Carmine Appice: Rocker, drummer, author

Carmine Appice started drumming with the neo-psychedelic Vanilla Fudge in 1966 and hasn't stopped pounding the skins since. Now 69, he's probably seen just as much - more, even - as you'd imagine.

The drummer worked as Rod Stewart's kit-man in the '70s and '80s, cowriting Stewart hits "Young Turks" and "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy." Appice played with Ozzy Osbourne and got thrown off tour by Ozzy's wife, Sharon, for overshadowing the star on stage. He's kept time for Bo Diddley, David Gilmour, Stanley Clarke, and dozens of other big names and super groups.

Offstage, life was also colorful for the Staten Island native who had some dealings with the Brooklyn mob before becoming a rock star.

"Really, that was my first job, at least the one I can remember," he said of being a rocker. Once he became a drum sensation, he hung with Jimi Hendrix, shared a bedroom with Prince, and became part of the unholy mess that was the infamous, alleged mudshark incident with Led Zeppelin (look it up). He made - and lost - lots of money.

All this is recounted in his staggeringly fun and swift-moving autobiography, Stick It! My Life of Sex, Drums, and Rock 'N' Roll, penned with Ian Gittins, and whose release brings him to the Center City Barnes & Noble on Monday for a conversation with WMMR DJ Jacky BamBam.

The funniest thing about talking with the frank Appice is how he grills the interviewer. A discussion on how to pronounce his name - "My grandparents came here as Ah-pee-chay," with varied pronunciations from there until "Rod Stewart changed it to Ahh-piece to make it easy" - and his Italian heritage prompted questions about my name and lineage.

That personable and curious nature, to say nothing of the book's swift, pummeling rhythm (like his drumming), makes Stick It! engaging. "I read a lot and know how boring these bios can be," he said during a breakfast interview from the road; he's touring with a band of Stewart expatriates, the Rod Experience. "How much do you really want to know about where my Uncle Louie worked in Brooklyn?"

You really do want to know how Appice thought he would get away with penning stuff about the Brooklyn mob and notorious "goodfellas" such as informant Henry Hill. Well, they're dead, and, Appice adds with a chuckle, "their kids are dead, too."

Appice and his drumming brother, Vinnie, who also has an extensive rock resumé, revisited their family's first home at one point, only to find "a rabbi living there who used to teach Gene Simmons when he was a kid." Yes, Appice has Kiss stories in the book.

From Vanilla Fudge - "who packed the old Electric Factory on Sansom before we sold out the Spectrum" - onward, Appice has a memory for the musicians who burned him, like Jeff Beck: "I loved playing with him even if I didn't like him; he's like a difficult brother."

And musicians who did right by him, like Stewart, who wrote the forward to Stick It! "Some guys are weird about sharing credit or money, but Rod did it well, shared songwriting credits, tour-merch money, the whole nine yards," Appice said.

One of the most poignant stories in Stick It! concerns Appice and Prince, who died last month. While going through one of his several divorces - he's fond of saying he's been married for 45 years "to five different women" - Appice was living between houses in L.A. Sometimes he stayed at his manager's.

"My manager had another client, though, who stayed in the same room of mine when he was in town because he hated hotels: Prince," the drummer says of the "really small, really shy, really nice" musician. "I think he was intimidated by me until he got to know me, because everything was one-word answers. He was cool, though.

"One night, I interrupted him and Vanity in bed. Another time, he asked me for a lift to Hollywood, so I drove him in [Appice's De Tomaso] Pantera and scared the hell out of him because I drove so fast."

The best thing about Stick It! is that it has a happy ending. Appice drives a little slower, carouses less, and finds true happiness with one woman, "someone who has her own real estate business and laughs when people ask about getting married. 'He'll marry anybody,' is what she tells people."

Appice sounds pragmatic about these radical changes in a lifestyle he led for 50-plus years, an existence he reconciled while writing his autobiography.

"You know the Joe Walsh song 'Life's Been Good'?" Appice asked. "That's me. I got away with it all. As I got older, though, and thought about all the stuff I did as a rock guy, I thought about my daughter, who's 26, and it got me: I wouldn't want someone to do to my daughter what I did most of my adult life."

Carmine Appice, "Stick It!"
7 p.m. Monday at Barnes & Noble, 1805 Walnut St.
Information: 215-665-0716