In a recent interview with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Carmine Appice was asked how it feels to know that John Bonham was among the drummers who have considered him an influence. He responded: “There were drummers like John Bonham, Ian Paice from DEEP PURPLE, Roger Taylor [QUEEN], Neil Peart [RUSH]. You can tell by all these guys that use gongs. I brought the gong into rock and then Bonzo brought it in with LED ZEPPELIN. Carl Palmer had gongs; everybody had gongs — it became like a staple. The two China cymbals on a boom stand, I brought that in, and even in ‘Spinal Tap’, you had a gong and two Chinese cymbals. It became like this is the rock set-up, so stuff that I did caught on and a lot of drummers used it. There’s guys that went through my drum book. I wrote a drum book as well, and it was very successful. Guys like SLIPKNOT‘s drummer, he went through it. The female drummer that was in MÖTLEY CRÜE for a minute went through it. Dave Weckl went through it, even Andrew Dice Clay went through the book. It’s crazy.”

Carmine, who has toured with Ozzy Osbourne, Rod Stewart, VANILLA FUDGE and Jeff Beck, told the “Totally Driven Radio” podcast in a 2014 interview that he would love to play with a reunited LED ZEPPELIN, claiming that he was a better fit to replace John Bonham than was John‘s son Jason.

“Everybody in that band there is legendary… They’re old school and legendary,” he said. “Jason isn’t legendary, and he’s not old school. He’s John Bonham‘s son, but he don’t play like John Bonham. He plays more… He plays like him. He’s not John. He’s got that name, but he’s not John Bonham. I’m not John Bonham either, but I think my style might be close, ’cause I came first, and John listened to stuff I did and did it his own way. And we took ’em on their first tour. It’s very close-sounding stuff in feel.”

He continued: “When John passed away, there was rumors that I was gonna join LED ZEPPELIN, but obviously I didn’t get to do that. But, you know… whatever. I would like to do that. Whether they get Jason or not, I would still like to do that.”

Carmine previously said that Bonham took the bass drum triplets from the VANILLA FUDGE song “Ticket To Ride”, telling Classic Rock Revisited in a 2006 interview: “When I first heard John Bonham do that triplet thing on the bass drum, I went up to him and said, ‘John, that is amazing. I have to admit that I took that from you.’ He looked at me and said, ‘What are you talking about? I took that from you!’ I replied, ‘I don’t do that. You couldn’t have taken it from me.’ He proceeded to tell me where I did actually do that on the first VANILLA FUDGE record and he was right. I only did it for a moment on that album and he took it and made something bigger and better out of it.”

Fonte: Blabbermouth.net