Carmine Appice has been breaking new ground in drumming for nigh on one decade. Maybe it’s the way they’re tucked behind a kit at the back of the stage, but only a handful of rock drummers have achieved the kind of prominence accorded to a whole legion of guitar artists. Carmine Appice is one of those few. Towards the end of teenage years spent tapping out the right rhythms in bar mitzvah bands, he joined the Pigeons, al local Long Island group that turned progressive as Vanilla Fudge and broke through with a grandiose slow motion reworking of a Supremes hit, ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’, which made the British top ten in 1967 and eventually reached No 6 in America almost a year later. They tried the formula again with everything from Donovan’s ‘Season Of The Witch’ to ‘The Windmills Of Your Mind’, but by 1969 Carmine and bassist Tim Bogert were making plans for a band with Jeff Beck and his vocalist, Rod Stewart. But Rod joined the Faces and Beck almost wrote himself off in a car smash, so the pair formed Cactus instead, before finally getting together with Beck in 1972 for a two-year stint as an explosive strong-arm trio, Beck, Bogert & Appice. Between BBA and the Rod Stewart Group he had a spell with short-lived KGB.
An immensely accomplished technician who spends his time off from the group conducting drum clinics for Ludwig coast to coast, he still found he had lessons of his own to learn from Rod. “Most Americans play rock’n’roll right on the beat”, he explains, “and it was really weird to jump into the English way of playing. I’d studied for years, taught, written books, done clinics and everything was bam! right on the beat, and Rod kept saying, ‘Look, you’ve got to lay behind the beat a little’, and it’s almost like playing in a very slight difference in tempo to the guitars and the bass”.
Rick St. James is a powerful, soulful and dynamic singer and performs the music of Rod Stewart. Rick’s strong interpretation of Rod Stewart classics Rick has toured and worked with artists such as Foreigner, Electric Light Orchestra, Fleetwood Mac, Twisted Sister, Joe Walsh, Davy Jones and Peter Tork of The Monkees, and many more.
What people are saying about Rick… “The crowd went wild. Creating an atmosphere of a real Rod Stewart concert. Some believed it was Rod himself.” – Hard Rock Casino NM
“Rick is truly the World’s Best Rod Stewart Tribute Show— HANDS DOWN!!!! I’ve received an incredible amount of phone calls congratulating us for bringing in such a high quality show to our amphitheater, some patrons actually believe they saw Rod Stewart in concert.in NJ” – Zack Martin CBS FM New York