12 (CA) Have you split the songs, to show off, cause songs like “Keep on rockin” seems like they are made for Carmine, while on the other we have songs like “PT slide” or “Stand up” where the guitars are having the leads. We wrote songs for fun, we had songs to show off our playing talents,”Keep on rockin showed” off both of us, .the guitar solo had NO bass on just Drums and guitar, I wrote most of “Stand up” but Pat does shine on it,that is just the way they came out spontaneous!! CA Who is the artist , you would invite to take part I the next Travers, Appice album, that you couldn’t invite here? Maybe Dave Grohl, Kid Rock, Edgar Winter Tm Stevens , Tony Franklin ,it depends on the budget. Incase you haven’t guess, this interview was from Carmine .I don’t know if you sent one to apt, thanks see you in Greece, Carmine Thanks for your time and I hope we will see you on a Greek stage soon.
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