When legendary drummer Carmine Appice looks back on Rod Stewart’s 1978 hit Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? – which he co-wrote with Stewart and keyboard player Duane Hitchings – he makes no bones about it, telling MusicRadar: “To this day, it’s still a giant moneymaker.”
A hard-hitting drummer known for playing heavy rock and metal, Appice says of this famous song: “Some people put it down because it’s disco.”
But it didn’t start that way. “When we first did it,” Appice says, “it was a really big rock track, but then everything else got added on – more synthesizers, and the orchestra. After that, the drum sound shrank.
“After they mixed it, I was like, ‘Man, what happened to the big sound that we had?’ But we trusted it, and it went to number one in 15 countries. I guess we couldn’t argue after that!”
Appice joined Rod Stewart’s band in 1976 following a chance encounter in Los Angeles.
He recalls: “I had run into a friend of mine, Sandy Gennaro, who said, ‘Hey, I just auditioned for Rod. I don’t think I got it, but you should call him.’ I said, ‘Oh, give me a number.’
“So he gave me the number for Rod’s tour manager, and he called Rod, who said, ‘Well, have him come to my house. The band’s there. Tell Carmine to go there and see if he likes to sit.’ I thought that was weird because I wasn’t going there to audition, but to see if I liked the band.”
When he arrived at Stewart’s LA home, Appice was more than a little impressed.
“It was a big mansion with gates and all that. He had all kinds of wild cars in the driveway. And I thought, ‘Man… I didn’t know Rod made this kind of money!’
“I thought, ‘I wanna be in this band!’ And I liked the band because it was all just straight-ahead rock ’n’ roll. Rod said, ‘You got the gig if you want it.’”
The first of Stewart’s albums to feature Appice was 1977’s Foot Loose & Fancy Free, which included the classic single Hot Legs.
It’s a hell of a song for a drummer, and when it came to recording, Stewart referred to one of Appice's former bands.
“Rod basically told me, ‘Play like you did in Cactus.’ And when we went in to do the album, which had Hot Legs, everyone thought I wrote that song because the drums are so prominent.
“On that song, and for the album, Andy Johns was the engineer, and he and I worked really hard to get this great drum sound.”
This album also included a version of You Keep Me Hangin’ On – originally a No.1 hit for Motown stars The Supremes in 1966, and reinterpreted in a heavy rock style in 1967 by another of Appice’s former bands, Vanilla Fudge.
“It was funny,’ Appice says, “because Rod and I were riding in a limo together, and he mentioned You Keep Me Hangin’ On and said, ‘You know, I would have loved to have done that. That track is so amazing.’
“I said, ‘Well, I’m in the band now, why don’t we do it?’ He said, ‘You think so?’ I said, ‘Yes!’
“And with that song, the hardest thing to do is the drums because the drums are really off the wall. The feel of that song comes from the drums.”
Appice recalls a specific reference from Stewart when it came to writing Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?
“Rod said, ‘I want something like Miss You by the Stones.’ I said, ‘Okay.' So I got a piano, a drum machine, and got the tempo of the Stones song.
“I set the drum machine up like them and came up with a bunch of different chords and then I went to Duane Hitchings’ house. He had an eight-track studio, and we put together a bridge, and the whole track for Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?
“Rod loved it. So, with Duane, we wrote the biggest-selling single that Rod ever had, which I couldn’t believe. It took us an hour to put it down at Duane’s house and it ended up selling multi-millions all around the world.”
As well as being a monster hit, Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? is also controversial due to copyright issues. The song’s chorus incorporates the melody from Brazilian musician Jorge Ben Jor’s 1972 track Taj Mahal. In addition, the string arrangement in Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? is lifted from soul singer Bobby Womack’s 1975 song (If You Want My Love) Put Something Down On It.
Stewart gave his side of the story in Rod: The Autobiography, published in 2012.
Stewart wrote: “The Brazilian musician Jorge Ben Jor eventually pointed out the similarity of the melody in the chorus [of Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?] to a song of his from 1972 called Taj Mahal. Bang to rights, too. I held my hand up straight away.”
He explained: “I had been to the carnival in Rio earlier in 1978 with Elton and Freddie Mercury… I had heard Jorge Ben Jor’s Taj Mahal being given heavy rotation all over the place. Clearly the melody had lodged itself in my memory and then resurfaced when I was trying to find a line to fit the chords. Unconscious plagiarism, pure and simple. I handed over the royalties.”
Also on the subject of Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?, Stewart made another confession: “The synth hook at the start of the song: that I did whip, very deliberately, from the strings on Bobby Womack’s (If You Want My Love) Put Something Down On It. But the rules are that you can lift a line from an arrangement – as distinct from a melody line – without infringing copyright. So you can’t touch me for that.”
![[If You Want My Love] Put Something Down On It - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/L9oZVgKC7gc/maxresdefault.jpg)
Appice says now, referring to Jorge Ben Jor’s Taj Mahal: “Rod had gone down to South America, heard that song, and it was in his head. I think it just stuck, and when we were writing the song, he put it out there and didn’t realise that it was somebody else’s.
“It just came out of his head. So, for the next album, Rod said, ‘We’ll give you publishing and co-writing on there.’”
In the end, controversy aside, Appice remains hugely proud of this massive hit song.
He says with a smile: “A guy on Facebook took it apart and said, ‘Wow, listen to this drum sound. It’s a rock drum sound!’ And when it came out as a single, it sounded so cool. It was kind of like Miss You, but more powerful.
“What can I say? It’s a great song. I got a platinum record for it. I’m very proud of it.”
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