Over the course of a career spanning more than five decades and multiple bands, the party has almost never stopped for musician Carmine Appice. The son of a cop-turned-mechanic father and a doting mother, he graduated from the teenage gangs of Brooklyn to become an internationally renowned drummer who invented heavy rock drumming while recording not only with his own groups and supergroups but also the likes of Pink Floyd, Ozzy Osbourne and Ted Nugent—all amid a dizzying, near-perpetual cloud of orgiastic revelry.
Stick It!: My Life of Sex, Drums, and Rock ’N’ Roll (Chicago Review Press; May 1, 2016), written by Appice with Ian Gittins, with a foreword by Rod Stewart, at once clears and thickens the fog of debauchery surrounding the hard-partying rock star’s life. Starting with his childhood in a family of six living in a New York apartment built for two, Appice traces his ascension to stardom with bands such as Vanilla Fudge and Cactus while detailing his myriad famous (and infamous) contributions to music history. Among other moments of incredible happenstance, he partied with Hendrix in a prostitute’s apartment, helped John Bonham secure his first heavyweight drum kit, was present for Led Zeppelin’s notorious mud shark incident and happened into a house-sharing situation with Prince. And, along the way, he pioneered new techniques in drumming while earning unexpected megastardom in Japan, forming all-blond hair band King Kobra, getting married five times and bedding at least 4,500 groupies.
Unflinchingly, sometimes outrageously forthcoming about the drummer’s highs and lows, Appice’s Stick It! offers a raw look at his globe-trotting, rock-and-roll lifestyle and serves up a seemingly endless series of surprising cameos by various celebrities, including Kojak, John McEnroe and Steven Seagal. By turns intimately revelatory, shockingly graphic, and sweeping in its account of rock’s notable eras from the 1960s to today, the memoir will leave readers’ jaws on the floor.
ABOUT CARMINE APPICE
Carmine Appice has played drums as a member of Vanilla Fudge; Cactus; and Beck, Bogert & Appice, and he has also lent his talents to Rod Stewart, Ted Nugent, Ozzy Osbourne and Pink Floyd, among others. His innovative percussion has earned him considerable renown among fans and critics alike. He currently lives in New York and Los Angeles.