By Martin Popoff
Thick as a brick '60s legends Vanilla Fudge are back with an album called The Return, which emphasizes the full circularness of the occasion by reviving the old tunes as well as the old artwork. The band is very legitimate - featuring three of four originals, Tim Bogert, Carmine Appice, Vince Martell, along with Bill Pascali - and the sound of the thing is unmistakable Fudgy, flashpoint for the band being their wide-angled apocalyptic cover of You Keep Me Hangin' On, unsurprisingly re-muscled for The Return. Carmine gives Hardradio the rundown on the re-rise of Da Fudge, more of which can be found at www.carmineappice.net, www.thefudge.com and www.worldsound.com.
"Basically, what you get is the old album, the old songs, with new sonics, today's sonics," answers the drum legend, when asked about the substance of the substantial, substantive comeback album. "One thing we noticed, when we put on an old Vanilla Fudge album, is that it sounds really old, versus when you put on a Jimi Hendrix album, it sounds newer. Our album was done before theirs. We had the old production with the drums on the right side and the bass on the left side. And I think that must have just changed right after our album came out, with things down the middle and all that stuff. The other thing is, You Keep Me Hangin' On was a mono recording, meaning everything was down the middle. So that was a demo, so we never really had a good studio, stereo version of You Keep Me Hangin' On. So what you get is all the old hits with today's sonics and today's digital mastering. And then we've got four new songs with Vanilla Fudge arrangements, new songs where we made it fit into our formula, the sound of the '60s. But the '60s sound has been modernized. It sounds like it's almost in again, you know? (laughs)."
The cool thing about the original Vanilla Fudge was that it was heavy for its day, usually slow and dramatic, but more specifically drowned in Hammond organ. I asked Carmine if he thought the band might be considered a big influence on the rise of say, Uriah Heep or Deep Purple.
VANILLA FUDGE - Revenge Of The Organ Grinders! Page 2