Stick it!

Carmine Appice grew up running with teenage street gangs in Brooklyn, then went on to become an international rock star during the late sixties. Along the way his path crossed with mob-linked managers and with Jimi Hendrix. He racked up enormous hotel-room damage, unknowingly financed the tour support for a little-known Led Zeppelin, and gave John Bonham and Fred Astaire some drumming pointers. He also witnessed Zeppelin's notorious episode involving a groupie and a mud shark.

Later chapters move through a wilder and stranger stretch of his career. He joined Rod Stewart's so-called Sex Police, spent time with the TV cop Kojak, and ended up sharing a house with Prince by accident. He formed a band whose members all had blond hair, played with John McEnroe and Steven Seagal, and became a major star in Japan. He reports five marriages, a firing by Sharon Osbourne, and a friendship with Ozzy Osbourne that he describes as a blood bond. He also claims to have slept with 4,500 groupies.

Throughout, Appice presents himself as a rock legend who transformed hard rock and heavy metal drumming. The story is told in his own voice, co-written with Ian Gittins, who also co-wrote Nikki Sixx's The Heroin Diaries. It is aimed at readers who want a candid, excessive account of the rock life from someone who lived it.